One Shot (53 page)

The Zee looked straight at her.

'You will do it,' he said. 'I promise you that. Twenty-four
hours from now you'll be begging to do it. You'll be
insane with fear that we might change our minds and
not let you do it.'

The room went quiet. Rosemary glanced at the Zee as
if she had something to say. Then she glanced away.

But the Zee answered her anyway. He had heard her
message loud and clear.

'No, we won't be there with you at the deposition,' he
said. 'But we will know what you tell them. Within
minutes. And don't think about a little detour to the bus
depot. For one thing, we'll have your brother killed. For
another, there's no country in the world we can't find
you in.'

Rosemary said nothing.

'Anyway,' the Zee said. 'Let's not argue. It's
unproductive. And pointless.

You'll tell them what we tell you to tell them. You will,
you know. You'll see. You'll be desperate to. You'll be
wishing we had arranged an earlier appointment for
you. At the courthouse. You'll spend the waiting time on
your knees pleading for a chance to show us how word-perfect you are. That's how it usually happens. We're
very good at what we do. We learned at the feet of
masters.'

'My brother has Parkinson's Disease,' Rosemary said.

'Diagnosed when?' the Zee asked, because he knew
the answer.

'It's been developing.'

The Zee shook his head. 'Too subjective to be helpful.

Who's to say it's not a similar condition brought on
suddenly by his recent injury? If not, then who's to say
such a condition is a true handicap anyway? When
shooting from such a close range? If the public
defender brings in an expert, then Rodin will bring in
three. He'll find doctors who will swear that Little Annie
Oakley was racked with Parkinson's Disease from the
very day she was born.'

'Reacher knows,' Rosemary said.

The soldier? The soldier will be dead by morning.

Dead, or a runaway.'

'He won't run away.'

Therefore he'll be dead. He'll come for you tonight.

We'll be ready for him.'

Rosemary said nothing.

Then have come for us before in the night,' the Zee
said. 'Many times, in many places. And yet we're still
here. Da, Linsky?' Linsky nodded again.

"We're still here,' he said.

'When will he come?' the Zee asked.

'I don't know,' Rosemary said.

'Four o'clock in the morning,' Linsky said. 'He's an
American. They're trained that four o'clock in the
morning is the best time for a surprise attack.'

'Direction?'

'From the north would make the most sense. The
stone crushing plant would conceal his staging area
and leave him only two hundred yards of open ground
to cover. But I think he'll double-bluff us there. He'll
avoid the north, because he knows it's best' 'Not from
the west,' the Zee said.

Linsky shook his head. 'I agree. Not down the
driveway. Too straight and open.

He'll come from the south or the east.' 'Put Vladimir in
with Sokolov,' the Zee said to him. Tell them to watch the
south and the east very carefully. But tell them to keep
an eye out north and west, too. All four directions must
be monitored continuously, just in case. Then put
Chenko in the upstairs hallway with his rifle. He can be
ready to deploy to whichever window is appropriate.

With Chenko, one shot will be enough.' Then he turned
to Rosemary Barr.

'Meanwhile we'll put you somewhere safe,' he said.

'Your tutorials will start as soon as the soldier is buried.'

The

outer

western

suburbs

were

bedroom

communities for people who worked in the city, so the
traffic stayed bad all the way out. The houses were
much grander than in the east. They were all two-storey,
all varied, all well maintained. They all had big lots and
pools and ambitious evergreen landscaping. With the
last of the sunset behind them they looked like pictures
in a brochure.

'Tight-ass middle class,' Reacher said.

'What we all aspire to,' Yanni said.

'They won't want to talk,' Reacher said. 'Not their style.'

'They'll talk,' Yanni said. 'Everyone talks to me.'

They drove past the Archer place, slowly. There was a
cast metal sign on thin chains under the mailbox: Ted
and Oline Archer. Beyond it across a broad open lawn
the house looked closed-up and dark and silent. It was a
big Tudor place.

Dull brown beams, cream stucco. Three-car garage.

Nobody home, Reacher thought.

The neighbour they were looking for lived across the
street and one lot to the north. Hers was a place about
the same size as the Archers' but done in an Italianate
style. Stone accents, little crenellated towers, dark green
sun awnings on the south facing ground floor windows.

The evening light was fading away to darkness and
lamps were coming on behind draped windows. The
whole street looked warm and rested and quiet and very
satisfied with itself.

Reacher said, 'They sleep safely in their beds because
rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on
those who would do them harm.'

'You know George Orwell?' Yanni asked.

'I went to college,' Reacher said. 'West Point is
technically a college.'

Yanni said, 'The existing social order is a swindle and
its cherished beliefs mostly delusions.'

'It is not possible for any thinking person to live in
such a society as our own without wanting to change it,'

Reacher said.

