Blue Moon

“I wonder if they took an Albanian phone, too.”

“Probably. The Russians don’t like sharing territory. I’m sure they plan to replace us both. This is going to be very tough. There are a lot of them.”

There was silence for a long moment.

Then Gregory asked, “Can we beat them?”

His right-hand man said, “They won’t get inside our operating system.”

“Not what I asked.”

“Well, whatever we bring to the fight, they bring twice the men, twice the money, and twice the material.”

“These are desperate times,” Gregory said.

“Truly.”

“They call for desperate measures.”

“Like what?”

“If the Russians are going to bring twice as much as we can, then we need to rebalance the scale. Simple as that. Just temporarily. Just for the time being. Until the present crisis has passed.”

“How?”

“We need to form a short-term defensive alliance.”

“Who with?”

“Our friends east of Center.”

“With the Albanians?”

“They’re in the same boat.”

“Would they do it?”

“Against the Russians, they’re going to need it just as much as we do. If we join forces, we might just match them. If we don’t, we can’t. United we stand, divided we fall.”

Silence again.

“It’s a big step to take,” someone said.

“I agree,” Gregory said. “Even weird and crazy. But necessary.”

No one spoke after that.

“OK,” Gregory said. “I’ll go talk to Dino again, first thing in the morning.”

—

Reacher woke up in the gray gloom of night, with the clock in his head showing ten minutes to four. He had heard a sound. A car, on the street, outside and below the round window. The bite and grind of brakes, the compression of springs, the stress of tires. A car, slowing to a stop.

He waited. Abby slept on beside him, warm, and soft, and comfortable. The old house creaked and ticked. There was a stripe of light under the door out to the hallway. The bulb over the stairs was still on. Maybe another fixture too, in a downstairs room. The kitchen or the parlor. Maybe Barton or Hogan was still up. Or both of them, shooting the shit. Ten to four in the morning. Musicians’ hours.

Out on the street the car’s engine idled quietly. The faint thrash of belts, the whir of a fan, the rustle of pistons slapping up and down, uselessly. Then a faint muted thump from under the hood, and a sensation of new permanence.

The transmission had been shoved forward into park.

The engine turned off.

Silence again.

A door opened.

A leather sole clapped down on the sidewalk. A seat spring clicked as weight was lifted off. A second shoe joined the first. Someone stood up straight, with a tiny huff of effort.

The door closed.

Reacher slid out of bed. He found his pants. He found his shirt. He found his socks. He laced his shoes. He slipped his jacket on. Reassuring weight in the pockets.

One floor below there was a loud knock at the street door. A booming, wooden sound. Ten to four in the morning. Reacher listened. Heard nothing. In fact less than nothing. Certainly less than before. Like a hole in the air. It was the negative sound of two guys previously shooting the shit, now dumbstruck and craning around and thinking what the hell? Barton and Hogan, still up. Musicians’ hours.

Reacher waited. Deal with it, he thought. Don’t make me come downstairs. He heard one of them get to his feet. A sideways shuffle. Looking out the window, probably, through a crack in the drapes, sideways, obliquely.

He heard a low voice say, “Albanian.”

It was Hogan’s voice.

Barton’s voice whispered back, “How many?”

“Just one.”

“What does he want?”

“I was out sick the day they taught predicting the future.”

“What should we do?”

The knock came again, boom, boom, boom, heavy and wooden.

Reacher waited. Behind him Abby stirred and said, “What’s happening?”

“There’s an Albanian footsoldier at the door. Almost certainly looking for us.”

“What time is it?”

“Eight minutes to four.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Barton and Hogan are downstairs. They haven’t gone to bed yet. Hopefully they can deal with it.”

“I should put some clothes on.”

“Sad, but true.”

She dressed like he had, fast, pants, shirt, shoes. Then they waited. The knock came for a third time. Bang, boom, bang. The kind of knock you didn’t ignore. They heard Hogan offer to get it. They heard Barton accept. They heard Hogan’s footsteps across the hallway floor, solid, determined, implacable. The U.S. Marine. The drummer. Reacher wasn’t sure which counted for more.

They heard the door open.

They heard Hogan say, “What?”

Then a new voice. Quieter, because it was outside the structure, not inside, and because of its pitch, which was instantly two things in one, both conversational and mocking. Friendly, but not really.

The voice said, “Everything OK in there?”

Hogan said, “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I saw the light inside,” the voice said. “I was worried you had been woken up in the night by a misfortune or a calamity.”