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Kate Lane had been told not to move and to make absolutely no noise at all, but she decided to take a risk. She couldn’t sleep, obviously. Neither could Jade. How could anyone sleep, under circumstances like theirs? So Kate crept out of her bed and grasped the rail at the end and inched the whole bed sideways.
“Mom, don’t,” Jade whispered. “You’re making a noise.”
Kate didn’t answer. Just crept to the head of the bed and inched it sideways. After three more cautious back-and-forth movements she had her mattress butted up hard against Jade’s. Then she got back under the sheet and took her daughter in her arms. Held her tight. If they had to be awake, at least they could be awake together.
The clock in Reacher’s head crept around to six in the morning. Down in the brick and iron canyons of SoHo it was still dark, but the sky above was already brightening. The night had been warm. Reacher hadn’t been uncomfortable. He had been in worse spots. Many times. Often for much longer. So far he had seen no activity at the dull red door. But the early people were already out and about all around him. Cars and trucks were moving on the streets. People were passing by on both sidewalks. But nobody was looking at him. He was just a guy in a doorway.
He rolled onto his back and looked around. The door he was blocking was a plain gray metal thing. No exterior handle. Maybe a fire exit, maybe a loading dock. With a little luck he wouldn’t be disturbed before seven. He rolled on his side and gazed south and west again. Arched his back like he was relieving a cramp, then glanced north. He figured whoever was coming would be in position soon. They clearly weren’t fools. They would aim for a careful stakeout. They would check rooftops and windows and parked cars for watching cops. Maybe they would check doorways, too. But Reacher had never been mistaken for a cop. There was always something phony about a cop who dresses down. Reacher was the real thing.
Cops, he thought.
The word snagged in his mind the way a twig on a current catches on a riverbank. It hung up just briefly before spi
The prowl car moved on.
Reacher laid down again. Folded his arms behind his head and kept his eyes half-open.
Four miles north, Edward Lane and John Gregory rode down in the Dakota’s elevator. Lane was carrying the bulging leather duffel. Outside in the gray dawn light the blue BMW waited at the curb. The man who had ferried it back from the garage got out and handed the keys to Gregory. Gregory used the remote to open the trunk and Lane dumped the bag inside. He looked at it for a second and then he slammed the lid on it.
“No heroics,” he said. “Just leave the car, leave the keys, and walk away.”
“Understood,” Gregory said. He walked around the hood and slid into the driver’s seat. Started the motor and took off west. Then he turned south on Ninth Avenue. This early in the morning, he figured the traffic would be OK.
At that same moment four miles south a man turned off Houston Street and started down West Broadway. He was on foot. He was forty-two years old, white, five feet eleven inches tall, one hundred and ninety pounds. He was wearing a jeans jacket over a hooded sweatshirt. He crossed to the west sidewalk and headed for Prince. He kept his eyes moving. Left, right, near, far. Reco
Revealing: Forty-five degrees ahead and to the left, a man sprawled in a doorway. A big man, but inert. His limbs were relaxed in sleep. His head was cradled on his arms and canted sideways at a characteristic angle.
Drunk? Passed out?
Who was he?
The man in the hooded sweatshirt paused at the Prince Street crosswalk. Waited for the light, even though there was no traffic. Used the time to complete his inspection. The big guy’s clothes were garbage, but his shoes were good. Leather, heavy, solid, proper stitched welts. Probably English. Probably three hundred dollars a pair. Maybe three-fifty. Each shoe on its own was worth twice the price of everything else the guy was wearing.
So who was he?
A bum who had stolen a pair of fancy shoes? Or not?
Not, thought the man in the hooded sweatshirt.
He turned ninety degrees and crossed West Broadway against the light. Headed straight for the doorway.
Gregory blew past a small traffic snarl at 42nd Street and caught green lights all the way to the back of the Post Office at 31st. Then the lights and his luck changed. He had to stop the BMW behind a garbage truck. He waited. Checked his watch. He had plenty of time.
The man in the hooded sweatshirt stopped one quiet pace north of the doorway. Held his breath. The guy at his feet slept on. He didn’t smell. His skin was good. His hair was clean. He wasn’t malnourished.
Not a bum with a pair of stolen shoes.
The man in the hooded sweatshirt smiled to himself. This was some asshole from some million-dollar SoHo loft, been out for some fun, had a little too much, couldn’t make it home.
A prime target.
He shuffled half a pace forward. Breathed out, breathed in. Leveled the twin searchlights on the chino pockets. Scoped them out.
There it was.
The left-hand front pocket. The familiar delicious bulge. Exactly two and five-eighths inches wide, half an inch thick, three and a quarter inches long.
Folding money.
The man in the hooded sweatshirt had plenty of experience. He could call it sight unseen. There would be a bunch of crisp new twenties from an ATM, a couple of leathery old fives and tens from taxi change, a wrapping of crumpled ones. Total: a hundred and seventy-three dollars. That was his prediction. And his predictions were usually pretty good. He doubted that he would be disappointed. But he was prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
He bent at the waist and extended his arm.
He used his fingertips to lift the top seam of the pocket. To make a little tu
Then his wrist broke.
Two giant hands seized it and snapped it like a rotten twig. One shattering sudden explosion of motion. A blur. At first there was no pain. Then it kicked in like a tidal wave. But by then it was too late to scream. One of the giant hands was clamped over his mouth. It was like being hit hard in the face with a first baseman’s mitt.
“I’ve got three questions,” the big guy said, quietly. “Tell me the truth and I’ll let you go. Tell me a lie and I’ll break your other wrist. We clear on that?”