Reacher left the cover of the trees and approached the house from the southeast. Toward the rear corner. He climbed up onto the porch railing and wrapped his left arm around the column that supported the balcony. He used his right hand to slip the coiled-up blankets from around his neck. He held one end and swung the rest of the length around in an arc. Once. Twice. Then as it neared the top of its third rotation he snapped it in toward the house and straight back out, like a lion tamer with an oversized whip. The tip curled around the column and dropped straight down the other side. Reacher caught it with his left hand. He brought his hands close and gripped both strands together. He shifted the soles of his feet onto the face of the column. Moved his left hand up and pulled. Took a step vertically with his right foot. Moved his right hand. Stepped with his left foot. He kept going until he could grab the upper rail then he hauled himself up and over and rolled onto the balcony.
Reacher got to his feet. He stood still and listened. He heard nothing.
Along the side of the house a row of glass doors led out to the balcony. There were four. Maybe from bedrooms. They were all closed and, inside, white drapes were drawn across them. For privacy. Or to combat the heat.
Reacher moved around to the back of the house. The balcony boards were solid. His feet made no noise. He looked down into the yard. It was an even space, fifty feet square, carved out from the trees and covered with grass. Hix must have been getting ready for a party. There was a bar to the left with a line of silver buckets for ice, tables with trays of plastic cups, and two giant trash cans done up to look like Greek urns. In the center of the lawn a space had been covered to make a temporary dance floor. And there was a stage to the right with a drum kit, microphone stands, and a lighting gantry extending across its whole width.
Reacher continued around the balcony until he found what he was looking for. A sash window with frosted glass. A bathroom. He took out his ATM card and pushed it up into the jamb between the upper and lower panes. He worked it from side to side until the latch eased around and disengaged. He lifted the lower section an inch and looked inside. He saw a tub. A sink. A toilet. But no people. He opened the window the rest of the way and climbed through. He crossed to the door. Opened it a crack. Saw no one. He carried on to the landing. It was a broad U shape with an ornate rail around the open side, like an internal version of the balcony. The hallway was below. The stairs were at the far end. Voices were echoing up from the first floor. Three men. They sounded familiar. And they sounded angry.
Reacher crept down the stairs. He kept to one side, where the treads were least likely to creak. Made it to the hallway and crossed to the first door to the right. The men were yelling on the other side. Reacher recognized the voices from the ceremony at the prison.
Brockman said, “It’s your fault. If you hadn’t lost your nerve and hidden away like a scared little kid we—”
“You’re blowing everything out of proportion.” It was the guy who had emerged from the tent, pretending to be Begovic. “I was scared, sure. I’m not an idiot. But I was still working. Our contacts are reestablished. Deliveries resume this afternoon. I got better rates from two of our customers. There’s no shortage of demand out there. And we have all the supply we could ever need. The only question is, how much money do we want to make?”
“But Reacher saw you.”
“So?”
“And he saw the photograph. He knows you’re not Begovic.”
“Hasn’t the photo been destroyed?”
“Yes.”
“The fingerprint record replaced?”
“Yes.”
“And there’s no DNA on file for Begovic. So there’s no way to prove I’m not him. You should have talked to me at the start. I would have told you. There’s no danger. Especially since the real Begovic will be boxed up within the hour. By tomorrow he’ll be in small pieces. There’s nothing Reacher or anyone else can do to stop that.”
Reacher opened the door and walked through. He found himself in a kitchen. It looked like it had recently been renovated. The surfaces were all marble and pale wood and stainless steel. Three guys were sitting on tall stools at a breakfast bar. They all spun around.
Brockman stood up. “Reacher? The hell are you doing here?”
Reacher closed the gap between them in two strides and punched Brockman in the face. He fell back, slammed into the counter, and slid onto the floor between his two buddies.
Reacher turned to the guy who was posing as Begovic. He said, “You. Real name?”
The guy climbed down off the stool. He said, “Bite me.”
“Unusual. I bet you had a tough time at school.” Reacher punched him in the gut. The guy doubled over. Reacher slammed his elbow down into the back of his head and the guy’s legs folded and he hit the floor, face-first.
Reacher turned to Hix.
Hix stayed on his stool. His phone was in his hand. He said, “Don’t look at me. I’m not telling you a thing.”
