Page 22 of The Secret

Roberta Sanson gavethe rope a sharp tug to make sure she had Rymer’s attention, then said, “Michael, can you hear me? And more important, can you understand me?”

Rymer didn’t respond.

Roberta took a large step forward. Rymer’s legs tipped up. His torso pivoted down. His head was dunked into the freezing water. Roberta let it stay there for ten seconds then started to pull back. The physics were against her so Veronica had to reach over the side and tug on his belt before he could resurface.

Roberta said, “Michael…?”

Rymer spluttered and coughed. “Are you nuts? What are you doing? I’m no kind of threat. I stopped to help you!”

“You want to help? That’s good. All you have to do is give us one name. One name, and this will be over. You’ll never see or hear from us again.”

“What name?”

“Your research team in India. In 1969. We know seven names. Including yours, obviously. You need to tell us the eighth.”

“What? No. There is no eighth name. There were only seven of us. I swear. Me. Owen Buck. Varinder Singh. Keith Bridgeman. Geoffrey Brown. Charlie Adam. Neville Pritchard. No one else.”

“There were eight. I need the other name. You have to tell me.”

“There is no eighth name! Why do you—?”

Roberta plunged Rymer’s head back into the water. She left it submerged for fifteen seconds this time. Again she needed Veronica’s help to pull him clear.

Roberta said, “This isn’t pleasant, is it? The only way it stops is for you to give us the name. Come on. It’s not hard. Two words. First name, last name. That’s better than drowning, surely. You don’t doubt that I will drown you, right?”

Rymer was gasping for air. “Can’t. Only seven names. Swear to you.”

Roberta looked at Veronica, shrugged, and said, “OK. Your choice. But at this point it’s important you know our names. I’m Roberta Sanson. This is my sister, Veronica. Our father was Morgan Sanson.”

Rymer groaned.

Roberta said, “Any last minute inspiration?”

Rymer was silent.

Roberta shrugged again and lowered Rymer back down. Shebraced her feet against the deck and held on tight to the rope. Rymer thrashed and kicked and struggled. His movements were hard and desperate. Then they softened and waned. The tension ebbed out of his body. His energy almost gave out altogether. He arched his back and clawed at the water one last time then he slumped down deeper into the darkness. A final few bubbles floated to the surface and he was left hanging there on the rope, heavy and slack, slapping against the hull in the slight swell.

Roberta switched her grip to the strand of rope that led away from the knot around Rymer’s ankles. She pulled. The knot released itself and Rymer’s body slid silently the rest of the way beneath the surface. It bobbed back up a moment later and settled, floating facedown, arms and legs stretched wide, hair spread out around his skull like pale seaweed.

—

Reacher had alsowoken that morning with a view over a lake. In his case it was Lake Michigan, through a floor-to-ceiling window, thirty-two stories up in a clover leaf–shaped building near Navy Pier in Chicago. It was Agent Ottoway’s bedroom.

“Don’t worry,” she had said when they got back after a night of blues music on Halsted Street and she saw the expression on Reacher’s face. “This is not the product of ill-gotten gains. I got it in my divorce.”

Reacher and Ottoway drank coffee in bed, then took a shower together. Soap was involved. So was hot water. And steam. But given how long the process took, not a whole lot of cleaning took place. It left them with no time for breakfast. They got dressed, hurried down to the underground garage, and collected Ottoway’s car. She drove to the FBI field office and while Reacher retrieved hisduffel from the trunk of the vehicle he’d borrowed from the Rock Island Arsenal, she scribbled on a scrap of paper.

“Take this,” she said, and handed the note to Reacher. There was a phone number written at the top. It had a 312 area code. “This is my home number. Anytime you’re in town, call me.”

Reacher said nothing.

—

The walk tothe El stop and the train ride to O’Hare were uneventful. There was time at the airport for a cup of coffee before the flight to Washington National, then Reacher found his way to the cab line and gave the driver the address from the orders he’d received the day before. The route took them across the Potomac then away from the city, nose to tail in a lingering cloud of exhaust fumes for all but the final ten minutes of the journey. They were heading for some kind of business district. The buildings were long and low, no more than twenty years old, all pale brick and mirrored glass, separated by rectangular open-air parking lots and set back behind glossy green hedges. The cabdriver pulled up outside the last building on the street. There were three cars in its lot. All domestic sedans. Two Fords and a Chevy. One green, one blue, one black. All sprouting more antennas than they’d had when they rolled off the line in Detroit.

Reacher gave the driver a respectable tip then made his way through the building’s main entrance. Inside, he found cheap, durable carpet, new inexpensive furniture, and walls covered with fresh, bland paint. Which told him two things. The place was owned by the government. And it was up for sale. Reacher had no idea why, but he’d noticed that the government never spent money on buildings it was planning to keep.

There was no one behind the reception desk so Reacher pushed through a pair of double doors and found himself at the head of a long, bright corridor. The first door on the left was markedBoard Room.Reacher looked inside. Three people were already there, each on a different side of a rectangular table that seemed too large for the space. Two men and a woman. All looked like they were in their thirties. All seemed a little tense, like they didn’t know why they were there but assumed whatever the reason, it was certain to not be good. There were a dozen chairs, arranged in two fours and two pairs, and the only other piece of furniture was a table under the window. Two shiny pump-action flasks were sitting on it, along with a stack of upside-down Styrofoam cups and a bowl that was overflowing with cartons of creamer and sachets of sweetener.

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