Never Go Back

Reacher said, ‘It’s time to flip that coin, Pete. Heads or tails.’

‘Do you have a plan?’

‘We’re going back to D.C. You don’t need to bring us home. We’re going anyway.’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘That’s where Morgan is.’

‘That’s where they all are.’

Espin said, ‘Suppose you agree we fly together?’

Reacher said, ‘Works for us. But only you. No one else.’

‘Why?’

‘I want you to leave your guys here another day. The last of the four from Fort Bragg is hanging around. He thinks the girl still works as bait. So I want her protected. She might not be mine, but she’s a sweet kid. Maybe because she’s not mine.’

‘I guess my guys could spare a day.’

‘I want close personal protection, but unobtrusive. Don’t scare her. Treat it like an exercise. Because it’s likely nothing more than theoretical, anyway. It’s us he wants. And he’ll know what plane we’re on, because Romeo will tell him. So he’ll be right behind us. He might even be on the same flight.’

Espin said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘Make your mind up, soldier.’

Espin said, ‘I don’t need to make my mind up. What you’re proposing gives me six hours to make my mind up.’

‘But you need to make a decision.’

‘Delta at LAX ninety minutes from now,’ Espin said. He backed down the guys Reacher couldn’t see, with standard infantry hand signals, and then he slid out to the aisle, and he stood up, and he walked away.

Reacher and Turner followed him out a minute later. The girl was in her mother’s half of the coach, sitting on a stool, saying something to Arthur that was making him smile. Reacher watched her as he walked. All legs and arms, all knees and elbows, the jean jacket, the pants, the new blue T-shirt, the matching shoes, no socks, no laces, the hair like summer straw, halfway down her back, the eyes, and the smile. Fatherhood. Always unlikely. Like winning the Nobel Prize, or playing in the World Series. Not for him.

In the car Turner said, ‘How do you feel?’

‘No different,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have a kid before, and I don’t have one now.’

‘What would you have done?’

‘Doesn’t matter now.’

‘You OK?’

‘I guess I was getting used to the idea. And I liked her. We might have had things in common. Which is weird. I guess people can be the same, the world over. Even if they’re not related.’

‘Do you think she’s going to fear the howling wolf?’

‘I think she envies it already.’

‘Then maybe you are related. From way back in time.’

Reacher took one last look at her, through the diner’s small framed window, and then Turner drove away, south on Vineland, and she was lost to sight.

LAX was going to be the 101 to the 110, with a final sideways hop on El Segundo Boulevard, and it was going to take most of the ninety minutes Espin had given them, because the freeways were rolling slow. Edmonds called again from Virginia while they were still north of the Hollywood Bowl, and she said, ‘Crew Scully moved Morgan to the 110th personally. He didn’t delegate on that occasion. And he normally does, with temporary commands. And he has no access to Homeland Security intelligence systems.’

Reacher said, ‘Check if he has a friend who does.’

‘I’m already on it.’

‘Let me know.’

‘Are we still on the right side of history?’

‘Count on it,’ Reacher said, and hung up.

The traffic rolled on, but strangely, always moving but very slowly, as if every driver was a movie guy shooting a scene in slow motion. Turner said, ‘This could be like we arrested ourselves, you know. We could walk off that plane, and Espin could cuff us right there in the D.C. terminal.’

‘We’ll think of something,’ Reacher said. ‘Six hours is a long time.’

‘Got any ideas?’

‘Not yet.’

‘These are professional weapons handlers. That’s all they do.’

‘Fifty-fifty, Susan. Either it’s all they do or it isn’t.’

‘What else could they do?’

‘We have six hours to figure that out.’

‘Suppose we don’t figure it out?’

Reacher said, ‘Espin heard the name Crew Scully and figured the guy was rich. Suppose he is? Suppose they both are?’

‘We know they’re rich.’

‘But we’re making an assumption about how they got rich. Suppose they were rich before. Suppose they were always rich. Suppose they’re old-money East Coast aristocrats.’

‘OK, I’ll watch out for old men in faded pink pants.’

‘It might alter the equation. We’re assuming a powerful profit motive here. We might need to downgrade that. They could smooth out their own bumps. That hundred grand might have been their own money.’

‘This is not a hobby, Reacher. Not with fake bank accounts, and fake legal papers, and old men getting beat up, and four guys coming after us.’

‘I agree, this is way more than a hobby.’

‘Then what is it?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud. I’m trying to get a jump on the six hours.’