The Hard Way

asked Gregory.”
    “Gregory might be biased. They were from the same unit. They were Brits together overseas. What did you think?”
    “He was good,” Groom said. “SAS is a good outfit. Better than Delta, maybe. Brits are usually more ruthless. It’s in their genes. They ruled the world for a long time, and they didn’t do it by being nice. An SAS veteran would be second only to a Recon Marine veteran, that would be my opinion. So yes, Gregory was right. Taylor was good.”
    “What was he like as a person?”
    “Off duty he was gentle. He was good with the kid. Mrs. Lane seemed to like him. There’s two types of people here. Like an inner circle and an outer circle. Taylor was inner circle. I’m outer circle. I’m all business. I’m kind of stunted, in a social situation. I can admit it. I’m nothing, away from the action. Some of the others can be both.”
    “Were you here five years ago?”
    “For Anne? No, I came just after. But there can’t be a connection.”
    “So I heard,” Reacher said.

----

    The clock in Reacher’s head ticked around to four-thirty in the afternoon. For Kate and Jade, the third day. Probably fifty-four hours since the snatch. Fifty-four hours was an incredibly long time for a kidnap to sustain itself. Most were over in less than twenty-four, one way or the other, good result or bad. Most law enforcement people gave up after thirty-six. Each passing minute made the likely outcome more and more dire.
    Around a quarter to five in the afternoon Lane came back into the room and people started drifting in after him. Gregory, Addison, Burke, Kowalski. Perez came in. The vigil around the telephone started up again unannounced. Lane stood next to the table. The others grouped themselves around the room, all facing the same way, inward. There was no doubt about the center of their attention.
    But the phone didn’t ring.
    “Has that thing got a speaker?” Reacher asked.
    “No,” Lane said.
    “What about in the office?”
    “I can’t do it,” Lane said. “It would be a change. It would unsettle them.”
    The phone didn’t ring.
    “Hang in there,” Reacher said.

----

    In her apartment across the street the woman who had been watching the building picked up her phone and dialed.

CHAPTER 12
    THE WOMAN ACROSS the street was called Patricia Joseph, Patti to her few remaining friends, and she was dialing an NYPD detective named Brewer. She had his home number. He answered on the second ring.
    “I’ve got some activity to report,” Patti said.
    Brewer didn’t ask who his caller was. He didn’t need to. He knew Patti Joseph’s voice about as well as he knew anybody’s.
    “Go ahead,” he said.
    “There’s a new character on the scene.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t have a name for him yet.”
    “Description?”
    “Very tall, heavily built, like a real brawler. He’s in his late thirties or early forties. Short fair hair, blue eyes. He showed up late last night.”
    “One of them?” Brewer asked.
    “He doesn’t dress like them. And he’s much bigger than the rest. But he acts like them.”
    “Acts? What have you seen him do?”
    “The way he walks. The way he moves. The way he holds himself.”
    “So you think he’s ex-military, too?”
    “Almost certainly.”
    “OK,” Brewer said. “Good work. Anything else?”
    “One thing,” Patti Joseph said. “I haven’t seen the wife or the daughter in a couple of days.”

----

    Inside the Dakota living room the phone rang at what Reacher figured was five o’clock exactly. Lane snatched the receiver out of the cradle and clamped it to his ear. Reacher heard the drone and squawk of the electronic machine, faint and muffled. Lane said, “Put Kate on,” and there was a long, long pause. Then a woman’s voice, loud and clear. But not calm. Lane closed his eyes. Then the electronic squawk came back and Lane opened his eyes again. The squawk droned on for a whole minute. Lane listened, his face working, his eyes moving. Then the call ended. Just cut off before Lane had a chance to say anything more.
    He put the receiver back in the cradle. His face was half-filled with hope, half-filled with despair.
    “They want more money,” he said. “Instructions in an hour.”
    “Maybe I should get down there right now,” Reacher said. “Maybe they’ll throw us a curveball by changing the time interval.”
    But Lane was already shaking his head. “They threw us a different kind of curveball. They said they’re