Never Go Back

tasked to be on top of everything, all the time. He could dip in and out any old time he wanted to. No checks and balances for him, because he’s the guy the checks and balances get reported to.’
    ‘So we’re dealing with a Deputy Chief of Staff?’
    ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall.’
    ‘Conspiring with someone in Afghanistan?’
    ‘Those guys all know each other. They’re very social. Probably classmates.’
    ‘So who are these guys on the plane? They don’t look like Pentagon staffers.’
    Reacher didn’t answer. He just watched and waited.
    And then ten minutes later his patience was rewarded.
    The woman in the fancy business suit got up and headed for the bathroom.

FORTY-FIVE
    REACHER WAITED FOR the woman in the suit to pass by, and then he unclipped his belt and got up and headed forward, one row, two, three, four. He dropped into the woman’s vacated seat, and the makeweight from the second day reared back against the white-haired old guy with the cane, who was fast asleep with his head against the window.
    Reacher said, ‘Let me see your ID.’
    Which the guy didn’t. He just sat there, completely disconcerted, pressed up against his quarry like a sardine in a can. He was wearing some kind of nylon cargo pants, and a black sweatshirt under a black pea coat. He had a Hamilton watch on his left wrist, which meant he was probably right-handed. How long do women take in the bathroom? In Reacher’s experience they were not lightning fast. Four minutes, possibly.
    Which was about three more than he needed.
    He leaned forward, like he was going to head-butt the seat in front of him, and he rocked to his right, and he leaned back again, all one continuous fluid motion, so the guy ended up half trapped behind his right shoulder and his upper arm, and he reached over with his right hand and grabbed the guy’s right wrist, and he dragged the guy’s hand over towards him, twisting the wrist so the knuckles came first, with the palm facing away, and with his left hand he grabbed the guy’s right index finger, and he said, ‘Now you’ve got a choice. You can take it like a man, or you can scream like a little girl.’
    And he broke the guy’s finger, by wrenching it down ninety degrees and snapping the first knuckle, and then he popped the second knuckle with the ball of his thumb. The guy jumped and squirmed and gasped in shock and pain, but he didn’t scream. Not like a little girl. Not with a hundred other people there.
    Next Reacher broke his middle finger, in the same way, in the same two places, and then the guy started trying to get his trapped left arm free, which Reacher allowed, but only so he could swap hands and attend to the same two fingers on the other side.
    Then he said, ‘ID?’
    The guy didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He was too busy whimpering and grimacing and staring down at his ruined hands. His fingers were all over the place, sticking out at odd angles, bent into L shapes. Reacher patted him down, at close quarters, pushing him and pulling him to get at all his pockets. Nothing exciting in most of them, but he felt a characteristic lump in the right hip pocket. A tri-fold wallet, for sure. He pulled it out and stood up. Across the aisle and one row back the other guy was half on his feet. The woman in the suit was out of the bathroom and coming towards him. She hung back to let him sit, and then she continued on her way.
    Reacher dumped the wallet in Turner’s lap and re-clipped his belt. She said, ‘What did you do to him?’
    ‘He won’t be pulling any triggers for a week or two. Or hitting anything. Or driving. Or buttoning his pants. He’s off the table. Prevention is better than cure. Get your retaliation in first.’
    Turner didn’t answer.
    ‘I know,’ Reacher said. ‘Feral. What you see is what you get.’
    ‘No, it was good work.’
    ‘How did it look?’
    ‘He was hopping around a bit. I knew something was happening.’
    ‘What’s in the wallet?’
    Turner opened it up. It was a fat old item, made of decent leather that had moulded itself around its contents. Which were numerous. The back part had cash in two sections, a healthy quarter-inch wad of twenties, but nothing larger, and then a thinner selection of ones and tens and fives. The front part had three pockets sized to carry credit cards. On the top of the deck in the centre was a North Carolina driver’s licence, with the guy’s face in the picture, and the name Peter Paul