Showtime, he thought.

He struck a match and held it against the rag trapped in the trunk lid until the rag was burning bright. Then he flicked the match away and picked up the first Molotov cocktail. Lit its wick off the burning rag and stepped back and hurled it high in the air, over the fence. It tumbled through a lazy blazing arc and burst against the base of the main building’s end wall. Gas exploded and flared and then settled into a small burning pool.

He threw the second bomb. Same procedure. He lit the wick off the burning rag, stepped back, and threw hard. The bottle sailed through the same arc and hit the same place and burst. There was a brief white-hot flare and then the pool of flames settled and spread wider. They started to lick upward against the siding.

He threw the third bomb directly into the fire. And the fourth. He aimed the fifth a little to the left. It started a brand-new fire. He followed it with the six and the seventh. His shoulder started to ache from the effort of the giant throws. The grass all around the building’s end wall started to burn. Smoke started to drift. He threw the eighth bottle into the gap between the two fires. It fell short and burst and set fire to the grass about eight feet out. Now there was a large irregular patch of flames, maybe ten feet wide, maybe eight feet deep. Maybe four feet high, red and orange and green with chemical acceleration.

He threw the ninth bottle harder, and farther to the left. It exploded near the building’s door. The tenth bottle followed it. It didn’t burst. It rolled and leaked and burning gasoline welled out and flames raced and crackled through the dry grass. He paused and picked his spot and used the eleventh bottle to fill the gap on the building’s corner. The twelfth and last bottle followed it. He heaved it hard and it hit the siding high up and burst into flames and burning gas spattered the whole end wall.

He opened the trunk lid and knocked the burning rag out and stamped on it. Then he stepped to the fence and peered through. The grass at the base of the building’s end wall and all along the front wall as far as the door was burning fiercely. Flames were leaping high and smoke was pouring upward. The building itself was built of metal and was resisting. But it would be getting warm inside.

Soon be getting warmer, Reacher thought.

He screwed the lid on the gas can and wound up and hurled it like a discus thrower. It soared up over the fence and spun and wobbled through the air and landed dead center in the flames. Thin red flammable plastic, two gallons of gas inside. There was a split second’s pause and then the can exploded in a huge white fireball. For a time it looked like the whole place was on fire. And when the fireball eventually died the flames left behind were twice as high as before and the paint on the siding was starting to burn.

Reacher got back in the Prelude and started up and pulled a ragged U-turn and headed back the way he had come. The muffler burbled. He hoped Dixon and O’Donnell could hear it, wherever they were. Three blocks later he was back where he started. He pulled in behind Neagley’s Civic and killed his motor and sat still and watched out his window. He could see the glow in the distance, far to his left. Clouds of billowing smoke, drifting, up-lit by bright leaping flames below. A decent blaze, getting worse by the minute.

Impressive.

He raised an imaginary glass to Comrade Molotov.

Then he leaned back in his seat and waited for the fire department to show up.

The fire department showed up inside four minutes. Clearly New Age had an alarm system hard-wired straight into the precinct house. A Pentagon requirement, Reacher guessed, like the guard shack at the gate. Far to his right in the distance he heard the faint bass bark of sirens and saw blue lights flashing on the horizon. He saw Neagley start her car and put it in gear. He started his own. And then he waited. The sirens grew louder. They changed to a manic continuous shriek, once, then again, at busy intersections. Then they died back to random barking. The blue lights got brighter. The trucks were two blocks away. Headlight beams were bright in the gloom. Neagley eased off the curb. Reacher followed her. She drove ahead and waited on the stop line. Reacher was right behind her. The fire trucks were a block away, bearing down, coming on fast, honking and flashing. Neagley swooped out and made the left, right in front of the convoy. Reacher followed her, tires chirping, just yards in front of the leading truck. Its siren blared at him angrily. Neagley drove a couple of hundred yards. One block. Two. Onto New Age’s block. She followed the fence along the front of the property. Reacher was behind her all the way. The sirens behind him were yelping furiously. Then Neagley pulled over, like a good citizen. Reacher tucked in behind her. The trucks lurched left and roared past them both. Then more or less immediately they braked hard and turned and headed for New Age’s gate. There were three of them. A whole engine company. A priority client.

New Age’s gate was rolling back. Because a fire alarm was better than any kind of pass or paperwork.

Then Neagley slammed her car twenty feet into a side street and was out of her seat and running hard through the darkness. Reacher followed her all the way. They crossed the road at maximum speed and caught up with the last truck as it slowed to turn in. They stayed on its left, on the blind side, away from the guard shack, away from the fire. Away from the center of attention. They ran hard to keep pace. They tracked the truck all the way in through the gate. Its siren was still sounding. Its engine was roaring. It was deafening. Smoke was drifting from the fire, sharp and acrid on the night air. The truck roared straight ahead. Neagley turned a hard left and ran down the inside face of the fence. Reacher headed half-left through the grass. He gave it ten long seconds of maximum effort and then flung himself down and rolled and crammed himself flat on his front with his face hard down in the dirt.

A minute later he raised his head.

He was sixty yards from the fire. Between him and it were the three trucks, huge, noisy, blue lights flashing, headlights blazing. Beyond the trucks he could see flames. He could see people moving around. New Age security. They were over by the far fence, trying to see who or what had started the fire. They were darting forward and dropping back, beaten by the heat. Firemen were running everywhere, hauling equipment, unrolling hoses.

Chaos.

Reacher turned his head and strained hard to see through the darkness. Saw a flat humped shape in the grass forty feet away that had to be Neagley.

They were inside the fence.

Undetected.

It took eight minutes for LA’s bravest to put out the fire. Then they spent another thirty-one dousing the ashes and taking notes and following up in one way or another. Total duration of their visit, thirty-nine minutes. Reacher spent the first twenty of them surveying the buildings from as close as he dared to get. Then he spent the final nineteen crawling backward as far as he could go. By the time the trucks finished up and rolled out the gate he was jammed up in the far back corner of the property, a hundred and fifty yards from the action.

The closest thing to him was the helicopter. It was still standing on its pad, about halfway along the lot’s diagonal, maybe seventy yards away. Beyond it was the closest of the small outbuildings. The pilot’s office, Reacher guessed. He had seen a guy in a leather jacket run out the door. Behind him in a blaze of light he had seen charts and maps pinned on a wall.

Equidistant from the helicopter and the pilot’s office and thirty yards south of both was the parking lot. It was full of the six blue Chryslers, all of them cold and quiet.