Part 39 (1/2)

'Tell me about Kapler.'

'He had problems in Miami. Nothing was proved against him. But there were rumours. It was Miami, and there was drug money around.'

'Terrific.'

'They were just rumours.'

'You should look at him. And Lowell. What happened to him a year ago? You should look at this guy Montgomery, too. People who are all alone when they discover crimes are sometimes the same people that committed them.'

'Should I bring them in?'

'Safest thing to do would be to bring everyone in. The whole d.a.m.n department. Sit them down right here in this room, and you'd know for sure your guy was right in front of you.'

Holland said, 'Can I do that?'

'Sure you can.'

'Should I do it?'

Reacher said nothing. Any cop's most basic question: Suppose we're wrong? Suppose we're wrong?

Holland said, 'The crew at Mrs Salter's must be OK. They didn't go anywhere tonight. Did they? They weren't waiting in abandoned lots. They have alibis. Each other, and you.'

'True.'

'So I could leave them in place.'

'But you should warn them first,' Reacher said. 'If our guy senses the net is tightening, he might make one last attempt.'

'They'd nail him.'

'Not if you don't warn them first. A fellow cop comes to their door, what are they going to do? Shoot first and ask questions later?'

'They'd nail him afterwards.'

'Which would be too late.'

'It would be a suicide mission.'

'Maybe he's ready for one. He must know he's going to get nailed sooner or later. He must know he's dead whatever happens. He's between a rock and a hard place. Two homicides or three, either way he's going to fry.'

'He might not come in at all. He might disobey my order.'

'Then he'll identify himself for you. He'll paint a target on his own back. He'll save you the trouble.'

'So should I do it? Should I call them in?'

'I would,' Reacher said. 'It's any police department's basic duty. Get criminals off the streets.'

Holland made the calls. First came seven individual conversations, with the four women and the three men stationed with Mrs Salter. The subtext was awkward. One of your fellow officers is a killer. Trust no one except yourselves One of your fellow officers is a killer. Trust no one except yourselves. Then he made a general all-points call on the radio net and ordered all other officers, whoever they were, wherever they were, whatever they were doing, on duty or not, to report to base exactly thirty minutes from then. Which Reacher thought was a minor tactical error. Better to have required their immediate presence. Which might not have gotten them there any faster in practice, but to set even a short deadline gave the bad guy the sense he still had time and s.p.a.ce to act, to finish his work, and in ideal conditions of chaos and confusion, too, with cops running around all over the place. It was going to be a risky half-hour.

Holland put the microphone back on its rest, and picked up the phone again. He said, 'Kim Peterson hasn't been informed yet.'

Reacher said, 'Don't do it by phone. That's not right.'

'I know. I'm calling the front desk. Because I want you to do it. The desk guy can drive you. He can pick you up again in an hour. An hour should do it.'

'Are you serious?'

'I don't have time to do it myself. I'll be busy here.'

'I don't have standing,' Reacher said. 'I'm just a stranger pa.s.sing through.'

'You met her,' Holland said. 'You spent a night in her house.'

'It's your job, not mine.'

'I'm sure you've done it before.'

'That's not the point.'

'I'm sure you were good at it.'

'Not very.'

'You have to do it,' Holland said. 'I just can't, OK? Don't make me, OK?'

Plato spent an hour in seat 1A, front of the cabin, left hand side, and then he got restless. Air travel at night bored him. By day there was a view, even from seven miles up. Mostly empty and brown, to be sure, but with enough roads and houses and towns to remind him there were new customers down there, just waiting to be recruited and served. But at night he couldn't see them. There was nothing except darkness and strings of distant lights.

He got up and walked down the aisle, past his men, past the last first cla.s.s seat, into the empty s.p.a.ce where economy cla.s.s had been. He looked at the equipment on the floor. His men had checked it. He checked it again, because he was Plato and they weren't.

Food, water, all uninteresting. Seven coats, seven hats, seven pairs of gloves. All new, all adequate. The coats were big puffy things filled with goose feathers. North Face, a popular make, all black. Six were medium, and one was a boy's size. The sub-machine guns were H&K MP5Ks. Short, stubby, futuristic, lethal. His favourite. There were seven small backpacks, each containing spare magazines and flashlights.

Immediately Plato diagnosed a problem. The backpack straps would have to be let out close to their maximum length, to fit over the bulky coats. An obvious conclusion. Simply a question of thinking ahead. But it hadn't been done.

He was Plato, and they weren't.

The ladders were made by an American company called Werner. Aluminum, thirty-two feet long at their maximum extension, rated for two hundred and fifty pounds. They were all plastered with yellow warning stickers. They rattled slightly. They were picking up vibrations from the engines. They probably weighed about twenty pounds each. There were four of them. Eighty pounds. They would be left behind. Better to use the airlift capacity for forty extra gla.s.sine bricks than four useless ladders.

The same with the six useless men, of course. They would be left behind too. Nine hundred pounds of replaceable flesh and blood, versus four hundred and fifty extra bricks of meth? No contest.

Plato was already visualizing the return trip. He knew he would succeed. He had many advantages. Most of them were innate and overwhelming. His man on the ground was insurance, nothing more.

Caleb Carter was considered low man on the totem pole. Which he thought was richly ironic. He knew a little about totem poles, and Native American culture in general. He knew a little about a lot of things, but in a random unstructured way that had paid no dividends in terms of high school grades or employment opportunities. So he had turned to the Department of Corrections. The default choice, for his graduating cla.s.s. Probably the default choice for many graduating cla.s.ses to come. He had been trained and equipped with a radio and a polyester uniform and a.s.signed to the night watch at the county lock-up. He was the youngest and newest member of a four-man team. Hence, low man on the totem pole.