The Hard Way

“A million bucks.”

Taylor smiled again. “I’m flattered. And you’re good. But it was always only a matter of time. The longer nobody found my body, the more people would get to thinking. But this is a little quicker than I thought it would be. I thought I might have a couple of weeks.”

“You’ve got about sixty minutes.”

They gathered in the farmhouse kitchen for a council of war, all six of them, Taylor and Kate and Jade, and Jackson, and Pauling and Reacher. Jade was neither specifically included nor excluded. She just sat at the table and drew, crayons and butcher paper, the same bold colorful strokes Reacher had seen in her bedroom in the Dakota, and listened to the grown-ups talk. First thing Taylor said was, “Let’s light the fire again. It’s cold in here. And let’s have a cup of tea.”

Pauling asked, “Do we have time for that?”

“The British Army,” Reacher said. “They always have time for a cup of tea.”

There was a wicker basket of kindling sticks near the hearth. Taylor stacked a bunch of them over a pyramid of crumpled newspaper and struck a match. When the flame had taken he added bigger logs. Meanwhile Jackson was at the stove, heating a kettle of water and stuffing tea bags into a pot. He didn’t seem very worried, either. Just calm and competent and unhurried.

“What were you, back in the day?” Reacher asked him.

“First Para,” Jackson replied.

Reacher nodded. The 1st Parachute Regiment. The British equivalent of the U.S. Army Rangers, roughly. Air-mobile tough guys, not quite SAS, but close. Most SAS freshmen were 1st Para graduates.

“Lane’s got six guys with him,” Reacher said.

“The A-team?” Taylor asked. “Used to be seven guys. Before I resigned.”

“Used to be nine guys,” Reacher said.

“Hobart and Knight,” Taylor said. “Kate heard that story. From Hobart’s sister.”

“Was that the trigger?”

“Partly. And partly something else.”

“What else?”

“Hobart isn’t the only one. Not even close. He’s the worst, maybe, from what his sister said, but there are others. Lane got a lot of people killed and wounded over the years.”

“I saw his Rolodex,” Reacher said.

“He doesn’t do anything for them. Or their families.”

“Is that why you wanted the money?”

“The money is Kate’s alimony. She’s entitled to it. And how she spends it is up to her. But I’m sure she’ll do the right thing.”

Tony Jackson poured the tea from the pot, hot and sweet and strong, into five chipped and unmatched mugs. Jade was working on a glass of apple juice.

“Do we have time for this?” Pauling asked again.

“Reacher?” Taylor said. “Do we have time for this?”

“That depends,” Reacher said. “On what exactly your aim is.”

“My aim is to live happily ever after.”

“OK,” Reacher said. “This is England. If it was Kansas, I’d be worried. If it was Kansas, Dave Kemp’s little store and a hundred others like it would be selling rifles and ammunition. But this isn’t Kansas. And no way did Lane bring anything in with him on the plane. So if he shows up now, he’s unarmed. He can’t do anything more than pick rocks off the driveway and throw them at us. Walls this thick and windows this small, that isn’t going to hurt us much.”

“He could burn us out,” Pauling said. “Bottles filled with gasoline, flaming rags in them, or whatever.”

Reacher said nothing. Just glanced at Taylor. Taylor said, “He wants to take me alive, Ms. Pauling. I’m sure of that. Fire might be in his plan for me eventually, but he’d want to do it slow and controlled. Something quick and easy just wouldn’t work for him.”

“So we’re just going to sit here?”

“Like Reacher said, if he shows up now he’s harmless.”

“This might be England, but there have to be weapons available somewhere.”

Taylor nodded. “All over the place, as a matter of fact. Private armorers for the British mercenary crews, bent army quartermasters, gangs of regular bad boys. But none of them are in the Yellow Pages. It takes time to find them.”

“How much time?”

“Twelve hours minimum, I would guess, depending on your co

“Are you armed here?” Reacher asked.

“This is a farm,” Jackson answered. “Farmers are always prepared for vermin control.”

Something in his voice. Some kind of lethal determination. Reacher looked between him and Taylor. Same kind of height, same kind of weight, same kind of generic English features. Overall they could have been brothers. Sometimes a little resemblance is all you need. He got up out of his chair and walked over and took a look at the phone on the pine desk. It was an old-fashioned black instrument. It had a cord and a rotary dial. No memories. No speed dials.

He turned back to Taylor.

“You wanted this,” he said.

“Did I?”

“You used the name Leroy Clarkson. To point the way to your apartment.”

Taylor said nothing.

“You could have stopped Jade from bringing her toys. You could have told Kate to leave the photograph behind. Your sister Susan could have brought Tony’s passport over for you. She could have carried it in her purse. Then there would have been three Jacksons on the airplane manifest, not two Jacksons and a Taylor. Without your real name you couldn’t have been followed back to England.”

Taylor said nothing.

“The phone in your apartment was new,” Reacher said. “You didn’t have it before, did you? You bought it so that you could leave Susan’s number in it.”

“Why would I do that?” Taylor asked.

“Because you wanted Lane to find you here.”

Taylor said nothing.

“You talked to Dave Kemp in the village store,” Reacher said. “You gave him all kinds of u

Silence in the room.

Reacher said, “You wanted to be on your home turf. And you figured this is an easy place to defend.”

More silence. Reacher glanced at Kate.

“You were upset,” he said. “Not that Lane was coming, but that he was coming now. Already. Too soon.”

Kate said nothing. But Taylor nodded. “Like I said before, he was a little faster than we expected. But yes, we wanted him to come.”

“Why?”

“You just said it. We wanted a showdown. Closure. Finality.”

“Why now?”

“I told you.”

“Reparations for the wounded aren’t urgent. Not like this.”

Kate Lane looked up from her chair by the fire.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.