Tripwire

Municipal Offices,” which was the literal translation, as far as he recalled.
    But it was a pleasant enough place. A boy from somewhere in the Midwest trying a French accent greeted them warmly and showed them to a table in a candlelit porch overlooking the rear garden. There was a fountain with underwater lighting playing softly and the trees were lit with spotlamps fastened to their trunks. The tablecloth was linen and the silverware was silver. Reacher ordered American beer and Jodie ordered Pernod and water.
    “This is nice, isn’t it?” she said.
    He nodded. The night was warm and still, and calm.
    “Tell me how you feel,” he said.
    She looked at him, surprised. “I feel good.”
    “Good how?”
    She smiled, shyly. “Reacher, you’re fishing.”
    He smiled back. “No, I’m just thinking about something. You feel relaxed?”
    She nodded.
    “Safe?”
    She nodded again.
    “Me too,” he said. “Safe and relaxed. So what does that mean?”
    The boy arrived with the drinks on a silver tray. The Pernod was in a tall glass and he served it with an authentic French water jug. The beer was in a frosted mug. No long-neck bottles in a place like this.
    “So what does it mean?” Jodie asked.
    She splashed water into the amber liquid and it turned milky. She swirled the glass to mix it. He caught the strong aniseed smell.
    “It means whatever is happening is small,” he said. “A small operation, based in New York. We felt nervous there, but we feel safe here.”
    He took a long sip of the beer.
    “That’s just a feeling,” she said. “Doesn’t prove anything.”
    He nodded. “No, but feelings are persuasive. And there’s some hard evidence. We were chased and attacked there, but nobody out here is paying any attention to us.”
    “You been checking?” she asked, alarmed.
    “I’m always checking,” he said. “We’ve been walking around, slow and obvious. Nobody’s been after us.”
    “No manpower?”
    He nodded again. “They had the two guys who went to the Keys and up to Garrison, and the guy driving the Suburban. My guess is that’s all they’ve got, or they’d be out here looking for us. So it’s a small unit, based in New York.”
    She nodded.
    “I think it’s Victor Hobie,” she said.
    The waiter was back, with a pad and a pencil. Jodie ordered pate and lamb, and Reacher ordered soup and porc aux pruneaux, which had always been his Sunday lunch as a kid, anytime his mother could find pork and prunes in the distant places they were stationed. It was a regional dish from the Loire, and although his mother was from Paris she liked to make it for her sons because she felt it was a kind of shorthand introduction to her native culture.
    “I don’t think it’s Victor Hobie,” he said.
    “I think it is,” she said. “I think he survived the war somehow, and I think he’s been hiding out somewhere ever since, and I think he doesn’t want to be found.”
    He shook his head. “I thought about that, too, right from the start. But the psychology is all wrong. You read his record. His letters. I told you what his old buddy Ed Steven said. This was a straight-arrow kid, Jodie. Totally dull, totally normal. I can’t believe he’d leave his folks hanging like that. For thirty years? Why would he? It just doesn’t jibe with what we know about him.”
    “Maybe he changed,” Jodie said. “Dad always used to say Vietnam changed people. Usually for the worse.”
    Reacher shook his head.
    “He died,” he said. “Four miles west of An Khe, thirty years ago.”
    “He’s in New York,” Jodie said. “Right now, trying to stay hidden.”
    HE WAS ON his terrace, thirty floors up, leaning on the railing with his back to the park. He had a cordless phone pressed to his ear, and he was selling Chester Stone’s Mercedes to the guy out in Queens.
    “There’s a BMW, too,” he was saying. “Eight-series coupe. It’s up in Pound Ridge right now. I’ll take fifty cents on the dollar for cash in a bag, tomorrow.”
    He stopped and listened to the guy sucking in air through his teeth, like car guys always do when you talk to them about money.
    “Call it thirty grand for the both of them, cash in a bag, tomorrow.”
    The guy grunted a yes, and Hobie moved on down his mental list.
    “There’s a Tahoe and a Cadillac. Call it forty grand, you can add either one of them to the deal. Your choice.”
    The guy paused and picked the Tahoe. More resale in a four-wheel-drive, especially some