The Hard Way Part 45

"Everybody back in the house," he said. "Right now."

CHAPTER 67

KATE AND JADE and Pauling ran straight upstairs and Reacher headed for the southeast corner of the house. Flattened himself against the wall and crept around to where he could get a look at the bridge over the ditch. He got there just in time to see a truck turn in. It was an old-style Land Rover Defender, bluff and square, an appliance more than a car, mud-and-snow tires, a brown canvas back. Two guys in it, rocking and bouncing behind the sparkling windshield. One of them was the vague shape Reacher had seen early that morning. Tony Jackson. The farmer. The other was Taylor. The truck was the Grange Farm Land Rover, newly cleaned and polished. Unrecognizable from the night before. Clearly the Norwich itinerary had included a stop at the car wash as well as the backhoe dealership.

Reacher ducked into the kitchen and shouted an all clear up the stairs. Then he went back outside to wait. The Land Rover pulled left and right through the driveway curves and paused a second as Jackson and Taylor took a long hard look at the Mini from fifty yards away. Then it sped up again and skidded to a halt in its parking spot between the back of the house and the barns. The doors opened and Jackson and Taylor climbed out. Reacher stayed where he was and Jackson walked right up to him and said, "You're trespa.s.sing. Dave Kemp told me what you want. You talked to him this morning. In the shop? And the answer is no. I'm not selling."

"I'm not buying," Reacher said.

"So why are you here?"

Jackson was a lean and compact guy, not unlike Taylor himself. Same kind of height, same kind of weight. Same kind of generic English features. Similar accent. Better teeth, and lighter hair worn a little longer. But overall they could have been brothers, not just brothers-in-law.

Reacher said, "I'm here to see Taylor."

Taylor stepped up and said, "What for?"

"To apologize to you," Reacher said. "And to warn you."

Taylor paused a beat. Blinked once. Then his eyes flicked left, flicked right, full of intelligence and calculation.

"Lane?" he asked.

"He's less than an hour away."

"OK," Taylor said. He sounded calm. Composed. Not surprised. But Reacher didn't expect him to be surprised. Surprise was for amateurs. And Taylor was a professional. A Special Forces veteran, and a smart and a capable one. Precious seconds spent being surprised were precious seconds wasted, and Taylor was spending the precious seconds exactly like he had been trained to: thinking, planning, revising tactics, reviewing options.

"My fault," Reacher said. "I'm sorry."

"I saw you on Sixth Avenue," Taylor said. "When I was getting in the Jaguar. Didn't think much of it, but I saw you again last night. In the pub. So then I knew. I thought you'd be heading up to your room to call Lane. But it looks like he mobilized himself faster than I thought he would."

"He was already en route."

"Good of you to stop by and let me know."

"Least I could do. Under the circ.u.mstances."

"Does he have this precise location?"

"More or less. I said Grange Farm. I stopped myself saying Bishops Pargeter. I said Fenchurch Saint Mary instead."

"He'll find us in the phone book. There's no Grange Farm in Fenchurch. We're the nearest."

"I'm sorry," Reacher said again.

"When did you figure it all out?"

"Just a little bit too late."

"What tipped you off?"

"Toys. Jade packed her best toys."

"Did you meet her yet?"

"Five minutes ago."

Taylor smiled. Bad teeth, but a lot of warmth there. "She's a great kid, isn't she?"

"Seems to be."

"What are you, a private cop?"

"I was a U.S. Army MR"

"What's your name?"

"Reacher."

"How much did Lane pay you?"

"A million bucks."

Taylor smiled again. "I'm flattered. And you're good. But it was always only a matter of time. The longer n.o.body found my body, the more people would get to thinking. But this is a little quicker than I thought it would be. I thought I might have a couple of weeks."

"You've got about sixty minutes." They gathered in the farmhouse kitchen for a council of war, all six of them, Taylor and Kate and Jade, and Jackson, and Pauling and Reacher. Jade was neither specifically included nor excluded. She just sat at the table and drew, crayons and butcher paper, the same bold colourful strokes Reacher had seen in her bedroom in the Dakota, and listened to the grown-ups talk. First thing Taylor said was, "Let's light the fire again. It's cold in here. And let's have a cup of tea."

Pauling asked, "Do we have time for that?"

"The British Army," Reacher said. "They always have time for a cup of tea."

There was a wicker basket of kindling sticks near the hearth. Taylor stacked a bunch of them over a pyramid of crumpled newspaper and struck a match. When the flame had taken he added bigger logs. Meanwhile Jackson was at the stove, heating a kettle of water and stuffing tea bags into a pot. He didn't seem very worried, either. Just calm and competent and unhurried.

"What were you, back in the day?" Reacher asked him.

"First Para," Jackson replied.

Reacher nodded. The 1st Parachute Regiment. The British equivalent of the U.S. Army Rangers, roughly. Air-mobile tough guys, not quite SAS, but close. Most SAS freshmen were 1st Para graduates.

