One Shot (31 page)

'She'll come in on the twelve thirty-five,' she said.

Emerson checked his watch. Quarter to twelve.

Which means Reacher will be here soon,' he said.

At ten to twelve a courier arrived at Helen Rodin's
building with six large cardboard cartons containing the
defence's copies of the prosecution's evidence. The
discovery process, mandated by the rules of due
process. By the Bill of Rights, as interpreted. The
courier called from the lobby and Helen told him to
come on up. He had to make two trips with his hand
cart. He stacked the boxes in the empty secretarial pen.

Helen signed for them and he left. Then she opened
them. There was a mass of paperwork and dozens of
photographs. And eleven new VHS cassettes. They had
labels with numbers neatly printed on them that referred
to a notarized sheet that described them as faithful and
complete copies of the parking garage's security tapes,
made by an independent third-party contractor. Helen
took them all out and stacked them separately. She
would have to take them home and use her own VCR to
look at them. She didn't have a VCR in the office. Or a
television set.

There was a television set in the Marriott's coffee shop.

It was mounted high in the corner, on a black articulated
bracket bolted to the wall. The sound was off. Reacher
watched an advertisement that featured a young woman
in a filmy summer dress romping through a field of wild
flowers. He wasn't sure what product was being
advertised. The dress, maybe, or make-up, or shampoo,
or allergy medicine. Then a news banner popped up.

Noon Report. Reacher checked his watch. Twelve
exactly. He glanced towards the reception desk in the
lobby. He had a clear view. No sign of Hutton. Not yet.

So he glanced back at the television. Ann Yanni was on.

She seemed to be live on location, downtown, out on
the street.

In front of the Metropole Palace Hotel. She talked
silently but earnestly for a moment and then the picture
cut to tape of dawn twilight. An alley. Police barriers. A
shapeless form under a white sheet. Then the picture
cut again. To a driver's licence photograph. Pale skin.

Green eyes. Red hair. Just under the chin a caption was
superimposed: Alexandra Dupree.

Alexandra. Sandy.

Now they've gone too far, Reacher thought.

He shivered.

Way too far.

He stared at the screen. Sandy's face was still there.

Then the picture cut again, back to tape of the early
hours, to a head-and shoulders shot of Emerson. A
recorded interview. Yanni had her microphone shoved
up under Emerson's nose. He was talking. Yanni pulled
the microphone back and asked a question. Emerson
talked some more. His eyes were flat and empty and
tired and hooded against the bright light on the camera.

Even without the sound Reacher knew what he was
saying. He was promising a full and complete
investigation.

We'll get this guy, he was saying.

'I saw you from the desk,' a voice said.

Then it said, 'And I thought to myself, don't I know that
guy?'

Reacher looked away from the TV.

Eileen Hutton was standing right there in front of him.

Her hair was shorter. She had no tan. There were fine
lines around her eyes.

But otherwise she looked just the same as she had
fourteen years ago. And just as good. Medium height,
slim, poised. Groomed. Fragrant. Feminine as hell. She
hadn't put on a pound. She was wearing civvies. Khaki
chino pants, a white Ì, a blue oxford shirt open over it.

Penny loafers, no socks, no make-up, no jewellery.

No wedding band.

'Remember me?' she said.

Reacher nodded.

'Hello, Hutton,' he said. 'I remember you. Of course I
do. And it's good to see you again.' She had a purse and
a key card in her hand. A rolling carry-on with a long
handle at her feet. 'It's good to see you again too,' she
said. 'But please tell me it's a coincidence that you're
here. Please tell me that.' Feminine as hell, except she
was still a woman in a man's world, and you could still
see the steel if you knew where to look. Which was into
her eyes. They ran like a stock ticker, warm, warm,
welcome, welcome, with a periodic bright flash: Mess
with me and I'll rip your lungs out. 'Sit down,'

Reacher said. 'Let's have lunch.'

'Lunch?'

'It's what people do at lunch time.'

'You were expecting me. You've been waiting for me.'

Reacher nodded. Glanced back up at the TV set.

Sandy's driver's licence picture was on the screen
again. Hutton followed his gaze. 'Is that the dead girl?'

she asked. 'I heard it on the radio, driving down. Sounds
like a person should get combat pay, coming here.'

'What did the radio say? There's no sound in here.'

'Homicide. Late last night. Local girl got her neck
broken. A single blow to the right temple. In an alley
outside a hotel. Not this one, I hope.' 'No,'

Reacher said. 'It wasn't this one.'

'Brutal.'

'I guess it was.'

Eileen Hutton sat down at the table. Not across from
him. In the chair next to him. Just like Sandy, at the
sports bar. 'You look great,' he said. 'You really do.'

She said nothing.

'It's good to see you,' he said again.

'Likewise,' she said.

