CHAPTER SIX
Thursday, November 11
5:45 p.m.
New York City
Kim’s toes had finally begun to thaw. Settled at a back table inside The Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station, she and Gaspar were on their third cups of hot coffee and working their way through bowls of steaming clam chowder.
She was tempted to book rooms upstairs at the Grand Hyatt, buy new clothes, and figure out the rest tomorrow, but they’d optimistically booked a flight back to DC at 9:45 p.m. instead. Storm gods willing, they’d actually be asleep in a somewhat familiar DC hotel before midnight and have clean clothes tomorrow. She’d collect her laptop and have access to secure files as well. For now, she wanted to eat and figure out what the hell to do next while they waited for Colonel Silver to send the photos he’d promised and for the storm to release them.
Gaspar looked more exhausted than she felt. The alley grime on his clothes had dried and begun to smell.
“Where are we?” Kim asked.
“Same place we were this morning. Nowhere.”
Kim might have argued if Gaspar wasn’t so obviously correct. She applied her attention to the chowder and considered what she knew, what she’d guessed, and what she still needed to find out.
Reacher’s behavior had become her fixation since she’d received her assignment. Kim had spent years studying human behavior. She knew what was reasonable and what wasn’t. Sometimes, she could tell what criminals would do before they did it. And she could analyze their activities exceptionally well afterwards, which was not as good, but still helpful. She wasn’t a profiler by training, but what she had was an odd, savant-like talent based on instinct and experience. She’d honed the talent over the years to something akin to a fine art form. She couldn’t explain it or defend it, but she relied on the ability as she relied on ever-present oxygen.
She wished she could see Reacher’s face up close, though. And hear him speak. She’d never heard his voice. She’d seen him move on videotape once and she replayed the video in her mind.
At this point, she knew she would recognize Reacher in a dark alley when he was completely shadowed. But if she could meet him, study him, she would memorize his smell, his gestures, his voice timbre and cadence and syntax.
Did he have an accent? What kind? Was his voice gravelly and rough? Or smooth? What did the texture of his skin say about his physical activities? His hands were the size of shovels, but were they roughened by heavy work? Or softened by disuse? Did he have good teeth? She’d never seen him smile broadly. Army dental records suggested he’d had the usual cavities for a kid before Fluoride became ubiquitous. Had he worn braces? Have an overbite? A lisp?
She heard herself sigh and felt her shoulders sag with fatigue and disappointment. The problem was the same as it always was with this assignment. She just did not know enough, and she was battling on two fronts that she simply could not control. One, acquire more data. Two, face Reacher.
Preferably in that order.
The server approached with more coffee, which both Kim and Gaspar accepted. “Would you like dessert? We have terrific pie.”
Kim looked down. She’d finished the last of her chowder without realizing she’d eaten it all. “No. Thank you.”
Gaspar said, “Sure. Apple? With ice cream?”
The server collected the empty chowder bowls and before she hurried away said, “Coming right up.”
Gaspar rested his forearms on the table and leaned toward her. “Figure everything out yet?”
“It would help tremendously if we knew why the Boss wants Reacher’s file completed.”
“No kidding.”
She knew the Boss well. He had a reason for this assignment and the reason wouldn’t necessarily be kosher. Which was okay. It was the not knowing that was not okay. Not knowing could get her killed. It almost had already.
“I was running the video we saw of Reacher head-butting that dude through my mind again,” she said. They’d been given only one opportunity to watch the video, without sound, before it was taken from them. But Kim could remember every frame as if the short video were running on a continuous loop in her head.
In her mind’s eye, she saw Reacher hitchhiking along the deserted country road. She watched as he caught a ride in a small sedan driven by an attractive young woman with a young boy in the car. The woman was distracted by the child and rear-ended a truck. The truck driver jumped out, pulled the woman from the car and attacked her. Reacher bolted from the vehicle and stopped the attacker with a quick, vicious head-butt. The attacker fell to the ground and cracked his skull on the pavement. Reacher left the scene, headed toward New York City.
