68

Dixon and O’Donnell were starting from the Dunes Motel and Reacher and Neagley were starting from the inn in Pasadena. Both locations were exactly equidistant from the hospital north of Glendale. Ten miles, along different sides of the same shallow triangle.

Reacher expected that he and Neagley would get there first. The way the freeways lined up with the flanks of the San Gabriel mountains gave them a straight shot on the 210. Dixon and O’Donnell would be heading northeast, at right angles to the freeways, a difficult trip battling surface congestion all the way.

But the 210 was jammed. Within a hundred yards of the ramp it was completely static. A river of stalled cars curved ahead into the distance, winking in the sun, burning gas, going nowhere. A classic LA panorama. Reacher checked his mirror and saw Neagley’s Honda right behind him. Hers was a Civic, white, about four model-years old. He couldn’t see her behind the wheel. The screen was tinted too dark. It had a band of plastic across the top, dark blue with the words No Fear written across it in jagged silver script. Very appropriate, he thought, for Neagley.

He called her on the phone.

“Accident up ahead,” she said. “I heard it on the radio.”

“Terrific.”

“If Sanchez made it this far, he can make it a few minutes more.”

Reacher asked, “Where did they go wrong?”

“I don’t know. This wasn’t the toughest thing they ever faced.”

“So something tripped them up. Something unpredictable. Where would Swan have started?”

“With Dean,” Neagley said. “The quality control guy. His behavior must have been the trigger. Bad numbers on their own don’t necessarily mean much. But bad numbers plus a stressed-out quality control guy mean a lot.”

“Did he get the whole story out of Dean?”

“Probably not. But enough to join the dots. Swan was a lot smarter than Berenson.”

“What was his next step?”

“Two steps in parallel,” Neagley said. “He secured Dean’s situation, and he started the search for corroborating evidence.”

“With help from the others.”

“More than help,” Neagley said. “He was basically subcontracting. He had to, because his office situation was insecure.”

“So he didn’t talk to Lamaison at any point?”

“Not a chance. First rule, trust no one.”

“So what tripped them up?”

“I don’t know.”

“How would Swan have secured Dean’s situation?”

“He’d have talked to the local cops. Asked for protection, or at least asked for a car to swing by on a regular basis.”

“Lamaison is ex-LAPD. Maybe he still has buddies on the job. Maybe they tipped him off.”

“Doesn’t work,” Neagley said. “Swan didn’t talk to the LAPD. Dean lived over the hill. Outside of LAPD jurisdiction.”

Reacher paused a beat.

“Which actually means that Swan didn’t talk to anyone,” he said. “Because that’s Curtis Mauney’s kingdom up there, and he didn’t know anything about Dean or New Age. Or even anything about Swan, except through Franz.”

“Swan wouldn’t leave Dean unprotected.”

“So maybe Dean wasn’t the trigger. Maybe Swan didn’t know anything about him. Maybe he found a different way in.”

“Which was?” Neagley asked.

“No idea,” Reacher said. “Maybe Sanchez will be able to tell us.”

“You think he’s alive?”

“Hope for the best.”

“But plan for the worst.”

They clicked off. Their lane moved a little. In a minute and a quarter of conversation they had covered about five car lengths. In the next five minutes of silence they covered about ten more, six times slower than walking. All around them people were enduring. They were talking on the phone, reading, shaving, applying makeup, smoking, eating, listening to music. Some were tanning. They were hitching up their sleeves and holding their arms out their open windows.

Reacher’s pay-as-you-go rang. Neagley again.

“More from Chicago,” she said. “We’re into parts of the LAPD mainframe. Lennox and Parker were about as bad as Lamaison. The two of them were partners together. They resigned rather than face their twelfth IA inquiry in twelve years. They must have been out of work about a week before Lamaison hired them on at New Age.”

“I’m glad I don’t hold New Age stock.”

“You do. It’s all Pentagon money. Where do you think it comes from?”

“Not from me,” Reacher said.

Two hundred yards later the freeway straightened and rose in front of them and they saw the source of the delay, in the far distance, in the haze. There was a broken-down car in the left lane. A trivial blockage, but the whole road was at a standstill. Reacher clicked off with Neagley and called Dixon.

“You there yet?” he asked.

“Maybe ten minutes away.”

“We’re stuck in traffic. Call us if there’s good news. Call us if there’s bad news too, I guess.”

It took another quarter of an hour to reach the stalled car and some bold lane changes to get past it. Then the flow freed up and everyone continued on their way at seventy miles an hour like nothing had happened. Reacher and Neagley were at the county facility ten minutes later. Ten miles in forty minutes. Average speed, fifteen miles an hour. Not great.

They ignored the morgue and parked in the hospital’s visitor lot. They walked through the sun to the main entrance. Reacher saw O’Donnell’s Honda in the lot, and then Dixon’s. The main entrance gave onto a lobby full of red plastic chairs. Some of them were occupied. Most of them weren’t. The place was fairly quiet. There was no sign of Dixon or O’Donnell. Or Curtis Mauney. There was a long desk with people behind it. Not nurses. Just clerks. Reacher asked one of them for Mauney and got no response. He asked for Jorge Sanchez and got no response. He asked about emergency John Doe admissions and got redirected to another desk around a corner.

The new desk reported no recent John Doe admissions and knew nothing about a patient named Jorge Sanchez or an LA County sheriff named Curtis Mauney. Reacher pulled out his phone but was asked not to use it inside the building in case its signal upset delicate medical equipment. He stepped out to the lot and called Dixon.

No reply.

He tried O’Donnell’s number.

No reply.

Neagley said, “Maybe they’re switched off. Because they’re in an ICU or something.”

“Who with? They never heard of Sanchez here.”

“They have to be here somewhere. They just got here.”

“This feels wrong,” Reacher said.

Neagley took Mauney’s card out of her pocket. Handed it over. Reacher dialed Mauney’s cell number.

No answer.

His landline.

No answer.

Then Neagley’s phone rang. Her personal cell, not her pay-as-you-go. She answered. Listened. Her face went pale. Literally bloodless, like wax.

“That was Chicago,” she said. “Curtis Mauney was Allen Lamaison’s partner. They were together twelve years in the LAPD.”