Reacher said, ‘They weren’t going to terminate anyone. They wouldn’t send a head of station to do that. They have specialists. They call them wet boys. That’s who they would have sent. And a wet boy wouldn’t have brought his Boy Scout knife. He’d have brought an altogether different kind of knife. And taken an altogether different kind of approach. We wouldn’t even have identified the dead guy yet. Not by fingerprints or face or dental work, anyway.’
Sorenson said, ‘OK, so it was just a regular meet. No drama. The CIA head of station was running his agent.’
‘But his agent didn’t show. So why didn’t he just bullshit his way out of there? Why pull the knife?’
‘Maybe he’s not a good bullshitter.’
‘He’s a CIA head of station. There are no better bullshitters.’
‘Maybe he knew McQueen from somewhere.’
‘McQueen didn’t know him.’
‘It doesn’t have to be a two-way street. So maybe the guy knew McQueen was FBI, and then he sees him inside a terrorist organization, in which case I guess most people are going think traitor well before they think undercover.’
‘So it was all an innocent accident? Mistaken identity?’
‘Some things are simpler than they appear.’
Reacher nodded.
‘I know,’ he said.
Delfuenso said, ‘But none of this explains why a CIA head of station showed up posing as a member of a terrorist group. That’s who King and McQueen were sent to meet, don’t forget.’
‘Maybe he was undercover too,’ Sorenson said.
‘The CIA isn’t allowed to operate inside America.’
‘This is the modern world, Karen.’
‘Two simultaneous undercover operations in the same place at the same time? What would be the odds?’
‘Not too long,’ Reacher said. ‘Not necessarily. All it takes is two people to get interested in the same interesting thing.’
‘Would they use a head of station for that kind of work?’
‘They might. He would be unknown back here. He’d have the skills. He’d be used to the life. He’d speak the language. As far as the paperwork goes, they might say he’s between postings.’
Delfuenso said, ‘If they killed my guy, I’d burn their house down. So why haven’t we heard from them?’
‘You probably have,’ Reacher said. ‘But not personally. Right now it’s probably still one on one, in some back room in Washington. Two old white guys in suits. With cigars.’
The clock in Reacher’s head and the mileage boards counting down towards Kansas City showed they were going to beat their two-hour target by a decent margin. The trip was going to take an hour forty, or an hour forty-five, max. Not that there wouldn’t be a few extra miles at the end. The bad guys were unlikely to be hiding out in whatever the highway people took to be the exact centre of the city. Reacher didn’t expect them to be holding their meetings in the lobby of a downtown hotel.
‘It’s a suburban house,’ Delfuenso said, like she could hear him thinking. ‘South of the city, and a little east.’
‘How far out of town?’
‘Maybe twelve miles.’
An hour fifty-three, he thought, door to door.
He said, ‘What kind of neighbourhood?’
‘Decent. And crowded.’
‘That’s awkward.’
‘Potentially.’
‘But well chosen, I suppose.’
Delfuenso nodded at the wheel. ‘Wadiah is smarter than most of what we see.’
The Paris of the Plains got a mile closer every forty seconds, and Sorenson asked, ‘What do you know about Peter King?’
Delfuenso said, ‘Where did you hear that name?’
‘Reacher heard Alan King say it.’
Delfuenso glanced at Reacher in the mirror and nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I remember that. And then he made the slip about a million and a half people living where he lived. Right after claiming he was based in Nebraska. Right after claiming he’d been driving three hours despite a full tank and bottles of cold water.’
Sorenson said, ‘We know Peter King moved from Denver to Kansas City, seven months ago.’
‘You know more than you should.’
‘Was his move a coincidence?’
‘There are no coincidences. Not in law enforcement. You know that.’
‘Is he a cop or an agent?’
‘Why would he be?’
‘I’m just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. That’s all. He served his country.’
‘Then sadly no, Peter King is not a cop or an agent.’
‘Is he connected to Wadiah?’
‘We think so.’
‘How closely connected?’
‘We think he might be their leader.’
‘I see.’
‘Because in terms of their organizational chart there’s only a couple of roles we can’t put a name to, and there’s only a couple of names we can’t assign a role to. One of those roles is leader, and one of those names is Peter King. So to connect the two seems like a fairly logical assumption.’
‘With a brother he doesn’t talk to in the ranks?’
‘He doesn’t talk to anyone in the ranks. Not if he’s the leader. That’s not how these cells operate. The leader talks to his trusted lieutenants only, two or three of them at the most. Then there’s a chain of command, rigorously compartmentalized, for security.’
‘Even so, it’s still weird.’
Delfuenso nodded. ‘McQueen got to know Alan King pretty well. There’s some kind of strange sibling dynamic going on there. Alan is the kid brother. Or was, I should say now. Very needy guy. Always craving his big brother’s approval. Obsessed by the guy. Which is why he mentioned him last night, I guess. There was no other reason to. Apparently there was some unspoken issue, stretching back more than twenty years. Peter was holding Alan accountable for something. Some kind of lapse or betrayal or disgrace. In return Alan was always trying to prove himself. And McQueen got the impression Peter wanted Alan to prove himself. Like a redemption thing. Tough love, but love none the less. You know how it is with family. Blood is thicker than water, and all that kind of shit. From what we know about him, Peter is going to be mighty pissed that Alan is dead.’
‘Which must be why McQueen is in trouble. Tonight of all nights.’
Delfuenso nodded again.
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope he’s managing to convince him it was Reacher who did it, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.’
The plain west-east Interstate that had run so serenely all the way through the state of Kansas splintered into a whole mess of beltways and expressways about ten miles short of the line. Delfuenso turned south, still on the Kansas side, and then she headed east again on a federal road with a new number, and they entered Missouri in the overtaking lane at ninety miles an hour, following a sign to a place called Lees Summit. But they turned north well before they got there, towards a new place called Raytown, but they never got there, either. They turned off before it slid into view, heading now north and west, into multiple acres of suburban sprawl backed by what Reacher took to be a large park. By day it might have been pretty. By night it was just a big black hole. By that point Delfuenso was driving slow and cautious, nosing the silent car through uncertain turns, pausing hesitantly, moving briskly through patches of light, slowing again in patches of darkness, as if unsure of her destination, or scared of it.
Reacher asked her, ‘Have you been here before?’
She said, ‘None of us has, except McQueen. Too soon for that. This phase of an operation is all about standing back and seeing what develops. But I’m copied on the file. I know the address. I’ve seen the house on Google Maps. So I know the general situation.’
The general situation was going to be American suburbia, plain and simple. That was clear. There were municipal sidewalks left and right, mossy concrete, heaved up here and there by tree roots, studded less often by city fireplugs. And Reacher could see houses, regularly spaced in lots, most of them modest, some of them small, a few of them large, all of them dark and fast asleep. Most of them had white siding. Some were painted a colour. Most of them were one-storey, much wider than they were high. Some had eyebrow windows at the eaves, for upstairs bonus rooms. All had mailboxes and foundation plantings, and lawns, and driveways. Most had cars parked, at least one or two, or sometimes three. Some had children’s bikes outside, dumped and dewy, and soccer goals, or hockey goals, or basketball hoops. Some had flagpoles, with Old Glories hanging limp and grey in the still night air.