Then he stepped into the living room.

Chapter 41

The guy from the yard tracked around part of a curve, and the two from the door came in and took up position on the same arc, wide apart, Chang suddenly shoved forward, sent sprawling, all the way to the Lairs’ sofa, where she landed and steadied herself and turned around and perched on the edge. Reacher sat on the arm, slow and casual, wanting to look like less of a threat, wanting to anchor himself at that end of the room, knowing a standing guy will be told to sit, and often where, whereas a sitting guy was rarely moved. Evan was next to him, and then came Emily, sitting back, and Chang, sitting forward and breathing hard, and Lydia, sitting back. What had been spacious for three was crowded for five. They made a unified target. Three Rugers against them, fanned out wide, like a field-of-fire diagram in an old infantry manual.

Three Rugers, three guys. Black clothes, scalped hair, pale skin. Big enough and heavy enough, but also somehow bony. Tight cheekbones. Hard times in their DNA, from not too long ago. From Europe, maybe. Far in the marshy east. Every man against his neighbor, for the last thousand years. They stood there, rock steady, at first calming down and taking stock and checking boxes, and then thinking hard about something new. Normally Reacher might have said they looked like they knew what they were doing, but the truth was right then he thought they didn’t. Not a hundred percent. Not anymore. They were improvising. Or preparing to improvise. Or at least considering it. As if their own chess game had come to a fork in the road. Arrows to the left, arrows to the right. Options. Freedom of choice. Always dangerous.

They didn’t move. Didn’t speak. There was maybe a hint of a smile. Then the guy in the middle said, “We were told we would find a man and a woman talking to another woman.”

Good English, close to a regular American accent, but with dull Slavic undertones. Eastern Europe for sure. Moody, put-upon, a guy whose life was a sea of troubles.

No one answered.

The guy said, “But what we actually find is two men and three women. One of which is Chinese. Which is all very confusing. So tell me, which among you has been talking to who?”

Chang said, “I’m American, not Chinese. And we’ve all been talking. To each other. Everyone to everyone else. All ways around. Now you tell us something. Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing here?”

The guy said, “One of you is somebody’s sister.”

No response.

The guy said, “We don’t know if the somebody is a Chinaman. That information would have helped, I guess.”

No response.

“Which one of you is somebody’s sister?”

“Not me,” Reacher said.

“You got a sister, wise guy? Maybe you should tell me where she lives.”

“If I had a sister, I would. Save me kicking your ass myself.”

The guy looked away, to the other end of the sofa. To the three women there.

He said, “Which one of you is the sister?”

No response.

“Which one of you is the woman who spoke to the sister?”

No response.

The guy looked back the other way.

He said, “Which one of you is the man who spoke to the sister?”

No response.

The guy said, “There are many combinations. Like a test at the Institute of Mathematics. How many socks do I need to guarantee a pair? But in this case one answer at least is obvious, even to the dullest student. We could kill you all. That would guarantee the correct result. That would be a sufficiently large number of socks. But it would be five dead for the price of three. And that price was agreed upfront. Count your change before you leave the store. No renegotiation after the fact. Those are the fat man’s rules.”

Silence.

The guy looked at Evan, and said, “What do you do for a living?”

Evan started once, and started again, and got it out third time around. He said, “I’m a doctor.”

“Do you work for free?”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

“Dumb question, right? Doctors working for free?”

“Some doctors work for free.”

“But not you, right?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Do you think I should work for free?”

Evan breathed in, breathed out, floundering.

The guy said, “Doctor, it’s a simple question. I’m not seeking a medical opinion. Do you think I should work for free? When you don’t?”

“Does it matter what I think?”

“I want us all to be comfortable. I want us all to agree. A person should get paid for the work he does. I need your backing on this.”

“OK, a person should get paid.”

“For what?”

“For the work he does.”

“Should he get more for five things than three things?”

“I guess he should.”

“But how can he, when the price was fixed upfront? There is no more blood in that stone. Which is bad news for us. But good news for you. We’ll do only what we’ve been paid to do. No free samples. You stand a chance of surviving.”

A forty percent chance, the back of Reacher’s brain told him, immediately and automatically, if the shooting was random. But why would the shooting be random? Their brief was a man and two women. In which case Evan’s odds rose to fifty-fifty. And Chang’s fell, from forty percent to thirty-three.

The guy said, “Of course the flaw in the plan is we might leave the wrong two alive. Which would not be acceptable. I’m sure you have professional standards of your own. The problem needs to be solved another way. We need to think laterally. We need to find a way to get paid. Help me out here.”

Evan said, “There’s no money in the house.”

“Doctor, I’m not asking a man to pay for his own execution. That would be harsh. I’m asking you to think laterally. What is there in the current situation that could provide some element of recompense for me and my partners?”

Evan said nothing.

“Be creative, doctor. Loosen up. Think outside the box. If not money, what else?”

No answer.

The guy looked at Emily and said, “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

Evan said, “No.”

The guy looked at Chang.

He said, “Her too.”

Emily pulled her shirt tight around her and drew up her knees and scrabbled backward on the sofa. Evan leaned in front of her. The guy in the middle stared him down and said, “If you behave yourself we’ll shoot you first. If you don’t, we’ll leave you alive and make you watch.”

The three guys were equally spaced along the rim of a quarter circle. Like the bases loaded. But much closer. They were in a room, after all, not a ballpark. A spacious room, but still. The guy at first base on the right was maybe seven feet from Reacher. At third on the far left the furthest guy was fifteen feet away. And the guy on second was halfway between the other two, doing all the talking, on a straight line between Reacher and the front door, about twelve feet distant.

Three guys. No doubt the Maricopa County DA would call them invaders. As in, a home invasion turned tragic tonight, in an exclusive gated community northeast of town. Film at eleven. The cops would call them perpetrators. Their lawyers would call them clients. Politicians would call them scum. Criminologists would call them sociopaths. Sociologists would call them misunderstood.

The 110th MP would call them dead men walking.

The guy on second said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Emily was wedged hard against the back of the sofa, pressed against the plaid wool blanket, her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped tight around her shins. Altogether she looked like a person half her size. Chang wasn’t going anywhere, either. She was planted in place, her hands flat on the sofa by her sides, her legs out straight, her lace-up shoes way out in front of her, her heels literally dug into the rug, like a cartoon roadrunner skidding to a stop.

The guy on second said, “I’m getting impatient here.”