The Hard Way

and you didn’t.”
    “A timid guy like that won’t get promoted. He’s probably terminal at major.”
    “He’s already a Brigadier General,” Pauling said. “Actually.”
    “That guy?” Reacher stared at the door, as if it might have retained an after-image. “He was kind of young, wasn’t he?”
    “No, you’re kind of old,” Pauling said. “Everything is comparative. But putting a Brigadier General on it shows how seriously the U.S. is taking this mercenary stuff.”
    “It shows how seriously we’re whitewashing it.”
    Silence for a moment.
    “Mutilation for sport,” Pauling said. “Sounds horrible.”
    “Sure does.”
    Silence again. The waitress came over and offered refills of coffee. Pauling declined, Reacher accepted. Said, “NYPD found an unexplained body in the river this morning. White male, about forty. Up near the boat basin. Shot once. Lane got a call.”
    “Taylor?”
    “Almost certainly.”
    “So what next?”
    “We work with what we’ve got,” Reacher said. “We adopt the theory that Knight or Hobart came home with a grudge.”
    “How do we proceed?”
    “With hard work,” Reacher said. “I’m not going to hold my breath on getting anything from the Pentagon. However many scars and stars he’s got, that guy’s a bureaucrat at heart.”
    “Want to talk it through? I was an investigator once. A good one, too. I thought so anyway. Until, you know, what happened.”
    “Talking won’t help. I need to think.”
    “So think out loud. What doesn’t fit? What’s out of place? What surprised you in any way at all?”
    “The initial takedown. That doesn’t work at all.”
    “What else?”
    “Everything. What surprises me is that I can’t get anywhere with anything. There’s either something wrong with me, or there’s something wrong with this whole situation.”
    “That’s too big,” Pauling said. “Start small. Name one thing that surprised you.”
    “Is this what you did? In the FBI? In your brainstorming sessions?”
    “Absolutely. Didn’t you?”
    “I was an MP. I was lucky to find anyone with a brain to storm.”
    “Seriously. Name one thing that surprised you.”
    Reacher sipped his coffee.
She’s right,
he thought.
There’s always something out of context even before you know what the context ought to be.
    “Just one thing,” Pauling said again. “At random.”
    Reacher said, “I got out of the black BMW after Burke had switched the bag into the Jaguar and I was surprised how fast the guy was into the driver’s seat. I figured I would have time to stroll around the corner and set up a position. But he was right there, practically on top of me. A few seconds, maximum. I barely got a glimpse of him.”
    “So what does that mean?”
    “That he was waiting right there on the street.”
    “But he wouldn’t risk that. If he was Knight or Hobart, Burke would have recognized him in a heartbeat.”
    “Maybe he was in a doorway.”
    “Three times running? He used that same fireplug on three separate occasions. At three different times of day. Late night, early morning, rush hour. And he might be memorable, depending on the mutilation.”
    “The guy I saw wasn’t memorable at all. He was just a guy.”
    “Whatever, it was still hard to find appropriate cover each time. I’ve done that job. Many times. Including one special night five years ago.”
    Reacher said, “Give yourself a break.”
    But he was thinking:
Appropriate cover.
    He remembered bouncing around in the back of the car listening to the nightmare voice. Remembered thinking:
It’s right there on the same damn fireplug?
    The same damn fireplug.
    Appropriate cover.
    He put his coffee cup down, gently, slowly, carefully, and then he picked up Pauling’s left hand with his right. Brought it to his lips and kissed it tenderly. Her fingers were cool and slim and fragrant. He liked them.
    “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”
    “For what?”
    “He used a fireplug three times running. Why? Because a fireplug almost always guarantees a stretch of empty curb, that’s why. Because of the parking prohibition. No parking next to a hydrant. Everyone knows that. But he used the
same
fireplug each time. Why? There are plenty to choose from. There’s at least one on every block. So why that one? Because he liked that one, that’s why. But why did he like that one? What makes a person like one fireplug more than another?”
    “What?”
    “Nothing,” Reacher said.