More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
An old warehouse, Reacher guessed. Solid. Built to endure. The kind of place that had outlasted the industry it had been designed to serve and was now onto its second lease on life.
Reacher turned the page. He didn’t like private military contractors. The idea of war for profit didn’t sit well with him.
He didn’t want to spend too much on the coat, partly because he had no interest in fashion, but mainly because he never kept clothes of any kind for very long. Shirts, pants, and underwear he bought, wore for two or three days, junked, and replaced. A coat could theoretically last longer, but he didn’t know how long he would need it. He could be on a beach the next day. Or in a desert.
The smart thing to do would be to walk away. Reacher knew that. He had no skin in the game. No obligation to help a total stranger. But he did have a curious nature.
And on top of that his eyes kept getting drawn back to the final scrawled word at the bottom of the page. Please. Something about the way it was written resonated with him.
He had no particular route in mind. No specific destination. He just craved the sensation of forward momentum. The feeling reminded him of something an old friend used to say. That when she was stressed she couldn’t stay still. She had to be constantly on the move, like a shark. He had thought she was being overly dramatic at the time. Now he could appreciate what she meant.
The front part of the building was surprisingly grand. It was three stories high, all stone and red brick, and there was even some stained glass clinging on in the higher floors’ windows. It could have belonged to a movie theater, Reacher thought. Or a museum or concert hall. He guessed it had been built in the days before just-in-time logistics, when torrents of merchandise were flowing into the country via the port and people believed that having supplies of valuable goods on hand was a good idea.
Waiting was one of his strengths. It was a skill he had honed during his years in the army but even before that it had suited his temperament. Time had taught him that he had two natural states: violent, explosive action, or quiet, almost comatose inactivity.
He swept ten feet up all the walls. But he didn’t go any higher. In the shadow on the balcony, Reacher smiled. A long time before, in Escape and Evasion training, he’d been taught that if you need to hide, you climb, because no one ever looks up. No one knows why. It’s just some quirk of human nature. He had thought that was crazy at first, but over the years it had been proved right, time after time.
“So where are you headed?” Reacher paused for a moment, like he was surprised by the question. Then he said, “Wherever the first bus takes me.”
The guy was maybe five foot six, and he was easily sixty years old. He was wearing a gray suit the exact same shade as his shoulder-length hair, and a white shirt with a red-and-blue-striped tie. He moved back and gestured for Reacher to come inside. The guy was a world away from the bulked-up bouncer Reacher had been expecting. And given the way he seemed to glide rather than step, Reacher would have bet the whole stack of fifties that he had years of training behind him. More than enough to outweigh a gut full of steroids and too many pointless hours in the gym.
Just a counter with four stools in front and a shelf behind holding a bunch of bottles of spirits, plus an ice bucket and all shapes of glasses on top. Another smart move. Money flowed faster with the right lubrication, Reacher had always noticed. Although fists were quicker to fly, too.
He was all puffed up and bulky. The opposite of the gray-haired guy downstairs. Reacher was happy that the older man had stayed down there. There was something about him that he’d liked. His gracefulness, perhaps, or his politeness. Reacher had been hoping he wouldn’t have to hurt him.
But I knew a guy from Scotland a while back. Over there they say, ‘Where do you stay?’ And that does make sense. If you have a house or whatever else, you have to stay in it. Or near it. Most of the time, anyway. And I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to stay anywhere. Not permanently. Not for more than a day or two.” “You don’t? Why not?” “It’s just the way I’m wired.” “I guess you liked the army, then. In the right unit you’re never in one place very long.” “But with a twist. The army tells you where to go, and when. Now I get to pick.”
Inside, the setup was pretty basic, like the kind of thing Reacher would have expected at a remote third-world airport. There was a reception counter to the side. Its pale laminated surface was wearing thin in places. A guard was sitting behind it wearing a faux paramilitary uniform complete with all kinds of badges and patches and emblems. There was a metal detector arch in the center and a scarred conveyor belt feeding an X-ray machine on the other side. Beyond that, another uniformed guard sat and stared blankly at a screen. Gilmour dumped his keys, phone, wallet, and loose change in a
...more
“If you made a mistake, learn from it. Sure. But at the right time. After the action. Not during. Otherwise you lose focus. One mistake becomes two. Two becomes four. And then what will you want to do? Go back to before you were born?”
Gilmour knocked on the door. There was no answer. He turned to walk back to the car, but Reacher stepped in front of him. He knocked the way he had when he was an MP. Not a tentative Is anyone there? but a command: Come out. Now.
A DIY webcam. You don’t even have to unplug it. You can just knock out the Wi-Fi. Take out all the cameras on the network in one go.” Reacher believed him but figured that if he was up to something secret, he’d still rather pull a physical plug.
To a fallen enemy, in Gilmour’s mind. Reacher’s mental jury was still out.
“Have you heard of William of Ockham?” “No. Who is he?” “Was. He was a philosopher. Born in the thirteenth century, died in the fourteenth. His claim to fame is a principle he came up with. People call it Occam’s Razor. It says that if there are multiple possible explanations for something, unless you have proof to the contrary, you go with the simplest one.
“When I met her makes no difference,” Reacher said. “You don’t break your word. You don’t betray a confidence.” “Clearly you never worked in Intelligence.”
“Not entirely. I found one interesting thing. A password-protected document.” “That’s interesting?” “Usually. Back in Wiesbaden, anytime we had to search a bad guy’s laptop, we always started with those. They’re like safes in hotel rooms. A place where people stash all their valuables, thinking they’re secure, but in reality every housekeeper knows how to open them.” “You being one of the housekeepers?” “Right.
Reacher had no interest in where the homeowners parked or how other people’s party guests behaved. Just thinking about things like that made him want to leave town and get back on the move. It didn’t matter where to.
He tried to explain that he hadn’t lost anything. He had gained everything. But he didn’t try too hard. People either got his lifestyle or they didn’t. He knew that from experience. People wanted roots or they wanted freedom. They wanted to have a boss or to be their own boss. To have structure or to have flexibility. There was no point in trying to change anyone’s mind. And even if it had been possible, Reacher wouldn’t have wanted to. Deciding on a path for yourself was pretty much the whole point.
“I broke my second rule of army life. Never trust the intel.
