The Hard Way

CHAPTER 9

THE BAD NEWS put Edward Lane on a knife edge. Reacher watched him carefully and saw him struggling for control. He paced back and forth across the living room floor and curled his hands compulsively and scratched at his palms with his nails.

“Conclusions?” he asked. Like a demand. Like an entitlement.

“I’m revising my conclusions,” Reacher said. “Maybe there aren’t three guys. Maybe there are only two. One stays with Kate and Jade, the other comes down to the city alone. He doesn’t really need to watch Gregory walk away down West Broadway because he’s planning on using the back door anyway. He’s already in the alley, out of sight.”

“Risky. Safer to be loose on the street.”

Reacher shook his head. “They did their homework. The neighbor is in her building from seven-thirty in the morning until eleven-thirty at night. Which explains the times they chose. Seven o’clock this morning, before she arrived. Eleven-forty the first night, after she left. Eleven-forty is a weirdly precise choice of time, don’t you think? There had to be some reason for it.”

Edward Lane said nothing.

Reacher said, “Or maybe there’s only one guy. On his own. It’s possible. If Kate and Jade are secured upstate, he could have come down alone.”

“Secured?”

“Locked up somewhere. Maybe bound and gagged.”

“For twelve hours at a time? There and back?”

“This is a kidnap. They’re not at a health spa.”

“Just one guy?”

“It’s possible,” Reacher said again. “And maybe he wasn’t in the alley at all. Maybe he was actually inside the building, waiting and ready. Maybe right behind the front door. Maybe Gregory dropped the keys right in his hand.”

“Will they call again?” Lane asked. “Will he?”

“Four hours from now that same argument will start all over again.”

“And?”

“What would you do?”

Lane didn’t answer directly. “If there’s only one guy, how can he argue?”

“With himself,” Reacher said. “And that’s the toughest kind of argument to have.”

Lane paced. But his hands stopped moving. It was like he had been hit with a new consideration. Reacher had been expecting it. Here it comes, he thought.

“Maybe you’re right,” Lane said. “Maybe it isn’t three guys.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Maybe it’s four guys,” Lane said. “And maybe you’re the fourth guy. Maybe that’s why you were in that coffee shop the first night. You were watching your buddy’s back. Making sure he got away OK.”

Reacher said nothing.

“It was you who elected to watch the front door this morning,” Lane said. “Because you knew nothing would happen there. You should have watched the car. You should have been on Sixth Avenue, not Spring Street. And you knew they were going to ask for five million more. You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

Silence in the room.

“Two questions,” Reacher said. “Why would I have gone back to the coffee shop the second night? Nothing was happening the second night. And if I was a bad guy, why would I have told Gregory I had seen anything at all?”

“Because you wanted to worm your way inside where you could steer us wrong. You knew I would send someone out to look for witnesses. That was obvious. And you were right there, like a spider waiting for a fly.”

Lane glanced around the room. Reacher followed his gaze. A quiet desperate atmosphere, subdued menace, six Special Forces veterans, all looking back at him, all as hard as nails, all full of hostility toward the stranger and all full of any fighting soldier’s suspicion of an MP. He checked their faces, one through six. Then he looked down at Kate Lane’s photograph.

“Pity,” he said. “Your wife is a beautiful woman, Mr. Lane. And your daughter is a lovely kid. And if you want to get them back, then I’m all you’ve got. Because like I said, these guys here can start a war, but they’re not investigators. They can’t find what you’re looking for. I know guys like these. Guys like these, they couldn’t find their own assholes if I gave them a mirror on a stick.”

Nobody spoke.

“You know where I live?” Reacher asked.

“I could find out,” Lane said.

“You couldn’t,” Reacher said. “Because I don’t really live anywhere. I move around. Here, there, and everywhere. So if I choose to walk out of here today, you’ll never see me again, the whole rest of your life. You can count on that.”

Lane didn’t answer.

“And therefore Kate,” Reacher said. “You’ll never see her again, either. You can count on that, too.”

“You wouldn’t get out of here alive,” Lane said. “Not unless I chose to let you.”

Reacher shook his head. “You won’t use firearms in here. Not inside the Dakota. I’m sure that would break the terms of your co-op lease. And I’m not worried about hand-to-hand combat. Not against little guys like these. You remember how it was back in the service, don’t you? Your guys stepped out of line, who did you call? The 110th Special Unit, that’s who. Hard men need harder cops. I was one of those cops. And I’m willing to be one again. Against all of you at once, if you like.”

Nobody spoke.

“I’m not here to steer you wrong,” Reacher said. “If I wanted to steer you wrong, I’d have given you descriptions of two fantasy guys this morning. Short, tall, fat, thin, whatever. Eskimos in fur hats. Africans in full tribal dress. I’d have had you chasing shadows all over the place. But I didn’t. I came back here and told you I’m sorry that actually I’m not steering you anyplace yet. Because I am sorry about that. Really. I’m sorry about the whole damn thing.”

Nobody spoke.

“But you need to hang with it,” Reacher said. “We all do. Things like this are never easy.”

The room stayed quiet. Then Lane exhaled. He nodded.

“I apologize,” he said. “Most sincerely. Please forgive me. It’s the stress.”

Reacher said, “No offense taken.”

Lane said, “One million dollars to find my wife.”

“For me?” Reacher said.

“As a fee.”

“That’s some raise. It was twenty-five grand a few hours ago.”

“The situation is more serious now than it was a few hours ago.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Will you accept?” Lane asked.

“We’ll talk about a fee afterward,” Reacher said. “If I succeed.”