"Lane's got six guys with him," Reacher said.

"The A-team?" Taylor asked. "Used to be seven guys. Before I resigned."

"Used to be nine guys," Reacher said.

"Hobart and Knight," Taylor said. "Kate heard that story. From Hobart's sister."

"Was that the trigger?"

"Partly. And partly something else."

"What else?"

"Hobart isn't the only one. Not even close. He's the worst, maybe, from what his sister said, but there are others. Lane got a lot of people killed and wounded over the years."

"I saw his Rolodex," Reacher said.

"He doesn't do anything for them. Or their families."

"Is that why you wanted the money?"

"The money is Kate's alimony. She's ent.i.tled to it. And how she spends it is up to her. But I'm sure she'll do the right thing."

Tony Jackson poured the tea from the pot, hot and sweet and strong, into five chipped and unmatched mugs. Jade was working on a gla.s.s of apple juice.

"Do we have time for this?" Pauling asked again.

"Reacher?" Taylor said. "Do we have time for this?"

"That depends," Reacher said. "On what exactly your aim is."

"My aim is to live happily ever after."

"OK," Reacher said. "This is England. If it was Kansas, I'd be worried. If it was Kansas, Dave Kemp's little store and a hundred others like it would be selling rifles and ammunition. But this isn't Kansas. And no way did Lane bring anything in with him on the plane. So if he shows up now, he's unarmed. He can't do anything more than pick rocks off the driveway and throw them at us. Walls this thick and windows this small, that isn't going to hurt us much."

"He could burn us out," Pauling said. "Bottles filled with gasoline, flaming rags in them, or whatever."

Reacher said nothing. Just glanced at Taylor. Taylor said, "He wants to take me alive, Ms. Pauling. I'm sure of that. Fire might be in his plan for me eventually, but he'd want to do it slow and controlled. Something quick and easy just wouldn't work for him."

"So we're just going to sit here?"

"Like Reacher said, if he shows up now he's harmless."

"This might be England, but there have to be weapons available somewhere."

Taylor nodded. "All over the place, as a matter of fact. Private armourers for the British mercenary crews, bent army quartermasters, gangs of regular bad boys. But none of them are in the Yellow Pages. It takes time to find them."

"How much time?"

"Twelve hours minimum, I would guess, depending on your connections. So like your man said, if Lane shows up now he's harmless, and if he wants to lock and load first, he can't show up until at least tomorrow. Plus, he likes dawn raids. He always has. Zero-dark-thirty, that's what Delta taught him. Attack with the first rays of the sun."

"Are you armed here?" Reacher asked.

"This is a farm," Jackson answered. "Farmers are always prepared for vermin control."

Something in his voice. Some kind of lethal determination. Reacher looked between him and Taylor. Same kind of height, same kind of weight, same kind of generic English features. Overall they could have been brothers. Sometimes a little resemblance is all you need. He got up out of his chair and walked over and took a look at the phone on the pine desk. It was an old-fashioned black instrument. It had a cord and a rotary dial. No memories. No speed dials.

He turned back to Taylor.

"You wanted this," he said.

"Did I?"

"You used the name Leroy Clarkson. To point the way to your apartment."

Taylor said nothing.

"You could have stopped Jade from bringing her toys. You could have told Kate to leave the photograph behind. Your sister Susan could have brought Tony's pa.s.sport over for you. She could have carried it in her purse. Then there would have been three Jacksons on the airplane manifest, not two Jacksons and a Taylor. Without your real name you couldn't have been followed back to England."

Taylor said nothing.

"The phone in your apartment was new," Reacher said. "You didn't have it before, did you? You bought it so that you could leave Susan's number in it."

"Why would I do that?" Taylor asked.

"Because you wanted Lane to find you here."

Taylor said nothing.

"You talked to Dave Kemp in the village store," Reacher said. "You gave him all kinds of unnecessary details. And he's the biggest gossip in the county. Then you went and hung out in the pub with a bunch of nosy farmers. I'm sure you would have rather stayed home, under the circ.u.mstances. With your new family. But you couldn't do that. Because you wanted to lay a clear trail. Because you knew Lane would hire someone like me. And you wanted to help someone like me find you. Because you wanted to bring Lane here for a showdown."

Silence in the room.

Reacher said, "You wanted to be on your home turf. And you figured this is an easy place to defend."

More silence. Reacher glanced at Kate.

"You were upset," he said. "Not that Lane was coming, but that he was coming now. Already. Too soon."

Kate said nothing. But Taylor nodded. "Like I said before, he was a little faster than we expected. But yes, we wanted him to come."

"Why?"

"You just said it. We wanted a showdown. Closure. Finality."

"Why now?"

"I told you."

"Reparations for the wounded aren't urgent. Not like this."