“What’s the significance of the three-week cycle?” he asked.
She had chosen cheese on whole-wheat and was pecking a crumb from the corner of her mouth with her little finger.
“We’re not entirely sure,” she said. “Three weeks is an odd interval. It’s not lunar. There’s no calendar significance to three weeks.”
He did the math in his head. “Ninety-one targets, one every three weeks, it would take him five and a quarter years to get through. That’s a hell of a long project.”
She nodded. “We think that proves the cycle is imposed by something external. Presumably he’d work faster if he could. So we think he’s on a three-week work pattern. Maybe he works two weeks on, one week off. He spends the week off staking them out, organizing it, and then doing it.”
Reacher saw his chance. Nodded.
“Possible,” he said.
“So what kind of soldier works that kind of pattern?”
“That regular? Maybe a rapid-response guy, two weeks on readiness, one week stood down.”
“Who’s on rapid response?”
“Marines, some infantry,” he said.
Then he swallowed. “And some Special Forces.”
Then he waited to see if she’d take the bait.
She nodded. “Special Forces would know subtle ways to kill, right?”
He started on the sandwich. The crabmeat could have been tuna fish. “Silent ways, unarmed ways, improvised ways, I guess. But I don’t know about subtle ways. This is about concealment, right? Special Forces are interested in getting people dead, for sure, but they don’t care about leaving anybody puzzled afterward about how they did it.”
“So what are you saying?”
He put his sandwich down. “I’m saying I don’t have a clue about who’s doing what, or why, or how. And I don’t see how I should. You’re the big expert here. You’re the one studied landscape gardening in school.”
She paused, with her sandwich in midair. “We need more from you than this, Reacher. And you know what we’ll do if we don’t get it.”
“I know what you say you’ll do.”
“You going to take the chance we won’t?”
•fanjiin* (piin*( si
“She gets hurt, you know what I’ll do to you, right?”
She smiled. “Threatening me, Reacher? Threatening a federal agent? You just broke the law again. Title 18, paragraph A-3, section 4702. Now you’re really stacking up the charges against yourself, that’s for sure.”
He looked away and made no reply.
“Stay on the ball, and everything will be OK,” she said.
He drained his cup, and looked at her over the rim. A steady, neutral gaze.
“The ethics bothering you here?” she asked.
“Are there ethics involved?” he asked back.
Then her face changed. A hint of embarrassment crept into it. A hint of softening. She nodded. “I know, it used to bother me too. I couldn’t believe it, when I got out of the Academy. But the Bureau knows what it’s doing. I learned that, pretty quick. It’s a practical thing. It’s about the greatest good for the greatest number. We need cooperation, we ask for it first, but you better believe we make damn sure we get it.”
Reacher said nothing.
“It’s a policy I believe in, now,” Lamarr said. “But I want you to know using your girlfriend as a threat wasn’t my idea.”
Reacher said nothing.
“That was Blake,” she said. “I’m not about to criticize him for it, but I wouldn’t have gone down that road myself.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t need more women in danger here.”
“So why did you let him do it?”
“Let him? He’s my boss. And this is law enforcement. Emphasis on the enforcement. But I need you to know it wouldn’t have been my way. Because we need to be able to work together.”
“Is this an apology?”
She said nothing.
“Is it? Finally?”
She made a face. “Close as you’ll get from me, I guess.”
Reacher shrugged. “OK, whatever.”
“Friends now?” she said.
“We’ll never be friends,” Reacher said. “You can forget about that.”
“You don’t like me,” she said.
“You want me to be honest with you?”
She shrugged. “Not really, I guess. I just want you to help me out.”
82
l”(W4
“I’ll be a go-between,” he said. “That’s what I agreed to. But you need to tell me what you want.”