Reacher stepped ahead, up to where a narrow alley separated two buildings. He ducked in and waited with his back to the wall, where they wouldn’t see him until it was too late. He checked his watch. He had less than five minutes. He timed the two guys in his head. He built a mental picture of their lazy, complacent pace. Followed their rhythm in his mind. Waited. Waited. Then he stepped out of the alley and met them head on. They bumped right into him. He seized a bunch of windbreaker in each hand and leaned backward and swung them through a complete explosive half-circle and smashed them back-first into the alley wall. The guy in his right hand followed the wider arc, and therefore hit harder, and therefore bounced farther. Reacher caught him solidly with his elbow as he came forward off the wall and he went down on the floor. Didn’t come back up again. He was the guy with the satchel.

The other guy dropped the book and went for his pocket, but Reacher had Trent ’s Beretta out first. He stood close and held it angled low, down in the tails of his coat, down toward the guy’s kneecap.

“Be smart, OK?” he said.

He reached down with his left and racked the slide. The sound was muffled by the cloth of his coat, but to his practiced ear it sounded horribly empty. No final click of the shell case smacking home. But the Chinese guy didn’t notice. Too dizzy. Too shocked. He just pressed himself to the wall like he was trying to back right through it. Put all his weight on one foot, unconsciously preparing for the bullet that would blow his leg away.

“You’re making a mistake, pal,” he whispered.

Reacher shook his head. “No, we’re making a move, asshole.”

“Who’s we?”

“Petrosian,” Reacher said.

“Petrosian? You’re kidding me.”

“No way,” Reacher said. “I’m serious. Real serious. This street is Petrosian’s now. As of today. As of right now. All of it. The whole street. You clear on that?”

“This street is ours.”

“Not anymore. It’s Petrosian’s. He’s taking it over. You want to lose a leg arguing about it?”

“Petrosian?” the guy repeated.

“Believe it,” Reacher said, and slammed him left-handed in the stomach. The guy folded forward and Reacher tapped him above the ear with the butt of the gun and dropped him neatly on top of his partner. He clicked the trigger to free the slide and put the gun back in his pocket. Picked up the satchel and tucked it under his arm. Walked out of the alley and turned north.

He was already late. If his watch was a minute slow and the Navy guy’s was a minute fast, then the rendezvous was already gone. But he didn’t run. Running in the city was too conspicuous. He walked away as fast as he could, stepping one pace to the side for every three paces forward, threading his way along the sidewalks. He turned a corner and saw the blue car, USNR painted discreetly on its flank. He saw it moving away from the curb. Saw it lurching out into the traffic stream. Now he ran.

He got to where it had been parked four seconds after it left. Now it was three cars ahead, accelerating to catch the light. He stared after it. The light changed to red. The car accelerated faster. Then the guy chickened out and hit the brakes. The car slammed to a neat stop a foot into the crosswalk. Pedestrians swarmed out in front of it. Reacher breathed again and ran to the intersection and pulled open the passenger door. Dumped himself into the seat, panting. The driver nodded to him. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t offer any kind of an apology for not waiting. Reacher didn’t expect one. When the Navy says three hours, it means three hours. One hundred and eighty minutes, not a second more, not a second less. Time and tide wait for no man. The Navy was built on all kinds of bullshit like that.

THE JOURNEY BACK to Trent ’s office at Dix was the exact reverse of the journey out. Thirty minutes in the car through Brooklyn, the waiting helicopter, the raucous flight back to McGuire, the lieutenant in the staff Chevy waiting on the tarmac. Reacher spent the flight time counting the money in the satchel. There was a total of twelve hundred dollars in there, six folded wads of two hundred each. He gave the money to the load-masters for their next unit party. He tore the satchel along its seams and dropped the pieces through the flare hatch, two thousand feet above Lakewood, New Jersey.

It was still raining at Dix. The lieutenant drove him back to the alley and he walked to Trent ’s window and rapped softly on the glass. Trent opened it up and he climbed back inside the office.

“We OK?” he asked.

Trent nodded. “She’s just been sitting out there, quiet as a mouse, all day. Must be real impressed with our dedication. We worked right through lunch.”

Reacher nodded and handed back the empty gun. Took off his jacket. Sat down in his chair. Slipped his ID around his neck again and picked up a file. Trent had moved the stack right to left across the desk, like it had been minutely examined.

“Success?” Trent asked.

“I think so. Time will tell, right?”

Trent nodded and looked out at the weather. He was restless. He had been trapped in his office all day.

“Let her in, if you want,” Reacher said. “Show’s over now.”

“You’re all wet,” Trent said. “Show’s not over until you’re dried out.”

It took twenty minutes to dry out. He used Trent ’s phone and called Jodie’s numbers. The private office line, the apartment, the mobile. No reply, no reply, out of service. He stared at the wall. Then he read an unclassified file about proposed methods of getting mail to the Marines if they had to go serve in the Indian Ocean. The time he spent on it put him lower in his chair and put a glazed look on his face. When Trent finally opened the door and Harper got her second peek of the day, he was slumped and inert. Exactly like a man looks after an arduous day with paperwork.

“Progress?” she called.

He looked up and sighed at the ceiling. “Maybe.”

“Six solid hours, you must have gotten somewhere.”

“Maybe,” he said again.

There was silence for a moment.

“OK, so let’s go,” she said.

She stood up behind her desk and stretched. She put her arms way above her head, palms flat, reaching for the ceiling. Some kind of a yoga thing. She arched her face upward and tilted her head and her hair cascaded down her back. Three sergeants and one colonel stared at her.

“So let’s go,” Reacher said.

“Don’t forget your notes,” Trent said.

He handed over a sheet of paper. There was a list of maybe thirty names printed on it. Probably Trent ’s high school football team. Reacher put the list in his pocket and put his coat on and shook Trent ’s hand. Walked through the anteroom and outside into the rain and stood there breathing for a second like a man who has been sitting down all day. Then Harper nudged him toward the lieutenant’s car for the drive back to the Lear.

BLAKE AND POULTON and Lamarr were waiting for them at the same table in the Quantico cafeteria. It was just as dark outside, but now the table was set for dinner, not breakfast. There was a jug of water and five glasses, salt and pepper, bottles of steak sauce. Blake ignored Reacher and glanced at Harper, who nodded back to him, like a reassurance. Blake looked satisfied.

“So, you found our guy yet?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Reacher said. “I’ve got thirty names. He could be one of them.”

“So let’s see them.”

“Not yet. I need more.”

Blake stared at him. “Bullshit, you need more. We need to get tails on these guys.”

Reacher shook his head. “Can’t be done. These guys are in places where you can’t go. You even want a warrant on these guys, you’re going to have to go to the Secretary of Defense, right after you’ve been to the judge. And Defense is going to go straight to the Commander-in-Chief, who was the President last time I looked, so you’re going to need a damn sight more than I can give you right now.”