“So can we relax?” she said. “Get past it?”

He nodded. “Sure, let’s relax. Let’s get past it. You can put your jacket back on now. You can stop showing me your breasts.”

She blushed again. “I took it off because I was warm. No other reason.”

“OK, I’m not complaining.”

He turned away again and watched the dark through the window.

“You want dessert?” she asked.

He turned back and nodded. “And more coffee.”

“You stay here. I’ll get it.”

She walked back to the serving counter. The room seemed to fall silent. Every eye was on her. She came back with a tray bearing two ice cream sundaes and two cups of coffee. A hundred people watched her all the way.

“I apologize,” Reacher said.

She bent and slid the tray onto the table. “For what?”

He shrugged. “For looking at you the way I’ve been looking at you, I guess. You must be sick of it. Everybody looking at you all the time.”

She smiled. “Look at me as much as you like, and I’ll look at you right back, because you aren’t the ugliest thing I ever saw either. But that’s as far as it’s going to go, OK?”

He smiled back. “Deal.”

The ice cream was excellent. It had hot fudge sauce all over it. The coffee was strong. If he narrowed his eyes and cut out the rest of the room, he could rate this place about as highly as he had rated Mostro’s.

“What do people do here in the evenings?” he asked.

“Mostly they go home,” Harper said. “But not you. You go back to your room. Blake’s orders.”

“We’re following Blake’s orders now?”

She smiled. “Some of them.”

He nodded. “OK, so let’s go.”

SHE LEFT HIM on the side of the door without the handle. He stood there and heard her footsteps recede across the carpet outside. Then the thump of the elevator door. Then the whine of the car going down. Then the floor fell silent. He walked to the nightstand and dialed Jodie’s apartment. The machine cut in. He dialed her office. No answer. He tried her mobile. It was not in service.

He walked to the bathroom. Somebody had supplemented his toothbrush with a tube of toothpaste and a disposable razor and a can of shaving cream. There was a bottle of shampoo on the rim of the tub. There was soap in the dish. Fluffy white towels on the rack. He stripped and hung his clothes on the back of the door. Set the shower to hot and stepped under the water.

He stood there for ten minutes and then shut it off. Toweled himself dry. Walked naked to the window and pulled the drapes. Lay down on the bed and scanned the ceiling. He found the camera. The lens was a black tube the diameter of a nickel, wedged deep in a crack in the molding where the wall met the ceiling. He turned back to the phone. Dialed all the same numbers again. Her apartment. He got the machine. Her office. No reply. Her mobile. Switched off.

10

HE SLEPT BADLY and woke himself up before six in the morning and rolled toward the nightstand. Flicked on the bedside light and checked the exact time on his watch. He was cold. He had been cold all night. The sheets were starched, and the shiny surfaces pulled heat away from his skin.

He reached for the phone and dialed Jodie’s apartment. He got the machine. No answer in her office. Her mobile was switched off. He held the phone to his ear for a long time, listening to her cellular company telling him so, over and over again. Then he hung up and rolled out of bed.

He walked to the window and pulled the drapes open. The view faced west and it was still dark night outside. Maybe there was a sunrise behind him on the other side of the building. Maybe it hadn’t happened yet. He could hear the distant sound of hard rain on dying leaves. He turned his back on it and walked to the bathroom.

He used the toilet and shaved slowly. Spent fifteen minutes in the shower with the water as hot as he could stand it, getting warm. Then he washed his hair with the FBI’s shampoo and toweled it dry. Carried his clothes out of the steam and dressed standing by the bed. Buttoned his shirt and hung his ID around his neck. He figured room service was unlikely, so he just sat down to wait.

He waited forty-five minutes. There was a polite knock at the door, followed by the sound of a key going into the lock. Then the door opened and Lisa Harper was standing there, backlit by the brightness of the corridor. She was smiling, mischievously. He had no idea why.

“Good morning,” she said.

He raised his hand in reply. Said nothing. She was in a different suit. This one was charcoal gray, with a white shirt and a dark red tie. An exact parody of the unofficial Bureau uniform, but a whole lot of cloth had been cut out of it to make it fit. Her hair was loose. There was a wave in it, and it hung front and back of her shoulders, very long. It looked golden in the light from the corridor.

“We’ve got to go,” she said. “Breakfast meeting.”

He took his coat from the closet as he passed. They rode down to the lobby together and paused at the doors. It was raining hard outside. He pulled his collar up and followed her out. The light had changed from black to gray. The rain was cold. She sprinted down the walkway, and he followed a pace behind, watching her run. She looked pretty good doing it.

Lamarr and Blake and Poulton were waiting for them in the cafeteria. They were in three of five chairs crowded around a four-place table by the window. They were watching him carefully as he approached. There was a white coffee jug in the center of the table, surrounded by upside-down mugs. A basket of sugar packets and little pots of cream. A pile of spoons. Napkins. A basket of doughnuts. A pile of morning newspapers. Harper took a chair and he squeezed in next to her. Lamarr was watching him, something in her eyes. Poulton looked away. Blake looked amused, in a sardonic kind of a way.

“Ready to go to work?” he asked.

Reacher nodded. “Sure, after I’ve had some coffee.”

Poulton turned the mugs over and Harper poured.

“We called Fort Dix last night,” Blake said. “Spoke with Colonel Trent. He said he’ll give you all day today. ”

“That should do it.”

“He seems to like you.”

“No, he owes me, which is different.”

Lamarr nodded. “Good. You need to exploit that. You know what you’re looking for, right? Concentrate on the dates. Find somebody whose stand-down weeks match. My guess is he’s doing it late in the week. Maybe not exactly the last day, because he’s got to get back to base and calm down afterward.”

Reacher smiled. “Great deduction, Lamarr. You get paid for this?”

She just looked at him and smiled back, like she knew something he didn’t.

“What?” he asked.

“Just keep a civil tongue in your head,” Blake said. “You got a problem with what she’s suggesting?”

Reacher shrugged. “We do it by dates alone, we’re going to come up with maybe a thousand names.”

“So narrow it down some. Get Trent to cross-reference against the women. Find somebody who served with one of them.”

“Or served with one of the men who got canned,” Poulton said.

Reacher smiled again. “Awesome brainpower around this table. It could make a guy feel real intimidated.”

“You got better ideas, smart guy?” Blake asked.

“I know what I’m going to do.”

“Well, just remember what’s riding on it, OK? Lots of women in danger, one of them yours.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“So get going.”

Harper took the cue and stood up. Reacher eased out of his seat and followed her. The three at the table watched him go, something in their eyes. Harper was waiting for him at the cafeteria door, looking back at him, watching him approach, smiling at him. He stopped next to her.

“Why’s everybody looking at me?” he asked.

“We checked the tape,” she said. “You know, the surveillance camera.”