MatchUp

I WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1997 when Killing Floor introduced the world to a quiet wanderer named Jack Reacher. Kathy Reichs also came along in 1997 when Déjà Dead brought us forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

Kathy freely admits that both she and Temperance have the same curriculum vitae. Getting the science right is important to Kathy, and she routinely turns to her own real-life experiences as a forensic anthropologist when writing a Temperance Brennan adventure. With Reacher I’m constantly asked if he’s based on me. Truth be told, there’s a lot of me inside him. It’s almost unavoidable that a character created by a writer not be a little autobiographical. Reacher is pretty much a wish fulfillment for both me and the reader. What I (or they) would be, if we could all get away with it. How he acquired his name is simple. Both I and Reacher are tall. So back in the 1990s, while writing Killing Floor and grocery shopping, my wife remarked that “if the writing didn’t work out I could always be a reacher in a supermarket.”

Talk about fortuitous.

In creating our story, Kathy and I both agreed on the rough outline, then we wrote in turns. She likes things all planned out. I prefer to wander. But we found a happy medium in which to work. I must confess to being a little nervous working with her, given her reputation for thoroughness, but we discovered that our actual writing styles are somewhat similar. This sometimes happens with collaborations. It helped that we’ve both written screenplays. Kathy with the television series Bones, which is based on her characters, and myself with my daughter. There’s a process to fashioning a screenplay that’s different from crafting a novel. Much more give-and-take is there between the various contributors, since rarely is a screenplay written by only one person. Luckily, we were both comfortable with that process.

And the result is an intriguing adventure that involves—

Faking a Murderer.

FAKING A MURDERER

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 0940 EST

“OVER THE PAST DECADE, THIS academy has taken a good hard look at itself. We have evaluated the theory and methodology underlying each of our disciplines. Formalized statements on ethics. Developed clear and open paths toward board certification.”

The hall was dim, the stage blazing like a Hollywood set. She could see little from the podium. Rows of shadowy heads. Here and there, a triangle of white bisected by a tie. A wink of reflection off a plastic-sheathed badge.

“No longer can unqualified individuals hang out their shingles, call themselves experts, and practice without oversight. Without adherence to rigorously verified standards.”

The other speakers sat behind her in well-behaved silence. To either side of them, screens displayed projected images of the logos of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Flanking the screens were stairs to ground level.

“This year’s conference is titled ‘Reliable Relevant and Real Forensic Science.’ Anthropology. Pathology. Toxicology. It doesn’t matter the section. That trifecta is the goal of everyone here.”

At the base of each set of steps, an electrified sign indicated an exit. In her peripheral vision, she noticed two men shape up in the red radiance shed by the one to her right.

“As each presenter in this plenary session has so aptly demonstrated, we are working hard to achieve that goal. For law enforcement. For the courts. For justice. I thank you for your attention. And I wish you an informative and enjoyable conference.”

There was a swell of applause as the houselights came up. More than the usual courteous clap. Long and heartfelt. Those behind her rose and gathered their notes, faces saying they were pleased with themselves. And relieved. The presentation had been well received by a very tough crowd. Their colleagues. The audience began to disperse. The aisles filled and the murmur of voices picked up volume.

As she closed her laptop, the two men climbed the treads and crossed toward her. Each wore a navy suit, white shirt, and tastefully understated tie. Black socks, shiny shoes.

Approaching the podium, the pair fanned out slightly. The guy who stepped left was tall and burly and had a nose that looked like it might have been broken. More than once. His shaved scalp gleamed like polished mahogany under the stage lights.

The guy who stepped right was close to her height. He had heavy dark brows over very small eyes, thick black hair, olive skin.

“Dr. Temperance Brennan?” Dark Brows’s voice was surprisingly deep for a man of his size.

“Yes.” Guarded. She suspected their purpose, accepted consults only through formal channels. “And you are?”

“Special Agent Pierre Dupreau.” Displaying a badge to prove it.

“Bonjour,” she said.

No hint of a grin.

“I speak English,” she said.

Nope.

She looked at Broken Nose. He badged her with the same wrist motion employed by his partner. Special Agent Byron Szewczk. She wondered if Szewczk envied Dupreau his abundance of vowels.

“Are you armed, Dr. Brennan?” Dupreau, little eyes scanning her body for telltale bulges.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you carrying a—”

“The question was clear. I want to know why you posed it.”

Sensing tension, a few stragglers eyed them while pretending not to.

“We’d like you to come with us,” Dupreau said, voice lowered a hair.

“No.”

“I’m afraid we must insist.” Dupreau, steely.

“I’m afraid I must decline.” Brennan, steelier.

Dupreau withdrew a photo from one navy pocket and handed it to her. A beat to indicate annoyance, then she glanced down at the image.

The subject was male, white, probably midforties. His hair was center parted and held back with a binder. Black plastic-framed glasses sat low on his nose. A camera hung from his neck. He looked like a middle-aged uncle who enjoyed shooting wildflowers in his spare time.

Brennan’s eyes rolled up, one brow cocked in question.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know him,” Dupreau said.

“I don’t know him,” Brennan said.

Dupreau’s gaze cut to his partner. Szewczk wagged his head slowly, clearly disappointed.

“Lose the theatrics,” Brennan said. “Who is he?”

“Jonathan Yeow,” Dupreau said. “Until yesterday, an investigative reporter with the Washington Post.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Yesterday, Yeow’s house cleaner found him in his kitchen, asphyxiated with a plastic bag over his head.” Delivered with an impressive level of disgust. “Murdered.”

“I’m sorry for the man’s misfortune.” Handing back the photo. “But his death has nothing to do with me.”

“Au contraire.” Flick of a smile, no humor. “Your prints were on the plastic bag.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Let’s go.” Dupreau’s tone now carried an aggressive edge.

“May I phone my attorney?”

“I definitely would.”

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1320 EST

THE D.C. METRO PD STATION to which she was transported was on Indiana Avenue in northwest Washington. It was a solid concrete bunker in a neighborhood of solid concrete bunkers, some more so than others. Small red plaza out front, swatches of lawn that would look better come summer, ditto the few optimistic trees. Old-timey lampposts. Droopy flags.

They parked her in an interview room containing the usual table, chairs, wall phone, two-way mirror, and audio-video recording equipment. An hour of fuming, then the door opened and a woman entered. She wore her hair drawn back in a very tight bun, a black pantsuit, size elf, and sensible pumps. Her briefcase said lawyer. Her visitor tag said V. Luong.

Brennan had explained the situation by phone. They got straight to it. As Brennan talked, Luong listened, ears sharp. Attorney ears. Now and then she asked a question.

“You’re certain you’ve never met Mr. Yeow?”

“Absolutely. But I know the connection these yaks have jumped on. Yeow was investigating a suicide that occurred back in the eighties. A man named Calder Massee.”

Luong’s eyes rounded in surprise. “The air force bird colonel who shot himself in Germany?”

“Yes. Massee was discovered dead in his car behind the Hotel Bremerhof in the town of Kaiserslautern in March of 1987. The coroner’s ruling was death by self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

“Who performed the autopsy?”

“A German pathologist.”

“Were you even out of grad school in ’87?”

“Just. But I wasn’t involved in the original analysis.”

Brennan worked the keys on her laptop. Which she’d managed to retain thanks to Luong’s intervention.

“The Massee family went ballistic. They insisted the suicide finding was a cover-up because Calder had been wrongly accused in an espionage case. They claimed he’d been shot in the back of the head, execution style. Said they had an eyewitness to prove it.”

“I remember this.” Luong was jotting notes on a yellow legal pad. “Some relatives were very adept at working the media.”

“That’s an understatement. They called press conferences, volunteered for interviews, appeared on every talk and news show airing at the time.”

“So where do you come in?”

“Massee had three brothers. The youngest was obsessed. After the media lost interest, he took out ads, wrote op-ed pieces, set up blogs and Internet pages, put pressure on his senator and congressman, you know the drill. Over the years, every conspiracy theorist on the planet joined in the fight to have the case reopened. Long story short, in 2012, a government commission was formed. I was recruited to direct an exhumation and examine the remains.”

Brennan double-clicked to open a document. A header gave a case file number, date, and the name Calder Massee.

“This was my final report to the commission.” Scrolling down. “I won’t bore you with the details. Take a look at these images.”

The first was an anterior view of a skull. Brennan pointed to what had once been the nose.

“Note how the midfacial region is fragmented.” Moving her finger to the forehead. “The radial fracturing on the frontal bone.”

New image.

