Blue Moon

FORTY-NINE

The back part of Reacher’s brain was clattering away on some kind of a complicated computation, which involved dividing the total square footage of the nineteenth floor by the total number of KIA in its elevator lobby, which surely meant, after realistically allowing for officer-class accommodations for the important nerds, and densely packed barracks-class accommodations for the enlisted ranks, that the herd was already substantially thinned. Had to be. There couldn’t be many more guys available. Not unless they had been sleeping three to a bed, or stacked on the floor. Simple math.

The front part of Reacher’s brain said never mind. If I fail today, it’s my own fault. He pressed up face-first against a corridor wall, and peered one-eyed around a corner. He saw another corridor. Same width. Doors left and right. Offices, maybe. Or bedrooms. Bathrooms across the hall. Or storerooms. Or laboratories, or nerve centres, or hives or nests or burrows.

He moved on. Hogan followed. Then Abby. Then Barton and Vantresca. The first room on the left was some kind of a security post. Empty. Abandoned. A desk and a chair, unoccupied. Two flat-screen televisions on the desk, one labelled Lobby, which was blacked out with paint, and one marked 19th Floor, which showed the view from a camera evidently mounted high on the wall opposite the elevator bank. The angle was downward. The view was of a lot of dead bodies on the floor. More than a dozen.

Told you so, said the back part of his brain.

He moved on. The first room on the right was also empty. It had a floor to ceiling window, facing north. The city lay spread out below. In the room were four armchairs, a buzzing refrigerator, and a coffee machine on a table. A ready room. Or a crew room. Convenient. Close to the elevators.

They moved on. They saw nothing. No people. No kind of technical equipment. Reacher had no real idea what it would look like. He was hung up on Abby’s original description. Like in the movies. The mad scientist in his lab, full of lit-up machines and crackling energy. To him a server was someone playing tennis, or bringing a drink. Vantresca figured the whole installation might be nothing more than half a dozen laptops. Cloud based, he called it. Hogan predicted a low room full of white laminate and chilly air.

They crept onward.

Saw nothing.

‘Wait,’ Reacher whispered. ‘We’re wasting time. This is not business as usual. I think they’ve gone straight to the endgame. I think the headless horseman brought every spare guy to the elevator cage. Only people working that exact minute stayed behind and survived. So now they’re hunkered down. It’s Custer’s Last Stand for them.’

‘How many?’ Hogan asked.

‘I don’t care,’ Reacher said. ‘As long as Trulenko is one of them.’

Abby said, ‘If it’s six laptops, it could be just a couple of guys.’

‘Plus guards,’ Reacher said. ‘As many as Moscow decreed should be in the room at all times. Or at least those of them who maintained discipline. Which might be a different number.’

Vantresca said, ‘Moscow would decree an entire Guards regiment, if it could.’

‘I guess it depends how big the room is.’

Hogan said, ‘If it’s six laptops, it could be a broom closet. Could be anywhere. Could be a secret door in back of a broom closet.’

‘No, Trulenko wants windows,’ Abby said. ‘Especially these windows. I bet he loves the view. I bet he loves standing there, looking out through the glass, lording it over the earthlings below. Even though he’s actually a failure and practically a prisoner. I bet it makes him feel better.’

‘Wait,’ Reacher said again. He looked at Barton. ‘You said on the fourth floor you could walk all around the building’s core. It was blank on three sides. But on the fifth floor you couldn’t get all the way around. Because of bigger suites in back. Inside of which the long blank face of the core would become a wall inside a room.’

‘Yes,’ Barton said.

‘It’s a pretty good wall to have,’ Reacher said. ‘Isn’t it? It’s as close as you can get to all the risers and the services running up and down behind the elevators.’ He looked at Vantresca. ‘Back in the day, if you had to lay wired communications, how long would you want your wires to be?’

‘As short as humanly possible,’ Vantresca said.

‘Because?’

‘Wires are vulnerable.’

Reacher nodded.

‘Not mechanically robust,’ he said. ‘Plus that wall gets first call on the power and the water, and whatever the generator kicks out in an emergency. I bet that’s the wall Moscow wanted.’ He said the word. A hive or a nest or a burrow, full of something that hummed or buzzed or thrashed around. He said, ‘They built it out from the back of the elevator core, all the way to the windows opposite. Because Moscow wanted the wall, and guys like Trulenko wanted the view. What else could they do?’

Vantresca said, ‘That’s a big room.’

Reacher nodded.

‘Same size and shape as the lobby downstairs,’ he said. ‘Same space exactly, except flipped around one eighty.’

‘Big enough for a Guards regiment.’

‘Couple of rifle companies at the most.’

‘Maybe nobody,’ Abby said. ‘Because of human nature. These guys are from Ukraine. Moscow is like a patronizing big brother. They’ll make up their own rules. What does it matter if they’re actually in the room? They have the cage. Everywhere is equally safe. Maybe Trulenko doesn’t even want them in the room anyway, watching over his shoulder. That’s human nature too.’

‘Situation C,’ Hogan said. ‘Got to be someone.’

‘Maybe not any more,’ Abby said. ‘They’ve been cut off two hours. I think the instinct would be to come out and fight on the barricades. At the wire. I think it would be irresistible. Because of human nature. You wouldn’t want to hide in a corridor, waiting for the inevitable.’

Reacher said, ‘This is what the pointy-heads would call a wide range of baseline assumptions. Anywhere from no one in the room to a Guards regiment.’

‘What’s your guess?’

‘I don’t care,’ he said again. ‘As long as Trulenko is one of them.’

‘Seriously.’

‘It’s a ratio. Depends how many nerds they have. There could be dozens packed in there. Rows and rows of them.’

‘No,’ Vantresca said. ‘This is the custom shop. This is the skunk works. The drones are elsewhere. In the cloud.’

‘Or in their mom’s basement,’ Hogan said.

‘Wherever,’ Vantresca said. ‘Trulenko is an artist. It’s him, and a small handful of others. Maybe one or two. Maximum.’

‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Then either four guards in the room, or one. Probably the close protection part of Situation C calls for a crew of four within arm’s-length contact at all times. Worst case, they’re maintaining discipline on that. Best case, Abby is right and Trulenko doesn’t like it. In which case maybe they came to a private arrangement. I saw it happen, time to time. Typically the watch leader sits in the corner like part of the furniture. Maybe they become friends. You could sell the movie rights. Meanwhile the other three from the crew go hang out someplace else, with whoever else Situation C has called for.’

‘Which is it, one or four?’

The back of his brain said, one.

Out loud he said, ‘Four.’

They peered around the next corner, and Barton pointed out the corresponding door, that down on five had led to the big suites in back.