“So what are you saying?”
ifo/t/U/M (filing 133
“I’m saying a scattergun approach will always look good, as long as you put the spotlight on the successes and sweep the failures under the rug.”
“That’s not what they’re doing.”
He nodded. “No, it isn’t. Not exactly. They’re not just guessing. They try to work at it. But it’s not an exact science. It’s not rigorous. And they’re one unit among many, fighting for status and funding and position. You know how organizations work. They’ve got the budget hearings right now. First, second, and third duty is protecting their own ass against cuts by proclaiming their successes and concealing their failures.”
“So you think the profile is worthless?”
He nodded. “I know it is. It’s internally flawed. It makes two statements that are incompatible.”
“What two statements?”
He shook his head. “No deal, Harper. Not until Blake apologizes for threatening Jodie and pulls Julia Lamarr off the case.”
“Why would he do that? She’s his best profiler.”
“Exactly.”
s/
/ j& motor pool guy was at the National Airport in D.C. to pick them up. It was late when they arrived back at Quantico. Julia Lamarr met them, alone. Blake was in a budget meeting, and Poulton had signed out and gone home.
“How was she?” Lamarr asked.
“Your sister?”
“My stepsister.”
“She was OK,” Reacher said.
“What’s her house like?”
“Secure,” he said. “Locked up tight as Fort Knox.”
“But isolated, right?”
“Very isolated,” he said.
She nodded. He waited.
“So she’s OK?” she said again.
“She wants you to visit,” he said.
She shook her head. “I can’t. It would take me a week to get there.”
“Your father is dying.”
“My stepfather.”
“Whatever. She thinks you should go out there.”
134
l”CM
“I can’t,” she said again. “She still the same?”
Readier shrugged. “I don’t know what she was like before. I only just met her today.”
“Dressed like a cowboy, tanned and pretty and sporty?”
He nodded. “You got it.”
She nodded again, vaguely. “Different from me.”
He looked her over. Her cheap black city suit was dusty and creased, and she was pale and thin and hard. Her mouth was turned down. Her eyes were blank.
“Yes, different from you,” he said.
“I told you,” she said. “I’m the ugly sister.”
She walked away without speaking again. Harper took him to the cafeteria and they ate a late supper together. Then she escorted him up to his room. Locked him inside without a word. He listened to her footsteps fade away in the corridor and undressed and showered. Then he lay down on the bed, thinking, and hoping. And waiting. Above all, waiting. Waiting for the morning.
AAdwwtv
“•/
Jitf morning came, but it was the wrong morning. He knew it as soon as he reached the cafeteria. He had been awake and waiting thirty minutes before Harper showed up. She unlocked his door and breezed in, looking elegant and refreshed, wearing the same suit as the first day. Clearly she had three suits and wore them in strict rotation. Three suits was about right, he figured, given her likely salary. It was three suits more than he had, because it was a whole salary more than he had.
They rode down in the elevator together and walked between buildings. The whole campus was very quiet. It had a weekend feel. He realized it was Sunday. The weather was better. No warmer, but the sun was out and it wasn’t raining. He hoped for a moment it was a sign that this was his day. But it wasn’t. He knew that as soon as he walked into the cafeteria.
Blake was at the table by the window, alone. There was a jug of coffee, three upturned mugs, a basket of cream and sugar, a basket of Danish and doughnuts. The bad news was the pile of Sunday newspapers, opened and read and scattered, with the Washington Post and USA Today and worst of all the New York Times just sitting right there in plain view. Which meant there was no news from New York. Which meant it hadn’t worked yet, which meant he was going to have to keep on waiting until it did.