Tripwire

Reacher shook his head. "Biggest heart you ever saw."

"I found that out," she said. "When Mom died, we were best friends for ten years. I loved him."

"I loved him, too," Reacher said. "Like he was my dad, not yours."

She nodded again. "He still talked about you all the time."

Reacher looked away. Stared out at the unfocused shape of the West Point buildings, gray in the haze. He was numb. He was in that age zone where people he knew died. His father was dead, his mother was dead, his brother was dead. Now the nearest thing to a substitute relative was dead, too.

"He had a heart attack six months ago," Jodie said. Her eyes clouded and she hooked her long, straight hair behind her ear. "He sort of recovered for a spell, looked pretty good, but really he was failing fast. They were considering a bypass, but he took a turn for the worse and went down too quickly. He wouldn’t have survived the surgery."

"I’m very sorry," he said, for the third time.

She turned alongside him and threaded her arm through his.

"Don’t be," she said. "He was always a very contented guy. Better for him to go fast. I couldn’t see him being happy lingering on."

Reacher had a flash in his mind of the old Garber, bustling and raging, a fireball of energy, and he understood how desperate it would have made him to become an invalid. Understood too how that overloaded old heart had finally given up the struggle. He nodded, unhappily.

"Come and meet some people," Jodie said. "Maybe you know some of them."

"I’m not dressed for this," he said. "I feel bad. I should go."

"Doesn’t matter," she said. "You think Dad would care?"

He saw Garber in his old creased khaki and his battered hat. He was the worst-dressed officer in the U.S. Army, all thirteen years Reacher had served under him. He smiled, briefly.

"I guess he wouldn’t mind," he said.

She walked him onto the lawn. There were maybe six people out of the hundred he recognized. A couple of the guys in uniform were familiar. A handful in suits were men he’d worked with here and there in another lifetime. He shook hands with dozens of people and tried to listen to the names, but they went in one ear and out the other. Then the quiet chatter and the eating and the drinking started up again, the crowd closed around him, and the sensation of his untidy arrival was smoothed over and forgotten. Jodie still had hold of his arm. Her hand was cool on his skin.

"I’m looking for somebody," he said. "That’s why I’m here, really."

"I know," she said. "Mrs. Jacob, right?"

He nodded.

"Is she here?" he asked.

"I’m Mrs. Jacob," she said.

THE TWO GUYS in the black Tahoe backed it out of the line of cars, out from under the power lines so the car phone would work without interference. The driver dialed a number and the ring tone filled the quiet vehicle. Then the call was answered sixty miles south and eighty-eight floors up.

"Problems, boss," the driver said. "There’s some sort of a wake going on here, a funeral or something. Must be a hundred people milling around. We got no chance of grabbing this Mrs. Jacob. We can’t even tell which one she is. There are dozens of women here, she could be any one of them."

The speaker relayed a grunt from Hobie. "And?"

"The guy from the bar down in the Keys? He just showed up here in a damn taxi. Got here about ten minutes after we did, strolled right in."

The speaker crackled. No discernible reply.

"So what do we do?" the driver asked.

"Stick with it," Hobie’s voice said. "Maybe hide the vehicle and lay up someplace. Wait until everybody leaves. It’s her house, as far as I can tell. Maybe the family home or a weekend place. So everybody else will leave, and she’ll be the one who stays. Don’t you come back here without her, OK?"

"What about the big guy?"

"If he leaves, let him go. If he doesn’t, waste him. But bring me this Jacob woman."

"YOU’RE MRS. JACOB?" Reacher asked.

Jodie Garber nodded.

"Am, was," she said. "I’m divorced, but I keep the name for work."

"Who was he?"

She shrugged.

"A lawyer, like me. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"How long?"

"Three years, beginning to end. We met at law school, got married when we got jobs. I stayed on Wall Street, but he went to a firm in D.C., couple of years ago. The marriage didn’t go with him, just kind of petered out. The papers came through last fall. I could hardly remember who he was. Just a name, Alan Jacob."

