“Fox?” Vladimir said.

“I didn’t see it,” Sokolov said. “But probably.”

“It ran away again.”

“OK, then.” Sokolov turned back to his own pair of monitors. Glanced at the West view, checked the South, and settled into his regular cadence again.

Cash had a cadence of his own. He was inching his night scope along at what he guessed was the speed of a walking man. But every five seconds he would sweep it suddenly forward and back in case his estimate was off. During one of those rapid traverses he picked up on what looked like a pale green shadow.

“Reacher, I can see you,” he whispered. “You’re visible, soldier.”

Reacher’s voice came back: “What scope have you got on that thing?”

“Litton,” Cash said.

“Expensive, right?”

“Thirty-seven hundred dollars.”

“Got to be better than a lousy thermal camera.”

Cash didn’t reply.

Reacher said: “Well, I’m hoping so, anyway.”

He walked on. Probably the most unnatural thing a human can force himself to do, to walk slowly and surely toward a building that likely has a rifle in it pointing directly at his center mass. If Chenko had any sense at all he would wait, and wait, and wait, until his target was pretty close. And Chenko seemed to have plenty of sense. Fifty yards would be good. Or thirty-five, like Chenko’s range out of the parking garage. Chenko was pretty good at thirty-five yards. That had been made very clear.

He walked on. Transferred the phone to his left and held it near his ear. Took the knife out of his pocket and unsheathed it and held it right-handed, low and easy. Heard Cash say: “You’re totally visible now, soldier. You’re shining like the north star. It’s like you’re on fire.”

Forty yards to go.

Thirty-nine.

Thirty-eight.

“Helen?” he said. “Do it again.”

He heard her voice: “OK.”

He walked on. Held his breath.

Thirty-five yards.

Thirty-four.

Thirty-three.

He breathed out. He walked on doggedly. Twenty-nine yards to go. He heard panting in his ear. Helen, running. He heard Yanni ask, off-mike: “How close is he?” Heard Cash answer: “Not close enough.”

Vladimir leaned forward and said, “There it is again.” He put his fingertip on the screen, as if touch might tell him something. Sokolov glanced across. Sokolov had spent many more hours with the screens than Vladimir. Primarily surveillance had been his job. His, and Raskin’s.

“That’s no fox,” he said. “It’s way too big.”

He watched for five more seconds. The image was weaving left and right at the very limit of the camera’s range. Recognizable size, recognizable shape, inexplicable motion. He stood up and walked to the door. Braced his hands on the frame and leaned out into the hallway.

“Chenko!” he called. “North!”

Behind his back on the West screen a shape as big as his thumb grew larger. It looked like a painting-by-numbers figure done in fluorescent colors. Lime green on the outside, then a band of chrome yellow, with a core of hot red.

Chenko walked through an empty bedroom and opened the window as high as it would go. Then he backed away into the darkness. That way he was invisible from below and invulnerable except to a shot taken from the third story of an adjacent building, and there were no adjacent buildings. He switched on his night scope and raised his rifle. Quartered the open ground two hundred yards out, up and down, left and right.

He saw a woman.

She was running crazily, barefoot, darting left and right, out and back, like she was dancing or playing a phantom game of soccer. Chenko thought: What? He squeezed the slack out of his trigger and tried to anticipate her next pirouette. Tried to guess where her chest would be a third of a second after he fired. He waited. Then she stopped moving. She stood completely still, facing the house, arms out wide like a target.

Chenko pulled the trigger.

Then he understood. He stepped back to the hallway.

“Decoy!” he screamed. “Decoy!”

Cash saw the muzzle flash and called, “Shot fired,” and jumped his scope to the north window. The lower pane was raised, the upper pane was fixed. No point in putting a round through the opening. The upward trajectory would guarantee a miss. So he fired at the glass. He figured if he could get a hail of jagged shards going, then that might ruin somebody’s night.

Sokolov was watching the crazy heat image on Vladimir’s screen when he heard Chenko’s shot and his shouted warning. He glanced back at the door and turned to the South monitor. Nothing there. Then he heard return fire and shattering glass upstairs. He pushed back from the table and stepped to the door.

“Are you OK?” he called.

“Decoy,” Chenko called back. “Has to be.”

Sokolov turned and checked all four screens, very carefully.

“No,” he called. “Negative. Definitely nothing incoming.”

Reacher touched the front wall of the house. Old plank siding, painted many times. He was ten feet south of the driveway, ten feet south of the front door, near a window that looked into a dark empty room. The window was a tall rectangle with a lower pane that slid upward behind the upper pane. Maybe the upper pane slid down over the lower pane, too. Reacher didn’t know the name for the style. He had rarely lived in houses and had never owned one. Sash? Double-hung? He wasn’t sure. The house was much older than it had looked from a distance. Maybe a hundred years. Hundred-year-old house, hundred-year-old window. But did the window still have a hundred-year-old catch? He pressed his cheek against the lower pane and squinted upward.

He couldn’t see. Too dark.

Then he heard the shooting. Two rounds, one close, one not, shattering glass.

Then he heard Cash in his ear: “Helen? You OK?”

He heard no reply.

Cash asked again: “Helen? Helen?”

No reply.

Reacher put the phone in his pocket. Worked the blade of his knife up into the gap where the bottom of the upper casement overlapped the top of the lower casement. He moved the blade right to left, slowly, carefully, feeling for a catch. He found one, dead-center. Tapped it gently. It felt like a heavy brass tongue. It would pivot through ninety degrees, in and out of a socket.

But which way?

He pushed it right to left. Solid. He pulled the knife out and worked it back in an inch left of center. Slid it back until he found the tongue again. Pushed it left to right.

It moved.

He pushed it hard, and knocked it right out of its socket.

Easy.

He lifted the lower pane high and rolled over the sill into the room.

Cash eased forward and swung his rifle through ninety degrees until it was sighted due east along the fence. He stared through the scope. Saw nothing. He moved back into cover. Raised his phone.

“Helen?” he whispered.

No response.

Reacher moved through the empty room to the door. It was closed. He put his ear against it. Listened hard. Heard nothing. He turned the handle slowly, carefully. Opened the door very slowly. Leaned out. Checked the hallway.

Empty.

There was light from an open doorway fifteen feet ahead on his left. He paused. Lifted one foot at a time and wiped the soles of his shoes on his pants. Wiped his palms. He took a single step. Tested the floor. No sound. He moved ahead slowly, silently. Boat shoes. Good for something. He kept close to the wall, where the floor would be strongest. He stopped a yard shy of the lighted doorway. Took a breath. Moved on.

Stopped in the doorway.