Free The Hard Way by Lee Child Page B

want you here.”
    “I’ll do it,” Burke said. The black guy.
    Lane nodded. “Thank you.”
    “Then what?” Reacher asked. “How do we get her back?”
    Lane said, “After they’ve counted the money, there’ll be another call.”
    “On the cell or here?”
    “Here,” Lane said. “It will take some time. Counting large sums is an arduous process. Not for me at this end. The money is already bricked and banded and labeled. But they won’t trust that. They’ll break the bands and examine the bills and count them by hand.”
    Reacher nodded. It was a problem he had never really considered before. If the money was in hundreds, that would give them forty-five thousand bills. If they could count to a hundred every sixty seconds, that would take them four hundred and fifty minutes, which was seven and a half hours. Maybe six hours drive time, and seven and a half counting time.
A long night ahead,
he thought.
For them and for us.
    Lane said, “Why are they using the Jaguar?”
    “It’s a taunt,” Reacher said. “It’s to remind you.”
    Lane nodded.
    “Office,” he said. “Burke, and Reacher.”
    In the office Lane took a small silver Samsung phone out of a charging cradle and handed it to Burke. Then he disappeared, to his bedroom, maybe.
    “Gone to get the money,” Burke said.
    Reacher nodded. Gazed at the twin portraits on the desk. Two beautiful women, both equally stunning, roughly the same age, but with no real similarities. Anne Lane had been blonde and blue, somehow a child of the sixties even though she must have been born well after that decade was over. She had long straight hair parted in the middle, like a singer or a model or an actress. She had clear guileless eyes and an innocent smile. A flower child, even though house or hip hop or acid jazz would have been the thing when she got her first record player. Kate Lane was more a child of the eighties or nineties. More subtle, more worldly, more accomplished.
    “No kids with Anne, right?” Reacher asked.
    “No,” Burke said. “Thank God.”
    So maybe motherhood accounted for the difference. There was a weight to Kate, a gravity, a heft, not physical, but somewhere deep inside her. Choose one to spend the night with, you might well pick Anne. To spend the week with, you might want Kate.
    Lane came back awkwardly with a bulging leather bag. He dropped the bag on the floor and sat down at his desk.
    “How long?” he asked.
    “Forty minutes,” Reacher said.
    Burke checked his watch.
    “Yes,” he said. “Forty minutes.”
    “Go wait in the other room,” Lane said. “Leave me alone.”
    Burke went for the bag but Reacher picked it up for him. It was heavy and wide, and easier for a big guy to manage. He carried it to the foyer and dropped it near the door where its predecessor had waited twelve hours before. It flopped and settled like the same dead animal. Reacher took a seat and started counting off the minutes. Burke paced. Carter Groom drummed his fingers on the arm of a chair, frustrated. The Recon Marine, beached.
I’m all business,
he had said.
I’m nothing, away from the action.
Next to him Gregory sat quiet, all British reserve. Next to him was Perez, the Latino, tiny. Next to him was Addison, with the scarred face.
A knife, probably,
Reacher thought. Then Kowalski, taller than the others but still small next to Reacher himself. Special Forces guys were usually small. They were usually lean, fast, and whippy. Built for endurance and stamina and full of smarts and cunning. Like foxes, not like bears.
    Nobody talked. There was nothing to talk about, except the fact that the end of a kidnap was always the period of greatest risk. What was there that compelled kidnappers to keep their word? Honor? A sense of business ethics? Why risk a complex transfer when a shallow grave and a bullet in the victim’s head were a whole lot safer and simpler? Humanity? Decency? Reacher glanced at Kate Lane’s picture next to the phone and went