Gone Tomorrow

I eased it open and started down. The stairs were dusty concrete.

Each floor was marked with a large number painted by hand in green paint. I was quiet all the way down to nine. Super-silent after that. I paused and peered over the metal rail.

No sentry in the stairwell,

The landing inside the eighth floor door was empty. Which was a disappointment. It made the job on the other side of the door twenty-five per cent harder. Five men in the corridor, not four. And the way the rooms were distributed meant that some of them would be on my left, and some on my right. Three and two, or two and three. A long second spent facing the wrong way, and then a crucial spin. Not easy.

But it was four in the morning. The lowest ebb. A universal truth. The Soviets had studied it, with doctors.

I paused on the stairwell side of the door and took a deep breath. Then another. I put my gloved hand on the handle. I took the slack out of the MP5’s trigger,

I pulled the door.

I held it at forty-five degrees with my foot. Cradled the MP5’s barrel in my glove. Looked and listened. No sound. Nothing to see. I stepped into the corridor. Whipped one way. Whipped the other.

No one there.

No sentries, no guards, no nothing. Just a length of dirty matted carpet and dim yellow light and two rows of closed doors. Nothing to hear, except the subliminal hum and shudder of the city and muted faraway sirens.

I closed the stairwell door behind me.

I checked numbers and walked quickly to Lila’s door. Put my ear on the crack and listened hard.

I heard nothing.

I waited. Five whole minutes. Ten. No sound. No one can stay still and silent longer than me.

I dipped the porter’s pass card into the slot. A tiny light flashed red. Then green. There was a click. I smashed the handle down and was inside a split second later.

The room was empty.

The bathroom was empty.

There were signs of recent occupation. The toilet roll was loose and ragged. The sink was wet. A towel was used. The bed was rucked. The chairs were out of position.

I checked the other four rooms. All empty. All abandoned. Nothing left behind. No evidence pointing towards an imminent return.

Lila Hoth, one step ahead.

Jack Reacher, one step behind.

I took my glove off and zipped up again and rode down to the lobby. I hauled the night porter into a sitting position against the back of his counter and tore the tape off his mouth.

He said, ‘Don’t hit me again.’

I said, ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘Not my fault,’ he said. ‘I told you the truth. You asked what rooms I put them in. Past tense.’

‘When did they leave?’

‘About ten minutes after you came the first time.’

‘You called them?’

‘I had to, man.’

‘Where did they go?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘What did they pay you?’

‘A thousand,’ he said.

‘Not bad.’

‘Per room.’

‘Insane,’ I said. Which it was. For that kind of money they could have gone back to the Four Seasons. Except they couldn’t. Which was the point.

I paused in the shadows on the Seventh Avenue sidewalk. Where did they go? But first, how did they go? Not in cars. On the way in they had fifteen people. They would have needed three cars, minimum. And faded old piles with night porters working alone don’t have valet parking.

Taxis? Possible, on the way in, late in the evening from midtown. Going out again, at three in the morning on Seventh Avenue? Eight people would have required at least two simultaneous empty cabs.

Unlikely.

Subway? Possible. Probable, even. There were three lines within a block’s walk. Night-time schedules, a maximum twenty-minute wait on the platform, but then escape either uptown or downtown. But to where? Nowhere that needed a long walk at the other end. A gaggle of eight people hustling hard on the sidewalk was very noticeable. There were six hundred agents on the streets. The only other hotel option I knew was way west of even the Eighth Avenue line. A fifteen-minute walk, maybe more. Too big a risk of exposure.

So, the subway, but to where?

New York City. Three hundred and twenty square miles. Two hundred and five thousand acres. Eight million separate addresses. I stood there and sorted possibilities like a machine.

I drew a blank.

Then I smiled.

You talk too much, Lila.

I heard her voice in my head again. From the tea room at the Four Seasons. She was talking about the old Afghan fighters. Complaining about them, from her pretended perspective. In reality she was boasting about her own people, and the Red Army’s fruitless back-and-forth skirmishing against them. She had said: The mujahideen were intelligent. They had a habit of doubling back to positions we had previously written off as abandoned.

I set off back to Herald Square. To the R train. I could get out at Fifth and 59th. From there it was a short walk to the old buildings on 58th Street.

SEVENTY-SEVEN