Gone Tomorrow

EIGHTY-ONE

The apartment was laid out the same as the ruined place on the second floor. Living room at the front, then the kitchenette, then the bathroom, then the closet at the back. The walls were still up. The plaster was all still in place. There were two lights burning. There was a folded-up bed against the wall in the living room. Plus two hard chairs. Nothing else. The kitchenette had two parallel counters and one wall cupboard. A tiny space. Lila and Svetlana were crammed hip to hip in it. Svetlana on the left, Lila on the right. Svetlana was in a brown house dress. Lila was in black cargo pants and a white T-shirt. The shirt was cotton. The pants were made of rip-stop nylon. I guessed they would rustle as she moved. She looked as beautiful as ever. Long dark hair, bright blue eyes, perfect skin. A quizzical half-smile. It was a bizarre scene. Like a radical fashion photographer had posed his best model in a gritty urban setting.

I aimed the MP5. Black and wicked. It was hot. It stank of gunpowder and oil and smoke. I could smell it quite clearly.

I said, ‘Put your hands on the counter.’

They complied. Four hands appeared. Two brown and gnarled, two paler and slim. They spread them like starfish, two blunt and square, two longer and more delicate.

I said, ‘Step back and lean on them:

They complied. It made them more immobile. Safer. I said, ‘You’re not mother and daughter.’

Lila said, ‘No, we’re not.’

‘So what are you?’

‘Teacher and pupil.’

‘Good. I wouldn’t want to shoot a daughter in front of her mother. Or a mother in front of her daughter.’

‘But you would shoot a pupil in front of her teacher?’

‘Maybe the teacher first.’

‘So do it.’

I stood still.

Lila said, ‘If you mean it, this is where you do it.’

I watched their hands. Watched for tension, or effort, or moving tendons, or increased pressure on their fingertips. For signs they were about to go somewhere.

There were no such signs.

The phone vibrated in my pocket.

In the silent room it made a tiny sound. A whir, a hum, a grind. A rhythmic little pulse. It jumped and buzzed against my thigh.

I stared at Lila’s hands. Flat. Still. Empty. No phone.

She said, ‘Perhaps you should answer that:

I juggled the MP5’s grip into my left hand and pulled out the phone. Restricted Call. I opened it and put it to my ear. Theresa Lee said, ‘Reacher?’

I said, ‘What?’

‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for twenty minutes.’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Where are you?’

‘How did you get this number?’

‘You called my cell, remember? Your number is in the call log.’

‘Why is your number blocked?’

‘Precinct switchboard. I’m on the landline now. Where the hell are you?’

‘What’s up?’

‘Listen carefully. You have bad information. Homeland Security got back to us again. One of the Tajikistan party missed a connection in Istanbul. He came in through London and Washington instead. There are twenty men, not nineteen.’

Lila Hoth moved and the twentieth man stepped out of the bathroom.