Just two days ago.
“And?”
“Compared it to the first video we acquired.” Last week, they’d seen and studied a better quality video in Margrave, Georgia. A man they’d thought was Reacher impersonated a U.S. Marshall to break an inmate out of the local jail.
“And?” Gaspar asked again.
She shook her head slowly. “Definitely not Reacher on the Margrave video.”
“Because?”
She shared each comparison point slowly, even though she felt confident in her conclusions. The knowledge might save both their lives. “Reacher’s taller, broader, looser limbed. His posture’s better and his hands are bigger. Gestures more contained and defined. No wasted motions.”
The server brought Gaspar’s pie, a piece big enough to feed Kim for a week. Then she refilled their coffee mugs and left them alone.
Gaspar dug into the pie like a man who hadn’t eaten in decades. His appetite amused and amazed Kim every time she witnessed it. If she ate in one month the amount of calories he consumed in one meal, she’d be as big as one of her mother’s Buddha statues.
As it always did, her mind returned to Reacher. He was starting to feel very familiar to her, even though she had uncovered only a limited number of data points. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
In a moment of unanticipated confrontation, such familiarity might save her life, or cost it. Impossible to tell in advance.
But when there’s only one choice, it’s the right choice.
The only thing she could do was keep working on the puzzle, one interlocking piece after another, until she could see the entire picture. When would that happen?
“Any flashes of brilliance over there, Sunshine?” Gaspar asked, talking around his mouthful of pie and ice cream, as if she’d solved their knotty problems when he knew damn well they’d acquired precisely nothing of use this entire, miserable day.
She smirked. “Absolutely. I figure Reacher will be joining us for dinner three days from now at 7:32 p.m. at the Capital Grille in Chicago.”
Gaspar’s right eyebrow shot up in a perfect demonstration of his quizzical nature. As if she’d been dead serious, he swallowed and replied, “I’ve got fifty bucks that says you’re right.”
She laughed out loud, which, strangely enough, made her feel a bit more normal. Finally.
“Is Dixon with Reacher?” Kim asked.
“Too many variables to hypothesize at this point, don’t you think?”
“I don’t like it.”
“Like what?”
“Probably two and maybe three of Reacher’s special unit left, and we can’t find even one of them. It’s not normal.”
“There is nothing normal about this entire assignment. We established that a long while back, Sunshine.”
“This is beyond abnormal.”
“How so?”
“Nine soldiers survive long stints and tough jobs in the Army. They get out and survive a long while. Later, in no special order, one disappears off the planet and five are dead, none by natural causes.”
“As far as we know,” Gaspar reminded.
“Right.”
“Like I said, it’s beyond abnormal. Weird, in fact. Outside of Mafia crime families and gang wars, I can’t think of any reason why that many members of a single group of any kind would find themselves in this situation. Can you?”
He seemed to consider her question and finally said, “No.”
“Right,” she said again. “If we have any prayer of learning anything useful about Reacher from his Army buddies, our last clear chance is Frances Neagley in Chicago.”
“And we need to get to her before she ends up dead or missing, too.”
“So you agree that Reacher’s on his way and has a three-day head start, then?”
Gaspar shrugged. “Who knows if he’s with Dixon or Neagley, neither or both?”
Too many mysteries, unanswered questions, unbelievable situations. All of them revolved around Reacher. That was the only part lacking surprise.
The server came back with the coffee pot, the check, and unwelcome if not surprising news. “You folks aren’t flying anywhere tonight, are you? Just heard they’ve closed the airports until tomorrow morning. A big jet slid off the runway and they’ve got a mess with cleaning that up in addition to the sleet storm.”
Kim didn’t even bother complaining. Sometimes, it just wasn’t worth the effort.
She pulled out her phone and pressed the redial on the number for the Grand Hyatt Hotel to confirm the tentative reservations she’d already made. Before she could make the connection, her screen reflected a new message from H. Silver, with attachments.