Child, Lee. Running blind

You get a partial view. The driver’s window is down on both cars. There’s a brown paper sack and a closed cup of coffee. The new guy lifts them across the gap, elbow high to keep them upright. You adjust the focus on the field glasses. You see the waiting cop reach out. The scene is flat and two-dimensional and grainy, like the optics are at their limit. The cop takes the coffee first. His head turns as he finds the cup holder inside. Then he takes the bag. He props it on the ledge of his door and unrolls the top. Glances down. Smiles. He has a big, meaty face. He’s looking at a cheeseburger or something. Maybe two of them, and a wedge of pie.

He rolls the top of the sack again and swings it inside. Almost certainly dumps _ it on his passenger seat. Then his head is moving. They’re chatting. The cop is ani-

• mated.

He’s a young guy. The flesh of his face is tight with youth. He’s full of him-

• self.

Enchanted with his important mission. You watch him for a long moment. Watch the happy expression on his face. Wonder what that face will look like when he walks to her door for a bathroom break and gets no reply to his knock. Because right there and then you decide two things. You’re going in there, to do the job. And you’re going to work it without killing the cop first, just because you want to see that

,_ expression change.

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T\t Nissan Maxima was briefly a drug dealers’ favorite ride, so Reacher ” felt OK about using it to get out to the Jersey bar. It would look innocent

(tm) enough parked in the lot. It would look real. Unmarked government cars never

” did. A normal person spends twenty grand on a sedan, he goes ahead and orders

‘” the chrome wheels and the pearl coat along with it. But the government never

did, so their cars looked obvious, artificially plain, like they had big signs painted on the side saying this is a police unmarked. And if Bob saw such a thing

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l”&d