Tripwire

He had put it too close to the wall for Jodie’s door to open. He grabbed her briefcase and her purse and threw them out through his door. Squeezed out after them and turned back for her. She was scrambling across the seats behind him. Her dress was riding up. He grabbed her around the waist and she ducked her head to his shoulder and he lifted her through the gap. She clung on hard, bare legs around his waist. He turned and ran her six feet away. She weighed nothing at all. He set her on her feet and ducked back for her bags. She was smoothing her dress over her thighs. Breathing hard. Damp hair all over the place.

“How did you know?” she gasped. “That it wasn’t an accident?”

He gave her the purse and carried the heavy briefcase himself. Led her by the hand back down the alley to the street, panting with adrenaline rush.

“Talk while we walk,” he said.

They turned left and headed east for Lafayette. The morning sun was in their eyes, the river breeze in their faces. Behind them, they could hear the traffic snarl on Broadway. They walked together fifty yards, breathing hard, calming down.

“How did you know?”

“Statistics, I guess. What were the chances we’d be in an accident on the exact same morning we figured there were guys out looking for us? Million to one, at best.”

She nodded. A slight smile on her face. Head up, shoulders back, recovering fast. No trace of shock. She was Leon’s daughter, that was for damn sure.

“You were great,” she said. “You reacted so fast.”

He shook his head as he walked.

“No, I was shit,” he said. “Dumb as hell. One mistake after another. They changed perso

“Don’t feel bad,” she said.

“I do feel bad. Leon had a basic rule: Do it right. Thank God he wasn’t there to see that screwup. He’d have been ashamed of me.”

He saw her face cloud over. Realized what he’d said.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t make myself believe he’s dead.”

They came out on Lafayette. Jodie was at the curb, sca

“Well, he is,” she said, gently. “We’ll get used to it, I guess.”

He nodded. “And I’m sorry about your car. I should have seen it coming.”

She shrugged. “It’s only leased. I’ll get them to send another one just like it. Now I know it stands up in a collision, right? Maybe a red one.”

“You should report it stolen,” he said. “Call the cops and say it wasn’t there in the garage when you went for it this morning.”

“That’s fraud,” she said.

“No, that’s smart. Remember I can’t afford for the cops to be asking me questions about this. I don’t even carry a driver’s license.”

She thought about it. Then she smiled. Like a kid sister smiles when she’s forgiving her big brother for some kind of waywardness, he thought.

“OK,” she said. “I’ll call them from the office.”

“The office? You’re not going to the damn office.”

“Why not?” she said, surprised.

He waved vaguely west, back toward Broadway. “After what happened there? I want you where I can see you, Jodie.”

“I need to go to work, Reacher,” she said. “And be logical. The office hasn’t become unsafe just because of what happened over there. It’s a completely separate proposition, right? The office is still as safe now as it always was. And you were happy for me to go there before, so what’s changed?”

He looked at her. He wanted to say everything’s changed. Because whatever Leon started with some old couple from a cardiology clinic has now got halfway-competent professionals mixed in with it. Halfway-competent professionals who were about half a second away from wi

“You should come with me,” he said.

“Why? To help?”

He nodded. “Yes, help me with these old folks. They’ll talk to you, because you’re Leon’s daughter.”

“You want me with you because I’m Leon’s daughter?”

He nodded again. She spotted a cab and waved it down.

“Wrong answer, Reacher,” she said.

HE ARGUED WITH her, but he got nowhere. Her mind was made up, and she wouldn’t change it. The best he could do was to get her to solve his immediate problem and rent him a car, with her gold card and her license. They took the cab up to midtown and found a Hertz office. He waited outside in the sun for a quarter hour and then she came around the block in a brand-new Taurus and picked him up. She drove all the way back downtown on Broadway. They passed by her building and passed by the scene of the ambush three blocks south. The damaged vehicles were gone. There were shards of glass in the gutter and oil stains on the blacktop, but that was all. She drove on south and parked next to a hydrant opposite her office door. Left the motor ru

“OK,” she said. “You’ll pick me up here, about seven o’clock?”

“That late?”

“I’m starting late,” she said. “I’ll have to finish late.”

“Don’t leave the building, OK?”

He got out on the sidewalk and watched her all the way inside. There was a broad paved area in front of the building. She skipped across it, bare legs flashing and dancing under the dress. She turned and smiled and waved. Pushed sideways through the revolving door, swinging her heavy case. It was a tall building, maybe sixty stories. Probably dozens of suites rented to dozens of separate firms, maybe hundreds. But the situation looked like it might be safe enough. There was a wide reception counter immediately inside the revolving door. A line of security guys sitting behind it, and behind them was a solid glass screen, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, with one opening in it, operated by a buzzer under their counter. Behind the screen were the elevators. No way in, unless the security guys saw fit to let you in. He nodded to himself. It might be safe enough. Maybe. It would depend on the diligence of the doormen. He saw her talking to one of them, head bent, blond hair falling forward. Then she was walking to the door in the screen, waiting, pushing it. She went through to the elevators. Hit a button. A door slid open. She backed in, levering her case over the threshold with both hands. The door slid shut.

He waited out on the paved area for a minute. Then he hurried across and shouldered in through the revolving door. Strode over to the counter like he did it every day of his life. Picked on the oldest security guy. The oldest ones are usually the most sloppy. The younger ones still entertain hopes of advancement.

“They want me up at Spencer Gutman,” he said, looking at his watch.

“Name?” the old guy asked.

“Lincoln,” Reacher said.

The guy was grizzled and tired, but he did what he was supposed to do. He picked a clipboard out of a slot and studied it.

“You got an appointment?”

“They just paged me,” Reacher said. “Some kind of a big hurry, I guess.”

“Lincoln, like the car?”

“Like the president,” Reacher said.

The old guy nodded and ran a thick finger down a long list of names.

“You’re not on the list,” he said. “I can’t let you in, without your name on the list.”

“I work for Costello,” Reacher said. “They need me upstairs, like right now.”

“I could call them,” the guy said. “Who paged you?”