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“There,” Turner said.
She was pointing to the far back corner of the lot. There were two black Suburbans parked side by side, backed in, ready to go. Dark glass, needle antennas on the roof, nudge bars on the front.
“What every good mercenary drives,” Elwood said.
“Two cars means either six of them in total, or eight,” Turner said. “Maneuvering in crews of either three or four. Day watch and night watch. All of them together in an emergency.”
“They must live in there,” Reacher said. “Like a never-ending shift in a firehouse. There must be a residential floor in there. Maybe two or three.”
“I’m sure.”
“Is it possible Brill and Cameron live there too?”
“Why would they?”
“Nine months ago they were in a garage. Everything happened so fast. Did they have time to buy houses?”
“There are services who do it for you. This is California. Does it matter?”
“Not yet,” Reacher said. “I’m thinking ahead, is all. To strand number three. Getting in a room with them. I’ll need to know which room.”
“First things first,” Turner said. “We need to flush them out and count them. Where do we want to do that?”
“Not here in Mountain View,” Elwood said. “We should move them north at least thirty minutes. We’ll need to transmit for twenty minutes to feel sure they’ve noticed. Which would then give us a minimum ten minutes to get out safely to the concealed location.”
“We still have our room at the Sequoia Suites,” Reacher said. “We paid for a week.”
“They know it was a decoy before,” Turner said. “They’ll ignore it, surely.”
“No, this is the new crew’s first test. It would take balls of steel to sit back and ignore it. They’ll talk themselves into it somehow. They’ll think no one is dumb enough to try the same trick twice, so this time it must be real. Or they’ll think we’re double bluffing them. Or something. I think they’re pretty much guaranteed to come right over. Human nature. Plus the deli across the street is convenient. No hardship to hang out there for a spell. The sandwich I had was pretty good.”
“Are you hungry?”
“I will be eventually.”
“Elwood?”
“I just had breakfast,” he said.
“I meant, what do you think of the Sequoia Suites as a location?”
Elwood paused a beat.
“I think it’s a good choice,” he said. “But I would nix the deli. This new crew is likely a big step up. They won’t jam to a stop at the door and jump out like a SWAT team. They’ll be stealthy. They’ll park a quarter mile away and approach on foot, singly, at random intervals, from different directions. We need to be out on the street, widely separated, covering as wide an area as we can. We can get a sandwich later.”
“Reacher?”
“I think the colonel’s plan is an excellent one.”
“OK, let’s go do it.”
They threaded back through the trees, one behind the other, and they stepped out to the grass of the fairway. Then they stopped. Facing them were three golf carts parked in a tight arc. Like a tiny fighter squadron zeroing in on a target. Each cart had a driver dressed in a golf club blazer. Two men and a woman. Stern expressions. The man in the center was older than the other two. He had a handsome and prosperous face, and a sculpted helmet of immaculate gray hair. Maybe he was the club chairman. Or the president, or whatever golf clubs had. He said, “We told you never to come here again.”
“Did you?” Reacher said. “When?”
“You know when. Our lawyers wrote to you. We withdrew any implied permission to be on our property. You’re trespassing, in breach of a court-sanctioned agreement.”
Reacher glanced back behind him. The trees, the fence, the parking lot.