“If?”

“I’m way behind the curve here. Success depends on how much longer we can keep this thing going.”

“Will they call back again?”

“Yes, I think they will.”

“Why did you mention Africans?”

“When?”

“Just now. You said Africans in full tribal dress. As an example of a fantasy description.”

“It was an example. Like you said.”

“What do you know about Africa?”

“It’s a large continent south of Europe. I’ve never been there.”

“What do we do next?”

“We think,” Reacher said.

Lane went to his office and five men went out for breakfast. Reacher stayed in the living room. Gregory stayed in there with him. They sat across from each other on a pair of low sofas. Between the sofas was a coffee table. The coffee table was topped with French polished mahogany. The sofas were covered with flowery chintz. There were velvet throw pillows. The whole room seemed ludicrously overdecorated and overstyled and overcivilized, given the issues at hand. And it was totally dominated by the portrait of Kate Lane. Her eyes were everywhere.

“Can you get her back?” Gregory asked.

“I don’t know,” Reacher said. “Usually this kind of a thing doesn’t end happily. Kidnapping is a brutal business. Usually it’s the exact same thing as homicide, just delayed a little.”

“That’s pretty defeatist.”

“No, it’s realistic.”

“Any chance at all?”

“Maybe some, if we’re only halfway through. Probably none, if we’re near the end. I don’t have any traction yet. And any kidnap, the endgame is always the hardest part.”

“You think they were really in the building when I dropped the keys?”

“It’s possible. And it would make sense. Why wait outside when they could wait inside?”

“OK,” Gregory said. “So how about this: That’s their base. That’s where they are. Not upstate.”

“Where are the cars?”

“In parking garages all around the city.”

“Why the five-hour delays?”

“To create a false impression.”

“It would be one hell of a double-bluff,” Reacher said. “They led us right there. Gave us the exact address.”

“But it’s conceivable.”

Reacher shrugged. “Not very. But stranger things have happened, I guess. So go call those numbers. Find out what you can. If possible, aim to have someone meet us with a key. But not right there. On the corner of Thompson. Out of sight. Just in case.”

“When?”

“Now. We need to be back here before the next ransom demand.”

Reacher left Gregory working with his cell phone on the sofa and wandered back through the kitchen to Lane’s office. Lane was at his desk, but he wasn’t doing anything productive. Just swinging his chair back and forth through a tiny arc and staring at the twin photographs in front of him. His two wives. One lost. Maybe both lost.

“Did the FBI find the guys?” Reacher asked. “The first time, with Anne?”

Lane shook his head.

“But you knew who they were.”

“Not at the time,” Lane said.

“But you found out later.”

“Did I?”

“Tell me how.”

“It became a threshold question,” Lane said. “Who would do such a thing? At first I couldn’t imagine anyone doing it. But clearly someone had, so I revised the threshold of possibilities downward. But then everyone in the world seemed to be a possibility. It was beyond my understanding.”

“You surprise me. You move in a world where hostage-taking and abduction aren’t exactly unknown.”

“Do I?”

“Foreign conflicts,” Reacher said. “Irregular forces.”

“But this was domestic,” Lane said. “This was right here in New York City. And it was my wife, not me or one of my men.”

“But you did find the guys.”

“Did I?”

Reacher nodded. “You’re not asking me if I think it could be the same people all over again. You’re not speculating. It’s like you know for sure it isn’t.”

Lane said nothing.

“How did you find them?” Reacher asked.

“Someone who knew someone heard some talk. Arms dealers, up and down their network.”

“And?”

“There was a story about four guys who had heard about a deal I had done and concluded that I had money.”

“What happened to the four guys?”

“What would you have done?”

“I would have made sure they couldn’t do it again.”

Lane nodded. “Let’s just say I’m completely confident that this isn’t the same people doing it again.”

“Have you heard any new talk?” Reacher asked.

“Not a word.”

“A rival in this business?”

“I don’t have rivals in this business. I have inferiors and junior partners. And even if I did have rivals, they wouldn’t do something like this. It would be suicide. They would know that sooner or later our paths would cross. Would you risk antagonizing a bunch of armed men you’re likely to stumble across under the radar somewhere in the back of beyond?”

Reacher said nothing.

“Will they call again?” Lane asked.

“I think they will.”

“What will they ask for?”

“Ten,” Reacher said. “That’s the next step. One, five, ten, twenty.”

Lane sighed, distracted.

“That’s two bags,” he said. “Can’t get ten million dollars in one bag.”

He showed no other outward reaction. Reacher thought: One plus five already gone, plus one promised to me, plus ten more. That’s seventeen million dollars. This guy is right now looking at a running total of seventeen million dollars, and he hasn’t even blinked yet.

“When will they call?” Lane asked.

“Drive time plus argument time,” Reacher said. “Late afternoon, early evening. Not before.”

Lane kept on swinging his chair through its tiny arc. He lapsed into silence. Then there was a quiet knock at the door and Gregory stuck his head in the room.

“I got what we need,” he said, to Reacher, not to Lane. “The building on Spring Street? The owner is a bankrupt developer. One of his lawyer’s people is meeting us there in an hour. I said we were interested in buying the place.”

“Good work,” Reacher said.

“So maybe you should revise what you said about a mirror on a stick.”

“Maybe I should. Maybe I will one day.”

“So let’s go.”

They were met at the 72nd Street curb by another new BMW 7-series sedan. This one was black. This time the driver stayed behind the wheel and Gregory and Reacher climbed in the back. The woman who was watching the building saw them go, and she noted the time.