“This is a close-up of the roof of the mouth. Note the blue-green staining on what remains of the palatine process of the maxilla.”

“I see it.”

“That’s due to copper oxidation.”

“The bullet was copper jacketed.”

“Yes. On its path through the head, a tiny sliver broke off, lodged, and oxidized there.”

Brennan moved on to the teeth.

“This shows the lingual, or tongue side of the upper dental arcade. Note the cracked first molar and the dark areas on that tooth and the one beside it. The discoloration was caused by heat when the gun discharged.”

The fourth image showed a hole in the crown of the skull.

“That defect was created when the bullet left Massee’s head. Note that the exit point is high on the crown.”

Tight shot.

“Note that the edges of the defect are beveled on the skull’s outer surface. That means the defect is an exit hole.”

Brennan leaned back. Gestured at the screen.

“The pattern is consistent with trauma resulting from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

“Or someone shoved a gun in Massee’s mouth and pulled the trigger.” Luong, playing devil’s advocate.

“Doubtful. The bullet trajectory was straight up and out the top, so Massee’s head wasn’t moving. Also, there were powder burns on his right hand and no drugs in his system.”

“Why is the lack of drugs significant?”

“Massee was a big guy. Hard to stick a muzzle in a big guy’s mouth if he doesn’t want it there.”

“Which I suspect he did not.” Luong flipped a page. “So your opinion corroborated the original coroner’s report.”

“Yes.”

“The brother wasn’t happy.”

“No.”

“What does all this have to do with Yeow?”

“According to Dupreau and Szewczk, Yeow was working on a story that would prove my analysis was flawed. That I was either inept or bribed.”

“So you killed him to save your reputation.”

“That’s their theory.”

Luong thought about that.

Then, “Why were your prints on the plastic bag?”

“I have no idea.”

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1830 EST

JACK REACHER WALKED OUT OF the Baltimore bus depot into a world of frozen streets and dirty snow. The sun was weak and watery and very low in the sky. He headed toward it, west, down a wide street, on the traffic side of a high berm of plowed snow, with his thumb out. Every car passed him by. Which he expected. Hitching rides in town was hard. Especially Baltimore. He would do better when he got to the highway ramp. His goal was I-95 South, for however many hundreds of miles it took to get fifty degrees warmer. Maybe as far as Miami. Or all the way to Key West. He had been there before. Always had a good time. Except it was the end of the line. Which meant the only way to leave was to double back. Which he didn’t like. He preferred forward motion.

As always he had decent shoes, and for once he had a decent coat, so the weather didn’t bother him. He had known colder. Korea in the winter, and the advanced units on the German plain. And some American bases. Baltimore in February was balmy by comparison. But even so, he couldn’t afford an all-nighter. In the summertime he could sleep under a bridge. But not in February, however balmy. Happily the traffic was heavy. Rush hour, all across the civilized world. Lots of potential benefactors. But Reacher was a large man, and not especially attractive. Lots of rejection, too, for all kinds of gut-level reasons.

But the sheer weight of numbers and the overall odds were with him, and, sure enough, inside an hour and twenty minutes a guy in a rental Impala pulled over and agreed to take him as far as Savannah, Georgia, right then, a straight shot, as late as it took. Maybe conversation would keep the guy awake. That seemed to be the motive behind the offer. So Reacher climbed in, and they took off. The driver was a dark fleshy man who could have been forty. He had a black five o’clock shadow against what in better days would have been pale and papery skin, but was now dark red and swollen with capillaries. Which was a problem all its own. Reacher could stop the guy falling asleep, but he couldn’t keep him alive from a heart attack. He wasn’t a doctor.

There was no conversation at first. The guy had the radio playing, on a mostly sports talk station, where all kinds of mostly wonderful things were happening. Then at eight o’clock a different voice in a different acoustic read out the local news from Baltimore, just as they were leaving it, and then the voice called upon expert opinion to expand on and explain the news, in the form of respectful conversation, as if between the best of friends. Reacher tuned it out, until he heard a name he knew, and then one he didn’t.

The anchor asked a question, and the expert answered, “You’re absolutely right; to understand this case, you have to understand the Calder Massee case, and some say the dispute about that case’s original findings has now gone on so long we should take the issue seriously at last. The official line has always been suicide, and indeed the government’s last communication on the subject dates from four years ago, when it said it welcomed what it called Dr. Temperance Brennan’s meticulous and independent analysis, which as expected confirmed conclusions made at the time, and therefore the case was now closed.”

Reacher had never heard the word Temperance used as a name before.

The anchor said, “But Jonathan Yeow claimed it was more than a dispute. He claimed to have definitive proof that Massee was executed.”

The expert said, “You’re absolutely right, even to the point where there was a strong rumor Yeow had an actual copy of the illegal 1987 order to deploy the assassin. And don’t forget, Yeow was a very well respected reporter. He was from the Washington Post. He was the heir to a grand tradition. What he was going to say would have carried some weight. If he was right, Dr. Brennan was either ordered or coerced or bribed to falsify her second autopsy, and if that was true, her career would be over. All her previous testimony would be worthless. She would be a laughingstock. I mean, just this morning she gave the keynote at their convention at the Marriott Wardman down there in D.C., telling hundreds of other forensic scientists to keep it reliable, and relevant, and real.”

“Is that enough reason for homicide?”

“Professional ruin is a powerful motivator. Stranger things have happened. And sources inside the FBI suggest there is physical evidence, perhaps in the form of fingerprints.”

“But Dr. Brennan hasn’t been formally arrested.”

“Before she even left the convention ballroom, she hired Veronica Luong. Brennan’s supporters say that’s appropriate, in terms of their respective professional achievements, but others say you don’t hire the hottest hotshot in town unless you’re in trouble. Either way it seems Luong negotiated a special arm’s-length own-recognizance relationship with the FBI, at least for these initial stages of the investigation. Some are calling that a professional courtesy, and others are calling it the start of another cover-up.”

Then the anchor moved on, to the price of gas.

Reacher looked at the driver and said, “I’m sorry, I have to get out now. I changed my mind. I’m not going to Savannah anymore. I’m going to D.C. instead.”

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2100 EST

REACHER GOT A BUS ON Georgia avenue and got out where he thought the convention hotels might be. He asked a girl passing by if she knew the Marriott Wardman, and she did what they all did, thumbs flashing over a thin flat telephone the size of a paperback book, and then she showed him the screen, which represented their current location as a blue pulse, and the Wardman as a red blob, like the plastic head of a pushpin shoved in a map. South and west, two blocks down and three blocks over.

It was a big brassy place, with a lobby the size of a football field, still busy in the middle of the evening. Reacher figured however courteous and arm’s-length Brennan’s current relationship with the FBI might be, it would inevitably include a don’t-leave-town provision, which meant extra nights in her convention room, plus no doubt a deal breaker on the FBI’s part, in the form of an agent right outside her door, just in case she decided to run for it. No hotshot lawyer could negotiate that one away. So Reacher rode the elevator as high as it went and then walked back down the fire stairs, stopping at every floor to take a covert glance up and down the corridor. He saw two turndown carts, and three maids walking, and plenty of crusted trays of room-service leftovers. But no federal agents.

Until the fifth floor. Like in a movie. An old guy in a fold-up chair, right next to a door. Reacher pulled back and walked down to four, and came back up again to five in the elevator, like a normal person would. He stepped out and pretended to study the sign, these numbers this way, those numbers that way, and then he walked toward the seated agent, and said, “I’m Dr. Brennan’s paralegal. From Veronica Luong’s office.”

The old guy didn’t get up.

He said, “Got ID?”

Reacher gave him his passport.

The old guy said, “According to the number, this passport was issued direct by a certain office inside the State Department.”

“It came in the mail,” Reacher said.

“And now you’re a lawyer?”

“Not quite. Paralegal, from the ancient Greek para. Like parachute. Not quite a fall.”

“What do you need to see Dr. Brennan about?”

“Her Sixth Amendment right to assistance of counsel.”

“Now you’re the pro bono intern too?”

“You haven’t arrested her. You can’t stop her having visitors. You can put my name in the log. Which could help you in the end. We might want to switch to the Fifth Amendment later, and think about due process instead. Or as well.”

The old guy handed back Reacher’s passport.

He said, “Knock yourself out, kid.”

The room door had a panel on the wall, close to the handle, with a red light for Do Not Disturb, and a green light for Make Up My Room, and a pushbutton for the doorbell.

The red light was on.

Do not disturb.

Reacher pressed the doorbell button. He heard a chime inside the room, muted and polite. A woman’s voice said, “Who is it?”

