“So what do you think?” Harper asked.

“I’m not paid to think,” Reacher said. “In fact, so far I’m not getting paid at all. I’m a consultant. So you ask me questions and I’ll answer them.”

“I did ask you a question. I asked you what you think.”

He shrugged. “I think it’s a big target group and three of them are dead. You can’t guard them, but if the other eighty-eight do what Alison Lamarr is doing, they should be OK.”

“You think locked doors are enough to stop this guy?”

“He chooses his own MO. Apparently he doesn’t touch anything. If they don’t open the door for him, what’s he going to do?”

“Maybe change his MO.”

“In which case you’ll get him, because he’ll have to start leaving some hard evidence behind.”

He turned to look out of the window.

“That’s it?” Harper said. “We should just tell the women to lock their doors?”

He nodded. “I think you should be warning them, yes.”

“That doesn’t catch the guy.”

“You can’t catch him.”

“Why not?”

“Because of this profiling bullshit. You’re not factoring in how smart he is.”

She shook her head. “Yes, we are. I’ve seen the profile. It says he’s real smart. And profiling works, Reacher. Those people have had some spectacular successes. ”

“Among how many failures?”

“What do you mean?”

Reacher turned back to face her. “Suppose I was in Blake’s position? He’s effectively a nationwide homicide detective, right? Gets to hear about everything. So suppose I was him, getting notified about every single homicide in America. Suppose every single time I said the likely suspect was a white male, age thirty and a half, wooden leg, divorced parents, drives a blue Ferrari. Every single time. Sooner or later, I’d be right. The law of averages would work for me. Then I could shout out hey, I was right. As long as I keep quiet about the ten thousand times I was wrong, I look pretty good, don’t I? Amazing deduction.”

“That’s not what Blake’s doing.”

“Isn’t it? Have you read stuff about his unit?”

She nodded. “Of course I have. That’s why I applied for the assignment. There are all kinds of books and articles.”

“I’ve read them too. Chapter one, successful case. Chapter two, successful case. And so on. No chapters about all the times they were wrong. Makes me wonder about how many times that was. My guess is a lot of times. Too many times to want to write about them.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying a scattergun approach will always look good, as long as you put the spotlight on the successes and sweep the failures under the rug.”

“That’s not what they’re doing.”

He nodded. “No, it isn’t. Not exactly. They’re not just guessing. They try to work at it. But it’s not an exact science. It’s not rigorous. And they’re one unit among many, fighting for status and funding and position. You know how organizations work. They’ve got the budget hearings right now. First, second, and third duty is protecting their own ass against cuts by proclaiming their successes and concealing their failures.”

“So you think the profile is worthless?”

He nodded. “I know it is. It’s internally flawed. It makes two statements that are incompatible.”

“What two statements?”

He shook his head. “No deal, Harper. Not until Blake apologizes for threatening Jodie and pulls Julia Lamarr off the case.”

“Why would he do that? She’s his best profiler.”

“Exactly.”

THE MOTOR POOL guy was at the National Airport in D.C. to pick them up. It was late when they arrived back at Quantico. Julia Lamarr met them, alone. Blake was in a budget meeting, and Poulton had signed out and gone home.

“How was she?” Lamarr asked.

“Your sister?”

“My stepsister.”

“She was OK,” Reacher said.

“What’s her house like?”

“Secure,” he said. “Locked up tight as Fort Knox.”

“But isolated, right?”

“Very isolated,” he said.

She nodded. He waited.

“So she’s OK?” she said again.

“She wants you to visit,” he said.

She shook her head. “I can’t. It would take me a week to get there.”

“Your father is dying.”

“My stepfather.”

“Whatever. She thinks you should go out there.”

“I can’t,” she said again. “She still the same?”

Reacher shrugged. “I don’t know what she was like before. I only just met her today.”

“Dressed like a cowboy, tanned and pretty and sporty?”

He nodded. “You got it.”

She nodded again, vaguely. “Different from me.”

He looked her over. Her cheap black city suit was dusty and creased, and she was pale and thin and hard. Her mouth was turned down. Her eyes were blank.

“Yes, different from you,” he said.

“I told you,” she said. “I’m the ugly sister.”

She walked away without speaking again. Harper took him to the cafeteria and they ate a late supper together. Then she escorted him up to his room. Locked him inside without a word. He listened to her footsteps fade away in the corridor and undressed and showered. Then he lay down on the bed, thinking, and hoping. And waiting. Above all, waiting. Waiting for the morning.

THE MORNING CAME, but it was the wrong morning. He knew it as soon as he reached the cafeteria. He had been awake and waiting thirty minutes before Harper showed up. She unlocked his door and breezed in, looking elegant and refreshed, wearing the same suit as the first day. Clearly she had three suits and wore them in strict rotation. Three suits was about right, he figured, given her likely salary. It was three suits more than he had, because it was a whole salary more than he had.

They rode down in the elevator together and walked between buildings. The whole campus was very quiet. It had a weekend feel. He realized it was Sunday. The weather was better. No warmer, but the sun was out and it wasn’t raining. He hoped for a moment it was a sign that this was his day. But it wasn’t. He knew that as soon as he walked into the cafeteria.

Blake was at the table by the window, alone. There was a jug of coffee, three upturned mugs, a basket of cream and sugar, a basket of Danish and doughnuts. The bad news was the pile of Sunday newspapers, opened and read and scattered, with the Washington Post and USA Today and worst of all the New York Times just sitting right there in plain view. Which meant there was no news from New York. Which meant it hadn’t worked yet, which meant he was going to have to keep on waiting until it did.

With three people at the table instead of five, there was more elbow room. Harper sat down opposite Blake and Reacher sat opposite nobody. Blake looked old and tired and very strained. He looked ill. The guy was a heart attack waiting to happen. But Reacher felt no sympathy for him. Blake had broken the rules.

“Today you work the files,” Blake said.

“Whatever,” Reacher said.

“They’re updated with the Lorraine Stanley material. So you need to spend today reviewing them and you can give us your conclusions at the breakfast meeting tomorrow. Clear?”

Reacher nodded. “ Crystal.”

“Any preliminaries I should know about?”

“Preliminary what?”

“Conclusions. You got any thoughts yet?”

Reacher glanced at Harper. This was the point where a loyal agent would inform her boss about his objections. But she said nothing. Just looked down and concentrated on stirring her coffee.

“Let me read the files,” he said. “Too early to say anything right now.”

Blake nodded. “We’ve got sixteen days. We need to start making some real progress real soon.”

Reacher nodded back. “I get the message. Maybe tomorrow we’ll get some good news.”

Blake and Harper looked at him like it was an odd thing to say. Then they took coffee and Danish and doughnuts and sections of the papers and lingered like they had time to kill. It was Sunday. And the investigation was stalled. That was clear. Reacher recognized the signs. However urgent a thing is, there comes a point where there are no more places to go. The urgency burns out, and you sit there like you’ve got all the time in the world, while the world rages on around you.