"I go a long way back with Taylor. We were in Sierra Leone together. I'd do anything for him."
"I never went to Africa."
"Lucky you. We were fighting a bunch of rebels called the West Side Boys. I saw what they did to people. So I know what Hobart went through. Burkina Faso wasn't far away."
"You OK with all of this? You've got roots here, literally."
"What's the alternative?"
"Take a vacation. All of you. I'll stay."
Jackson shook his head. "We'll be OK. One round might do it. The G-36 is a pretty accurate piece."
Jackson stayed in the mud room and closed and locked both cupboards. Reacher stepped back into the kitchen and sat down next to Taylor.
"Tell me about Gregory," he said.
"What about him?"
"Is he going to stand by Lane? Or you?"
"Lane, I think."
"Even though you served together?"
"Lane bought him. When he was in uniform Gregory always wanted an officer's commission, but he never got it. It burned him up. And then Lane made him a kind of unofficial lieutenant. Status, at last. Meaningless bullshit, of course, but it's the thought that counts. So I think Gregory will stick with him. Plus he'll be offended that I didn't share my secret. He seemed to think that two Brits abroad should share everything."
"Does he know this area?"
Taylor shook his head. "He's a Londoner, like me."
"What about the others? Will any of them turn?"
"Not Kowalski," Taylor said. "Not Perez. Turning would require some brain activity, and those two are room-temperature IQs at best. Probably not Addison, either. But Groom and Burke aren't dumb. If they see the ship is sinking they'll get off fast enough."
"That's not the same thing as turning."
"None of them is going to come over to our side. You can forget about that. The best we can hope for is neutrality from Groom and Burke. And I wouldn't bet the farm on that."
"How good are they? All of them, as a whole?"
"They're about as good as me. Which is to say they're on a slippery slope. They used to be outstanding, but now they're well on the way to average. Plenty of experience and ability, but they don't train anymore. And training is important. Back in the day, training was ninety-nine percent of what we did."
"Why did you join them?"
"The money," Taylor said. "That's why I joined them. Then I stayed with them because of Kate. I loved her from the first moment I saw her."
"Did she love you back?"
"Eventually," Taylor said.
"Not eventually," Kate said, from her chair by the fire. "Truth is it was really pretty quick. One day I asked him why he had never had his teeth fixed and he told me that he had never even thought about it. I like that kind of self-respect and self-confidence in a man."
"You see anything wrong with my teeth?" Taylor asked.
"Plenty," Reacher said. "I'm surprised you can eat. Maybe that's why you're so small."
Taylor said, "I am what I am."
Exactly one hour after they came in and lit the fire they drew lots for the first round of look-out duty. Jackson and Pauling pulled the short straws. Jackson sat in the Land Rover at the back of the house and Pauling sat in the Mini at the front. That way each of them could cover a little more than one hundred eighty degrees. Across the flat land they could see a mile or more. Ninety seconds' warning if Lane came in by road, a little more if he came in across the fields, which would be a slower approach.
Reasonable security.
As long as the daylight lasted.
Chapter 69
THE DAYLIGHT LASTED until a little after eight o'clock. By then Reacher was in the Land Rover and Kate Lane was in the Mini. The sky darkened in the east and reddened in the west. Twilight rolled in fast, and with it came an evening mist that looked picturesque but cut visibility to less than a hundred yards. The bird scarer fell silent. All afternoon and into the evening it had been firing at unpredictable random intervals between a minimum of fifteen and a maximum of forty minutes. Now its sudden silence was more noticeable than its noise.
Taylor and Jackson were in one of the barns, working on the backhoe. Pauling was in the kitchen, opening cans for dinner. Jade was still at the table, drawing.
By eight-thirty visibility was so marginal that Reacher slid out of the Land Rover and headed for the kitchen. He met Jackson on the way. Jackson was coming back from the barn. His hands were covered with grease and oil.
Reacher asked, "How's it going?"
"It'll be ready," Jackson said.
Then Taylor appeared out of the gloom.
"Ten hours to go," he said. "We're safe until dawn."
"You sure?" Reacher said.
"Not really."
"Me either."
"So what does the U.S. Army field manual say about nighttime perimeter security?"
Reacher smiled. "It says you put a shitload of Claymores about a hundred yards out. If you hear one go off you know you just killed an intruder."
"What if you don't have any Claymores?"
"Then you hide."
"That's the SAS way. But we can't hide the house."
"We could take Kate and Jade someplace else."
Taylor shook his head. "Better if they stay. I don't want my focus split."
"How do they feel about that?"
"Ask them."
So Reacher did. He took a shortcut through the house and went out to the Mini. Told Kate to take a break for dinner. Then he offered to drive her and Jade anyplace she wanted to go, a hotel, a resort, a spa, Norwich, Birmingham, London, anywhere. She refused. She said as long as Lane was alive she wanted Taylor close by with a gun. She said a farmhouse with stone walls three feet thick was the best place she could think of to be. Reacher didn't argue with her. Privately he agreed with Taylor. Split focus was a bad thing. And it was possible that Lane's guys already had covert surveillance going. Maybe even likely. If so, they would have the roads covered. They would be watching cars pass by. Looking for Taylor, primarily. But if they were given the chance to see that what was supposed to be Susan and Melody Jackson was actually Kate and Jade Lane, then the whole game would change.
Dinner was a random mixture of canned stuff that Pauling had found in cupboards. She wasn't much of a cook. She was too accustomed to dialing her Barrow Street telephone and calling out for whatever she wanted. But nobody seemed to mind. Nobody was in the mood for a gourmet menu. They planned as they ate. Agreed to set up two two-person watches, sequential, five hours each. That would take them through until dawn. One person would patrol the blind gable wall to the south, and one would do the same thing to the north. Each would be armed with a loaded G-36. The first watch would be Taylor and Jackson, and at half past one in the morning Reacher and Pauling would take over. Kate Lane would sit it out. The possibility that a hostile nighttime reconnaissance probe might identify her was too much of a risk.
Reacher cleared the table and washed the dishes and Taylor and Jackson went outside with their G-36s cocked and locked. Kate went upstairs to put Jade to bed. Pauling put logs on the fire. Watched Reacher at the sink.
"You OK?" she asked him.
"I've done KP before."
"I didn't mean that."
He said, "We've got an SAS guy on one end of the house and a Parachute Regiment guy on the other. They've both got automatic weapons. And they're both personally motivated. They won't fall asleep."