She glanced around the office. The sunbeams had crawled an inch across the desk. She saw Chester Stone, inert. Marilyn, trembling. Curry, white in the face and breathing hard next to her. The guy with the shotgun, relaxed. Reacher would break him in half without even thinking about it. She saw Tony, his eyes fixed on hers. And Hobie, caressing his hook with his manicured hand, smiling at her, waiting. She turned and looked at the closed door. She imagined it bursting open with a crash and Jack Reacher striding in through it. She wanted to see that happen. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything. ‘OK,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll call him.’ Hobie nodded. ‘Tell him I’ll be here a few more
hours. But tell him if he wants to see you again, he better come quick. Because you and I have a little date in the bathroom, about thirty minutes from now.’
She shuddered and pushed off the glass table and stood upright. Her legs were weak and her shoulders were on fire. Hobie came around and took her elbow and led her to the door. Led her over behind the reception counter.
‘This is the only telephone in the place,’ he said. ‘I don’t like telephones.’
He sat down in the chair and pressed nine with the tip of his hook. Handed the phone across to her. ‘Come closer, so I can hear what he says to you. Marilyn deceived me with the phone, and I’m not going to let that happen to me again.’
He made her stoop down and put her face next to his. He smelled of soap. He put his hand in his pocket and came out with the tiny revolver Tony had slipped in there. He touched it to her side. She held the phone at an angle with the earpiece upward between them. She studied the console. There was a mass of buttons. A speed-dial facility for 911. She hesitated for a second and then dialled her own home number. It rang six times. Six long soft purrs. With each one, she willed him: be there, be there. But it was her own voice that came back to her, from her machine.
‘He’s not there,’ she said blankly.
Hobie smiled.
‘That’s too bad,’ he said.
She was stooped over next to him, numb with shock.
‘He’s got my mobile,’ she said suddenly. ‘I just remembered.’
‘OK, press nine for a line.’
She dabbed the cradle and dialled nine and then her mobile number. It rang four times. Four loud urgent electronic squawks. Each one, she prayed: answer, answer, answer, answer. Then there was a click in the earpiece.
‘Hello?’ he said.
She breathed out.
‘Hi, Jack,’ she said.
‘Hey, Jodie,’ he said. ‘What’s new?’
‘Where are you?’
She realized there was urgency in her voice. It made
him pause.
‘I’m in St Louis, Missouri,’ he said. ‘Just flew down. I had to go to the NPRC again, where we were before.’
She gasped. St Louis? Her mouth went dry.
‘You OK?’ he asked her.
Hobie leaned across and put his mouth next to her
ear.
‘Tell him to come right back to New York,’ he whispered. ‘Straight here, soon as he can.’
She nodded nervously and he pressed the gun harder against her side.
‘Can you come back?’ she asked. ‘I sort of need you here, as soon as possible.’
‘I’m booked on the six o’clock,’ he said. ‘Gets me in around eight-thirty, East Coast time. Will that do?’
She could sense Hobie grinning next to her.
‘Can you make it any time sooner? Like maybe right
away?’
She could hear talking in the background. Major Conrad, she guessed. She remembered his office, dark wood, worn leather, the hot Missouri sun in the
window.
‘Sooner?’ he said. ‘Well, I guess so. I could be there
in a couple of hours, depending on the flights. Where are you?’
‘Come to the World Trade Center, south tower, eighty-eighth floor, OK?’
‘Traffic will be bad. Call it two and a half hours, I’ll be there.’
‘Great,’ she said.
‘You OK?’ he asked again.
Hobie brought the gun around into her view.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I love you.’