The Hard Way

don’t think he missed it. But I think he misinterpreted it. He started thinking about Hobart and the Africa connection.”
    “How bad is Hobart, really?”
    “About as bad as it gets.”
    “That’s unforgivable.”
    “No argument from me.”
    “Do you think I’m cold-blooded?”
    “If I did it wouldn’t be a criticism.”
    “Edward wanted to own me. Like a chattel. And he said if I was ever unfaithful he would rupture Jade’s hymen with a potato peeler. He said he would tie me up and make me watch him do it. He said that when she was five years old.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    Kate turned to Pauling and asked, “Do you have children?”
    Pauling shook her head.
    Kate said, “You blot a thing like that right out of your mind. You assume it was just the sick product of a temporary rage. Like he wasn’t quite right in the head. But then I heard the story about Anne and I knew he was capable of really doing it. So now I want him dead.”
    Reacher said, “He’s going to be. Very soon.”
    “They say you should never get between a lioness and her cub. I never really understood that before. Now I do. There are no limits.”
    The room went as quiet as only the countryside can. The flames in the fireplace flickered and danced. Strange shadows moved on the walls.
    Reacher asked, “Are you planning on staying here forever?”
    “I hope to,” Kate said. “Organic farming is going to be a big thing. Better for people, better for the land. We can buy some more acres from the locals. Maybe expand a little.”
    “We?”
    “I feel like a part of it.”
    “What are you growing?”
    “Right now, just grass. We’re in the hay business for the next five years or so. We have to work the old chemicals out of the soil. And that takes time.”
    “Hard to picture you as a farmer.”
    “I think I’m going to enjoy it.”
    “Even when Lane is out of the picture permanently?”
    “In that case I guess we would go back to New York occasionally. But downtown only. I won’t go back to the Dakota.”
    “Anne’s sister lives directly opposite. In the Majestic. She’s been watching Lane every day for four years.”
    Kate said, “I’d like to meet her. And I’d like to see Hobart’s sister again.”
    “Like a survivors’ club,” Pauling said.
    Reacher got out of his chair and walked to the window. Saw nothing but nighttime blackness. Heard nothing but silence.
    “First we have to survive,” he said.

----

    They kept the fire going and dozed quietly in the armchairs. When the clock in Reacher’s head hit one-thirty in the morning he tapped Pauling on the knee and stood up and stretched. Then they headed outside together into the dead-of-night dark and cold. Called softly and met Taylor and Jackson in a huddle outside the front door. Reacher took Taylor’s weapon and headed for the south end of the house. The gun was warm from Taylor’s hands. The safety was above and behind the trigger. It had tritium markings, which made them faintly luminous. Reacher selected single fire and raised the rifle to his shoulder and checked the fit. It felt pretty good. It balanced pretty well. The carrying handle was like an exaggerated version of an M16’s, with a neat little oval aperture in the front slope to provide a line-of-sight back to the built-in scope, which was a plain 3x monocular, which according to the laws of optics pulled the target three times closer than the naked eye but also made it three stops darker, which rendered it functionally useless at night. Three stops darker than pitch black was no use to anyone. But overall the thing was a handsome weapon. It would be fine by dawn.
    He put his back against the blind gable wall and settled in and waited. He could smell woodsmoke from the kitchen chimney. After a minute his eyesight adjusted and he saw that there was a little moonlight behind heavy cloud, maybe one shade lighter than total darkness. But still comforting. Nobody would see him from a distance. He was wearing gray pants and a gray jacket and he was leaning on a gray wall holding a black gun. In turn he would see headlights miles away and he would see men on foot about ten feet away. Close quarters. But at night, vision was not the sense that counted anyway. In the darkness, hearing was primary. Sound was the best early-warning system. Reacher himself could be totally silent, because he wasn’t moving. But no intruder could be. Intruders had to move.
    He stepped forward two paces and stood