He was afraid to go to work.

The message forms his firm used were yellow. Every morning his secretary handed him a wad. Most were innocent. But some said Client requests conference re case # 517713. There was no case with that number. No file. Nothing written down. Such a note was a code. An instruction, really, to head up to the prison and take mental dictation.

Most days he got no such note. Some days he did. There was no way of predicting it. It was a part of his morning ritual now, to stand in front of his secretary’s desk, with his hand out and his heart in his mouth, waiting to see what his life would do to him next.

Reacher saw nothing on the ride downtown except snow. Snow on the ground, snow in the air. Snow everywhere. The world was slow and silent and shrunken. Traffic was light and was huddled together in narrow rutted lanes in the middle of roads. Small waffles of snow pelted up off tyres in cautious rooster tails. Small convoys joined up and crept along like slow trains, doing twenty miles an hour, or less. But Peterson’s cruiser was warm and safe and solid. A heavy car on flat land, with chains on the back and winter tyres on the front. No problem.

By day through the snow the police station looked longer and lower than it had by night. It was a sprawling one-storey building built of white brick. It had a flat roof with microwave dishes and radio antennas bolted to steel superstructures. It reminded Reacher of a classic State Police barracks. Maybe it had been built from a standardized blueprint. There were plenty of squad cars in the lot, still warm, just parked. Day watch personnel, presumably, coming in from home for briefing ahead of their eight-thirty start. There was a small front-loader working between the cars, bustling around on rubber caterpillar tracks, shovelling snow into a pile that was already eight feet high. Peterson seemed relaxed. Reacher figured he was feeling good about the snow. It limited fast access to anywhere, including Janet Salter’s house. Intruders would wait for a better day. Stealthy approaches were hard to make through thigh-high drifts.

Reacher took the parka but left the gloves and the hat in the car. Too personal. He would replace them with items of his own. Inside the lobby there was a different old guy on the stool behind the counter. The day watch aide. Same kind of age as the guy the night before, same kind of civilian clothing, but a different individual. Peterson led Reacher right past him and down a corridor into a large open-plan squad room. It was full of noise and talk and men and women in uniform. They had go-cups of coffee, they were making notes, they were reading bulletins, they were getting ready to head out. There were close to thirty of them. A sixty-strong department, split equally between day and night duty. Some were young, some were old, some were neat, some were a mess. A real mixed bag. We doubled in size, Peterson had said. It was hard to keep standards up. Reacher saw the proof right there in front of him. It was easy enough to pick out the new hires from the old hands, and easy to see the friction between them. Unit cohesion had been disrupted, and professionalism had been compromised. Us and them. Reacher saw Chief Holland’s problem. He was dealing with two departments in one. And he didn’t have the energy for it. He should have retired. Or the mayor should have canned him, before the ink was dry on the prison deal.

But new or old, all the cops were punctual. By eight thirty the room was almost completely deserted. Clearly the roadblocks were eating manpower, and presumably snow days brought fender benders by the dozen. Only two cops stayed behind. Both were in uniform. One had a name badge that said Kapler. The other had a name badge that said Lowell. Neither one was wearing a belt. No guns, no radios, no cuffs. Both were somewhere in their mid-thirties. Kapler was dark, with the remnant of a fading tan. Lowell was fair and red-faced, like a local boy. Both looked fit and strong and active. Neither looked happy. Kapler went clockwise and Lowell went counterclockwise and they emptied out-trays all around the room and carried the resulting piles of paper away through a blank door further down the corridor.

Reacher asked, ‘What’s that all about?’

Peterson said, ‘Normal clerical duties.’

‘While you’re hurting for manpower? I don’t think so.’

‘So what’s your guess?’

‘Disciplinary. They did something wrong and they’ve been grounded. Holland took their guns away.’

‘I can’t talk about it.’

‘Are they new or old?’

‘Lowell has been here a spell. He’s local. An old Bolton family. Kapler’s new, but not too new. He came up from Florida two years ago.’

‘Why? For the weather? I thought that worked the other way around.’

‘He needed a job.’

‘Because? What went wrong for him down there?’

‘Why should something have gone wrong?’

‘Because with the greatest possible respect, if you’re in Florida law enforcement, South Dakota is the kind of place you go when you run out of alternatives.’

‘I don’t know the details. He was hired by Chief Holland and the mayor.’

‘So what did Lowell do to deserve him as a partner?’

‘Lowell’s an odd duck,’ Peterson said. ‘He’s a loner. He reads books.’

‘What did they do to get themselves grounded?’

‘I can’t talk about it. And you’ve got work to do. Pick any desk you like.’

Reacher picked a desk way in the back corner. An old habit. It was a plain laminate thing, and the chair was adjusted for a small person. It was still warm. There was a keyboard and a screen on the desk, and a console telephone. The screen was blank. Switched off. The phone had buttons for six lines and ten speed dials.

Peterson said, ‘Dial nine for a line.’

I’m guessing there’s a number you remember, too. Maybe not for a switchboard.

Reacher dialled. Nine for a line, then a Virginia area code, then seven more digits. A number he remembered.

He got a recording, which was not what he remembered.

The recording featured a man’s voice, speaking slowly and ponderously, with undue emphasis on his first three words. His message said, ‘You have reached the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time. Otherwise, please choose from the following menu.’ Then came a long droning list, press one for this, press two for that, three for the other thing, agriculture, manufacturing, non-food service industries.

Reacher hung up.

‘You know another number?’ Peterson said.

‘No.’

‘Who were you calling?’

‘A special unit. An investigative department. Kind of elite. Like the army’s own FBI, but much smaller.’

‘Who did you get instead?’

‘Some government office. Something about labour statistics.’

‘I guess things change.’

‘I guess they do,’ Reacher said.

Then he said, ‘Or maybe they don’t. At least, not fundamentally.’

He dialled again. The same number. He got the same recording. If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time. He dialled 110. Heard a click and a purr and a new dial tone. A new voice, live, after just one ring.

It said, ‘Yes?’ A Southern accent, a man, probably late twenties, almost certainly a captain, unless the world had gone mad and they were letting lieutenants or NCOs answer that particular phone now, or, worse still, civilians.

Reacher said, ‘I need to speak to your commanding officer.’

‘Whose commanding officer?’

‘Yours.’

‘Who exactly do you think you’re speaking with?’

‘You’re the 110th MP HQ in Rock Creek, Virginia.’

‘Are we?’

‘Unless you changed your phone number. There used to be a live operator. You had to ask for room 110.’

‘Who exactly am I speaking to?’