The Hard Way

ask him.”
    “
Ask
him?”
    “Make him tell us.”
    “In England?”
    “If that’s where your Pentagon buddy says he went. I guess he could check for us who Taylor was sitting next to on the flight. There’s a slim chance they flew together.”
    “Unlikely.”
    “Very. But it’s maybe worth a try.”
    So Pauling went through ten more minutes of phone tag at the U.N. and then gave up and left a voice-mail message asking the guy to check whether Taylor had had a traveling companion.
    “What now?” she said.
    “Wait for your guy to get back to you,” Reacher said. “Then book us a car to the airport and flights to London, if that’s where Taylor went, which it probably is. Tonight’s red-eye, I guess. I’m betting Lane will ask me to go over there. He’ll want me to do the advance work. Then he’ll bring his whole crew over for the kill. And we’ll deal with them there.”
    Pauling looked up. “That’s why you promised no cop or prosecutor in America is going to think twice.”
    Reacher nodded. “But their opposite numbers in England are going to get pretty uptight. That’s for damn sure.”

----

    Reacher put Patti Joseph’s photographs back in their envelope and jammed it in the front pocket of his shirt. Kissed Pauling on the sidewalk and headed for the subway. He was outside the Dakota before five in the afternoon.
    The name. Tomorrow.
    Mission accomplished.
    But he didn’t go inside. Instead he walked straight ahead and crossed Central Park West and went in through the gate to Strawberry Field. The John Lennon memorial, in the park. Near where Lennon was killed. Like most guys his age Reacher felt that The Beatles were part of his life. They were its soundtrack, its background. Maybe that was why he liked English people.
    Maybe that was why he didn’t want to do what he was about to do.
    He patted his shirt pocket and felt the photographs and ran through the narrative one more time the same way Pauling had. But there was no doubt about it. Taylor was the bad guy. No question. Reacher himself was an actual eyewitness. First the Mercedes, then the Jaguar.
    No doubt about it.
    Maybe there was just no joy in giving one bad guy to another.
    But this is for Kate,
Reacher thought.
For Jade. For Hobart’s money.
    Not for Lane.
    He took a deep breath and stood for a second with his face tilted up to catch the last of the sun before it fell away behind the buildings to the west. Then he turned around and walked back out of the park.

----

    Edward Lane fanned the two photographs of Taylor quite delicately between his finger and his thumb and asked one simple question: “Why?”
    “Greed,” Reacher said. “Or malice, or jealousy, or all of the above.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “My guess is England. I’ll know soon.”
    “How?”
    “Sources.”
    “You’re good.”
    “The best you ever saw.”
Or they’d have nailed you in the army.
    Lane handed back the photographs and said, “He must have had a partner.”
    “Obviously.”
    “For the phone calls. Someone with an American accent. Who was it?”
    “You’ll have to ask Taylor that.”
    “In England?”
    “I don’t suppose he’ll be coming back here anytime soon.”
    “I want you to find him for me.”
    “I want my money.”
    Lane nodded. “You’ll get it.”
    “I want it now.”
    “Ten percent now. The rest when I’m face-to-face with Taylor.”
    “Twenty percent now.”
    Lane didn’t answer.
    Reacher said, “Or I’ll cut my losses and walk away. And you can stroll down to Barnes and Noble and buy a U.K. map and a pin. Or a mirror and a stick.”
    Lane said, “Fifteen percent now.”
    Reacher said, “Twenty.”
    “Seventeen and a half.”
    “Twenty. Or I’m out of here.”
    “Jesus Christ,” Lane said. “OK, twenty percent now. But you’ll leave now, too. Right now, tonight. You can have one day’s start. That should be enough for a smart boy like you. Then we’ll follow you twenty-four hours later. The seven of us. Me, Gregory, Groom, Burke, Kowalski, Addison, and Perez. That should be enough. You know London?”
    “I’ve been there before.”
    “We’ll be at the Park Lane Hilton.”
    “With the rest of the money?”
    “Every penny of it,” Lane said. “I’ll show it to you when you meet us at the hotel and you tell us where Taylor is. I’ll give it to you when I’ve got actual visual contact with him.”
    “OK,” Reacher said. “Deal.” And ten minutes later he was back in the subway,