The Hard Way

Then he hiked back to the rental office and found Pauling waiting with the key to a Mini Cooper.
    “A red one,” she said. “With a white roof. Very cool.”
    He said, “I think Taylor might be right there. With his sister.”
    “Why?”
    “His instinct would be to go hide somewhere lonely. Somewhere isolated. And he was a soldier, so deep down he’d want somewhere defensible. It’s flat as a pool table there. I just read the map. He’d see someone coming from five miles away. If he’s got a rifle he’s impregnable. And if he’s got four-wheel-drive he’s got a three-sixty escape route. He could just take off across the fields in any direction.”
    “You can’t murder two people and steal more than ten million dollars and just go home to your sister.”
    “He wouldn’t have to give her chapter and verse. He wouldn’t really have to tell her anything at all. And it might only be temporary. He might need a break. He’s been under a lot of stress.”
    “You sound sorry for him.”
    “I’m trying to think like him. He’s been planning for a long time and the last week must have been hell. He must be exhausted. He needs to hole up and sleep.”
    “His sister’s place would be too risky, surely. Family is the first thing anyone thinks of. We did, with Hobart. We tried every Hobart in the book.”
    “His sister is a Jackson, not a Taylor. Like Graziano wasn’t a Hobart. And Grange Farm is not an ancestral pile. The sister only just moved there. Anyone tracking his family would get bogged down in London.”
    “There’s a kid up there. His niece. Would he put innocent people in physical danger?”
    “He just killed two innocent people. He’s a little underdeveloped in the conscience department.”
    Pauling swung the car key on her finger. Back and forth, thinking.
    “It’s possible,” she said. “I guess. So what’s our play?”
    “Taylor was with Lane three years,” Reacher said. “So he never met you and he sure as hell never met me. So it doesn’t really make much difference. He’s not going to shoot every stranger who comes to the house. He can’t really afford to. It’s something we should bear in mind, is all.”
    “We’re going right to the house?”
    Reacher nodded. “At least close enough to scope it out. If Taylor’s there, we back off and wait for Lane. If he isn’t, we go all the way in and talk to Susan.”
    “When?”
    “Now.”

----

    The rental guy brought the Mini Cooper out from a garage space in back and Reacher shoved the passenger seat hard up against the rear bench and slid inside. Pauling got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. It was a cute car. It looked great in red. But it was a handful to drive. Stick shift, wrong side of the road, wheel on the right, early-evening traffic in one of the world’s most congested cities. But they made it back to the hotel OK. They double parked and Pauling ran in to get her bag. Reacher stayed in the car. His toothbrush was already in his pocket. Pauling got back after five minutes and said, “We’re on the west side here. Convenient for the airport. But now we need to exit the city from the east.”
    “Northeast,” Reacher said. “On a highway called the M-11.”
    “So I have to drive all the way through the center of London in rush hour.”
    “No worse than Paris or Rome.”
    “I’ve never been to Paris or Rome.”
    “Well, now you’ll know what to expect if you ever get there.”
    Heading east and north was a simple enough proposition but like any major city London was full of one-way systems and complex junctions. And it was full of lines of stalled traffic at every light. They made halting progress as far as a district called Shoreditch and then they found a wide road labeled A-10 that speared due north. Too early, but they took it anyway. They figured they would make the lateral adjustment later, away from the congestion. Then they found the M-25, which was a kind of beltway. They hit it clockwise and two exits later they were on the M-11, heading north and east for Cambridge, Newmarket, and ultimately Norfolk. Nine o’clock in the evening, and getting dark.
    Pauling asked, “You know this area we’re going to?”
    “Not really,” Reacher said. “It was Air Force country, not army. Bomber bases all over the place. Flat, spacious, close to Europe. Ideal.”
    England was a lit-up country. That was for damn sure. Every inch of the highway was bathed in bright vapor glow. And people