The Hard Way

So Reacher gave it up and just waited for the phone to ring.

It rang right on time, at six in the evening. Lane picked it up and listened. He didn’t speak. He didn’t ask for Kate. Reacher figured he had learned that the privilege of hearing his wife’s voice was reserved for the first call in any given sequence. The demand call. Not the instruction call.

This instruction call lasted less than two minutes. Then the electronic squawk cut off abruptly and Lane put the receiver back in the cradle and gave a bitter little half-smile, like he was reluctantly admiring a hated opponent’s skill.

"This is the final installment," he said. "After this, it’s over. They promise I get her back."

Too soon, Reacher thought. Ain’t going to happen.

Gregory asked, "What do we do?"

"One hour from now," Lane said. "One man leaves here alone with the money in the black BMW and cruises anywhere he wants. He’ll be carrying my cell phone and he’ll get a call anywhere between one and twenty minutes into the ride. He’ll be given a destination. He’s to keep the line open from that point on so they know he’s not conversing with anyone else in the car or on any other phones or on any kind of a radio net. He’ll drive to the destination he’s been given. He’ll find the Jaguar parked on the street there. The car that Taylor drove Kate in, the first morning. It’ll be unlocked. He’s to put the money on the back seat and drive away and not look back. Any chase cars, any coordination with anyone else, any tricks at all, and Kate dies."

"They’ve got your cell phone number?" Reacher asked.

"Kate will have given it to them."

"I’ll be the driver," Gregory said. "If you want."

"No," Lane said. "I want you here."

"I’ll do it," Burke said. The black guy.

Lane nodded. "Thank you."

"Then what?" Reacher asked. "How do we get her back?"

Lane said, "After they’ve counted the money, there’ll be another call."

"On the cell or here?"

"Here," Lane said. "It will take some time. Counting large sums is an arduous process. Not for me at this end. The money is already bricked and banded and labeled. But they won’t trust that. They’ll break the bands and examine the bills and count them by hand."

Reacher nodded. It was a problem he had never really considered before. If the money was in hundreds, that would give them forty-five thousand bills. If they could count to a hundred every sixty seconds, that would take them four hundred and fifty minutes, which was seven and a half hours. Maybe six hours drive time, and seven and a half counting time. A long night ahead, he thought. For them and for us.

Lane said, "Why are they using the Jaguar?"

"It’s a taunt," Reacher said. "It’s to remind you."

Lane nodded.

"Office," he said. "Burke, and Reacher."

In the office Lane took a small silver Samsung phone out of a charging cradle and handed it to Burke. Then he disappeared, to his bedroom, maybe.

"Gone to get the money," Burke said.

Reacher nodded. Gazed at the twin portraits on the desk. Two beautiful women, both equally stunning, roughly the same age, but with no real similarities. Anne Lane had been blonde and blue, somehow a child of the sixties even though she must have been born well after that decade was over. She had long straight hair parted in the middle, like a singer or a model or an actress. She had clear guileless eyes and an innocent smile. A flower child, even though house or hip hop or acid jazz would have been the thing when she got her first record player. Kate Lane was more a child of the eighties or nineties. More subtle, more worldly, more accomplished.

"No kids with Anne, right?" Reacher asked.

"No," Burke said. "Thank God."

So maybe motherhood accounted for the difference. There was a weight to Kate, a gravity, a heft, not physical, but somewhere deep inside her. Choose one to spend the night with, you might well pick Anne. To spend the week with, you might want Kate.

Lane came back awkwardly with a bulging leather bag. He dropped the bag on the floor and sat down at his desk.

"How long?" he asked.

"Forty minutes," Reacher said.

Burke checked his watch.

"Yes," he said. "Forty minutes."

"Go wait in the other room," Lane said. "Leave me alone."

Burke went for the bag but Reacher picked it up for him. It was heavy and wide, and easier for a big guy to manage. He carried it to the foyer and dropped it near the door where its predecessor had waited twelve hours before. It flopped and settled like the same dead animal. Reacher took a seat and started counting off the minutes. Burke paced. Carter Groom drummed his fingers on the arm of a chair, frustrated. The Recon Marine, beached. I’m all business, he had said. I’m nothing, away from the action. Next to him Gregory sat quiet, all British reserve. Next to him was Perez, the Latino, tiny. Next to him was Addison, with the scarred face. A knife, probably, Reacher thought. Then Kowalski, taller than the others but still small next to Reacher himself. Special Forces guys were usually small. They were usually lean, fast, and whippy. Built for endurance and stamina and full of smarts and cunning. Like foxes, not like bears.

Nobody talked. There was nothing to talk about, except the fact that the end of a kidnap was always the period of greatest risk. What was there that compelled kidnappers to keep their word? Honor? A sense of business ethics? Why risk a complex transfer when a shallow grave and a bullet in the victim’s head were a whole lot safer and simpler? Humanity? Decency? Reacher glanced at Kate Lane’s picture next to the phone and went a little cold. She was closer to dead now than at any point in the last three days, and he knew it. He guessed they all knew it.

"Time," Burke said. "I’m going."

"I’ll carry the bag for you," Reacher said. "You know, down to the car."

They rode down in the elevator. In the ground floor lobby a small dark woman in a long black coat swept past surrounded by tall men in suits, like staff or assistants or bodyguards.

"Was that Yoko?" Reacher said.

But Burke didn’t answer. He just walked past the doorman and out to the curb. The black BMW was waiting there. Burke opened the rear door.

"Stick the bag on the back seat," he said. "Easier for me that way, for a seat-to-seat transfer."

"I’m coming with you," Reacher said.

"That’s stupid, man."

"I’ll be on the floor in back. It’ll be safe enough."

"What’s the point?"

"We have to do something. You know as well as I do there’s not going to be any cute little Checkpoint Charlie scene in this story. She’s not going to come tottering toward us through the mist and the fog, smiling bravely, with Jade holding her hand. That’s not going to happen. So we’re going to have to get proactive at some point."

"What are you planning to do?"

"After you’ve switched the bag I’ll get out around the next corner. I’ll double back and see what I can see."

"Who says you’ll see anything?"

"They’ll have four and a half million bucks sitting in an unlocked car. My guess is they won’t leave it there very long. So I’ll see something."

"Will it help us?"

"A lot more than sitting upstairs doing nothing will help us."

"Lane will kill me."

"He doesn’t have to know anything about it. I’ll be back well after you. You’ll say you have no idea what happened to me. I’ll say I went for a walk."