CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Thursday, January 13

6:05 p.m.

Stanwix Village, New York

Parnell parked the rental in front of a row of rectangular homes clad in white vinyl siding resting on concrete slab foundations. Probably manufactured somewhere and trailered here, he figured. Each building was thirty-feet by eighty-feet, give or take. A horizontal wall divided the buildings in half, creating two homes under one roof. Each duplex unit was thirty-by-forty, about twelve-hundred square feet of utilitarian living space.

The buildings were spaced twenty feet apart, adjacent to a sidewalk that followed the winding curves of the streets. A young tree, bare of leaves, perched on each lawn. Perhaps there were small lawns and flower gardens under the snow. Hard to tell.

No garages. Old vehicles of various kinds were parked in front of about half of the homes. Parnell figured the duplexes without vehicles were either unoccupied or the residents owned no personal transportation. Could be either. Given the population of disabled veterans who lived here, it was unlikely the residents had hopped into their trucks and headed off to work.

He had scouted the planned community only briefly after the tedious drive to Upstate New York from the city. He’d wasted too much time at the Dakota, which meant he’d arrived in Stanwix Village not long before dark. During the quick drive-through, he’d seen lights burning, and a blue television screen flickered inside the unit that interested him. Nick Scavo was home. Which was all he needed to know. He’d been searching for Scavo for a long time.

Parnell began looking for Scavo right after the business with the three stooges in Baghdad, at the same time he started his hunt for Reacher. Both men were completely off the grid. Both could have been dead. For quite a while, Parnell could find no evidence to the contrary in either case.

After months of fruitless searching, he caught a lucky break. Scavo’s passport pinged at London’s Heathrow airport. Scavo had used it to board a nonstop flight to JFK. Parnell had tracked him easily from that point.

When Scavo’s flight arrived in New York City, he’d stayed in the city for four days. About half of those hours were spent at a hospital. The remaining hours had been unaccounted for, until Parnell’s visit to the Dakota.

Thanks to the blubbery Simon Peck, Parnell now knew Scavo had spent those hours stealing his nine million dollars. While he was there, Scavo must have also taken the documents revealing the location of the rest of Parnell’s funds.

When he left the city, Scavo had traveled by train to Upstate New York. He spent a few days in a VA hospital. After that, he moved into a low-rent boarding house on the edge of town, where he remained until last month. When he moved here.

Parnell had assumed the Stanwix Veterans Village duplex was subsidized by the government. Scavo had no income he had claimed on a tax return. Which meant he couldn’t qualify for a mortgage or even a decent rental, but he could qualify for subsidies.

Until the Dakota, Parnell figured Scavo’s living conditions were unremarkable. Scavo, like every member of the Colonel’s crew, was ex-military. He’d been discharged nine years ago. He wasn’t the best the army had to offer, but he wasn’t the worst, either.

He’d received a general discharge in the normal course of events. Which meant he’d never been good enough to qualify for medals, but he’d never been charged with any bad acts they could actually prove.

Bottom line, because of his service and lack of income, Scavo must have been entitled to certain veteran’s benefits which, in his case, apparently included subsidized housing.

Parnell turned off the engine and stepped out of the car. Cold wind blew across the powdery snow, whipping his legs and stinging his eyes. The short sidewalk leading from the curb to Scavo’s duplex was shoveled recently, but blowing snow had drifted across the concrete here and there, making it treacherously slick.

He covered the distance carefully, struggling to maintain his footing. The last thing he needed was to land on his ass.

He plodded up three icy steps to the four-by-seven concrete stoop running in front of two adjacent doors, one on each side of the dividing wall leading to each unit. An aluminum awning covered the stoop and protected both doors from rain, but not from wind.

Scavo’s unit was 17A, on the left. Parnell raised a gloved hand and pushed the doorbell. The first six notes of “The Star Spangled Banner” chimed in appealing tones from inside. He shook his head. Schmaltzy.

A minute later, the interior door swung open. Parnell stood on one side of the storm door and made every effort not to stare.