'No, I mean it.'

'I mean it too. Believe me, if we were at some Beltway
cocktail party I would be getting all misty and nostalgic
with the best of them. I might still, as soon as I find out
you're not here for the reason I think you're here.'

What reason would that be?'

'To keep your promise.'

'You remember that?'

'Of course I do. You talked about it all one night'

'And you're here because the Department of the Army
got a subpoena.'

Hutton nodded. 'From some idiot prosecutor.'

'Rodin,' Reacher said.

'That's the guy.'

'My fault,' Reacher said.

'Christ,' Hutton said. What did you tell him?'

'Nothing,' Reacher said. 'I didn't tell him anything. But
he told me something. He told me my name was on the
defence's witness list.' 'The defence list?'

Reacher nodded. 'That surprised me, obviously. So I
was confused. So I asked him if my name had come
from some old Pentagon file.' 'Not in this lifetime,'

Hutton said.

'As I found out,' Reacher said. 'But still, I had said the
magic words. I had mentioned the Pentagon. The type
of guy he is, I knew he would go fishing.

He's very insecure. He likes his cases armour-plated.

So I'm sorry.' 'You should be. I get to spend two days in
the back of beyond and I get to perjure myself from here
to breakfast time.' 'You don't need to do that. You can
claim national security.'

Hutton shook her head. 'We talked about it, long and
hard. We decided to stay away from anything that draws
attention. That Palestinian thing was very thin.

If that unravels, everything unravels. So I'm here to
swear blind that James Barr was GI Joe.' 'You OK with
that?'

'You know the army. None of us is a virgin any more.

It's about the mission, and the mission is to keep a lid
on the KC thing.' Why did they delegate you?'

'Two birds with one stone. No good to them to send
someone else and still have me out there knowing the
truth. This way, I can't talk about it ever again, anywhere.

Not without effectively confessing to perjury one time in
Indiana. They're not dumb.'

'I'm surprised they still care. It's practically ancient
history.' 'How long have you been out?'

'Seven years.'

'And clearly you don't have a subscription to the Army
Times' 'What?'

'Or maybe you never knew.'

'Never knew what?'

'Where it went back then, up the chain of command.'

'Division, I supposed.

But maybe not all the way to the top.' 'It stopped on a
certain colonel's desk. He was the one who nixed it.'

'And?'

'His name was Petersen.'

'And?'

'Colonel Petersen is now Lieutenant General Petersen.

Three stars.

Congressional liaison. About to get his fourth star.

About to be named Vice Chief of Staff of the Army.' That
could complicate things, Reacher thought.

'Embarrassing,' he said.

'You bet your ass embarrassing,' Hutton said. 'So
believe me, this is one lid that is going to stay on. You
need to bear that in mind. Whatever you want to do
about your promise, you can't talk about what
happened. Any more than I can. They would find a way
to get to you.' 'Neither of us needs to talk about it. It's a
done deal.' 'I'm very glad to hear it'

'I think.'

'You think?'

'Ask me how they really got my name.'

'How did they really get your name?'

'From James Barr himself.'

'I don't believe it.'

'I didn't believe it either. But I do now.' 'Why?'

'We should have lunch. We really need to talk.

Because I think there's someone else out there who
knows.'

Emerson and Bianca called it quits at twelve fifty.

Reacher never showed. The feeder flight came in on
time. Nobody who could have been a female brigadier
general from the Pentagon got off. They waited until the
arrivals hall emptied out and went quiet. Then they got
in their car and drove back to town.

Reacher and Hutton had lunch. A waitress came over,
happy to get some business out of her corner table at
last. The menu was coffee-shop basic. Reacher ordered
a grilled cheese sandwich and coffee. Hutton went with
chicken Caesar and tea. They ate and talked. Reacher
ran through the details of the case.

Then he ran through his theory. The perverse choice
of location, the presumed coercion. He told Hutton
about Niebuhr's theory of the new and persuasive
friend. Told her that Barr claimed he had no new friends,
and very few old ones.

'Can't be a new friend anyway,' Hutton said. 'Because
this

is

a

multi-layered

set-up.

There's

the

contemporaneous evidence, and the historical parallels.

Second level of a parking garage fourteen years ago in
KC, second level of a parking garage here and now.

Virtually the same rifle. Boat tail sniper ammunition. And
the desert boots. I never saw them before Desert Shield.

They're suggestive. Whoever scripted this for him
knew all about his past.

Which means it isn't a new friend. It can't be. It would
take years and years before Barr would feel like sharing
anything about KC.'

Reacher nodded. 'But obviously he did, eventually.

Which is why I said there's someone else out there who
knows.' "We need to find that person,' Hutton said. 'The
mission is to keep the lid on this thing.'

'Not my mission. I don't care if this Petersen guy gets
his fourth star.'