“Does this help us?”
“You have to go through Danilo’s office to get to Gregory’s office.”
“That’s normal,” Hogan said. “Everyone does it that way. That’s how a chief of staff operates.”
“Think about it in reverse. In order to leave his own office, Gregory has to walk through Danilo’s office. And he’s paranoid, with good reason. And with good results. He’s still alive. In his head this is not necessarily like a CEO in a movie, saying goodnight to his secretary, and calling her sweetheart. This is like walking into a death trap. This is assassination squads behind the desk. Or maybe even worse, this is a blockade, until he accedes to their demands. Maybe they’ll let him step down, with his dignity intact.”
Abby nodded.
“Human nature,” she said. “Mostly bullshit, but sometimes it rings a bell.”
“What?” Hogan said.
“He built an emergency exit.”
* * *
—
They went back behind the counter, and sat on the floor against the cabinets, not far from the tied-up guy. A high-level staff conference. Always held behind the lines. Hogan played the part of the gloomy Marine. Partly because he was, and partly as a professional obligation. Every plan had to be stress tested, from every possible direction.
He said, “Worst case, we’re going to find exactly the same situation, but flipped around 180. Guys on the sidewalk the next street over, watching the back door, and then more guys inside, in narrow corridors, just the same. There’s a word for it.”
“Symmetrical,” Reacher said.
“Got to be.”
“Human nature,” Abby said. “Mostly bullshit, but sometimes it rings a bell.”
“What now?”
“It’s a bad look,” she said. “An escape hatch makes him look scared. Best case, it makes it look like he doesn’t trust the protection he bought, or the army of loyal soldiers standing in front of him. He can’t admit to any of those feelings. He’s Gregory. He has no weaknesses. His organization has no weaknesses.”
“So?”
“The emergency exit is secret. No one is guarding it because no one knows it exists.”
“Not even Danilo?”
“Most of all not Danilo,” Reacher said. “He’s the biggest threat. This was done behind Danilo’s back. I bet you could trawl through the records and find a two-week spell when he was sent away somewhere, and just before he got back, I bet you would find a couple of construction workers mysteriously dead in some kind of gruesome accident.”
“So that no one except Gregory would know where the secret tunnel is.”
“Exactly.”
“Which includes us. We don’t know where it is either.”
“Some guy’s cellar connects to some other guy’s cellar.”
“That’s your plan?”
“Think about it from Gregory’s point of view. This is a guy who got where he is by taking no chances at all. He’s thinking about slamming the door on an assassination attempt and getting the hell out of there. A high-stress situation. He can’t afford confusion. He needs it clear and simple. Maybe arrows on the wall. Maybe emergency lighting, like on an airplane. All we need to do is find the street door at the far end. We can go in and follow the arrows backward. Maybe we’ll come out behind an oil painting on his office wall.”
“We’ll have all the same people ahead of us. Except in reverse order. They’ll come pouring in through the office door.”
“We can only hope.”
“I don’t see what we gain.”
“Two things,” Reacher said. “We’ll have no one behind us, and we’ll be taking them out from the top to the bottom, instead of the bottom to the top. Much more efficient.”
“Wait,” Hogan said. “There are guys on the street corners. Symmetrical. The back corners become the front corners. It won’t be easy to get in.”
“If I wanted easy I would have joined the Marines.”
* * *
—
They left the pawn shop the same way they came in, through the back hallway, through the rear door, out to the cross street. They hustled back to the car, at first cautious, and then fast. The car was still there. No ticket. Even the traffic cops were east of Center. Abby drove. She knew her way around. She made a wide loop, well out of sight of the taxi office. She stopped two blocks behind it, on a quiet street, outside a mom-and-pop store that sold washing machine hoses. She left the motor running. Hogan got out, and she scooted across to the passenger seat. Hogan walked around the hood and got in again behind the wheel. Reacher stayed in the back.
“Ready?” he said.
A tight nod from Hogan.
A determined nod from Abby.
“OK, let’s do it,” he said.
Hogan drove the rest of the block and made a left at the end. A block ahead in the new direction were two guys on the corner. On the far sidewalk. Black suits, white shirts. Previously the far left corner, now the near right corner. Symmetrical. They were standing with their backs to the block they were guarding, looking outward, like good sentries should.
What they saw was one of their own cars cruising toward them. A black Lincoln. Indistinct faces behind the windshield. Black glass in the back. It made the left in front of them. Into the cross street. Gregory’s real estate on the right, civilian real estate on the left. And way up ahead, two more guys, on the next corner. Previously the far right, now the near left.
The car slowed and stopped on the curb. The rear window rolled down and a hand came out and beckoned. The guys on the corner took a step toward it, automatically. Reflex action. Then they stopped and thought about it. But they didn’t change their minds. Why would they? It was their car, and anyone important enough to be out and about during Situation C wouldn’t want to be kept waiting. So they started up again and hustled.
Mistake.
The front door opened when they were ten feet away, and Abby stepped out. The rear door opened just as they got there, and Reacher stepped out. He head-butted the first to arrive, barely any effort or movement, all about timing and momentum, like a soccer forward meeting a hard cross from out wide. The guy went down in the gutter. His head cracked on the curbstone. Not his day.
Reacher moved on, to the second guy. A face he suddenly realized he knew. From the bar with the tiny pizzas and Abby waiting tables. The guy on the door. Run along now, kid, he had said to her. I’ll see you again, Reacher had said to him. I hope.