A shell of the man who had been Nick Scavo stood on the other. Warm moist air fogged the glass that separated them. Neither man moved.

Parnell was the first to blink. Scavo was barely recognizable. The big man described in his army files and depicted in his passport photo had vanished. This wreck had been aged by long, hard years rather than the mere passage of time.

But even those hardships didn’t explain Scavo’s skeletal appearance. His body had wasted to near nothingness.

He had lost at least sixty pounds, much of it muscle. His chest was concave, and his back bowed, like a human question mark. His left hand was wrapped around the brass handle of the heavy cane he leaned on.

Scavo’s gaunt face was as emaciated as his body. A furry brow ridge protruded beyond sunken brown eyes accented by coal dark smudges, like a football player’s eye black grease. The black hair in the photo was still thick, but all white now, which accentuated his colorless albino skin.

Somehow, Scavo had been separated and left behind by the Colonel’s crew during that West African revolution. He hadn’t died, as the three stooges assumed.

But something horrific had happened to him. Scavo probably felt the Colonel owed him. Maybe that’s why he stole Parnell’s money. Not that Parnell cared about his motives.

Briefly, he considered forcing his way inside. He was armed. He was bigger, more fit, and highly motivated. Should Scavo resist, the fight would be short, and the outcome assured. At the moment, though, resistance seemed unlikely.

He’d try the easy way first. He could move on to the hard way, should the situation prove unmanageable.

Parnell raised his voice to be heard over the whistling wind and through the glass. “Nick Scavo?”

“That’s right, General Parnell.” Scavo nodded, surprising words spoken in a strong voice. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Parnell paused. But Parnell was a man who took life exactly as it came, moment by moment, supremely confident that he could handle whatever came his way and conquer it. Which he always had.

“May I come in? It’s damn cold out here.”

Scavo paused a moment longer before he waved Parnell forward and limped away from the cold draft.

Parnell opened the storm door and stepped into Scavo’s home, which was like entering the hammams, Turkish steam baths Parnell had frequented in Istanbul. The limited square footage, squeezed by the clammy heat, enveloped him with mild claustrophobia.

One glance around the place was all it took to confirm that Scavo had not spent Parnell’s money on home decorating. The lightweight furnishings could have been ordered from a catalog and delivered in flat boxes for assembly. Or maybe purchased as a whole room from a discount warehouse. Everything was cheap and small and arranged in the open floor plan by someone with a sense of design beyond Scavo’s expertise.

At this point, Parnell figured his nine million dollars probably wasn’t stored on the premises. So where was his money?

“Are you alone?” Parnell asked. He craned his neck and peered into the hallway that probably led to one small bedroom and a smaller bath.

“Look around if it will make you more comfortable,” Scavo replied while continuing his halting progress.

He moved so slowly that Parnell could have searched every square inch of the place with a magnifying glass before Scavo made it to wherever he was headed.

Parnell walked through into a short corridor, one flimsy pressboard door on either side. He opened the door on the right, which was a cheaply constructed bath. A sink, toilet, and narrow shower.

The door on the left opened into a ten-by-ten bedroom. A full-sized bed on a low frame and no headboard took up most of the floor space. No bedside tables or lamps. No pictures on the walls. No room for a small chair. One window, covered with the same plastic mini blinds that Parnell had noticed on the other windows.

The closet ran across one end of the room. Both flimsy bi-fold doors stood open. A single metal pole was the only organizing principle. Half a dozen shirts and two pairs of pants hung on plastic hangers on the pole. A cardboard box on the floor held a jumble of underwear and socks. A pair of running shoes rested next to the box.

In short, nothing here. No backup. No nine million dollars. Nothing worth stealing.

Parnell returned to the all-purpose room. Scavo’s crab-like movements had eventually carried him to a straight chair at the kitchen table. Parnell waited for Scavo to get settled, which seemed to take way too long.

“Satisfied, General Parnell?” Scavo finally asked.