'I'm sure these are perfectly nice people,' Helen said.

'But will they talk to us?'

'They'll talk,' Yanni said. 'Everyone talks.'

Helen pulled into a long limestone driveway and
parked about twenty feet behind an imported SUV that
had big chrome wheels. The front door of the house
was made of ancient grey weathered oak with iron
banding that had nail heads as big as golf balls. It felt
like you could step through it straight into the
Renaissance.

'Property is theft,' Reacher said.

'Proudhon,' Yanni said. 'Property is desirable, is a
positive good in the world.'

'Abraham Lincoln,' Reacher said. 'In his first State of
the Union.'

There was an iron knocker shaped like a quoit in a
lion's mouth. Helen lifted it and used it to thump on the
door. Then she found a discreet electric bell push and
pressed that, too. They heard no answering sound
inside the house.

Heavy door, thick walls. She tried again with the bell
and before she got her finger off the button the door
sucked back off copper weatherproofing strips and
opened like a vault. A guy was standing there with his
hand on the inside handle. 'Yes?' he said. He was
somewhere in his forties, solid, prosperous, probably a
golf club member, maybe an Elk, maybe a Rotarian. He
was wearing corduroy pants and a patterned sweater.

He was the kind of guy who gets home and immediately
changes clothes as a matter of routine. 'Is your wife at
home?' Helen asked. "We'd like to speak with her about
Oline Archer.'

'About Oline?' the guy said. He was looking at Ann
Yanni.

'I'm a lawyer,' Helen said.

'What is there to be said about Oline?'

'Maybe more than you think,' Yanni said.

'You're not a lawyer.'

'I'm here as a journalist,' Yanni said. 'But not on a
human interest story.

Nothing tacky. There might have been a miscarriage of
justice. That's the issue here.' 'A miscarriage in what
way?'

'They might have arrested the wrong man for the
shootings. That's why I'm here. That's why we're all
here.' Reacher watched the guy. He was standing there,
holding the door, trying to decide. In the end he just
sighed and stepped back. 'You better come in,' he said.

Everyone talks.

He led the way through a muted yellow hallway to a
living room. It was spacious and immaculate. Velvet
furniture, little mahogany tables, a stone fireplace. No
television. There was probably a separate room for that.

A den, or a home theatre. Or perhaps they didn't watch
television.

Reacher saw Ann Yanni calculating the odds. 'I'll get
my wife,' the guy said.

He came back a minute later with a handsome woman
a little younger than himself. She was wearing pressed
jeans and a sweatshirt the same yellow as the hallway
walls. Penny loafers on her feet. No socks. She had hair
that had been expensively styled to look casual and
windswept. She was medium height and lean in a way
that spoke of diet books and serious time in aerobics
classes.

'What's this about?' she asked.

'Ted Archer,' Helen said.

'Ted? I thought you told my husband it was about
Oline.'

'We think there may be a connection. Between his
situation and hers.'

'How could there be a connection? Surely what
happened to Oline was completely out of the blue.'

'Maybe it wasn't.'

'I don't understand.'

'We suspect that Oline might have been a specific
target, kind of hidden behind the confusion of the other
four victims.' 'Wouldn't that be a matter for the police?'

Helen paused. 'At the moment the police seem
satisfied with what they've got.'

The woman glanced at her husband.

'Then I'm not sure we should talk about it,' he said.

'At all?' Yanni asked. 'Or just to me?'

'I'm not sure if we would want to be on television.'

Reacher smiled to himself. The other side of the tracks.

'This is deep background only,' Yanni said. 'It's entirely
up to you whether your names are used.' The woman
sat down on a sofa and her husband sat next to her,
very close. Reacher smiled to himself again. They had
subconsciously adopted the standard couple-on-a-sofa
pose that television interviews used all the time. Two
faces close together, ideally framed for a tight camera
shot.

Yanni took her cue and sat in an armchair facing them,
perched right on the edge, leaning forward, her elbows
on her knees, a frank and open expression on her face.

Helen took another chair. Reacher stepped away to the
window. Used a finger to move the drapes aside. It was
full dark outside.

Time ticking away.

'Tell us about Ted Archer,' Yanni said. 'Please.' A simple
request, only six words, but her tone said: I think you
two are the most interesting people in the world and I
would love to be your friend. For a moment Reacher
thought Yanni had missed her way. She would have
been a great cop.

'Ted had business problems,' the woman said.

'Is that why he disappeared?' Yanni asked.

The woman shrugged. 'That was Oline's initial
assumption.'

'But?'

'Ultimately she rejected that explanation. And I think
she was right to. Ted wasn't that kind of a man. And his
problems weren't those kind of problems.

The fact is he was getting screwed rotten and he was
mad as hell about it and he was fighting. And people
who fight don't just walk away. I mean, do they?'