Reacher said, “Your paralegal. Ms. Luong sent me.”

The door opened on the chain. Reacher saw a third of a face, a green eye, the sweep of dark blond hair. Not tiny, not tall.

He liked what he saw.

He said, “Are you Temperance Brennan?”

The woman said, “Yes.”

“Great name.”

“Who are you?”

Reacher said, “I’m here to help.”

“How?”

“Any way I can, which is what you’re going to need, because this is the Massee family we’re talking about here.”

“Do you know them?”

“From a distance.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Jack Reacher.”

“And?”

“I was in the army in March 1987. Serving in Germany, as a matter of fact.”

Brennan was quiet for most of a minute.

Then she said, “You better come in.”

BRENNAN’S ROOM WAS A STANDARD rectangle all gussied up with brass and wallpaper, so it could be priced as deluxe or executive. It had two club chairs under the window, either side of a small round table. Reacher sat down in one of them. Less threatening.

Brennan said, “What do you know?”

“I can’t tell you,” Reacher said.

“Then why are you here?”

“In case a rock meets a hard place. Which it might not. But you shouldn’t underestimate the trouble you’re in.”

“I wasn’t bribed and I didn’t make a mistake. Massee shot himself.”

“You know that scientifically.”

“Yes, scientifically. Jonathan Yeow was wrong. Why would I be scared of him?”

Reacher said, “I’ll stay the night in this hotel. My advice would be to call Ms. Luong and have her contact me first thing in the morning.”

“What are you going to tell her that you won’t tell me?”

“Nothing. This is all just in case.”

“Of rocks and hard places?”

“Yeow is a dead journalist, which will drive all the other journalists batshit crazy. He’s one of them. He’s their hero now. It will become a question of stamina. Sooner or later the DOD will throw you under the bus just to shut them up.”

“Who are you?”

“Just a guy passing through.”

“What kind?”

“I was a military cop.”

“They say Yeow was suffocated with a plastic bag.”

“Uncommon method.”

“They say my prints are on the bag.”

“But they haven’t arrested you.”

“I don’t think they buy it physically,” Brennan said. “Yeow must have struggled. He was bigger than me. Almost certainly stronger.”

“And because you’re a major player.”

“I suppose.”

“How did your prints get on the bag?”

“I don’t know.”

Reacher got up and walked out of the room. He nodded to the old man in the fold-up chair and headed to the elevators, where he rode down to the lobby and hiked across an acre of marble to the reception desk. He bought a room for the night, using his passport for ID, and his ATM card for money. The room was on the third floor. Neither deluxe nor executive. No brass, no wallpaper. But it had a telephone, which rang within forty-two minutes.

A woman’s voice said, “Mr. Reacher?”

Bright, intelligent, possibly lethal.

Reacher said, “Yes.”

“This is Veronica Luong, Dr. Temperance Brennan’s attorney. I assume you have classified information that proves the suicide case. I further assume your sense of duty makes you very reluctant to reveal it, but your sense of conscience makes you equally reluctant to see an innocent woman falsely convicted.”

Definitely lethal.

Reacher said, “Something like that.”

“You’re a paralegal.”

“I only said that to get in the door. Actually I’m unemployed.”

“No, I mean you’re a paralegal. As of now. With my firm. Officially employed.”

“Is this an attorney-client thing?”

“I want you where I can see you,” Luong said. “Starting at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, at the precinct house on Indiana Avenue, Northwest.”

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 0837 EST

SAME WINDOWLESS CELL. SAME AV gear, wall phone, table and chairs. Brennan was seated in one. Luong was beside her.

They’d been there forty minutes when Dupreau entered and tossed down a file. It landed with a tic and puff of stale air.

Dupreau stared at Brennan, skin sallow beneath the humming fluorescents. Brennan stared back, telegraphing the anger trip-wiring in her brain.

A few beats, then, “Thank you for coming.”

“I had a choice?” Controlled, calm.

Dupreau pulled out a chair and sat. Opened the file. Slowly sorted and organized the contents. Neither Luong nor Brennan was impressed. Both were familiar with the old trick.

Dupreau checked that the AV equipment was on and working.

“This interview will be recorded. For your protection and mine. Do you have any objection to that?”

“And if I did?” Brennan glared at the mirror, certain Szewczk was on the far side.

Dupreau hit a button. “Present at this interrogation are Special Agent Pierre Dupreau, Federal Bureau of investigation, Internal Security Unit, Dr. Temperance Brennan, and legal counsel, Veronica Luong.”

Dupreau provided the date and time, then drew a sheet from one of his stacks and pretended to read.

Brennan knew what he was doing. And why he’d left them cooling their heels. But the ploy wouldn’t work. She hadn’t become anxious or vulnerable as some suspects might. She’d grown furious. For Brennan, that translated into laser focus.

Dupreau laid down the paper.

Some interviewers like to put their subjects at ease, gain their trust, then take advantage. Knowing that wouldn’t work, Dupreau went straight for the kill.

“Calder Massee was a bird colonel in the United States Air Force, a career officer with access to highly classified information. Many believe he was executed for a crime he didn’t commit. He was wrongly suspected of being a traitor. They said he was actively engaged in spying for foreign governments. But he wasn’t. The suicide story was a government-backed cover-up for the mistake.”

“Many believe aliens landed at Roswell.”

“In 2012, you oversaw the exhumation and reanalysis of Massee’s remains.”

“I’m impressed. You can read.”

“This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of Massee’s death. Jonathan Yeow was about to go public with proof of your involvement in the whitewashing of his murder. We believe you killed him to prevent that happening.”

“Very creative.”

“Incompetence, complicity, greed. Doesn’t matter the reason. Exposure would ruin you.”

“Seriously. You should write a pilot, shop it to Hollywood.”

A long humming moment.

“According to the ME, Yeow died between midnight and seven Tuesday morning. Where were you during those hours?”

“Asleep in my room at the Marriott.”

“Can anyone verify?”

“That’s a rather personal question.” Icy.

“Murder is a rather personal crime.”

“I was alone.”

“Your prints were on the plastic bag used to asphyxiate Yeow. That bag came from a CVS pharmacy. You were caught on surveillance video at four fifteen Monday afternoon at a CVS pharmacy on Connecticut Avenue.”

“It’s illegal to buy toothpaste?”

“Did you retain the bag that held your”—Dupreau hooked quotation marks—‘toothpaste’?”

“I keep all my trash. Don’t you?”

“Can you explain how your prints came to be on that bag?”

“I cannot.”

“Dig deep.”

“Kiss my—”

Luong jumped in. “My client has a busy schedule. Can we move this along?”

“Your client’s attitude is causing me to lose patience.” Little eyes drilling Brennan. “You don’t want that.”

Brennan took a breath to respond. Luong hushed her with a raised palm.

“Have you anything else, Special Agent Dupreau? An eyewitness? Evidence of contact between Dr. Brennan and the victim? Cell-phone records? E-mails?”

“The investigation is ongoing.”

“Were Dr. Brennan’s prints found elsewhere at the scene?”

“What scene?”

“Any scene.”

No response.

“Was Dr. Brennan seen near Mr. Yeow’s home? Caught on Yeow’s security system? That of a bank? A school? A parking lot? A neighbor?”

Things moved behind the little eyes, but Dupreau said nothing.

“I take that to mean no,” Luong said.

“The investigation is ongoing.”

“I see. Will you be charging my client at this time?”

No response.

“I thought not.” Luong rose. Brennan rose. “My client has nothing further to say.”

Luong grabbed her briefcase, Brennan her purse. Both headed for the door.

Dupreau spoke to their retreating backs. “Dr. Brennan.”

She turned, one hand on the knob.

“Until further notice, you are to remain in Washington.”

“I’ll cancel my trip to Chernobyl.”

They left Dupreau gathering his meaningless papers.

REACHER WAS IN THE HALL. Luong left Brennan standing on her own for a minute. She walked over and Reacher said, “How was it?”

Luong said, “It was good, but not real good. I’ve seen people go to prison for less. Sometimes things go crazy. Nothing you can do.”

“But they still didn’t arrest her.”

“Not yet.”

“Got any paralegal work for me?”

“Yes,” Luong said. “You know the law from a cop’s point of view. You’ve got to stop her giving them a reason. You’re her personal legal counsel. Don’t let her say the wrong thing.”

Luong walked away, and Reacher stepped across the hall to where Brennan was waiting.

She said, “What?”

He said, “Apparently I’m your personal legal counsel.”

