Page 77 of Bulletproof Jack: Hunting Lee Child's Jack Reacher

He grabbed the first donut and gobbled it in two bites. He felt the half-chewed dough soaking up the booze left over from last night like a sponge.

He stuck the second donut between his teeth and reversed the Range Rover from the parking spot.

Fifteen minutes after he’d left the highway, he was back in his lane, keeping up with traffic.

Morin needed to find Krause and persuade him to jump back on board. No easy task. Under the best of circumstances, Krause was as malleable as heavy gauge steel. Which is to say, not at all.

For a rocket scientist, Krause didn’t seem to be savvy about cyber security at all. Morin had uncovered his home address in Ancaster, Ontario, with a simple internet search.

Which also made Morin uneasy. If he’d been creating a pro/con list, the cons on Krause would be overwhelming.

Maybe Brax had been right. Maybe Krause wasn’t the answer.

“But dammit, what choice do we have? None. No choice at all,” Morin muttered around the donut.

Even in the storm, Morin located Krause’s home easily enough. The driveway wasn’t gated, which meant he didn’t need to mess with punch codes and security questions to reach the house.

He turned onto the gravel and pulled up close to the garage.

Through the downpour, Morin saw a dark rental sedan was already parked in front of the right garage bay.

Briefly, he wondered why the sedan was there and who it belonged to. But he’d come this far. He wouldn’t turn back now. He parked next to the sedan in front of the left bay.

Morin knew Krause well enough. They’d talked many times over the years. Even though Morin’s visit was out of the blue, Krause shouldn’t be hostile.

But the sedan?

Krause had no living relatives and few friends. He should have been home alone at this hour. He wasn’t. The small hairs raised on the back of Morin’s neck.

Morin always had an alternative plan. He’d obtained a key to the back entrance, and he fished it from his pocket.

He left the Range Rover and walked through the storm, around the garage to the rear of the house. He stepped in a deep puddle, soaking his shoes and socks, stifling a stream of curses. By the time he reached the back door, he was thoroughly drenched, head to foot.

His wet fingers fumbled the key. A couple of tries and he managed to unlock the door and push it open.

Morin waited for the house alarm. He had memorized the four-digit code to shut it off before it triggered a call from the security monitoring service.

The alarm didn’t sound. Which was odd and alarming in its own way.

Krause had become too comfortable here. All of his training seemed to have vanished.

During one of their many arguments, Brax had said Krause was too sloppy to depend upon. Brax wasn’t wrong.

Morin shrugged, dropped the key into his pocket, let himself inside, and shut the door firmly behind him.

There were no signs of activity in the house.

A quick scan showed Krause’s bedroom door was closed. It was late. Morin’s unauthorized entry had not awakened the old guy. Which was more than okay.

Krause was difficult to handle under the best of circumstances. Awakened in the middle of the night and subjected to questioning, he’d be furious. Belligerent. Bordering on unstable, too.

Better to wait until daylight when there’d be a chance he’d be fully functioning.

The guest, whoever he was, must have been abed as well. The second bedroom door was also closed. Good.

Morin opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water. He drank half of it in one long swallow. He carried the bottle with him across the open room to the seating area that served as most of Krause’s living space.

Morin slipped his shoes off and lay back on the sofa, listening to the thunder and the pouring rain on the metal roof. In less than a minute, exhaustion and tension overcame him. He fell into sleep, snoring softly.

---