Blue Moon

Which was a difficult question. There were no legible street signs. They were either faded or rusted out or missing altogether. Maybe hit by a streetcar, the year the Titanic went down. The year Fenway Park opened for business. Abby did something with her phone. She kept Vantresca on the line, and came up with a map. There were pointers and arrows and pulsing blue spheres. She read out the street and the cross street.

“Five minutes,” Vantresca said. “Maybe ten. Morning rush hour is coming. What is the exact location for the pick-up?”

Another good question. They couldn’t stand on the corner like they were hailing a taxi. Not if exposure was their main concern. Reacher looked all around. Unpromising. Small commercial enterprises, not yet open. All faintly seedy. The kind of places where gray-faced individuals weaseled in about ten o’clock, after a last furtive backward glance. Reacher knew cities. On the next block he could see a waist-high double-sided chalkboard tented on the sidewalk, which probably meant a coffee shop, which would be open at that hour, but maybe hostile. No man on the door, in such a place on such a street, but maybe a sympathizer at the espresso machine, hoping for points off his loan.

“There,” he said.

He pointed to a narrow building across the street, about ten yards farther on. At the front it was propped up with steeply angled balks of wood. As if it was in danger of falling down. The wood supports were shrouded in a tough black net. Maybe a local regulation. Maybe the city worried about stressed chips of brick randomly flinging themselves outward from the faulty wall, to the detriment of passersby, or those lingering beneath. Whatever the reason, the result in practical terms could be used as an improvised semi-hideaway, because a person could squeeze in behind the net, and then just stand there, semi-obscured from view.

Maybe sixty percent obscured. It was a thick net.

Maybe forty percent. It was a sunny morning.

Better than nothing.

Abby relayed the information.

“Five minutes,” Vantresca said again. “Maybe ten.”

“What kind of car?” Reacher asked him. “We don’t want to squeeze out again for the wrong people.”

“It’s an ’05 S-Type R in anthracite over charcoal.”

“Remember what I said about armor people?”

“We glamorize the machine.”

“I didn’t understand what any of those words meant.”

“It’s a moderately old Jaguar,” Vantresca said. “The hardcore sports version of the first refresh of the retro model they designed at the end of the nineties. With the upgraded cam followers and the bored-out motor. And the supercharger, obviously.”

“Not helping,” Reacher said.

Vantresca said, “It’s a black sedan.”

He clicked off. Abby put her phone away. They started across the street, on a shallow diagonal, heading for the propped-up building.

A car came around the corner.

Fast.

A black sedan.

Too soon. Five seconds, not five minutes.

And not an old Jaguar.

A new Chrysler. With a low roof, and a high waistline, and shallow windows. Like slots. Like the vision ports in the side of an armored vehicle.

Chapter 34

The black Chrysler came on toward them, then slowed a step, then picked up again. Like a stumble. Like the automotive equivalent of a double take. As if the car itself couldn’t believe what it was seeing. A small slender woman and a big ugly man. Suddenly right there on the street. Front and center in the windshield. Large as life. Be on the lookout.

The car jammed to a stop and the front doors opened. Both of them. Twenty feet away. Two guys. Two guns. The guns were Glock 17s. The guys were right-handed. Smaller than Gezim Hoxha, but bigger than the average. Not scrappy little Adriatic guys. That was for sure. Both wore black pants and black T-shirts. And sunglasses. Neither one had shaved. No doubt they had been dragged out of bed and sent on patrol immediately after Hoxha’s car had been found.

They took a step forward. Reacher glanced left, glanced right. No cover taller than a hydrant or wider than a light pole. He put his hand in his pocket. The H&K that he knew for sure worked. That he also knew for sure he didn’t want to use. A gunshot on a city street at night would get a reaction. Ten times worse in the innocent morning sunshine. There would be more officers on the day watch than the night watch. They would all deploy. There would be dozens of cars, lights flashing, sirens going. There would be news helicopters and cell phone video. There would be paperwork. There would be hundreds of hours in a room with a cop and a table screwed to the floor. Abby’s phone log would implicate Barton and Hogan and Vantresca. The mess would spread far and wide. Could take weeks to resolve. Which Reacher didn’t want, and the Shevicks didn’t have.

The guys with the Glocks took another step. They were coming in from wide, around their thrown-open doors, guns first, shuffling steps, rigid two-handed grips, concentrated squints over their front sights.