61 Hours

for six months. He was never quite all there afterwards. And you were right. I was canned, basically. No more 110th for me. Only the strength of the case saved me. They didn’t want it in the newspaper. I would have been busted big time otherwise. So I moved on.’
    ‘Where to?’
    ‘I don’t remember. I was too ashamed of myself. I did a bad thing. And I blew the best command I ever had.’
    Susan didn’t answer.
    Reacher said, ‘I got to thinking about it afterwards. You know, why had I done it? I couldn’t answer. Still can’t.’
    ‘You did it for your guys.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘You were putting the world to rights.’
    ‘Not really. I don’t want to put the world to rights. Maybe I should, but I don’t.’
    She said nothing.
    He said, ‘I just don’t like people who put the world to wrongs. Is that a phrase?’
    ‘It should be. What happened?’
    ‘Nothing more, really. That’s the story. You should ask for a new desk. There’s no honour in that old one.’
    ‘I mean, what happened tonight?’
    Reacher didn’t answer.
    Susan said, ‘Tell me. I know something happened.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Because you called me.’
    ‘I’ve called you plenty.’
    ‘When you needed something. So you need something now.’
    ‘I’m OK.’
    ‘It’s in your voice.’
    ‘I’m losing two-zip.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Two KIA.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘A cop and an old woman.’
    ‘Two-zip? It isn’t a game.’
    ‘You know damn well it’s a game.’
    ‘It’s people.’
    ‘I know it’s people. I’m looking at one of them right now. And the only thing stopping me putting my gun to my head is pretending it’s a game.’
    ‘You got a gun?’
    ‘In my pocket. A nice old .38.’
    ‘Leave it in your pocket, OK?’
    Reacher said nothing.
    Susan said, ‘Don’t touch it, OK?’
    ‘Give me a good reason.’
    ‘A .38 won’t necessarily get the job done. You know that. We’ve all seen it happen. You could end up like the general.’
    ‘I’ll aim carefully. Square on. I’ll make sure.’
    ‘Don’t do it, Reacher.’
    ‘Relax. I’m not going to shoot myself. Not my style. I’m just going to sit here until my head explodes all on its own.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Not your fault.’
    ‘It’s just that I don’t like to think of it as a game.’
    ‘You know it’s a game. It has to be a game. That’s the only way to make it bearable.’
    ‘OK, it’s a game. What are we in? The final quarter?’
    ‘Overtime.’
    ‘So give me the play by play so far. Brief me. Bring me up to date. Like we were working together.’
    ‘I wish we were.’
    ‘We are. What have we got?’
    He didn’t answer.
    She said, ‘Reacher, what have we got?’
    So Reacher took a breath and began to tell her what they had, slowly at first, and then faster as he picked up on the old shorthand rhythms he remembered from years of talking to people who understood what he understood, and saw what he saw, and grasped what didn’t need to be spelled out. He told her about the bus, and the meth, and the trial, and the jail, and the police department, and the crisis plan, and the lawyer, and the witness protection, and the riot, and Plato, and the underground storage, and Peterson, and Janet Salter.
    Her first response was: ‘Put your hand in your pocket.’
    He asked, ‘Why?’
    ‘Take out your gun.’
    ‘Now that’s OK?’
    ‘More than OK. It’s necessary. The bad guy saw you.’
    ‘When?’
    ‘While you were alone with Salter in the house. He had five hours.’
    ‘He didn’t come. He was up at the prison the whole time.’
    ‘That’s an assumption. We don’t know that for sure. He could have checked in, dropped off the radio net, slipped away, gone back. And do we even know that they really called the roll at all? A thing like that, sure, it’s in the plan as written, but who’s to say it actually gets done, you know, in real life, in a situation like that, right when the shit is hitting the fan?’
    ‘Whatever, I didn’t see him.’
    ‘He doesn’t know that. If he saw you, he’s going to assume you saw him. He’s going to come after you.’
    ‘That’s a lot of ifs and assumptions.’
    ‘Reacher, think about it. What’s to stop this guy getting away with it? He popped the lawyer, and Peterson, and Salter, three rounds from a throw-down pistol. He’s saving a fourth for you, and then he’s home free. Nobody will ever know who he was.’
    ‘I already don’t know who he was.’
    ‘He’s not sure of that. And