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Then she stopped dead.
Because sitting in her chair by the window, reading Calvin Franz’s autopsy report, was a man in a suit.
Tall, fair, aristocratic, relaxed.
David O’Do
17
O’Do
Neagley asked, “How did you get in here?”
O’Do
“Where the hell were you?” Reacher asked.
“I was in New Jersey,” O’Do
“How sick?”
“Very sick.”
“Did she die?”
“No, she recovered.”
“Then you should have been here days ago.”
“Thanks for your concern.”
“We were worried,” Neagley said. “We thought they got you, too.”
O’Do
“I wasn’t too busy,” Neagley said. “How could anyone think that? I’d have dropped everything and come ru
O’Do
“So why didn’t they? Don’t they like me?”
“If they hated you they’d still have called you. Without you it would have been like fighting with one hand behind their backs. Who would do that voluntarily? But in the end it’s perception that counts, not reality. You’re very high grade now compared to the rest of us. I think they might have hesitated with you. Maybe until it was too late.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that one of them, and now I see that it would have been Franz, was in trouble, and he called all of us that he perceived as readily available. Which excluded you and Reacher by definition, and me also, by bad luck, because I wasn’t where I normally am.”
“That’s how we saw it, too. Except you’re a bonus. Your sister being sick was a stroke of luck for us. And for you, maybe.”
“But not for her.”
“Stop whining,” Reacher said. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”
“Nice to see you, too,” O’Do
“How did you get in here?” Neagley asked.
O’Do
“How did you get those through an airport?”
“My secret,” O’Do
“Ceramic,” Reacher said. “They don’t make them anymore. Because they don’t set the metal detector off.”
“Correct,” O’Do
“It’s good to see you again, David,” Reacher said.
“Likewise. But I wish it were under happier circumstances.”
“The circumstances just got fifty percent happier. We thought it was just the two of us. Now it’s the three of us.”
“What have we got?”
“Very little. You’ve seen what’s in his autopsy report. Apart from that we’ve got two generic white men who tossed his office. Didn’t find anything, because he was mailing stuff to himself in a permanent loop. We found his mail box and picked up four flash memories and we’re down to the last try at a password.”
“So start thinking about computer security,” Neagley said.
O’Do
“Tell me what words you’ve tried so far,” he said.
Neagley opened her notebook to the relevant page and handed it over. O’Do
“Koufax didn’t work?” he asked.
Neagley shook her head. “That was our third try.”
“Should have been your first, out of this list. Franz related to icons, gods, people he admired, performances he idolized. Koufax is the only one of these that really fits the bill. The others are merely sentimental. Miles Davis perhaps, because he loved music, but ultimately he thought music was inessential.”
“Music is inessential and baseball isn’t?”
“Baseball is a metaphor,” O’Do
“So what would you vote for?”
“It’s tough, with only one try left. I’d look like a real fool if I were wrong. What are we going to find on there anyway?”
“Something he felt was worth hiding.”
Reacher said, “Something he got his legs broken for. He didn’t give up anything. He drove them into a fury. His office looks like a tornado hit it.”
“What’s our ultimate aim here?”
“Seek and destroy. Is that good enough for you?”
O’Do
“No,” he said. “I want to kill their families and piss on their ancestors’ graves.”
“You haven’t changed.”
“I’ve gotten worse. Have you changed?”
“If I have I’m ready to change back.”
O’Do
Neagley said, “You don’t mess with the special investigators.”
“Correct,” O’Do
They drank thick strong coffee out of the kind of battered electro-plated jugs found only in old hotels. They kept pretty quiet, but each of them knew the others were tracing the same mental circles, shying away from the last attempt at the password, examining the vector, trying to find another avenue forward, failing to, and starting all over again. Finally O’Do
Neagley said, “I don’t have any.”
Reacher said, “You do it, Dave. You’ve got something in mind. I can tell.”
“Do you trust me?”
“As far as I could throw you. Which would be pretty damn far, as ski
O’Do
Took a breath and held it.
Paused.
Waited.
Hit enter.
The laptop screen redrew.
A file directory appeared. A table of contents. Big, bold, clear and obvious.
O’Do
He had typed: Reacher.