that. Obviously if he’d been strolling on that particular Chicago
street a minute earlier or a minute later, he’d have been right past
that dry-cleaners and never known a damn thing about all this. But he
hadn’t been strolling a minute earlier or a minute later, and the freak
chance had happened, and he wasn’t about to waste his time wondering
where he’d be now if it hadn’t.
But what he did need to pin down was why he was still there, just over
fourteen hours later, according to the clock inside his head. He’d had
two marginal chances and one cast-iron certainty of getting out. Right
away, on the street, he could have made it. Probably. The possibility
of collateral damage had stopped him. Then in the abandoned lot,
getting into the white truck, he might have made it. Probably. Three
against one, both times, but they were three amateurs against Jack
Reacher, and he felt comfortable enough about those odds.
The cast-iron certainty was he could have been out of the cow barn, say
an hour after the three guys returned from the gas station with the
truck. He could have slipped the cuff again, climbed the wall and
dropped down into the barnyard and been away. Just jogged over to the
road and walked away and disappeared. Why hadn’t he done that?
He lay there in the huge inky blackness of relaxation and realized it
was Holly that was keeping him there. He hadn’t bailed out because he
couldn’t take the risk. The three guys could have panicked and wasted
her and run. Reacher didn’t want that to happen. Holly was a smart,
spirited woman. Sharp, impatient, confident, tough as hell.
Attractive, in a shy, unforced sort of a way. Dark, slim, a lot of
intelligence and energy.
Great eyes. Eyes were Reacher’s thing. He was lost in a pair of
pretty eyes.
But it wasn’t her eyes that were doing it to him. Not her looks. Or
her intelligence or her personality. It was her knee. That’s what was
doing it to him. Her guts and her dignity. The sight of a
good-looking spirited woman cheerfully fighting an unaccustomed
disability seemed like a brave and noble thing to Reacher. It made her
his type of person. She was coping with it. She was doing it well.
She wasn’t complaining. She wasn’t asking for his help. And because
she wasn’t asking for it, she was going to get it.
TEN
FIVE-THIRTY TUESDAY MORNING FBI SPECIAL AGENT BROGAN WAS alone in the
third-floor meeting room, using one of the newly installed phone lines
for an early call to his girlfriend. Five-thirty in the morning is not
the best time to deliver an apology for a broken date from the night
before, but Brogan had been very busy, and he anticipated being busier
still. So he made the call. He woke her and told her he had been tied
up, and probably would be for the rest of the week. She was sleepy and
annoyed, and made him repeat it all twice. Then she chose to interpret
the message as a cowardly prelude to some kind of a brush-off. Brogan
got annoyed in turn. He told her the Bureau had to come first. Surely
she understood that? It was not the best point to be making to a
sleepy, annoyed woman at five-thirty in the morning. They had a short
row and Brogan hung up, depressed. His partner Milosevic was alone in
his own office cubicle. Slumped in his chair, also depressed. His
problem was a lack of imagination. It was his biggest weakness.
McGrath had told him to trace Holly Johnson’s every move from noon
yesterday. But he hadn’t come up with anything. He had seen her
leaving the FBI Building. Stepping out of the door, onto the street,
forearm jammed into the curved-metal clip of her hospital cane. He had
seen her getting that far. But then the picture just went blank. He’d
thought hard all night, and told McGrath nothing.
Five-forty, he went to the bathroom and got more coffee. Still
miserable. He walked back to his desk. Sat down, lost in thought for
a long time. Then he glanced at the heavy gold watch on his wrist.