She didn’t reply. Just walked. Reacher followed. They exited onto the small red plaza. The sky was leaden and appeared to be contemplating snow. Maybe sleet.

Brennan thumbed her phone for an Uber. The app promised Miguel in a Honda in seven minutes. He pulled up in six. They were back at the Marriott by ten.

Neither Brennan nor Reacher had eaten. Both were hungry. They crossed the football field lobby and found a restaurant that was serving breakfast.

Every table was full, but two women were leaving. Each wore a pantsuit made of polyester born at the dark end of the spectrum, solid shoes. Each carried a canvas bag bearing the AAFS logo and wore a neck lanyard dangling a badge. One identified its owner as S. Miller, the other as T. Southam. Colored ribbons hung from the badges. Miller had more than Southam.

Brennan ordered a cheese omelet. Reacher got pancakes with eggs and bacon. Both asked for plain coffee. Which seemed to disappoint Marsha, the waitress. Her badge was bronze and pinned to her ample chest.

“What is it you intend to do, Mr. Reacher?” When Marsha was out of earshot.

“That depends.”

“Let’s go at it differently. Why are you here?”

“To help.”

“Me?”

“I believe you’re going to need it.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I have.”

“That’s why you’ve agreed to work for Luong.”

“I’m doing it for the money.”

Brennan didn’t laugh.

“Being employed by Luong legitimizes my presence,” Reacher said.

“I didn’t fudge data or make a mistake,” Brennan said. “Massee shot himself.”

Their food arrived. They peppered and salted and accepted refills on the disappointing coffee. Which was pretty good.

“How did you learn about Yeow’s murder?” Brennan asked, when Marsha had again withdrawn.

“A radio news report.”

“A Washington station?”

“No.”

She waited for Reacher to elaborate. He didn’t. But she grasped the implication. Media coverage wasn’t just local. Not good. The story would catch fire, the press would go raw dog and she would end up their meat.

“You really think the DOD plans to make me a scapegoat?”

“I think it’s a strong possibility.”

“To hide the fact that it ordered Massee’s execution.”

“To stop people talking about it.”

“Did the report say I’d been arrested?”

“It implied that was coming.”

“Now that you’ve heard the evidence against me, will you move on?”

“Do you think I should?”

A man wove toward the table beside theirs. Brennan and Reacher both tracked him. Same reflex. Same discreet eyes.

“What if the radio hadn’t been on?” Brennan asked, voice even lower than before.

“I read yesterday’s papers.”

“And you felt duty bound to come.”

“Yes.”

Brennan chewed on that. And her eggs. Reacher dabbed yolk with his toast. Around them people argued chain of custody and DNA and bitemark analysis. Some consulted programs. Some talked on cell phones.

“You said you were in the army in March of 1987. Stationed in Germany.”

“I was,” Reacher said.

“Did you know Calder Massee?”

“I knew of him.”

“I don’t like drama, Mr. Reacher.” A note of something. Annoyance. Frustration. Unease.

“I don’t do drama.”

“There are things you are unwilling or unable to share.”

Reacher nodded.

“Yet here you are.”

“I am.”

“What can you share?”

“You were right.”

“About what?”

“Massee shot himself.”

“How could you know?” Dubious.

Reacher laid down his fork, bunched his napkin, and leaned into his chair back.

He said, “I was there.”

Over more plain coffee, Brennan and Reacher agreed on three main points.

A media frenzy would destroy Brennan’s career. Maybe get her charged, perhaps convicted.

Dupreau and Szewczk were under pressure from forces far up the pay scale. She could expect no help from that quarter.

To clear her name, and avoid jail, she needed to find Yeow’s killer on her own.

Reacher repeated his desire to help. Brennan admitted her skill set was better suited to the lab than the streets. Reacher assured her he had that end covered. That her analytical thinking would be their biggest asset.

For the first time that day, Brennan smiled. She liked Reacher. She accepted his offer.

That made four points.

They debated options. Concurred that a logical starting point was Yeow’s editor.

Five points.

She ordered an Uber and they headed for the lobby.

BRENNAN AND REACHER PUSHED THROUGH the glass doors and stepped out under the portico. The air was cold and heavy with moisture off the Potomac. The clouds, though darker and more bloated than earlier, still refused to commit.

A babble of voices and car horns caught their attention.

To their left, portable barriers stretched across the drive sweeping up from Woodley Road. Hotel personnel were checking vehicles before waving them on to the broad paved area used for loading and unloading guests.

Brennan and Reacher glanced right.

Same improv security.

A nanosecond of surprise, then understanding.

Beyond the barriers, a Barnum and Bailey scrum of cameras, mikes, booms, and journalists was expressing its discontent at being denied access to the hotel.

Figuring the sharks were sniffing the blood of some politician caught banging his intern, or a starlet not A-list enough to be at the Ritz, and that their driver hadn’t a chance of reaching them, Brennan and Reacher decided to head downhill on foot.

“That’s her!” As they approached the barrier. “That’s Brennan.”

Word spread through the scrum. Cameras popped onto shoulders. Lights ignited. Booms shot toward their mouths.

“Dr. Brennan. Ted Sanders, CNN.”

“Would you care to make a statement?”

“Did you kill him?”

“Did you go along with the fake suicide? Or did you just blow it?”

“Are you about to be arrested?”

Brennan stopped short, face saying she’d shoot if she had a gun. Reacher took her arm and steered her back up the drive. Though bristling, she let him. Questions hammered their retreat.

“We’ll wait thirty minutes, then go out through the kitchen,” Reacher said when they were in the lobby.

“Bastards,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“It’s all bullshit,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“I expected calls from the press, but this—” Arm arcing toward the door. “This is insane.”

“Yeow was a journalist,” Reacher said.

“They have the sensitivity of lice.”

“Lice don’t avenge their own.”

“That must be it,” she agreed.

They were both very wrong.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1345 EST

FOR DECADES THE WASHINGTON POST loomed like a giant gray hive at the corner of Fifteenth and L. Its new address was 1301 K Street. Or One Franklin Square. The paper and the postal service were still hashing that out.

Yeow’s editor was a guy named Albert Thorsten. A directory told them Thorsten’s office was seven floors above the lobby with its zillion-inch screen. Brennan and Reacher ascended in a noiseless elevator and proceeded down a corridor flanking a newsroom the length of the U.S.-Canada border.

Five yards, then they saw Thorsten through an expanse of glass, seated at a desk that matched everything else in the building. The door was open. Brennan and Reacher entered. Both did their habitual scan.

The room wasn’t big, wasn’t small, wasn’t drab, wasn’t bright. Despite the fish tank wall, an overabundance of papers, printouts, files, and books made the unexceptional space feel tight and claustrophobic. A warehouse print hung behind Thorsten’s head—a wooden pier, gulls, and a boat. It blended well with the blah.

Thorsten looked about fifty going on heart failure. Gray hair, saggy eyes, saggy gut. He raised skeptical brows on seeing Brennan. Apparently Luong had mentioned only her paralegal. Or maybe it was Reacher’s size. Or gender.

“The lady of the hour,” Thorsten guessed. Or knew, from press photos. Then the questioning eyes slid to Reacher.

“I’m the paralegal.”

“Sure you are.” Thorsten pointed at the two chairs facing him. They looked like the desk, except they were chairs.

Reacher sat. Brennan sat. Thorsten directed his next comment to her.

“Word is you burned one of my reporters.” Voice dry and flat as the Kalahari.

“Word’s wrong.”

“And I’m blessed with your presence because?”

“I intend to find the bastard who did.”

Thorsten thought about that. Then, “Yeow learned some interesting facts about you.”

“Such as?”

“Beats me.”

“He didn’t brief you on his investigation?”

“Yeow was a veteran. We operated on a need-to-know basis.”

“I need to know.”

Another tense silence as they stared in two directions across the desk. Thorsten’s gaze was impersonal. Brennan figured years had passed since empathy last wormed into it.

“You’re aiding Luong with the doc’s defense?” Thorsten asked Reacher.

“I am.”

“Paralegally.”

“Yes. It would help to have the names of people Yeow was interviewing.”

Thorsten laughed, as Brennan and Reacher both knew he would. “Please. I can’t reveal sources.” Realizing his mistake. “If I knew them.”

“Yeow never told you what they said?” Brennan asked.

Thorsten shook his head slowly.

“He never showed you his notes? Asked for authorization? Requested travel money? Inducement money? Lunch money?”

The head kept wagging.

“What can you reveal, Mr. Thorsten?” Reacher, the diplomat.

“Yeow promised me one hell of a piece.”

