Gone Tomorrow

She lifted out the guy’s intestines.

They made a shining, glistening pink mass about the size of a soft soccer ball. Coiled, sloppy, moving, wet and steaming.

She laid the mass on the guy’s chest, quite gently.

Then she slid off the rock and stepped out of the frame.

The camera’s unblinking eye stared on.

The taxi driver looked down in horror.

Lila Hoth said, ‘Now it’s just a matter of time. The cut doesn’t kill them. We don’t sever any important vessels. The bleeding stops quite fast. It’s about pain and shock and infection. The strong ones resist all three. They die of hypothermia, we think. Their core temperature is compromised, obviously. It depends on the weather. Our record is eighteen hours. People say they’ve seen two full days, but I don’t believe them.’

‘You’re crazy, you know that?’

‘That’s what Peter Molina said.’

‘He saw this?’

‘He’s on it. Keep watching. Fast forward, if you like. Without the sound it’s not so much fun anyway.’

I checked all around the room again. Three people, working hard. I put the fat hand on the fast forward button and clicked. The picture leapt into fast motion. The taxi driver’s head moved back and forth through a tiny jerky arc.

Lila Roth said, ‘Normally we don’t do this one at a time. It’s better to have a sequence. The second guy waits until the first guy dies, and so on. It builds up the dread. You should see them, just willing the previous guy to live a minute longer. But eventually they die, and the spotlight moves on. That’s when they have heart attacks. You know, if they’re going to. If they’re susceptible. But we can’t always arrange a live sequence. That’s why we use the video now, for an approximation.’

I wanted to tell her she was crazy again, but I didn’t, because she would have told me about Peter Molina again.

‘Keep watching,’ she said.

The picture spooled onward. The taxi driver’s arms and legs twitched. Strange brittle movements, at double speed. His head rolled left and right.

Lila Hoth said, ‘Peter Molina saw all of this. He was willing the guy to hold on. Which was strange, because of course the guy died months ago. But that’s the effect. Like I told you, the video is a fair equivalent.’

‘You’re sick,’ I said. ‘You’re also dead. You know that? Like you just stepped out in the road. The truck hasn’t hit you yet, but it’s going to.’

‘Are you the truck?’

‘You bet your ass.’

‘I’m glad. Keep watching.’

I clicked the fast forward button again and again, and the picture sped up to four times normal speed, then eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two. Time rushed by. An hour. Ninety minutes. Then the image went perfectly still. The taxi driver stopped moving. He lay completely inert for a long time and then Lila Hoth rushed into the frame. I hit the play button to get back to normal speed. Lila bent near the guy’s head and felt for a pulse. Then she raised her head and smiled a happy smile.

Straight at the camera.

Straight at me.

On the phone she asked, ‘Is it over yet?’

I said, ‘Yes.’

‘A disappointment. He didn’t last long. He was sick. He had parasites. Worms. We could see them writhing in his guts the whole time. It was disgusting. I guess they died too. Parasites die if their host dies.’

‘Like you’re going to die.’

‘We’re all going to die, Reacher. The only questions are when and how.’

Behind me one of the business executives got up and headed for the door. I turned in my chair and tried to keep my body between him and the screen. I don’t think I succeeded. He looked at me strangely and left the room.

Or maybe he had heard my end of the phone conversation.

‘Keep watching,’ Lila said, in my ear.

I hit fast forward again. The taxi driver lay dead near Kabul for a spell and then the picture shut down and was replaced by a flurry of video noise. Then it opened up on a new scene. I hit play. Normal speed. An interior. Same kind of harsh light. Impossible to say whether it was night or day. Impossible to say where it was. A basement, maybe. Floor and walls seemed to be painted white. There was a broad stone slab, like a table. Smaller than the Afghan rock. Rectangular, manufactured for a purpose. Part of an old kitchen, possibly.

A huge young man was tied to the slab.

He was maybe half my age and twenty per cent bigger all around.

He’s three hundred pounds of muscle, Jacob Mark had said. He’s going to the NFL.

Lila Hoth asked, ‘Do you see him yet?’

‘I see him.’

He was naked. Very white under the lights. Different in every way from the Kabul taxi driver. Pale skin, tousled fair hair. No beard. But he was moving just the same. His head was jerking back and forth and he was screaming words. No! and Please! are recognizable in any language. And this was English. I could lip-read quite easily. I could even sense the tone. Disbelief, mainly. The kind of tone a person uses when what was assumed to be an empty threat or even a cruel joke turns out to have been deadly serious.

I said, ‘I’m not going to watch this.’

Lila Hoth said, ‘You should. Or you’ll never be sure. Maybe we let him go.’

‘When was this?’

‘We set a deadline and we kept it.’

I didn’t reply.

‘Watch it.’

‘No.’

She said, ‘But I want you to watch it. I need you to watch it. It’s a question of maintaining the sequence. Because I think you’re going to be next.’

‘Think again.’

‘Watch it.’

I watched it. Maybe we let him go. You’ll never be sure.

They didn’t let him go.

SIXTY-FOUR

AFTERWARDS I HUNG UP THE PHONE AND PUT THE DVD IN my pocket and made it to the lobby restroom and threw up in a stall. Not really because of the pictures. I have seen worse. But because of anger and fury and frustration. All those corrosive emotions boiled up inside me and had to find some release. I rinsed my mouth and washed my face and drank some water from the tap and stood for a moment in front of the mirror.

Then I emptied my pockets. I kept my cash, and my passport, and my ATM card, and my subway card, and Theresa Lee’s NYPD business card. I kept my toothbrush. I kept the phone that had rung. I dumped the other two phones in the trash, with the emergency charger, and the business card from the four dead guys, and the notes Theresa Lee had made from her partner’s messages.

I dumped the DVD, too.

And the Radio Shack memory stick, pink sleeve and all.

I didn’t need a decoy any more.

Then, cleansed, I headed out to see if Springfield was still around.

He was. He was in the lobby bar, in a chair, with his back to a right-angle corner. He had a glass of water on the table in front of him. He was relaxed, but he was watching everything. You can take the man out of Special Forces, and so on and so forth. He saw me coming. I sat down next to him. He asked, ‘Was it folk music?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was folk music.’

‘On a DVD?’

‘There was some dancing, too.’

‘I don’t believe you. You’ve gone all pale. Afghan folk dancing is pretty bad, I know, but it ain’t that bad.’

‘It was two guys,’ I said. ‘They had their bellies slit open and their guts lifted out.’

‘Live on camera?’

‘And then dead on camera.’

‘Soundtrack?’

‘Silent.’

‘Who were the guys?’

‘One was a taxi driver from Kabul and the other was Susan Mark’s son.’

‘I don’t take taxis in Kabul. I prefer my own transportation. But it sucks for USC. They’re down a defensive tackle. Hard to find. I checked him out. Great feet, they say.’

‘Not any more.’

‘Are the Hoths on the tape?’

I nodded. ‘Like a confession.’

‘Doesn’t matter. They know we’re going to kill them anyway. Doesn’t really matter what we kill them for.’