Hix jabbed the phone three times. Reacher took it from him. There were three digits on the display: 911. But there was no call in progress. Reacher dropped the phone and crushed it with his heel. Then he walked around the counter to the business side of the kitchen. He opened the drawers in turn until he found one with utensils in it. He took out a knife. A small one. Its blade was only three inches long. But it was sharp. Designed for delicate work. Peeling. Mincing. Dicing. Reacher held it up for Hix to see. He said, “I watched you on the stage this morning. You looked like you were having fun. Like you loved the attention. The cameras. So tell me this: Would the cameras still love you if I slice your nose off and make you eat it?”
Reacher was inside the big white house for fewer than ten minutes. When he came out he was carrying a prison ID on a lanyard and a car key. He crossed to Hix’s BMW and opened the driver’s door. He leaned in and hit a button up on the ceiling near the rearview mirror. The gates started to swing back over the driveway. He called to Maurice and told him to come out from his hiding place in the trees. Then he walked to the end of the driveway and called to Hannah. He told her to retrieve the cushion from the wall and the blanket that was tied to the fender and bring the VW around to the front of the house.
Hannah parked at the bottom of the stairs leading to the front door. Jed had moved to the passenger seat. Maurice was standing nervously near the VW’s rear hood.
“OK,” Reacher said. “Here’s the deal. Jed—your father is alive. I will try to keep him that way but I’m not going to lie. He’s short on time, and he’s in a lot of trouble. So no promises. Hannah—I need you to take Jed to the Riverside Lodge. Get a room. Use the name J. P. Slough. Pay cash. Call Detective Harewood. We do need him to get the feds involved. Tell him to start here, at the house. If I’m not at the hotel in two hours, leave town. Don’t come back. Maurice—you were half right. Something is killing Minerva inmates. Maybe outsiders, too. But it’s not drugs.”
Reacher took the pillowcase and went back to the BMW. By the time he had figured out which switches and toggles to press and push to get the seat adjusted so he could fit behind the wheel, Hannah had slid into the passenger seat.
She said, “You’re trying to dump me again. That’s a nasty habit.”
Reacher said, “I’m not dumping you. You just can’t come with me this time. It’s a one-person job. And I need you to keep an eye on Jed. If things go south, if his dad doesn’t make it, he’s going to need a lot of help.”
“His dad’s really still alive?”
“I believe so.”
“Where?”
“In the prison.”
“Who’s the imposter?”
“A guy who goes by Carpenter. Might not be his real name. He’s a middle man between Minerva and the clients they supply. He sold a guy out in Paraguay ten years ago. Expected him to die in jail. He didn’t. He’s back in the States and he’s looking to get even. Minerva couldn’t wash their hands of Carpenter because they need his contacts. So Carpenter needed a new ID. They took advantage of Begovic’s pardon to make the switch. Carpenter was scared so he hid in the prison until the ceremony. Danny Peel noticed the discrepancy in the numbers. He dug. Joined the dots. Told Angela, who told Sam. The rest you know.”
“Where are the Minerva guys now? Hix and Brockman and Carpenter?”
“In the house. The kitchen.”
“We can’t leave them unguarded.”
“They’re not going anywhere.”
“Under their own steam, perhaps. But what if some of their other guys come looking for them?”
“That’s why we need Harewood to bring the FBI.”
“What if they get rescued before the feds show up?”
“That’s a risk we’ll have to run. I can’t stay and watch them. I have to get to Begovic.”
“I’ll watch them. I’m not going to run and hide and leave them with the front door open. They killed Sam. I’m not going anywhere until they’re in custody. It’s my decision. My risk to run. And I have my SIG. I’m not afraid to use it. You saw that last night.”
Reacher said nothing.
Hannah said, “This other guy who’s lurking around. Is he a revolutionary or something? Or does he just have bad dress sense?”
“His name’s Maurice. He’s a journalist. He seems harmless.”
“He can babysit Jed, then.”
“I guess.”
“Jed was right. They are going to kill his dad. And I don’t see how you can stop them.”
“I have an idea.”
“The guy’s in a prison cell. You can’t break him out. You do know that? Sam studied the ways people try to escape. You need months to plan. To observe. To find sloppiness in the guards’ routines. Faulty equipment. Building failures. Staff who are vulnerable because they’re getting divorced or they drink or use drugs or gamble or are in debt. You need luck. And even then, ninety-nine percent of attempts fail.”
“My odds are a little better than that.”
“Really? What makes you think so?”
“Harold wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. And I saw four neat triangles of grass.”