“Guess you’re out of luck on that.” Distaste coated Brennan’s tone.

“Or the story’s become much better.”

“Be very careful, Mr. Thorsten.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Journalists often pretend they know more than they do.”

Thorsten shrugged. Whatever.

Brennan glanced at Reacher. He dipped his chin. They both stood.

“I didn’t kill Jonathan Yeow,” Brennan said, looking down at the editor. “And I didn’t make an error or take a bribe in the Calder Massee case. When I prove those two facts, and find Yeow’s killer, my first call will be to the New York Times.”

Brennan drew a card from her shoulder bag and winged it onto the desk. Then she and Reacher turned and left. Along the corridor overlooking the very long newsroom. Down the quiet elevator. Through the lobby out onto K street. Which wasn’t quiet.

They decided to take the Metro. Were waiting on the platform when Brennan’s cell phone rang. Caller ID displayed an unfamiliar number. She answered anyway.

“You didn’t hear this from me.” The Kalahari voice was muffled, as though Thorsten’s mouth was cupped with one hand.

“Hear what?”

“Ian Massee.”

“Calder’s youngest brother.”

“Ian thinks the suicide was a DOD-ordered execution.”

“So do a lot of people.”

“The guy’s a lunatic.”

“You’ve spoken to him?” Locking eyes with Reacher, who was listening to her end of the conversation.

“Many times. Until I stopped taking his calls.”

“Do you think he could be violent?”

“He loathes the government.”

“So do a lot of people.”

“In my opinion, Ian Massee’s the next Sandy Hook waiting to happen.”

“Why would he kill Yeow? Yeow was going to prove him right.”

“Follow the money,” said the Kalahari voice, muffled, like a dust storm.

Then the call clicked off.

Reacher said, “Our Mr. Thorsten is a versatile character. One minute Mr. Cautious Corporate Editor, and the next minute Mr. Watergate Deep Throat.”

Brennan said, “I don’t want to have to talk to Ian Massee.”

“Maybe we won’t have to. Why would Thorsten change his tune like that?”

“You tell me.”

“Maybe he dreams of the old days.”

“Or?”

“He dreams of the money. He runs a newspaper. He’s got a great story that just got better. He could sell a lot of extra copies. He could get all kinds of syndication deals. Maybe a movie. Except he doesn’t know what the story is. Not yet. He knows the sources. But he doesn’t know what they said. He’s trying to get us to do the interviews all over again. To keep the dream alive.”

“Doesn’t work,” Brennan said. “Thorsten wouldn’t benefit. I’m sure Ian Massee sold the movie rights years ago. It’s his project. And Watergate is ancient history. Journalists are different now. They know better. A hack like Yeow would sign up with Massee’s people ahead of time, and in his own name. He’d cut Thorsten out. He’d want all the profit, not just a percentage.”

“You’re following the money.”

“To where?”

“To wherever Ian Massee sold the rights. Some movie company somewhere knows the whole story. As a contractual requirement, I’m sure. Before making their substantial investment.”

Brennan said, “Which would make them protect Mr. Yeow, because he’s the golden goose. They can’t possibly be suspects.”

Reacher said nothing.

Brennan said, “And obviously they’re not. But I suppose a rival might be. If someone wins, someone else loses. Suppose the someone else doesn’t want to lose. People tell me show business is tough. Kill Yeow, you kill your competitor’s bid for glory. And you make him waste his investment. That comes off his bottom line. It’s a win-win.”

“Follow the money.”

“Which means television, not movies. People tell me that’s where the money is these days. In which case there are hundreds of companies and therefore potentially thousands of one-on-one ratings wars. Millions, actually. It’s a math thing.”

“I understand,” Reacher said. “I went to West Point. Which is a kind of college.”

“It’s an academy.”

“We could all read and write.”

“We would need to start where Ian Massee sold the rights. And work outward from there. Which means talking to him anyway. We’re back where we started.”

“At least we know what to ask him. We don’t have to beat about the bush.”

THEY RODE THE METRO TO where Brennan’s internet phone told them Ian Massee maintained his office. Which turned out to be a storefront with a yellow painted-over window, between a post office and a bilingual tax preparer, in a mall about equidistant from the best and the worst the metro area had to offer.

On the inside the office was a plain rectangular space, and it was empty, except for a woman at a reception desk, just inside the door. She was backlit with gold, from the sunlight coming through the painted window.

Reacher stepped up and asked, “Is Mr. Ian Massee in the office?”

The woman looked at him with a pleasant receptionist-style smile, warm and friendly, except her eyes said It’s an open-plan office with only me in it. What part of that don’t you understand?

She said out loud, “Not at the moment, I’m afraid.”

“Is he due back?”

“Not today, I’m afraid.”

“Where is he?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“You should call him on the phone.”

“Why?”

Reacher stepped aside and Brennan stepped up.

The woman said, “You’re her.”

Brennan said, “Call him.”

She did. They heard the local end of the conversation, which started with repeated answers to what must have been are-you-sure questions, and then continued with arrangements around a place called Sammy’s, which from the sound of it could have been anything from a strip club to a noodle shop, but which turned out to be a television production company.

Ian Massee was in a meeting about his documentary.

Temperance Brennan was welcome to come right over.

In fact they would send a car.

“No,” Brennan said, and called an Uber.

THE PRODUCTION COMPANY WAS ONE of a dozen sharing space in Crystal City. They went in assuming every microphone was live and every camera recording. Ian Massee met them in the corridor. He was a fair-haired version of the guy who had driven Reacher out of Baltimore. No doubt once a chiseled and slender youth, now bloated and rotted by stress and anger and bad food and too long in the bar.

But in the moment he was pleasant enough. He took Reacher to be Brennan’s bodyguard, which he seemed to expect, as if it would be crazy for her to come without one. At first he seemed stunned to be in her presence. She was the key to the conspiracy. He was face-to-face with the woman who knew everything.

He was face-to-face with the woman who had killed Jonathan Yeow.

Then eventually he spoke, by asking politely if they would precede him into an office. He held a door. Reacher went first. Brennan followed. It was a multipurpose space. Technical equipment was stacked all around. There were white laminate desks. There were two men sitting on them. One was a wild-eyed guy with long gray hair and a four-day beard. He was very tall and very thin, and he was dressed in a fine-wale corduroy suit, gone all pouched and baggy from constant use. He was wearing fingerless gloves. Maybe the wintertime equivalent of wearing sunglasses inside.

The other guy had a missing hand.

He was short and solid under an impassive face, wearing a blue suit, sitting straight, all slabs and angles, all symmetrical, except on one side was a hand and on the other was a hook. Or, to be fair to the scientists who developed it, a sophisticated prosthesis ending in two controllable fingers, normally held an inch apart, but capable of being clamped. The fingers were shaped like hooks. For efficiency. The pirates had it right from the beginning.

Ian Massee introduced the wild-eyed guy with the long gray hair as Paul Warwick. He was an award-winning documentary maker. Then Massee introduced the one-handed guy as Samuel Rye. He was the money. He owned the production company. The three of them stretched the introductions into self-effacing laments about what they could lose. Warwick could lose his reputation. Rye could lose his fortune. Massee could lose his chance to tell the truth.

Brennan said, “It’s not the truth. I don’t understand how you think it could be. You know nothing. You’ve seen nothing.”

Massee paused a beat, preparing a reply, but Warwick jumped in first, all restless energy. He said, “We have plenty of evidence.”

“You don’t. There is no evidence.”

“We have travel orders. A second person left the same base at the same time.”

“Traffic in and out of bases is constant. It doesn’t imply a connection. It’s a meaningless coincidence.”

“There was trace evidence of a second man in the car where Calder Massee was killed.”

“Where Calder Massee killed himself,” Brennan corrected. “I’m sure it was a staff car, or a rental. Hundreds of men had been in it. That’s another red herring.”

“There’s more than that.”

Brennan sat down on a third desk.

She said, “Tell me.”

Reacher stood behind her.

Warwick said, “Calder Massee was an air force colonel with a security clearance. That was a jackpot combination in 1987. The Cold War was still on. The air force had all the cool toys. They had the bombers endlessly prowling overhead. But someone was leaking. Calder Massee was wrongly suspected and falsely accused. While in custody he was badly beaten. When the real leak was found, Massee was killed too, to cover up the embarrassing mistake.”

Brennan said, “That’s a speech, not evidence.”

“We have the order deploying the assassin.”

“We?”

“Yeow has it. Or had it.”

“Where is it now?”

“We don’t know.”

“Are you going to do the program without it?”

Warwick didn’t answer.

