Silence in the room.

“So we hushed it up and mustered him out,” Reacher said. “We said his four guys had been killed by Palestinians, which was plausible in Kuwait City in 1991. I was mildly pissed about the whole thing. It wasn’t the worst situation I had ever seen, but it wasn’t the nicest, either. James Barr got away with murder, by sheer luck. So I went to see him before he left and I told him to justify his great good fortune by never stepping out of line again, not ever, the whole rest of his life. I told him if he ever did, I would come find him and make him sorry.”

Silence in the room. It lasted minutes.

“So here I am,” Reacher said.

“This must be classified information,” Helen Rodin said. “I mean, surely it can’t ever be used. There would be a huge scandal.”

Reacher nodded. “It’s highly classified. It’s sealed inside the Pentagon. That’s why I asked if this conversation was privileged.”

“You’d get in big trouble if you talked about it.”

“I’ve been in big trouble before. I came here to find out if I needed to get in big trouble again. As it happens, I don’t think I do. I think your father can put James Barr away without my help. But my help is always available if he needs it.”

Then Helen understood.

“You’re here to pressure me,” she said. “Aren’t you? You’re telling me if I try too hard, you’ll cut me off at the knees.”

“I’m here to keep my promise,” Reacher said. “To James Barr.”

He closed the door and left them there, three silent and disappointed people in a room. Then he rode down in the elevator. Ann Yanni got in again on two. He wondered for a moment if she spent all day riding the elevators, hoping to be recognized. Hoping to be asked for an autograph. He ignored her. Got out with her in the lobby and just headed for the door.

He stood for a moment in the plaza. Deciding. James Barr’s medical condition was the complicating factor. He didn’t want to stick around until the guy woke up. If that happened at all, it might take weeks. And Reacher was not a guy who liked to stick around. He liked to be on the move. Two days in one place was about his limit. But he was stuck for alternatives. He couldn’t hint at anything to Alex Rodin. Couldn’t give him a call-me-if-you-need-me number. For one thing, he didn’t have a phone. For another, a guy as squared away and cautious as Alex Rodin was would worry away at the hint until something began to unravel. He would make the link to the Pentagon easily enough. Reacher had even asked did she get my name from the Pentagon? That had been a careless mistake. So Alex Rodin would put two and two together, eventually. He would figure, There’s something extra here, and I can find out what it is from the Pentagon. The Pentagon would stonewall him, of course. But Rodin wouldn’t like being stonewalled. He would go to the media. Ann Yanni, probably. She would be ready for another network story. And at bottom Rodin would be insecure enough about losing the case that he would simply have to know. He wouldn’t give up on it.

And Reacher didn’t want the story out there. Not unless it was absolutely necessary. Gulf War vets had it hard enough, with the chemical stuff and the uranium poisoning. All they had going for them was the conflict’s spotless just-war reputation. They didn’t need defaming by association with people like Barr and his victims. People would say, Hey, they were all doing it. And they weren’t all doing it, in Reacher’s experience. That had been a good army. So he didn’t want the story out there unless it was absolutely necessary, and he wanted to judge that for himself.

So, no hints to Alex Rodin. No call-me contingencies.

So… what, exactly?

He decided to stick around for twenty-four hours. Maybe there would be a clearer prognosis on Barr’s condition after that. Maybe somehow he could check with Emerson and get a better feel for the evidence. Then maybe he could feel OK about leaving things with Alex Rodin’s office, on a kind of forensic autopilot. If there were problems down the road maybe he would read about them in a newspaper somewhere, far in the future, on a beach or in a bar, and then he could come all the way back again.

So, twenty-four hours in a small heartland city.

He decided to go see if there was a river.

There was a river. It was a broad, slow body of water that moved west to east through an area south of downtown. Some tributary that fed the mighty Ohio, he guessed. Its north bank was straightened and strengthened with massive stone blocks along a three-hundred-yard stretch. The blocks might have weighed fifty tons each. They were immaculately chiseled and expertly fitted. They made a quayside. A wharf. They had tall fat iron mushrooms set into them, to tie off ropes. Stone paving slabs made the wharf thirty feet deep. All along its length were tall wooden sheds, open on the river side, open on the street side. The street was made of cobbles. A hundred years ago there would have been huge river barges tied up and unloading. There would have been swarms of men at work. There would have been horses and carts clattering on the cobbles. But now there was nothing. Just absolute stillness, and the slow drift of the water. Scabs of rust on the iron mushrooms, clumps of weeds between the stones.

Some of the sheds still had faded names on them. McGinty Dry Goods. Allentown Seed Company. Parker Supply. Reacher strolled the three hundred yards and looked at all of them. They were still standing, strong and square. Ripe for renovation, he guessed. A city that put an ornamental pool with a fountain in a public plaza would spruce up the waterfront. It was inevitable. There was construction all over town. It would move south. They would give someone tax breaks to open a riverside café. Maybe a bar. Maybe with live music, Thursday through Saturday. Maybe with a little museum laying out the history of the river trade.

He turned to walk back and came face-to-face with Helen Rodin.

“You’re not such a hard man to find,” she said.

“Evidently,” he said.

“Tourists always come to the docks.”

She was carrying a lawyer-size briefcase.

“Can I buy you lunch?” she said.

She walked him back north to the edge of the new gentrification. In the space of a single dug-up block the city changed from old and worn to new and repainted. Stores changed from dusty mom-and-pop places with displays of vacuum cleaner bags and washing machine hoses to new establishments showing off spotlit hundred-dollar dresses. And shoes, and four-dollar lattes, and things made of titanium. They walked past a few such places and then Helen Rodin led him into an eatery. It was the kind of place he had seen before. It was the kind of place he usually avoided. White walls, some exposed brick, engine-turned aluminum tables and chairs, weird salad combinations. Random ingredients thrown together and called inventive.

She led him to a table in the far back corner. An energetic kid came by with menus. Helen Rodin ordered something with oranges and walnuts and Gorgonzola cheese. With a cup of herbal tea. Reacher gave up on reading his menu and ordered the same thing, but with coffee, regular, black.

“This is my favorite place in town,” Helen said.

He nodded. He believed her. She looked right at home. The long straight hair, the black clothes. The youthful glow. He was older and came from a different time and a different place.

“I need you to explain something,” she said.

She bent down and opened her briefcase. Came out with the old tape player. Placed it carefully on the table. Pressed Play. Reacher heard James Barr’s first lawyer say: Denying it is not an option. Then he heard Barr say: Get Jack Reacher for me.