‘ a.’UU^ paused for a second in the underground corridor and then led Reacher to the elevator and up into the daylight. Outside into the chill air and across the landscaping to her car. It was a tiny yellow two-seater. He realized he had never seen it before. She unlocked it and he ducked his head and folded himself into the passenger seat. She glanced hard at him once and dumped her bag in his lap and climbed down into the driver’s seat. Shoulder room was tight. It was a stick shift, and her elbow hit his when she put it in gear.
“So how do we get there?”
“We’ll have to go commercial,” he said. “Head for National, I guess. You got credit cards?”
She was shaking her head.
“They’re all maxed out,” she said. “They’ll get refused.”
“All of them?”
She nodded. “I’m broke right now.”
He said nothing.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I’m always broke,” he said.
4tf fifth of Bach’s three-part inventions was labeled BWV 791 by scholars and was one of the hardest in the canon, but it was Rita Scimeca’s favorite piece
308
lf”w
in all the world. It depended entirely on tone, which came from the mind, down through the shoulders and the arms and the hands and the fingers. The tone had to be whimsical, but confident. The whole piece was a confection of nonsense, and the tone had to confess to that, but simultaneously it had to sound utterly serious for the effect to develop properly. It had to sound polished, but insane. Secretly, she was sure Bach was crazy.
Her piano helped. Its sound was big enough to be sonorous, but delicate enough to be nimble. She played the piece all the way through twice, half speed, and she was reasonably pleased with what she heard. She decided to play for three hours, then stop and have some lunch, and then get ahead with the housework. She wasn’t sure about the afternoon. Maybe she would play some more.
You take up your position early. Early enough to be settled before the eight o’clock changeover. You watch it happen. It’s the same deal as yesterday. The Bureau guy, still awake, but no longer very attentive. The arrival of the cold Crown Vic. The flank-to-flank pleasantries. The Buick starts up, the Crown Vic turns in the road, the Buick rolls away down the hill, the Crown Vic crawls forward and settles into its space. The engine dies, and the guy’s head turns. He sinks low in his seat, and his last shift as a cop begins. After today, they won’t trust him to direct traffic around the Arctic Circle.
A
} 0 how do we get there?” Harper asked again.
Reacher paused.
“Like this,” he said.
He opened her pocketbook and took out her phone and flipped it open. Closed his eyes and tried to recall sitting in Jodie’s kitchen, dialing the number. Tried to remember the precious sequence of digits. He entered them slowly. Hopefully. He pressed send. Heard ring tone for a long moment. Then the call was answered. A deep voice, slightly out of breath.
“Colonel John Trent,” it said.
“Trent, this is Reacher. You still love me?”
“What?”
“I need a ride, two people, Andrews to Portland, Oregon.”
“Like when?”
“Like right now, immediately.”
fufUUfi* filing
309
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, we’re on our way there. We’re a half hour out.”
Silence for a second.
“Andrews to Portland, Oregon, right?” Trent said.
“Right.”
“How fast do you need to get there?”
“Fastest you got.”
Silence again.
“OK,” Trent said.
Then the line went dead. Reacher folded the phone.
“So is he doing it?” Harper asked.
Reacher nodded.
“He owes me,” he said. “So let’s go.”
She let in the clutch and drove out of the lot, into the approach road. The tiny car rode hard over the speed bumps. She passed by the FBI guard and accelerated into the curve and blasted through the first Marine checkpoint. Reacher saw heads turning in the corner of his eye, startled faces under green helmets.
“So what is it?” she asked again.
“Truth, and lies,” he said. “And means, motive, opportunity. The holy trinity of law enforcement. Three out of three is the real deal, right?”