Massee said, “My brother was a patriot and an honorable man. He was not a spy.”

No one answered.

Reacher looked at Samuel Rye and asked, “How much money will you lose?”

“It’s not the money,” Rye said. “It’s truth and justice.”

“Big words.”

“My company is built on them.”

“Truth is Dr. Brennan never laid eyes on Yeow.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“So the government did it.”

“The government wouldn’t use a plastic bag,” Reacher said. “Believe me.”

“So who?”

“Would a rival do it to hurt you?”

“To kill my show? It’s possible.”

Rye went quiet for a long moment.

Then he said, “But you know what? Screw them. I just decided. We’re going to do the show anyway.”

Warwick punched the air. He said, “Great decision, Sammy. Real cutting edge. Because losing Yeow doesn’t really hurt us. It actually helps us. We’ll be totally up front about it. We’ll say, this is the story, and brave Jonathan Yeow was murdered while confirming it. The audience will draw its own conclusions. Don’t you see? The message is even stronger with a dead guy.”

Brennan said, “You’re disgusting.”

“Says the killer,” Massee said.

It got tense for a second. Then Reacher stepped out from behind Brennan’s desk. Six five, two fifty, hands the size of dinner plates. He figured he could snap Warwick in two like a pencil, and then tear Rye’s prosthesis off and stuff it down his throat. He figured Massee would have a heart attack all by himself, before throwing his first punch.

He said, “We’re leaving now. But I’m sure we’ll see you again.”

THEY WALKED A BLOCK TO a neutral corner and waited five minutes for another Uber. Brennan spent the time on her phone, bouncing from link to link, following industry gossip about Samuel Rye’s rivals. Then she hit a trade paper headline that said “Rye Signs Controversial Documentary Maker.” There was a picture. Mad eyes, long gray hair, beanpole build. Paul Warwick. She started reading.

The car came and they got in. She said, “Warwick sounds like a piece of work. There are numerous complaints he routinely bullies witnesses, fakes documents, and completely ignores any information that doesn’t fit his story.”

Reacher said, “How did your prints get on the bag?”

“I don’t know.”

“How thorough was your examination of Calder Massee’s remains?”

“What, now you think I’m incompetent too?”

“Did you limit it to the head?”

“Of course not. I examined the whole skeleton.”

“Any broken bones?”

“No.”

“Did you read the original German report from 1987?”

“Of course I did.”

“Any contusions, lacerations, or other injuries?”

“No.”

“Therefore, your report also proves he wasn’t badly beaten while in custody. Believe me, I know how that goes. I’ve seen the results. But Warwick needs to believe it. It’s important to his story. In his opinion the government’s motive is its embarrassment over mistreating the wrong guy. Maybe Yeow told him to cool it on that. Maybe Yeow showed him the original German report. Which diluted Warwick’s narrative. Maybe a couple other details too. Yeow might have been a little more scrupulous than Warwick. He was with the Post, after all. That might still mean something.”

“You think they argued?”

“Maybe worse than that.”

“Go on.”

“Warwick strikes me as the type who wouldn’t like his grand design to be watered down. And he wouldn’t like someone contradicting him in public afterward.”

“Is that enough reason for homicide?”

“That’s what they asked on the radio,” Reacher said. “About you. The consensus was stranger things have happened and professional ruin is a great motivator.”

“Seriously?”

“He said losing Yeow helped him.”

“But only a little, surely. They have their basic story. A couple of extra lies won’t make much of a difference. Not enough to kill someone for.”

“I didn’t like his gloves.”

“Meaning?”

“Look at it from Yeow’s point of view. He’s standing in his kitchen, the bag goes over his head, it’s wrapped tight around his neck, and the world starts to go fuzzy. What does he do?”

“He scrabbles at the killer’s hands, to break the seal. Data show that in cases of strangulation or suffocation, it seems to be an almost universal reaction.”

“Human nature,” Reacher said. “But dumb. Better to use your thumbnails to tear a breathing hole. Or grab the guy’s nuts. But people grab their hands instead. They haul and scratch and scrabble. They leave marks.”

“Hence gloves the next day.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s a long shot. I don’t see enough motive.”

“He might not need much. He seems very intense. I expect he has the soul of an artist. But overall I agree. It’s a long shot. But it’s the kind of long shot a person wants to cross off the list. Human nature.”

“So go take his gloves off.”

“I will. But this is a big deal. As your legal counsel I would advise if we screw this up, we’re dead and buried. We need to be fireproof. I need you to get a look at Yeow’s autopsy notes. No point finding scratches on Warwick’s hands if they didn’t find skin under Yeow’s nails.”

“I can’t get a look at his notes. They’re probably not even transcribed yet.”

“Can you phone whoever did the autopsy and ask for a favor?”

“They might not take my call.”

“You probably trained them. They must know this is bullshit. They’ll help. Ask about the nails. We’re going to have Szewczk and Dupreau all over us. Better to have both ends of the deal in place. One scratches, and one gets scratched. The whole story, right there.”

“Now?”

“This evening. Under the radar. I’ll go back to Crystal City and speak to Warwick, and when you get the news from your medical friends, you can call me there with the outcome, and then either I’ll bring Warwick in, or I’ll give him his gloves back and pat him on the head and disappear.”

“You don’t have a cell phone.”

“I’m sure they have a switchboard. It’s a production company. Someone will put you through.”

“While you’re holding Warwick hostage, after hours?”

“I won’t be. Unless he has scratches.”

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1825 EST

NOT WANTING TO PROVIDE A close-up for some carrion-eating reporter with a superzoom lens, Brennan got another Uber and had the driver take her to Cantina Marina in the district’s Southwest Waterfront area. She ordered the fried clam and shrimp basket and a Diet Coke, then settled at a table in a far back corner.

Her first call was to Bernie Rodriguez, a forensic anthropologist consulting to both the D.C. and Baltimore ME offices. She and Rodriguez had known each other since grad school. Still, she worried about his reaction. If he even answered.

Her worry was unfounded. Rodriguez picked up on the first ring, said he’d seen the media swarm, assured her that everyone in the section thought the accusations were rat shit. From the background hubbub she guessed he was still at the Marriott.

Brennan asked who’d done the autopsy on Jonathan Yeow. Rodriguez didn’t know, promised to check and ring back.

She was finishing her last mollusk when he did. The pathologist was Helen Matias. Brennan knew Matias. They’d taught body recovery protocol together when such courses were still offered at the FBI Academy in Quantico. Matias was impartial, skilled, and kick-ass smart. The two women shared a mutual respect. And a love of George Carlin.

Still.

Rodriguez offered Matias’s cell number. Brennan said she had it, thanked him, and disconnected.

Brennan checked the time. Six twenty-five. Not good. The ME office was undoubtedly closed for the day.

She dialed.

Four rings, then she was rolled to voice mail. She left a few words. Mainly her name.

Brennan looked around the cantina. It was packed with office workers in suits and ties and panty hose and trench coats. With locals in running gear and sweats. With tourists in sneakers and ball caps with cameras and guidebooks.

Matias called exactly four minutes after Brennan left her message.

“You’ll do anything to get your name in the papers.” The voice was low slung, the vowels broad and languorous. Definitely not New York.

“I’m thinking of dancing naked outside the White House.”

“Might work. How the hell are you?”

“I’ve been better,” Brennan said.

“Yeah. This whole Yeow thing’s a real pants pisser.”

So Matias knew.

“I didn’t kill him.”

Matias didn’t reply.

“I understand you did the autopsy.”

“I did.” Revealing nothing.

An awkward silence filled the line while Brennan thought and Matias waited. Brennan decided to dive straight in.

“I’m wondering if there’s any way I could—”

“I’d like you to take a look at him.”

“What? Who?”

“Yeow. I found troubling marks on his shoulders.”

“Troubling.”

“Yes.”

Brennan gave Matias room to expand. She didn’t.

“You want my opinion.”

“Unofficially, of course.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“Suits me.”

“401 E Street. That’s in Southwest. I’ll meet you in the lobby at eight.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Tempe. No one can know that you’re viewing the body.”

“What body?”

“Good. Because a leak could get both our faces on the eleven o’clock news.”

BRENNAN KILLED TIME SIPPING COFFEE. After the diet coke, with refills, the last thing she needed was more caffeine. But the restaurant was crowded and she wanted an excuse to stay.

By googling the address on E Street, she learned that the distance from her current location was about three-quarters of a mile. Bristling with pent-up energy, she decided to walk.

