Running Blind (Jack Reacher, #4)

by Lee Child

The dynamics of the city. The strong terrorize the weak. They keep on at it, like they always have, until they come up against somebody stronger with some arbitrary humane reason for stopping them.

He wasn’t mounting any kind of a big campaign. But equally he wasn’t about to let anything happen right under his nose. He couldn’t just walk away. He never had.

She had told him cities are dangerous places. They’re full of tough, scary guys.

And he had seen that she was right. People on city streets were fearful and furtive and defensive. They kept their distance and crossed to the opposite sidewalk to avoid coming

near him. They made it so obvious he became convinced the scary guys were always right behind him, at his shoulder.

Then he suddenly realized no, I’m the scary guy. They’re scared of me...

“You think I’m making advances to you?” “Aren’t you? Wouldn’t you like to?” He shook his head again. “Not while there are dogs on the street,” he said.

“No, Ernesto A. Miranda is the best friend I got,” Reacher said. “Miranda versus Arizona, Supreme Court decision in June of 1966. They said his Fifth Amendment rights were infringed because the cops didn’t warn him he could stay silent and get himself a lawyer. ”

“So you can’t talk to me until you read me my Miranda rights.

Reacher looked for the trick, but he couldn’t see it. “More Supreme Court decisions,” he said. “Following on from Miranda. Brewer was 1977, Duckworth 1989, Perkins 1990, Minnick 1990, McNeil 1991, Fulminante 1991, all of them modifying and restating the original Miranda decision.”

“I want you,” he said. She nodded. “I know that. And I want you. You know that too. But do we want

each other’s lives?”

“You know what you really want,” she said. “Everybody always does, instinctively. Any doubt you’re feeling is just noise, trying to bury the truth, because you don’t want to face it.”

After today, they won’t trust him to direct traffic around the Arctic Circle.

The pilot was military, so he was using the rudder. Civilian pilots avoid using the rudder. Using the rudder makes the plane slew, like a car skids. Passengers don’t like the feeling. So civilian pilots turn by juicing the engines on one side and backing off on the others. Then the plane comes around smoothly.

“This is awful,” she said. “Fifteen years I couldn’t live without you, and now I find I can’t live with you.”