Reacher parked the BMW on Harold’s driveway. His house was small and shabby. It was a single story with peeling paint, windows caked in dirt, a minimal porch, and a scruffy weed-filled yard. Reacher started with the mailbox. It was about set to overflow. He didn’t pay much attention to the kinds of letters that were in there. He just took an elastic band from the first bundle he found and moved on to the back door. It wasn’t hard to figure out which key to use from the collection in the pillowcase. It was the most scratched one. Reacher let himself in, crossed the kitchen quickly, and followed the corridor until he found Harold’s bedroom. He opened the closet. There was only one suit hanging there. It was black. A white formal shirt was on a hanger next to it. And rolled up in a drawer, a tie. Also black. Funeral attire, Reacher thought. But that didn’t bother him. It would be fine for what he needed. He changed into Harold’s clothes and put his own things in the pillowcase. Then he moved on to the garage.
There was theoretically room in it for three cars but two of the bays were taken up by weight-lifting equipment. There were pictures on the wall of Harold in weird spandex outfits grappling with all kinds of heavy objects. Tractors. Tires. Farm animals. A wheel of cheese. Reacher had questions. The third vehicle bay was empty. There were oil stains on the floor. The remains of a paint spill. Dried-up residue from other fluid leaks. But no logbook. No meticulous records had been kept. Probably no meaningful maintenance had ever taken place in there. Reacher crossed to the tiny worktable. He took a knife. A screwdriver. A hammer. And a roll of duct tape.
When he was back in the car Reacher took all the remaining cash out of the wallets in the pillowcase. He rolled it up, secured it with the elastic band he had taken, and put it in his pocket. He emptied everything out of the pillowcase except for the tools and the SIG. Slung the lanyard with the ID on it around his neck. And drove to the prison.
The little crowd had disappeared. So had the security guards and the camera operators. The only people left outside the prison were the contractors, who were strolling around, shifting the chairs, and stacking the dismantled pieces of fence. The tent was still obscuring the entrance, though it was less rigid than it had been. Its roof was sagging and its sides were billowing in the breeze. The surface of the stage had been removed. It was piled up in the back of a truck that was sitting next to the exposed framework. Reacher parked next to the truck. He climbed out of the BMW and started to march around and stare at the contractors like a boss. The contractors looked away and pretended they hadn’t seen him.
Reacher made his way to the entrance, leaned down like he was inspecting something, and gently set the roll of money on its side, next to the fence. Then he strolled back toward the BMW. When he was close he turned to the nearest trio of contractors.
“Hey,” Reacher yelled. “You three. Stop loafing around. Get that tent taken down. We’ve got visitors coming soon. How are they supposed to get to the entrance?”
The contractors grumbled and muttered and drifted away to do as they’d been told. Reacher took the pillowcase from the car and carried it to the truck by the stage. He opened the door and put it on the passenger seat. Then he stood back and watched the contractors. He waited. After a couple of minutes one of them noticed the wad of cash. He stepped closer to it. He leaned down to pick it up. But his greed and surprise had overridden his memory. He’d gotten too close to the fence. The sensors under the ground detected his footsteps. They fired off instant signals to the security computers in the control room. A klaxon sounded. Red lights flashed. All the floodlights in the complex came on at once. And all the nearby cameras rotated on their posts to give the operators the clearest possible view of the cause of the problem.
Reacher jumped in behind the wheel of the truck, fired it up, and backed across to a spot near the fence at the foot of the closest watchtower. He grabbed the pillowcase. Gripped it in his teeth. Scrambled onto the truck’s roof. Stretched up and took hold of the railing at the top of the tower’s half wall. He pushed with his legs. Pulled with his arms. Poured himself headfirst over the railing. And was met by no one. There was no guard in the tower. No one with a gun or a uniform was in sight.
Reacher peered over the tower wall on the prison side of the fence. The grass triangle was below him, ahead around sixty degrees. It looked as green and lush as it had from the outside. From the higher elevation he could see the bricks surrounding it were painted red. A sign for people to keep away from it. Because of its purpose. It was a pit for guards to fire warning shots into. Its ground was soft. It was absorbent. It posed no danger of ricochets. There had been at least one riot recently. Hannah had told him about it. But there was no bullet damage in the neatly manicured grass. Therefore the towers were no longer used, except as window dressing when Hix was staging a publicity stunt. The heavy lifting in the world of surveillance was done by electronics now. Cameras and sensors. Reacher smiled to himself. It was like they used to say in the army. Sometimes there’s no substitute for the Eyeball, Human, Mark One.