At seven thirty, she set out. Wired on java and Coke and adrenaline, she barely noticed her surroundings. The park, the school, the church. The Potomac Place Tower apartment complex. The Capital Park Tower. The Southwest Freeway overhead. The smell of the Potomac strong in the air. Walking up Fourth Street, all she could think about was Matias’s reference to the strange marks on Yeow.

In her mind, she visualized the attack. The killer placing the bag over Yeow’s head. Pulling down hard and gathering the plastic tight. His hands slamming Yeow’s neck and shoulders. Maybe his chest.

Or her hands.

She reasoned that a tall assailant would leave marks resulting from an impact coming directly down on the deltoid. A shorter assailant, stretching in a more upward direction, would leave marks farther toward the front or rear, depending on his or her position relative to Yeow. She concluded that it might be possible to rule Warwick in or exclude him based on his height.

At E Street, she turned left. D.C.’s Consolidated Forensic Laboratory stretched the entire north side of the block. Multistory, lots of steel and glass grillwork. The same hopeful landscaping as at the cop shop on Indiana Avenue. Less dog shit. Identical flags.

A Hyatt faced off from the opposite side of the street. Government buildings sat at the remaining two corners. Thanks to Google she knew the behemoths housed, among other entities, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the USDA Economic Research Service, the Surface Transportation Board, and Casey’s Coffee. Hot capitol damn.

Pulse humming, she opened the door to the CFL and entered.

REACHER KEPT THE FIRST UBER and tracked back to Crystal City. The charge would go straight to Brennan’s credit card. No tip was required. Apparently that was how Uber worked. Which was fine with him. He had the military habit of assuming everyone he met was richer than him.

He got out a block from the shared TV building and moved to where he could watch the door. He stood in the cold February shadows and waited. People came out in ones and twos, dressed in jeans and puffy winter jackets. He saw Samuel Rye leave. But not Massee or Warwick. They were still inside. Still discussing their cutting-edge program, he thought, and how it was all the stronger now Yeow was dead. Disgusting, Brennan had said. He liked her for that reaction. There was a purity to it. As a forensic anthropologist she must have seen some pretty bad things done for some pretty bad reasons, but she wasn’t cynical. Not totally. Which was unusual. Like her name. She was unusual all around.

And cute.

He waited.

By ten of eight he figured the building was as quiet as it was going to get. Massee and Warwick still inside. He went in and found the right corridor. Saw the right door up ahead. But it opened before he got there and Ian Massee stepped out.

He stopped and said, “You.”

Reacher said, “Yeah, me.”

“What do you want?”

“Warwick.”

“Why?”

“None of your business.”

“This whole thing is my business.”

“This whole thing is bullshit.”

“My brother was not a spy.”

“Your brother was a piece of shit.”

“In the end they said someone else was the spy. It’s in the record.”

“Were you out sick the day they taught thinking? There were two spies. Your brother and the other guy. Working together.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. I know for sure.”

“How?”

“I watched him do two dead drops and meet with an East German government official. I was young, and I was army, not air force. He wasn’t watching out for a guy like me. Which is why they sent me, I guess.”

Massee was quiet a beat.

Then he said, “So he was executed.”

Reacher said, “No, he wasn’t. He put the gun in his mouth all by himself.”

“We have the order.”

“Do you have the response?”

“What?”

“They will have been paper-clipped together in the file. The order, and the response. The order said kill him, and the response said he was already dead when I got there.”

“You?”

“Except that wasn’t quite true. He was alive when I got there. We sat in his car and talked. I laid out the situation. He begged me to let him shoot himself. He wanted to spare his family the disgrace. I was okay with that. But then you went and dug it all up again. You should have let sleeping dogs lie.”

“You were there?”

“Afterward I was deaf in my left ear for a week.”

Massee went quiet again.

Went red in the face.

Wound himself up like a clock and swung a clumsy right hook at Reacher’s jaw, powered by nothing but rot and bloat and furious anger. Reacher caught the fist in his left hand like a softball and crashed a low right into Massee’s ample gut, which folded him up like a pocketknife, gasping and staggering on uncertain feet. Reacher waited until he stabilized and brought his knee up into Massee’s lowered face. After which Massee collapsed, half backward and half sideways, onto the floor, and lay still.

Reacher stepped over him and stepped through the door.

Warwick was in the room. Evidently he had heard the commotion. He said, “What the hell is going on out there?”

Reacher closed the door and said, “Take your gloves off.”

“What?”

“You heard.”

“My gloves?”

“Take them off, or I’ll take them off for you.”

“Why?”

“I want to see your hands.”

Warwick was too puzzled to protest. He simply peeled his gloves off, inside out, first one, then the other.

He held his hands up.

No scratches.

The door opened again and Samuel Rye stepped into the room.

ALL MORGUES WEAR THE SAME perfume, a blend of disinfectant, refrigeration, and putrefying flesh. Eau de death.

All morgues are outfitted along the same lines. Gleaming tiles, cabinets, and counters. Stainless steel tables, sinks, lights, scales, carts, and instruments.

All morgues have the same coolers, some larger, some smaller, some more numerous. To Brennan’s surprise, the one at the CFL had Braille lettering beside the sign saying 5205: BODY STORAGE. She wondered. Visually impaired pathologists or autopsy techs? Sketchy backup generators?

She didn’t think about it long. The after-hours quiet was goosing her already jangled nerves. There were no Stryker saws whining. No phones ringing. No faucets pounding water into stainless steel sinks. No voices dictating, directing, or cracking jokes. She’d done her share of late-night autopsy room stints. It was never good times.

After badging her through security and escorting her upstairs, Matias had rolled a gurney from the blind-friendly cooler. They’d discussed her findings and reviewed her report. Then Matias had pulled surgical aprons, masks, and gloves from drawers and they’d both suited up.

“Ready?” Dark brows raised above the rectangle of fabric covering her nose and mouth. Which were also dark.

Brennan nodded.

Matias double-checked the tag, then unzipped the body bag. Whrrrp. The sound was like a snarl in the stillness. The stench of death wafted out. The odor bothered neither Matias nor Brennan.

Yeow lay naked and supine, the Y stitching his chest dark against the waxy, gray skin. One eye was half open, the pupil milky black. The base of his throat was mottled radish red.

From Matias’s comments and autopsy notes and diagram, Brennan knew that the “troubling” marks were posterior, at the back of Yeow’s neck.

“Roll him?”

Brennan nodded again.

Matias separated the flaps of the pouch. Together they tucked Yeow’s arms and rotated his body, Matias at the shoulders, Brennan at the ankles. His forehead hit the table with a soft thunk.

Brennan leaned in. Saw nothing.

Matias pulled a surgical lamp close and thumbed the switch. Light flooded Yeow’s head and upper torso.

The marks were subtle but definitely there, centered above the seventh cervical vertebrae, at the base of Yeow’s neck. Two lines converging at a very slight angle.

“Perimortem?” Brennan asked.

“Definitely. The hemorrhaging means the injury occurred at the time of death.”

“Looks like he was hit by something with a pair of long, thin edges. Or a pair of bars.”

“Or he hit something.”

“You think he fell?”

Matias shook her head. “I found no blunt trauma anywhere else on the body. No lacerations, no hematomas, no fractures. Nothing but this linear bruising and the abrasions on his throat.”

“No defensive wounds on his hands or arms?”

“A few broken nails. But I have no way to tell when or how that happened.”

“And there was no skin or tissue under his nails.” Brennan knew that from Matias’s notes. “No trace at all.”

“It makes no sense. If conscious, victims of strangulation claw at their attackers’ hands. Or at the ligature cutting off their air.”

“Yes.”

Brennan straightened and closed her eyes. Again played a mental holograph of the assault.

Yeow.

Warwick facing him with the plastic bag.

Or behind him.

Tall, skinny Warwick.

She pictured the two linear marks. Their position, spacing, and orientation.

The figure morphed. Grew shorter. More solid.

Sudden synapse.

Brennan’s eyes flew open.

Not Paul Warwick.

Samuel Rye!

“These bruises were made by a prosthetic hand.” Tone emphatically calm. “That’s why you found no skin under Yeow’s nails.”

“A device with two hooks?” Matias spoke while eyeballing the patterned injury on Yeow’s neck.

“Yes.”

“That tracks.” Nodding slowly.

Brennan stripped off and bunched her apron, mask, and gloves. “I know who did this.”

“Seriously?” Matias, unconvinced.

“I have to go.” Toe-slamming the pedal and tossing her gear into the biohazard bin.

“That’s it?”

“My paralegal is in grave danger.”

