One Shot

inside.
    “Rodin,” he said. “Fourth floor.”
    The guard nodded. The law offices of Helen Rodin had received plenty of deliveries that day. Boxes, cartons, guys with hand trucks. One more was to be expected. No big surprise. He walked back to his desk without comment and Raskin walked over to the elevator. Got in and pressed
4
.
    First thing he saw on the fourth floor was a city cop standing outside the lawyer’s door. Raskin knew what that meant, immediately. It meant the lawyer’s office was still a live possibility. Which meant Reacher wasn’t in there at the present time and hadn’t tried to get in there anytime recently. So Raskin wheeled around like he was confused by the corridor layout and headed around a corner. Waited a moment and then headed back to the elevator. He folded the sketch and put it in his pocket. In the lobby he gave the guard a job-done type of wave and headed back out into the night. Turned left and headed north and east toward the Marriott Suites.

    The six-cup pot of coffee was more than even Reacher could manage. He quit after five. Hutton didn’t seem to mind. He guessed she thought five out of six justified his insistence.
    “Come see me in Washington,” she said.
    “I will,” he said. “For sure. Next time I’m there.”
    “Don’t get caught.”
    “I won’t,” he said. “Not by these guys.”
    Then he just looked at her for a minute. Storing away the memory. Adding another fragment to his mosaic. He kissed her once on the lips and walked to the door. Let himself out into the corridor and headed for the stairs. On the ground floor he turned away from the lobby and used the fire door again. It swung shut and locked behind him and he took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows and headed for the sidewalk.

    Raskin saw him immediately. He was thirty yards away, walking fast, coming up on the Marriott from the rear. He saw a flash of glass in the streetlight. A fire door, opening. He saw a tall man stepping out. Standing still. Then the door jerked shut on a hydraulic closer and the tall man turned to watch it latch behind him and a stray beam of light was reflected off the moving glass and played briefly across his face. Just for a split second, like a handheld flashlight swinging through a fast arc. Like a camera strobe. Not much. But enough for Raskin to be certain. The man who had come through the fire door was the man in the sketch. Jack Reacher, for sure, no question. Right height, right weight, right face. Raskin had studied the details long and hard.
    So he stopped dead and stepped backward into the shadows. Watched, and waited. Saw Reacher glance right, glance left, and set out walking straight ahead, due west, fast and easy. Raskin stayed where he was and counted
one, two, three
in his head. Then he came out of the shadows and crossed the parking lot and stopped again and peered around the corner to the west. Reacher was twenty yards ahead. Still walking, still relaxed. Still unaware. Center of the sidewalk, long strides, his arms swinging loose at his sides. He was a big guy. That was for sure. As big as Vladimir, easily.
    Raskin counted to three again and let Reacher get forty yards ahead. Then he set out following. He kept his eyes fixed on the target and fumbled his cell phone out of his pocket. Dialed Grigor Linsky’s number. Reacher walked on, forty yards in the distance. Raskin put the phone to his ear.
    “Yes?” Linsky said.
    “I found him,” Raskin whispered.
    “Where?”
    “He’s walking. West from the Marriott. He’s about level with the courthouse now, two blocks to the north.”
    “Where’s he going?”
    “Wait,” Raskin whispered. “Hold on.”
    Reacher stopped on a corner. Glanced left and turned right, toward the shadows under the raised highway. Still relaxed. Raskin watched him across waist-high trash in an empty lot.
    “He’s turned north,” he whispered.
    “Toward?”
    “I don’t know. The sports bar, maybe.”
    “OK,” Linsky said. “We’ll come north. We’ll wait fifty yards up the street from the sports bar. Call me back in three minutes exactly. Meanwhile, don’t let him out of your sight.”
    “OK,” Raskin said. He clicked his phone off but kept it up at his ear and took a shortcut across the empty lot. Paused against a blank brick wall and peered around its corner. Reacher was still forty yards ahead, still in the center of the sidewalk, arms swinging, still moving fast. A confident man, Raskin