61 Hours

he’s not sure you won’t figure it out eventually. You’re his last obstacle.’
    ‘Why hasn’t he come after me already?’
    ‘No safe opportunity yet. That’s the only possible reason. He’s going to be cautious with you. More so than with the others. The lawyer was a patsy, Peterson was a bumpkin, and Salter was a harmless old lady. You’re different.’
    ‘Not so very different.’
    ‘You need to pull back to Rapid City. Hole up somewhere and talk to the FBI.’
    ‘I don’t have a vehicle.’
    ‘You have a telephone. You’re talking on it right now. Put it down and then call the FBI. Keep your guard up until they get there.’
    He didn’t answer.
    She asked, ‘Are you going to do that?’
    ‘I doubt it.’
    ‘You weren’t responsible for those people, you know.’
    ‘Says who?’
    ‘All of this would have happened just the same without you. It’s a million-to-one chance you were there at all.’
    ‘Peterson was a nice guy. And a good cop. He wanted to be a better cop. He was one of those guys who knew enough to know he didn’t know everything. I liked him.’
    Susan said nothing.
    ‘I liked Mrs Salter, too. She was a noble old bird.’
    ‘You need to get out of there. You’re outnumbered. Plato won’t come alone.’
    ‘I hope he doesn’t.’
    ‘It’s dangerous.’
    Reacher said, ‘For him.’
    Susan said, ‘Do you remember as a kid, watching a movie about a creature in a lagoon?’
    ‘Is that thing still in my file?’
    ‘In the back index.’
    ‘And you read it?’
    ‘I was interested.’
    ‘They got it wrong. And they took away my blade, which pissed me off.’
    ‘How did they get it wrong?’
    ‘I wasn’t some kind of a genetic freak. I was born as scared as anyone. Maybe more so. I lay awake crying with the best of them. But I got tired of it. I trained myself out of it. An act of will. I re-routed fear into aggression. It was easy enough to do.’
    ‘At the age of six?’
    ‘No, I was an old hand by then. I was four when I started. I had the job done by the time I was five.’
    ‘Is that what you’re doing now? Re-routing guilt into aggression?’
    ‘I took an oath. Same as you did. All enemies, foreign and domestic. Looks like I’ve got one of each here. Plato, and whoever his bent cop is.’
    ‘Your oath lapsed.’
    ‘It never lapses.’
    She asked, ‘How does a six-year-old have his own switchblade anyway?’
    ‘Didn’t you have one?’
    ‘Of course not.’
    ‘Do you have one now?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You should get one.’
    She said, ‘And you should go to Rapid City and do this thing properly.’
    ‘We’re short of time.’
    ‘You have no legal standing.’
    ‘So put another tag on my file. Or save them all some effort. Just Xerox it. Three copies, FBI, DEA, and the local South Dakota people. Send them out overnight.’
    ‘You’re not thinking straight. You’re punishing yourself. You can’t win them all. You don’t have to win them all.’
    ‘They put you in charge of the 110th?’
    ‘And I’ll stay in charge. As long as I want.’
    ‘This time it was really important.’
    ‘They’re all important.’
    ‘Not like this. I’m staring at a nice old lady with a hole in her head. She mattered more to me than being hungry.’
    ‘Stop looking at her.’
    Reacher looked down at the floor.
    Susan said, ‘You can’t change the past.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘You can’t atone. And you don’t need to, anyway. That guy deserved to be in a coma, maybe for ever.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Go to Rapid City.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then come to Virginia. We’ll deal with this together.’
    Reacher said nothing.
    ‘Don’t you want to come to Virginia?’
    ‘Sure I do.’
    ‘So do it.’
    ‘I will. Tomorrow.’
    ‘Do it now.’
    ‘It’s the middle of the night.’
    ‘There was a question you used to ask me.’
    ‘Was there?’
    ‘You stopped asking it.’
    ‘What was it?’
    ‘You used to ask if I was married.’
    ‘Are you?’
    ‘No.’
    Reacher looked up again. Janet Salter stared right back at him.
    He said, ‘I’ll leave tomorrow.’
    He hung up the phone.
    Five minutes to two in the morning. Two hours to go.

FORTY
    T HREE HOURS INTO THE FLIGHT, AND P LATO WAS GET TING TENSE . Unsurprisingly. His life was like a video game. One thing popped up at him after another. Each thing had to be dealt with efficiently and comprehensively. From the most important to the least. Not that even the least important thing was trivial. He spent fifteen