Brennan grabbed her shoulder bag and fired out the door. She thumbed her phone for an Uber as she hustled. The app seemed agonizingly slow. But eventually Fong promised to be there in a black Camry hybrid within eleven minutes. She pushed out to the street and ran, hoping her phone would bring Fong to her. She could be a mile away in eleven minutes. Maybe more. Then her phone buzzed in her hand. Caller ID displayed the same unfamiliar number she had seen before. Albert Thorsten. Yeow’s editor at the Washington Post. The Kalahari voice.

It said, “I apologize.”

“For what, dammit?”

No time for games.

“The Metro cops found Yeow’s notes. They returned them to me. You were right. Calder Massee killed himself. He was a spy. There was an execution order, but the rest of the file shows Massee was already dead when the assassin got there. He shot himself in his car. Ian Massee and Paul Warwick were cherry-picking the evidence. Yeow’s story was going to cut them off at the knees. They’re the suspects now.”

“No, it was Samuel Rye. Yeow’s story was going to kill his show. I should have known. He said it wasn’t about the money. When someone says that, it’s always about the money.”

She disconnected and dialed Veronica Luong.

Voice mail.

She said, “Tell Szewczk and Dupreau to get to Samuel Rye’s place in Crystal City right now. Cops, SWAT, everything. Rye is the killer.”

Then she saw a black Camry up ahead. She waved. It stopped. She got in.

SAMUEL RYE STOOD FRAMED IN the open doorway. Short, squat, powerful. All slabs and angles. In his good hand was a Colt Python, which was a stainless steel six-shot revolver about the size and weight of a sledgehammer. Clamped in his hook was an open switchblade. Six inches of fine glittering steel, faintly blue in the fluorescent light. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. Reacher didn’t like knives.

He should have known.

It’s not the money.

It’s always the money.

Rye said, “Sit down.”

Reacher said, “No.”

“I’ll shoot.”

“You won’t. That’s a very loud gun. The cops are coming.”

“Says you.”

“Brennan went to look at Yeow’s autopsy notes. She won’t find skin under the nails. She’ll put two and two together. She’s smart like that. And she has a cell phone.”

Rye took a step into the room.

He leveled the Colt. The barrel looked the size of a water main. It was pointing at Reacher’s center mass.

Stay alive and see what the next minute brings.

That was Reacher’s motto.

He said, “How did you get her prints on the bag?”

Rye smiled. Pleased with himself.

He said, “I guess you don’t watch much television.”

“The Yankees sometimes,” Reacher said. “When I can.”

“My last program. All about 3-D printing. Very useful. But I hinted it could be used for bad purposes too.”

“So how?”

“She arrived at the Marriott two days ago and had a room-service dinner. I bought her water glass from the waiter. Lifted her prints, scanned them, filled the printer cartridge with squalene, and printed them all over a brand-new bag, full size, about half a millimeter high.”

Reacher nodded. He had heard of squalene. A Russian watchmaker had once told him all about it. It was a natural organic compound, found in shark liver oil and olive oil. And on human noses. The watchmaker used it to lubricate delicate mechanisms.

Rye said, “Sit down.”

“No,” Reacher said again.

He heard footsteps out in the corridor. Quiet and hesitant.

Getting closer.

Ian Massee appeared in the doorway.

He looked in bad shape. Bent over, limping, breathing ragged.

He said, “The bastard hit me.”

Rye said, “We have worse problems than that.”

Massee shuffled in. Stopped between Rye and Warwick. If Rye was the twelve on a clock face, Massee was the one and Warwick was the two. Reacher was the six. Outnumbered. A classic three against one.

The gun was still steady on Reacher’s chest.

Rye said, “Is Brennan planning to meet you here?”

Reacher said, “No.”

Then he sensed more movement in the corridor. Almost nothing. Just a faint disturbance in the air.

He looked at Rye and said, “You should cut your losses and get the hell out. Or shoot Massee, not me. He got you into this mess. He’s as bad as his big brother.”

Rye said nothing.

Behind his left shoulder Reacher saw a third of a face, a green eye, a sweep of dark blond hair. Brennan, peering around the doorjamb. Exactly the same as at the chained door of her hotel room, back at the beginning.

He said, “Time is ticking away.”

Brennan moved soundlessly into the room. A yard behind Rye.

Reacher said, “I wish I was a woman.”

Rye said, “What?”

“I would have a purse. I could swing it like a bat. I could knock your gun hand out of the way.”

“What?” Rye said again.

And Brennan did exactly that. Reacher saw thirty-seven hours of anger and outrage and frustration in her face, channeling into some kind of deadly focus. She wound up like a discus thrower at the Olympics and swung her bag from behind and smashed it into Rye’s forearm with all the strength in her body. Which was evidently considerable. The gun was swept all the way from the six on the clock face to the three. It fired with a deafening crash and a television monitor exploded, and simultaneously Reacher smashed a giant fist into the exposed side of Rye’s head, jaw, ear, and cheekbone, and then he danced to his right and crashed an elbow into Warwick’s throat. Rye and Warwick went down backward, and Massee sank to his knees clutching his chest. Maybe a heart attack, all by himself.

Reacher looked at Brennan and said, “Thank you.”

Brennan took a breath and said, “You’re welcome.”

Then there were sirens outside and boots in the corridor and six men in FBI windbreakers burst into the room, followed by Szewczk and Dupreau, followed by Veronica Luong.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2310 EST

THEY BOTH NEEDED TO DECOMPRESS. and reacher was hungry.

Certain the Marriott bars and restaurants would be packed with alcohol-buzzed toxicologists, pathologists, lawyers, and engineers, they opted for the Raven in Mount Pleasant. Brennan remembered it from her drinking days. The dive decor. The heart-stopping cheeseburgers and onion rings. She hoped it was still there.

It was. And a good choice. The interior was dim, lit mostly by neon beer signs. Bar to one side, booths to the other, each with its own miniature jukebox. The place, largely empty, had only one flaw. The syrupy stench of grease and stale beer.

They chose an alcove in the rear and climbed onto high chrome stools with cracked vinyl seats. Brennan climbed. Reacher simply straddled and dropped.

On the wall above their shoulders, his left, her right, was a bulgy-screen TV that looked like it had been mounted sometime in the ’80s. The picture was on but the sound was muted.

After a brief wait, a guy slouched over and asked what they wanted. His tee, once white, was stained and stretched way too tight over his belly. On it was an unnaturally elongated Latvian flag.

Reacher asked for a burger, very rare, and black coffee. Brennan asked for the same, medium rare, double cheese. Perrier and lime to drink.

Their eyes met.

Reacher amended their order to two pints of whatever was on tap. The guy recommended some microbrewery IPA with an unlikely name.

The beer hit the table seconds later. Brennan took in a few molecules, mostly foam. Did the automatic alkie count in her head. How many months? Years? She’d be fine.

“What’s an IPA?” Reacher asked.

“Damn good,” Brennan said.

Brennan’s eyes drifted to the ancient Sony above and between them. Read a headline below a grim-faced anchor. Faking a Murderer. To the anchor’s right was a graphic of a middle-aged man in an air force officer’s uniform.

“We’ve made the eleven o’clock news.” Brennan echoed Matias’s words.

As Reacher glanced left, the screen cut to video. Bathed in artificial light, Dupreau led a handcuffed Warwick from the Crystal City building. Szewczk followed with Rye. Massee was in the hands of a guy with FBI lettered on the back of his jacket.

The footage ended and the anchor returned. They watched her lips silently summarize the breaking story, Brennan’s image now hanging where Calder Massee’s had been.

Their burgers arrived. They added garnish and condiments. Ate in silence.

Brennan spoke when only lettuce remained on her plate. “Rye set the whole thing up.”

“Two birds with one stone,” Reacher agreed. “Eliminate Yeow, who was going to back your suicide finding, thereby killing his story. Hype attention for his documentary.”

“Rye wanted it to hit big, like Making a Murderer. Or Serial.”

Reacher just looked at her.

“A TV documentary and a podcast.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Everyone in America watched. Or listened.”

“I’m on the move a lot.”

“You headed south now?” Brennan changed the subject.

“I was.”

“Good time of year for that.”

“I often sleep outside.”

“You sleeping outside tonight?” Brennan took another sip of her IPA.

“It’s Luong’s dime, so I’m staying one more night at the Marriott.”

“As am I.” Brennan studied Reacher over the rim of her mug.

“Shall we go there?” Reacher studied her back.

Brennan ingested another milliliter of beer. A long moment passed before she answered.

“Uber?”

Reacher nodded.

And they did.