The Hard Way

back on the path and found an empty bench and sat down with his back to the stream of people walking past. He waited there until the clock in his head told him it was time to move.

----

    Reacher found Lauren Pauling waiting in one of a group of armchairs in the Majestic’s lobby. She had freshened up. She looked good. She had qualities. Reacher found himself thinking that Kate Lane might have ended up looking like that, twenty years down the road.
    “I stopped by and asked that Russian super,” she said. “He’ll go over later tonight to fix the door.”
    “Good,” Reacher said.
    “You didn’t get killed,” she said.
    He sat down beside her.
    “Something else I got wrong,” he said. “I’ve been assuming there was inside help from one of Lane’s crew. But now I don’t think there can have been. Yesterday morning Lane offered me a million bucks. This morning when he lost hope he told me to find the bad guys. Seek and destroy. He was about as serious as a man can get. Anyone watching from the inside would have to assume I was pretty well motivated. And I’ve shown them that I’m at least partially competent. But nobody has tried to stop me. And they would try, wouldn’t they? Any kind of an inside ally would be expected to. But they haven’t. I just spent two hours strolling through Manhattan. Side streets, quiet places, Central Park. I kept stopping and turning my back. I gave whoever it might be a dozen chances to take me out. But nobody tried.”
    “Would they have been on your tail?”
    “That’s why I wanted to start between Clarkson and Leroy. That’s got to be some kind of a base camp. They could have picked me up there.”
    “How could they have done this whole thing without inside help?”
    “I have absolutely no idea.”
    “You’ll figure it out.”
    “Say that again.”
    “Why? You need inspiration?”
    “I just like the sound of your voice.”
    “You’ll figure it out,” Pauling said, low and husky, like she had been getting over laryngitis for the last thirty years.

----

    They checked in at the desk and then rode up to seven in the elevator. Patti Joseph was out in the corridor, waiting for them. There was a little awkwardness when she and Pauling met. Patti had spent five years thinking Pauling had failed her sister, and Pauling had spent the same five years thinking pretty much the same thing. So there was ice to break. But the implied promise of news helped Patti thaw. And Reacher figured Pauling had plenty of experience with grieving relatives. Any investigator does.
    “Coffee?” Patti said, before they were even in through the door.
    “I thought you’d never ask,” Reacher said.
    Patti went to the kitchen to set up the machine and Pauling walked straight to the window. Looked at the stuff on the sill, and then checked the view. Raised her eyebrows in Reacher’s direction and gave a small shrug that said:
Weird, but I’ve seen weirder.
    “So what’s up?” Patti called through.
    Reacher said, “Let’s wait until we’re all sitting down.” And ten minutes later they all were, with Patti Joseph in tears. Tears of grief, tears of relief, tears of closure.
    Tears of anger.
    “Where is Knight now?” she asked.
    “Knight died,” Reacher said. “And he died hard.”
    “Good. I’m glad.”
    “No argument from me.”
    “What are we going to do about Lane?”
    “That remains to be seen.”
    “I should call Brewer.”
    “Brewer can’t do anything. There’s truth here, but there’s no evidence. Not the kind that a cop or a prosecutor needs.”
    “You should tell the other guys about Hobart. Tell them what Lane did to their buddy. Send them down there to see for themselves.”
    “Might not work. They might not care. Guys that were likely to care wouldn’t have obeyed the order in Africa in the first place. And now, even if they did care, the best way to deal with their own guilt would be to stay in denial. They’ve had five years’ practice.”
    “But it might be worth it. To see with their own eyes.”
    “We can’t risk it. Not unless we know for sure ahead of time what their reactions would be. Because Lane will assume Knight spilled the beans in prison. Therefore Lane will see Hobart as a loose end now. And a threat. Therefore Lane will want Hobart dead now. And Lane’s guys will do whatever the hell Lane tells them to. So we can’t risk it. Hobart’s a sitting duck, literally. A puff of wind would blow him away. And his sister would