One Shot

Metropole Palace Hotel.”
    “Is that where Reacher is staying?”
    “Not according to the register.”
    “So is he a suspect or not?”
    “Right now he looks pretty damn good for it.”
    “So when are you going to bring him in?”
    “As soon as I find him.”
    “I’ll call Helen,” Alex Rodin said. “She’ll know where he is.”

    Rodin lied to his daughter. He told her that Bellantonio needed to see Reacher to correct a possible misunderstanding about part of the prosecution’s evidence.
    “What part?” Helen asked.
    “Just something they discussed. Probably nothing important, but I’m playing this very cautiously. Don’t want to hand you grounds for an appeal.”
    The traffic cone,
Helen thought.
    “He’s on his way to the airport,” she said.
    “Why?”
    “To say hello to Eileen Hutton.”
    “They know each other?”
    “Apparently.”
    “That’s unethical.”
    “To know each other?”
    “To influence her testimony.”
    “I’m sure he won’t do that.”
    “When will he be back?”
    “After lunch, I think.”
    “OK,” Rodin said. “It’ll keep.”

    But it didn’t keep, of course. Emerson left for the airport immediately. He had met Reacher twice face-to-face and could pick him out of a crowd. Donna Bianca went with him. They went in together through a restricted area and found a security office that looked out over the whole arrivals hall through one-way glass. They scanned the waiting faces carefully. No sign of Reacher.
Not here yet.
So they settled down to wait.

CHAPTER 9
    Reacher didn’t go to the airport. He knew better. Senior military personnel spend a lot of time flying small aircraft, either fixed wing or rotary, and they don’t like it. Outside of combat, more military personnel die in plane crashes than from any other single cause. Therefore, given a choice, a smart Brigadier General like Eileen Hutton wouldn’t ride a puddle jumper down from Indianapolis. She would be happy enough with a big jet out of Washington National, but she wouldn’t contemplate a twin-prop for the final leg of her journey. No way. She would rent a car instead.
    So Reacher walked south and east to the library. Asked the subdued woman at the desk where the Yellow Pages were stored. He went where she pointed and hauled the book out onto a table. Opened it to
H
for Hotels. Started looking. Almost certainly some JAG Corps office grunt had done the equivalent thing the previous day, but remotely, probably online. Hutton would have told him to book her a room. He would have been anxious to please, so he would have turned first to the street map and found the courthouse and the road in from the north. Then he would have chosen a decent place convenient for both. Somewhere with parking, for the rental car. Probably a chain, with an established government rate accessible by a code number.
    The Marriott Suites,
Reacher thought.
That’s where she’ll be headed.
Off the highway, south toward town, an obvious left turn east, and there it was, three blocks north of the courthouse, an easy walk, breakfast included. The office grunt had probably printed out driving directions from the internet and clipped them to her itinerary. Anxious to please. Hutton had that effect on people.
    He memorized the Marriott’s number and put the book away. Then he walked out to the lobby and dialed the pay phone.
    “I want to confirm a reservation,” he said.
    “Name?”
    “Hutton.”
    “Yes, we’ve got that. Tonight only, a suite.”
    “Thank you,” Reacher said, and put the phone down.
    She would take an early flight out of D.C. After two decades in uniform she would be up at five, in a cab at six, boarding at seven. She would be in Indianapolis by nine, latest. Out of the Hertz lot by nine-thirty. It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive. She would arrive at noon. In about an hour.
    He stepped out of the lobby and looped through the plaza and headed north and east through a thin crowd of people, past the far side of the recruiting office, past the back of the courthouse. He found the Marriott easily enough and took a corner table in its coffee shop and settled down to wait.

    Helen Rodin called Rosemary Barr at work. She wasn’t there. The receptionist sounded a little embarrassed about it. So Helen tried Rosemary’s home number, and got her after the second ring.
    “Did they let you go?” she asked.
    “Unpaid leave,” Rosemary said. “I volunteered for it. Everyone was acting awkward around