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“What can you do for us?”

“We can add it to the list of charges.”

“What information will you need?”

“Your security footage will be enough.”

“Ah,” the old guy said. “Our cameras were down that night. Some sort of outage or technical problem.”

“I see,” Reacher said.

“The Mountain View Police Department couldn’t do a thing without it.”

“Inevitable, I’m afraid.”

“So we’re at a dead end, in terms of a remedy.”

“There is another possible option,” Reacher said. “There’s a legal principle called res ipsa loquitur, which means the thing speaks for itself. I think that might cover your situation. Give us a ride back to the entrance gate, and we’ll go discuss it with the director.”

Ten minutes later they were back in Elwood’s rental, with his phone giving them the turns back to the Sequoia Suites in Palo Alto.

Chapter 30

Down on the nerd floor Saxby Cameron dialed a number he had never dialed before. Hennessy’s office. Their new head of security. Recently added to his contact list. The guy answered, in his clipped and formal manner, and Cameron said, “General Turner and Colonel Elwood are both on the air in the same location up in Palo Alto. More than fifteen minutes now.”

“Where in Palo Alto?”

“The Sequoia Suites on California Avenue. The same room they were in two days ago. It was a decoy then. It might be a decoy again.”

“Or it might be a double bluff.”

“Not my area of expertise,” Cameron said.

“They might be getting a day’s work done and expecting us to ignore it. So possibly not another decoy. Who would try the same trick twice?”

“Your decision, Mr. Hennessy.”

“Leave it with me.”

—

Four minutes later Turner and Elwood shut off their work phones. The long sequences of numbers, their fingerprints on the squares. Their screens went dark. They had spent the long minutes of empty transmission time mapping out where they would wait. Elwood’s personal phone had brought them north out of Mountain View on the only rational route. Probably all navigation software would advise the same, so they felt they could predict where EEF’s army would arrive in town. Where they would park was unknown, but their ultimate destination was fixed. The Sequoia Suites had the fire door in back and the lobby door on the street. Both would need surveillance. Reacher volunteered to watch the back door. He figured he could hang out on California Avenue a block away and still see the entrance to the neighbor’s parking lot. Anyone who walked in on foot would be automatically suspect. Elwood would hang out a block in the other direction and watch the lobby door. Turner would stay mobile, strolling around like a shopper, watching the northern approaches, in case they got cute and looped around and came in from an unexpected direction. They all felt they could identify a retired U.S. Army NCO by sight. By appearance, by movement, by manner. By dress most of all. They would be carrying concealed weapons, possibly larger than pistols. Their outerwear would give them away.

In their own case they had two Glocks between the three of them. Currently stowed in Reacher’s capacious pockets. He gave one to Turner and the other to Elwood. Senior military officers would survive a random encounter with the Palo Alto PD better than an unemployed drifter might. Their Pentagon IDs would answer all the hard questions, whereas he would have a lot of explaining to do. Elwood set up a three-way conference call between his personal phone and Turner’s and Reacher’s burners. They would keep the line open throughout, for continuous three-way commentary, to avoid counting individuals more than once, and because leaning on a wall talking on a phone was perfect contemporary street cover. Better than the old days, when you sat on a bench and read the same newspaper over and over again for hours at a time.

They left the room and went outside through the fire door, just in case the lobby cameras were still working. They walked through the neighbor’s lot to the street. Reacher went left and Turner and Elwood went right. Reacher crossed the avenue to the far side and walked a block and then stopped and checked back. He had walked too far. He tracked back to where he got a better view. Which happened to be right outside a chain coffee shop with two sidewalk tables. He went in and got a house black in a china cup. He carried it outside and claimed a table and got comfortable. He felt invisible. He was just a random guy at a table. Part of the street furniture.

“I’m in position,” he said, into the phone.

“Copy that,” he heard Elwood answer. “I’m in position also. A hundred feet north, good view.”

“I’m two blocks north and one block east,” he heard Turner say. “Nothing to report.”

—

Ten minutes later Reacher got a second cup of coffee. Five minutes after that he started to pay attention. They would drive faster than Elwood. Anyone would. Elwood’s grandma would. But traffic was traffic, so the difference would not be dramatic. A few minutes, maybe. Which meant they could be parking somewhere right at that moment.

He stared blankly across the street, his phone at his ear, just a guy at a table, and he watched the south in his peripheral vision. Most of the people coming toward him were too lightly dressed to be suspicious. No place to conceal a weapon. Plus none of them walked like a soldier. Or looked like one.