Or maybe we can.

“The Marines are here,” he said.

They heard Cash’s feet on the outside stairs. Heard his knock on the door. Reacher went out to the hallway to open up. Cash came in, brisk, solid, reassuring. He was dressed all in black. Black canvas pants, black canvas windbreaker. Reacher introduced him all around. Yanni, Franklin, Helen Rodin. Everyone shook hands and Cash took a seat. Inside twenty minutes he was up to speed and totally on board.

“Do we have a plan?” he asked.

“We’re about to make one,” Reacher said. Yanni went out to her car for the maps. Franklin cleared away the coffee cups and made space on the table. Yanni chose the right map. Spread it out flat.

“It’s like a giant chessboard out there,” she said. “Every square is a field a hundred yards across. There are roads laid out in a grid, north to south, west to east, about twenty fields apart.” Then she pointed. Slim finger, painted nail. “But right here we’ve got two roads that meet, and southeast of the corner they make we’ve got an empty space three fields wide and five fields high. No agriculture there. The northern part is the stone-crushing plant and the house is south of it. I’ve seen it and it stands about two hundred yards off the road, all alone in the middle of absolutely nothing. No landscaping, no vegetation. But no fence, either.”

“Flat?” Reacher asked.

“As a pool table,” Yanni said.

“Dark out there,” Cash said.

“As the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat,” Reacher said. “And I guess if there’s no fence it means they’re using cameras. With some kind of thermal imaging at night. Some kind of infrared.”

“How fast can you run two hundred yards?” Cash asked.

“Me?” Reacher said. “Slow enough they could mail-order a rifle to shoot me with.”

“What’s the best approach?”

“Walk in from the north,” Reacher said. “Without a doubt. We could get into the stone place straight off the road and just hike through it. Then we could lie up as long as we wanted. Good concealment until the last minute.”

“Can’t walk in from anywhere if they’ve got thermal cameras.”

“We’ll worry about that later.”

“OK, but they’ll anticipate the north.”

Reacher nodded. “We’ll pass on the north. Too obvious.”

“South or east would be next best. Because presumably the driveway comes in from the west. Probably too straight and too open.”

“They’ll be thinking the same thing.”

“Makes us both right.”

“I kind of like the driveway,” Reacher said. “What will it be? Paved?”

“Crushed limestone,” Yanni said. “They’ve got plenty to spare.”

“Noisy,” Cash said.

“It’ll have retained a little daytime heat,” Reacher said. “It’ll be warmer than the dirt. It’ll put a stripe of color down their thermal picture. If the contrast isn’t great it’ll give a shadow zone either side.”

“Are you kidding?” Cash said. “You’re going to be forty or fifty degrees hotter than ambient temperature. You’re going to show up like a road flare.”

“They’re going to be paying attention south and east.”

“Not exclusively.”

“You got a better idea?”

“What about a full frontal assault? With vehicles?”

Reacher smiled. “If it absolutely positively has to be destroyed by morning, call the United States Marine Corps.”

“Roger that,” Cash said.

“Too dangerous,” Reacher said. “We can’t give them a second’s warning and we can’t turn the place into a free-fire zone. We’ve got Rosemary to think about.”

Nobody spoke.

“I like the driveway,” Reacher said again.

Cash glanced at Helen Rodin.

“We could just call in the cops,” he said. “You know, if it’s the DA who’s the bad guy here. A couple of SWAT teams could do it.”

“Same problem,” Reacher said. “Rosemary would be dead before they got near the door.”

“Cut the power lines? Kill the cameras?”

“Same problem. It’s an announcement ahead of time.”

“Your call.”

“The driveway,” Reacher said. “I like the driveway.”

“But what about the cameras?”

“I’ll think of something,” Reacher said. He stepped over to the table. Stared down at the map. Then he turned back to Cash. “Does your truck have a CD player?”

Cash nodded. “Part of the comfort package.”

“Do you mind if Franklin drives it?”

“Franklin can have it. I’d prefer a sedan.”

“OK, your Humvee is our approach vehicle. Franklin can drive us there, let us out, and then get straight back here.”

“Us?” Yanni said. “Are we all going?”

“You bet your ass,” Reacher said. “Four of us there, with Franklin back here as the comms center.”

“Good,” Yanni said.

“We need cell phones,” Reacher said.

“I’ve got one,” Yanni said.

“Me too,” Cash said.

“Me too,” Helen said.

“I don’t,” Reacher said.

Franklin took a small Nokia out of his pocket.

“Take mine,” he said.

Reacher took it. “Can you set up a conference call? Four cell phones and your desk phone? As soon as you get back here?”

Franklin nodded. “Give me your numbers.”

“And turn the ringers off,” Reacher said.

“When are we doing this?” Cash asked.

“Four o’clock in the morning is my favorite time,” Reacher said. “But they’ll be expecting that. We learned it from them. Four in the morning is when the KGB went knocking on doors. Least resistance. It’s a biorhythm thing. So we’ll surprise them. We’ll do it at two-thirty.”

“If you surprise them you don’t have to hit them very hard?” Yanni said.

Reacher shook his head. “In this situation if we surprise them they won’t hit me very hard.”

“Where am I going to be?” Cash asked.

“Southwest corner of the gravel plant,” Reacher said. “Looking south and east at the house. You can cover the west and the north sides simultaneously. With your rifle.”

“OK.”

“What did you bring for me?”

Cash dug in the pocket of his windbreaker and came out with a knife in a sheath. He tossed it across the room. Reacher caught it. It was a standard-issue Navy SEAL SRK. Their survival-rescue knife. Carbon steel, black epoxy, seven-inch blade. Not new.

“This is it?” Reacher said.

“All I’ve got,” Cash said. “The only weapons I own are my rifle and that knife.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m a businessman, not a psycho.”

“Christ’s sake, Gunny, I’ll be taking a knife to a gunfight? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”

“All I’ve got,” Cash said again.

“Great.”

“You can take a gun from the first one you cut. Face it, if you don’t get close enough to cut one of them you aren’t going to win anyway.”

Reacher said nothing.

They waited. Midnight. Twelve-thirty. Yanni fiddled with her cell phone and made a call. Reacher ran through the plan one more time. First in his head, then out loud, until everyone was clear. Details, dispositions, refinements, adjustments.

“But we might still change everything,” he said. “When we get there. No substitute for seeing the actual terrain.”

They waited. One o’clock. One-thirty. Reacher started to allow himself to think about the endgame. About what would come after the victory. He turned to Franklin.

“Who is Emerson’s number two?” he asked.

“A woman called Donna Bianca,” Franklin said.

“Is she any good?”

“She’s his number two.”

“She’ll need to be there. Afterward. It’s going to be a real three-ring circus. Too much for one pair of hands. I want you to bring Emerson and Donna Bianca out there. And Alex Rodin, of course. After we win.”

“They’ll be in bed.”

“So wake them up.”

“If we win,” Franklin said.

At one forty-five people started to get restless. Helen Rodin stepped over and squatted down next to Reacher. She picked up the knife. Looked at it. Put it back down.