17 A Wanted Man

shape of a tennis shoe. Reacher stopped and looked at the house. Three bedrooms, probably. Two of them full of kids. Thin walls. Nothing but siding and sheet rock. Better to shoot in the other direction. Unless the other neighbour was an orphanage.
    They moved on, to the last fence. They looked over at their target.
    Their target was a two-storey house.
    It was about half as wide and twice as high as any of its neighbours. It had dark red siding. It had what looked like a full-width kitchen across the back. Then would come a front central hallway, probably, with rooms either side. And a staircase. Probably four rooms on the second floor. About the size of any other house, really, but split in half and stacked.
    Not good. Not good at all. Two-storey houses were about eight times as difficult as one-storey houses. That had been Reacher’s experience.
    Sorenson looked a question at him.
    He winked. Left eye.
    They climbed the fence. Into the target’s yard. It was minimally maintained. Rough grass, no flowerbeds. No trees. No ornamental plantings. No grills, no chairs, no toys.
    But there was a cellar door.
    And it was wide open.
    It was the traditional kind of cellar door. Made of pressed metal, maybe five feet long by four feet wide, split down the middle into two halves, built at a very shallow angle into the ground, the top end hard up against the foundation of the house and about a foot and a half higher than the bottom end. It gave on to a short flight of rough wooden steps.
    There was no light in the basement. Reacher walked left and right and saw no light anywhere in the house, except behind a small pebble-glass window on the ground floor, on the left-hand side of the building. A powder room, presumably. Occupied, possibly. Worst case, all kinds of fanatics sleeping four to every room, with one of them awake and in the toilet.
    Dining room, living room, maybe four rooms upstairs.
    Worst case, maybe twenty-four people.
    He walked back to Sorenson and she held forked fingers under her eyes and then put them together and pointed them down through the cellar door:
I’m going to take a look down there
. He nodded. She took the wooden steps slowly and carefully, putting her weight near the outer ends, where creaks were less likely. She reached the concrete floor and ducked her head and disappeared under the house.
    Reacher waited. Forty seconds. A whole minute.
    Sorenson came back. The duck of the head, the reappearance in the well at the foot of the steps. In the moonlight she looked a little out of breath. But she nodded.
OK. It’s clear
. Reacher pointed at her, and tapped his left wrist, and then touched his ear.
Wait until you hear us at the doors
.
    Sorenson disappeared again.
    Reacher backed away until he could see down the side of the house to the street. Delfuenso was waiting there. In the shadows. She was leaning on a sidewalk tree. She was practically merged with it. He waved. She pushed off the tree. She mimed:
What’s happening?
A cupped hand, brought up to her shoulder, her elbow tucked in. He shrugged. A big exaggerated gesture:
I’m not sure
. She held her thumb sideways:
Yes or no?
    He held his thumb up.
    Yes
.
    She nodded. She took a breath. She held her palms out to him, both hands, including the gun, and she spread all her fingers:
In ten
.
    She curled a finger down:
In nine
.
    Another finger:
In eight
.
    Then she scooted sideways out of the picture, towards the front door, and Reacher did the same thing, towards the back.
    Seven. Six. Five. Four
.
    Three
.
    Two
.
    One
.
    Delfuenso had been counting faster than Reacher. He heard a hammering on the front door while his foot was still in the air. The hammering sounded like the butt of a Glock on a steel plate. A steel front door. Reinforced. A security measure. He wondered what kind of resistance the back door was about to offer him.
    Not much, as it turned out.
    He smashed his boot heel an inch above the knob, accelerating all the way, punching hard through the last final fraction, and the door burst inward and then Reacher was right there in the kitchen, a little fast, but otherwise with no more trouble than stepping over some kind of small hurdle in his way. The hammering continued at the front. The kitchen was cold and empty. Recently used, but currently deserted. Reacher stepped into the hallway, ready to find someone on the way to answer the door, ready to shoot that someone in the back.
    The hallway was deserted.
    The hammering