Bad Luck and Trouble

"OK," Reacher said. "We’ll go at one in the morning. Dinner at six. Get some rest."

The others headed for the door. He followed them out, with the keys to the captured Chrysler in his hand. Neagley looked at him, quizzically.

"We don’t need it anymore," he said to her. "I’m going to give it back. But first I’m going to have it washed. We should try to be civilized."

Reacher drove the Chrysler back to Van Nuys Boulevard, north of the Ventura Freeway. The auto strip, where there were car-related enterprises of every kind lined up side by side, one after the other. Dealers, obviously, new and used, cheap and expensive, gaudy and restrained, but also tire shops, wheel shops, paintless dent repair, lube franchises, muffler-and-shock shops, and accessory stores.

And car washes.

There was a huge choice. Machine washing, brushless hand washing, underbody steam cleaning, three-stage waxing, full service detailing. He drove a mile up and a mile back and picked out four places that offered everything. He stopped at the first of them and asked for the total treatment. A swarm of guys in coveralls took over and he stood in the sun and watched them work. First the interior was vacuumed out and then the whole car was dragged through a glass tunnel on a moving chain and was sprayed by a sequence of nozzles with water and all kinds of foams and fluids. Guys with sponges washed the sheet metal and guys on plastic steps lathered the roof. Then the car passed under a roaring air dryer and was driven out to the apron, where other guys waited to attack the interior with aerosols and rags. They went over every inch and left it gleaming and immaculate and damp with oily residue. Reacher paid and tipped and pulled his gloves out of his pocket and put them on and drove the car away.

He stopped a hundred yards farther on, at the second place he had picked out, and asked for the whole process to be repeated all over again. The receptionist looked puzzled for a second and then shrugged and waved a crew over. Reacher stood in the sun again and watched the show. The vacuum, the shampoo, the interior, the aerosols, and the towels. He paid and tipped and put his gloves back on and drove back to the motel.

He left the car in a corner of the lot, in the sun, where it would dry. Then he walked a long block south to Fountain Avenue. Found a place that had started out as a pharmacy and then had become the kind of drugstore that sold all kinds of small household items. He went in and bought four flashlights. Three-cell Maglites, black, powerful enough to be useful, small enough to be maneuverable, big enough to be used as clubs. The girl at the register put them in a white bag with I love LA on it, three capital letters and a red heart-shaped symbol. Reacher carried the bag back to the motel, swinging it gently, listening to the quiet rustle of plastic.

They couldn’t face Denny’s again for dinner. They called out to Domino’s instead, for pizzas, and ate them in the battered lounge next to the laundry room. They drank soda from a noisy red machine outside the door. A perfect meal, for what they had in mind. Some empty calories, some fats, some complex carbohydrates. Time-release energy, good for about twelve hours. An army doctor had explained it all to them, many years before.

"Objectives for tonight?" O’Donnell asked.

"Three," Reacher said. "First, Dixon hits the reception desk for anything useful. Second, Neagley finds the dragon lady’s office and hits that. You and I hit the other offices for whatever else they’ve got. A hundred and twenty seconds, in and out. Then third, we ID the security people when they show up."

"We’re waiting around afterward?"

"I am," Reacher said. "You guys are heading back."

Reacher went up to his room and brushed his teeth and took a long hot shower. Then he stretched out full length on the bed and took a nap. The clock in his head woke him at half past midnight. He stretched and brushed his teeth again and dressed. Gray denim pants, gray shirt, black windbreaker zipped all the way up. Boots, tightly laced. Gloves on. The Chrysler keys in one pants pocket, the spare Glock mag in the other. The captured cell phone from Vegas in one shirt pocket, his own phone in the other. The Maglite in one jacket pocket, the Glock itself in the other. Nothing else.

He walked out to the lot at ten minutes before one o’clock. The others were already there, a shadowy trio standing well away from any pools of light.

"OK," he said. He turned to O’Donnell and Neagley. "You guys drive your Hondas." He turned to Dixon. "Karla, you drive mine. You park it close, facing west, and you leave the keys in for me. Then you ride back with Dave."

Dixon said, "Are you really going to leave the Chrysler there?"

"We don’t need it."

"It’s full of our prints and hair and fiber."

"Not anymore. A bunch of guys up on Van Nuys just made sure of that. Now let’s go."

They bumped fists like ballplayers, an old ritual, and then they dispersed and climbed into their cars. Reacher slid into the Chrysler and started it up, the heavy V-8 beat slow and loud in the darkness. He heard the Hondas start, their smaller engines coughing and popping and their big-bore mufflers throbbing. He backed out of his slot and turned and headed for the exit. In his mirror he saw three pairs of bright blue headlights strung out behind him. He swung east on Sunset and south on La Brea and then east again on Wilshire and saw the others following him all the way, a ragged little convoy hanging together in the light nighttime traffic.

63

The great city went quiet after they passed MacArthur Park and hit the 110. To their right, downtown was silent and deserted. There were lights on in Chinatown, but no visible activity. In the other direction Dodger Stadium was huge and dark and empty. Then they came off the freeway and plunged into the surface streets to the east. Navigation had been difficult by day and was worse by night. But Reacher had made the trip three times before, twice as a passenger and once as a driver, and he figured he could spot the turns.

And he did, without a problem. He slowed three blocks before New Age’s building and let the others close up behind him. Then he led them through a wide two-block circle, for caution’s sake. Then a closer pass, on a one-block radius. There was mist in the air. The glass cube looked dark and deserted. The ornamental trees in the lot were up-lit with decorative spots and the light spilled a little and reflected off the building’s mirror siding, but apart from that there was no specific illumination. The razor wire on the fence looked dull gray in the darkness and the main gate was closed. Reacher slowed next to it and dropped his window and stuck his arm out and made a circular gesture with his gloved finger in the air, like a baseball umpire signaling a home run. One more go-round. He led them through three-quarters of a round trip and then pointed at the curb where he wanted them to park. First Neagley, then O’Donnell behind her, then Dixon in his own silver Prelude. They slowed and stopped and he made throat-cutting gestures and they shut their motors down and climbed out. O’Donnell detoured all the way to the gate and came back and said, "It’s a very big lock." Reacher was still at the wheel of the idling Chrysler. His window was still open. He said, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall."

"We doing this stealthy?"

"Not very," Reacher said. "I’ll meet you at the gate."

They walked ahead and he put the Chrysler in gear and followed them, slowly. The roads all around New Age’s block were standard twenty-two-foot blacktop ribbons, typical of new business park construction. No sidewalks. This was LA. Twenty-one thousand miles of surface streets, probably fewer than twenty-one thousand yards of sidewalk. New Age’s gate was set in a curved scallop maybe twenty feet deep, so that arriving vehicles could pull off the roadway and wait. Total distance between the gate and the far curb, forty-two feet. Automatically the manic part of Reacher’s mind told him that was the same as fourteen yards or 504 inches or.795 percent of a mile, or a hair over 1,280 centimeters in European terms. He turned ninety degrees into the scallop and straightened head-on and brought the Chrysler’s front bumper to within an inch of the gate. Then he reversed straight back all the way until he felt the rear tires touch the far curb. He put his foot hard on the brake and slotted the transmission back into drive and dropped all four windows. Night air blew in, sharp and cold. The others looked at him and he pointed to where he wanted them, two on the left of the gate and one on the right.