Reacher stood in the sunny yard and looked at her. He realized he was upset that she had been married. She had been a skinny kid, but totally gorgeous at fifteen, self-confident and innocent and a little shy about it all at the same time. He had watched the battle between her shyness and her curiosity as she sat and worked up the courage to talk to him about death and life and good and evil. Then she would fidget and tuck her bony knees up under her and work the conversation around to love and sex and men and women. Then she would blush and disappear. He would be left alone, icy inside, captivated by her and angry at himself for it. Days later he would see her somewhere around the base, still blushing furiously. And now fifteen years later she was a grown woman, college and law school, married and divorced, beautiful and composed and elegant, standing there in her dead father’s yard with her arm linked through his.

"Are you married?" she asked him.

He shook his head. "No."

"But are you happy?"

"I’m always happy," he said. "Always was, always will be."

"Doing what?"

He shrugged.

"Nothing much," he said.

He glanced over the top of her head and scanned the faces in the crowd. Subdued busy people, substantial lives, big careers, all of them moving steadily from A to Z. He looked at them and wondered if they were the fools, or if he was. He recalled the expression on Costello’s face.

"I was just in the Keys," he said. "Digging swimming pools with a shovel."

Her face didn’t change. She tried to squeeze his forearm with her hand, but her hand was too small and his arm was too big. It came out as a gentle pressure from her palm.

"Costello find you down there?" she asked.

He didn’t find me to invite me to a funeral, he thought.

"We need to talk about Costello," he said.

"He’s good, isn’t he’?"

Not good enough, he thought. She moved away to circulate through the crowd. People were waiting to offer their second-layer condolences. They were getting loose from the wine, and the buzz of talk was getting louder and more sentimental. Reacher drifted over to a patio, where a long table with a white cloth held food. He loaded a paper plate with cold chicken and rice and took a glass of water. There was an ancient patio furniture set, ignored by the others because it was all spotted with little gray-green botanical droppings from the trees. The sun umbrella was stiff and faded white. Reacher ducked under it and sat quietly in a dirty chair on his own.

He watched the crowd as he ate. People were reluctant to leave. The affection for old Leon Garber was palpable. A guy like that generates affection in others, maybe too much to express to his face, so it has to all come out later. Jodie was moving through the crowd, nodding, clasping hands, smiling sadly. Everybody had a tale to tell her, an anecdote about witnessing Garber’s heart of gold peeping out from under his gruff and irascible exterior. He could add a few stories. But he wouldn’t, because Jodie didn’t need it explained to her that her father had been one of the good guys. She knew. She was moving with the serenity of a person who had loved the old guy all her life, and had been loved back. There was nothing she had neglected to tell him, nothing he had neglected to tell her. People live, and then they die, and as long as they do both things properly, there’s nothing much to regret.

THEY FOUND A place on the same road that was obviously a weekend cottage, closed up tight and unoccupied. They backed the Tahoe around behind the garage where it was hidden from the street, but ready for pursuit. They took the nine-millimeters out of the glove box and stowed them in their jacket pockets. Walked back down to the road and ducked into the undergrowth.

It was hard going. They were just sixty miles north of Manhattan, but they might as well have been in the jungles of Borneo. There were ragged vines tangled everywhere, grabbing at them, tripping them, whipping their faces and hands. The trees were second-growth native broadleafs, growing wild, basically weeds, and their branches came out of them at crazy low angles. They took to walking backward, forcing their way through. When they got level with the Garber driveway, they were panting and gasping and smeared with moss and green pollen dust. They pushed through onto the property and found a depression in the ground where they were concealed. They ducked left and right to get a view of the pathway leading up from the backyard. People were heading out, getting ready to leave.

It was becoming obvious which one was Mrs. Jacob. If Hobie was right and this was her place, then she was the thin blond shaking hands and saying good-bye like all these departing people had been her guests. They were leaving, she was staying. She was Mrs. Jacob. They watched her, the center of attention, smiling bravely, embracing, waving. People filed up the driveway, ones and twos, then larger groups. Cars were starting. Blue exhaust haze was drifting. They could hear the hiss and groan of power steering as people eased out of the tight line. The rub of tires on pavement. The burble of motors accelerating away down the road. This was going to be easy. Pretty soon she was going to be standing there all by herself, all choked up and sad. Then she was going to get a couple of extra visitors. Maybe she would see them coming and take them for a couple of mourners arriving late. After all, they were dressed in dark suits and ties. What fits in Manhattan ‘s financial district looks just about right for a funeral.