“The bond is going to shear,” Reacher said. “The pumpkin goo is going to unstick from my skin.”

Vaughan nodded again. “That’s what happened to David’s head. A shearing injury. The very worst kind. His brain stem is OK but the rest of his brain doesn’t even know it’s there. It doesn’t know there’s a problem.”

“Will the bond re-form?”

“Never. That just doesn’t happen. Brains have spare capacity, but neuron cells can’t regenerate. This is all he will ever be. He’s like a brain-damaged lizard. He’s got the IQ of a goldfish. He can’t move and he can’t see and he can’t hear and he can’t think.”

Reacher said nothing.

Vaughan said, “Battlefield medicine is very good now. He was stable and in Germany within thirteen hours. In Korea or Vietnam he would have died at the scene, no question.”

She moved to the head of the bed and laid her hand on her husband’s cheek, very gently, very tenderly. Said, “We think his spinal cord is severed too, as far as we can tell. But that doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

The respirator hissed and the clock ticked and the IV lines made tiny liquid sounds and Vaughan stood quietly and then she said, “You don’t shave very often, do you?”

“Sometimes,” Reacher said.

“But you know how?”

“I learned at my daddy’s knee.”

“Will you shave David?”

“Don’t the orderlies do that?”

“They should, but they don’t. And I like him to look decent. It seems like the least I can do.” She took a supermarket carrier bag out of the green metal cabinet. It held men’s toiletries. Shaving gel, a half-used pack of disposable razors, soap, a washcloth. Reacher found a bathroom across the hall and stepped back and forth with the wet cloth, soaping the guy’s face, rinsing it, wetting it again. He smoothed blue gel over the guy’s chin and cheeks and lathered it with his fingertips and then set about using the razor. It was difficult. A completely instinctive sequence of actions when applied to himself became awkward on a third party. Especially on a third party who had a breathing tube in his mouth and a large part of his skull missing.

While he worked with the razor, Vaughan cleaned the room. She had a second supermarket bag in the cabinet that held cloths and sprays and a dustpan and brush. She stretched high and bent low and went through the whole twelve-foot cube very thoroughly. Her husband stared on at a point miles beyond the ceiling and the respirator hissed and blew. Reacher finished up and Vaughan stopped a minute later and stood back and looked.

“Good work,” she said.

“You too. Although you shouldn’t have to do that yourself.”

“I know.”

They repacked the supermarket bags and put them away in the cabinet. Reacher asked, “How often do you come?”

“Not very often,” Vaughan said. “It’s a Zen thing, really. If I visit and he doesn’t know I’ve visited, have I really visited at all? It’s self-indulgent to come here just to make myself feel like a good wife. So I prefer to visit him in my memory. He’s much more real there.”

“How long were you married?”

“We’re still married.”

“I’m sorry. How long?”

“Twelve years. Eight together, then he spent two in Iraq, and the last two have been like this.”

“How old is he?”

“Thirty-four. He could live another sixty years. Me too.”

“Were you happy?”

“Yes and no, like everyone.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Now?”

“Long term.”

“I don’t know. People say I should move on. And maybe I should. Maybe I should accept destiny, like Zeno. Like a true Stoic. I feel like that, sometimes. But then I panic and get defensive. I feel, first they do this to him, and now I should divorce him? But he wouldn’t know anyway. So it’s back to the Zen thing. What do you think I should do?”

“I think you should take a walk,” Reacher said. “Right now. Alone. Walking by yourself is always good. Get some fresh air. See some trees. I’ll bring the car and pick you up before you hit the four-lane.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll find some way to pass the time.”

51

Vaughan said goodbye to her husband and she and Reacher walked back along the dirty corridors and through the dismal lounge to the entrance hall. The guy in the gray sweatshirt said, “Goodbye, Mrs. Vaughan.” They walked out to the carriage circle and headed for the car. Reacher leaned against its flank and Vaughan kept on going. He waited until she was small in the distance and then he pushed off the car and headed back to the entrance. Up the steps, in the door. He crossed to the hutch and asked, “Who’s in charge here?”

The guy in the gray sweatshirt said, “I am, I guess. I’m the shift supervisor.”

Reacher asked, “How many patients here?”

“Seventeen,” the guy said.

“Who are they?”

“Just patients, man. Whatever they send us.”

“You run this place according to a manual?”

“Sure. It’s a bureaucracy, like everywhere.”

“You got a copy of the manual available?”

“Somewhere.”

“You want to show me the part where it says it’s OK to keep the rooms dirty and have mouse shit in the corridors?”

The guy blinked and swallowed and said, “There’s no pointcleaning, man. They wouldn’tknow. How could they? This is the vegetable patch.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“It’s what itis, man.”

“Wrong answer,” Reacher said. “This is not the vegetable patch. This is a veterans’ clinic. And you’re a piece of shit.”

“Hey, lighten up, dude. What’s it to you?”

“David Robert Vaughan is my brother.”

“Really?”

“All veterans are my brothers.”

“He’s brain dead, man.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Then listen up. And listen very carefully. A person less fortunate than yourself deserves the best you can give. Because of duty, and honor, and service. You understand those words? You should do your job right, and you should do it well, simply because you can, without looking for notice or reward. The people here deserve your best, and I’m damn sure their relatives deserve it.”

“Who are you anyway?”

“I’m a concerned citizen,” Reacher said. “With a number of options. I could embarrass your corporate parent, I could call the newspapers or the TV, I could come in here with a hidden camera, I could get you fired. But I don’t do stuff like that. I offer personal choices instead, face-to-face. You want to know what your choice is?”

“What?”

“Do what I tell you, with a cheery smile.”

“Or?”

“Or become patient number eighteen.”

The guy went pale.

Reacher said, “Stand up.”

“What?”

“On your feet. Now.”

“What?”

Reacher said, “Stand up, now, or I’ll make it so you never stand up again.”

The guy paused a beat and got to his feet.

“At attention,” Reacher said. “Feet together, shoulders back, head up, gaze level, arms straight, hands by your sides, thumbs in line with the seams of your pants.” Some officers of his acquaintance had barked and yelled and shouted. He had always found it more effective to speak low and quiet, enunciating clearly and precisely as if to an idiot child, bearing down with an icy stare. That way he had found the implied menace to be unmistakable. Calm, patient voice, huge physique. The dissonance was striking. It was a case of whatever worked. It had worked then, and it was working now. The guy in the sweatshirt was swallowing hard and blinking and standing in a rough approximation of parade-ground order.

Reacher said, “Your patients are not just whatever they send you. Your patients are people. They served their country with honor and distinction. They deserve your utmost care and respect.”

The guy said nothing.

Reacher said, “This place is a disgrace. It’s filthy and chaotic. So listen up. You’re going to get off your skinny ass and you’re going to organize your people and you’re going to get it cleaned up. Starting right now. I’m going to come back, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next month, and if I can’t see my face in the floor I’m going to turn you upside down and use you like a mop. Then I’m going to kick your ass so hard your colon is going to get tangled up in your teeth. Are we clear?”