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“Nice work.”

A phone started ringing in one of his overcrowded pockets. For a second he didn’t understand. Turner was standing right there in front of him, empty-handed. She wasn’t calling him. So who was? Who else could? Then he remembered. He had a second phone. Still in his pocket. He had taken it from the tall guy in Summertown. The guy who had driven all the way from Denver to kill him. He fished it out. Still ringing.

It had Lazarus Lorenzo’s number on the screen.

Reacher answered the call. He made a vague sound with his mouth, as if saying hello while also drawing on a Marlboro, or taking a sip of domestic beer from a bottle, or polishing a truck, or whatever else a tall guy from Denver was liable to be doing at that time of day.

A voice said, “Sorry for the short notice, but I need you up in Summertown again. Right now, immediately. Same deal as before. A guest named Dexter Elwood will check in at the motel about two hours from now. Drive him further away this time. Vary the method. Maybe a hiking accident in the mountains. We can’t afford any connection with the last one.”

The voice sounded deep, and measured, and somewhat weary. A grown-up voice. An educated, busy, professional voice. It said, “It’s the same client as last time. He’s insanely generous, as you know. Can you guys do this one for me?”

Reacher couldn’t really remember the sound of the tall guy’s voice. He hadn’t heard much of it, and what he had was mostly yelping and screaming and complaining. Until nearer the end, when he had calmed down a bit. When he thought he was getting out alive. He had said I need the key. A coherent sentence. Clear enunciation. Normal speed. Pitched the low side of medium. Generic accent and timbre. The tone had been a little sullen, which was to be expected, and probably temporary.

Reacher imitated, “Sure thing, we’re heading out now.”

“Thank you,” the voice said, and the call clicked off.

“Problem?” Turner asked.

“More proof,” Reacher said. “Someone just noticed Elwood’s travel orders in your system. That was Lazarus Lorenzo on the phone, organizing a hit. They said their client is insanely generous.”

“I need to warn Elwood.”

“Dead people can’t hurt him.”

“Tomorrow they’ll hire another crew.”

“So bring him straight back to D.C. tonight.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I need to let him sniff around a day or two, or he’ll twig I was testing him with a bullshit assignment. He would be insulted. He would never trust me again.”

Reacher said, “Let’s go get your phone.”

Chapter 18

Reacher and Turner walked through the lobby, side by side, purposefully, like two busy people with work to do. They pushed through the double glass doors and headed onward down the corridor. The doors sucked shut behind them. The corridor was empty. They stopped ten feet short of their suite. Turner passed a Glock and a suppressor to Reacher. He assembled them. Turner did the same with hers. She took out her key card. She left her bag on the floor, against the wall.

From the corridor side their door was hinged on the left. Handle on the right. Peephole dead center. Turner ducked under it and took the right hand side. She pressed her back against the wall beyond the door itself. Reacher took the left side. He leaned his shoulder on the jamb. He would go in first and cover the right side of the room. Turner would go in behind him and cover the left. Two diagonal fields of fire, covering the whole space.

She looked at him. Asking the question. Ready?

He nodded. Go for it.

She dabbed the key against the lock.

The red light flashed green.

She flicked the card away and turned the handle. Reacher smashed the door open and raised his Glock and took a long pace inside. He felt Turner brush by behind him. She stopped alongside him, but three feet apart. No unified target. Textbook.

What they saw was bizarre. Every cupboard door was open. Every drawer was open. All the sofa cushions were off. The sofa itself had been moved away from the wall. The armchair cushion was piled with the sofa cushions by the window. The armchair itself was upside down and out of place. The two big guys were on their hands and knees, faces close to the floor, peering underneath things. The bigger guy was up on tiptoe, elbow deep in an air vent. There was a phone on the kitchen countertop, face up, on speaker, its screen lit up with a call in progress. Next to it were three Glock 17s with suppressors, all fanned out, all pointing at the door, all ready to be grabbed up when the open phone relayed the get-ready warning from the driver outside.

The warning that never came.

The welcome basket was intact.

It hadn’t been touched. It hadn’t been moved. Not an inch.

Reacher was not one for dramatic gestures. In his whole career he had never once yelled Freeze! or On the floor!! On the floor!! He understood why others did. Intimidation, overload, control. Personally he preferred to let his implacable bulk and the unwavering muzzle of an automatic weapon do the talking. Especially when two of his targets were already on the floor, and the third was already effectively frozen, hanging from the ceiling with his forearm trapped above his head in aluminum ductwork.