Chapter 7

Vidic returned after five minutes. Reacher climbed down from the Jeep and Vidic handed him a plastic key card with a cartoon flying saucer printed on it in bright, primary colors.

"You're in room 20. All the way at the end." Vidic locked the Jeep with his remote then started walking. "The idea is to be invisible. Put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, pull the drapes, and don't set foot outside. Not unless the building's on fire. And even then, only if the flames are actually heading your way. Are we clear?"

"Sounds straightforward enough. But tell me something. How did you register for the room without my ID?"

"No need to worry about ID. They're not hard to get. And anyway, here they're more interested in pocketing a few extra bucks than following a bunch of dumb rules."

"Outstanding," Reacher said. "My kind of place."

—

Reacher got to room 20 comfortably ahead of Vidic. He held the key card next to a black plastic rectangle below the handle, a red light turned green, and the door clicked open. Inside, there was a king-sized bed against the right-hand wall. The cover had a picture of a lunar lander printed on it and the headboard was a giant semicircle, grayish white, and textured to look like the surface of the moon. The carpet was orange. The walls were inky blue. There was a pair of chairs that were covered with teal fabric, a metal desk/vanity, a flat-screen TV, stars painted on the ceiling, and a pendant light shaped like a satellite. A door at the far side of the room led to a bathroom with a separate shower stall, but the fixtures in there were all plain white twenty-first century standard-issue items. They were totally anonymous. Reacher wondered if that was a design choice or the result of some miserly investor tightening the purse strings.

Vidic followed Reacher inside and closed the door behind him. He took a moment to look around then said, "Wow. What a place. I wasn't expecting this." He pointed at the ceiling. "I wonder if the paint glows in the dark? Then you'd have the whole Milky Way to keep you company."

Reacher thought the painting looked nothing like the Milky Way. The constellations were completely wrong. He knew because he had gazed at them hundreds of times from dozens of countries in both hemispheres. But he had learned over the years to keep his more pedantic observations to himself, so instead he said, "This isn't the room she was in?"

"Who?"

"Gibson's handler."

"Oh. No. She was in 1. At the opposite end."

"No space theme over there?"

"Maybe. I couldn't see. The door was only open for a second."

"But you got a good look at her."

"When she came out, sure. Why—"

There was a knock on the door. One sharp rap, a pause, then two softer taps.

Vidic said, "Hide the guns. I don't want to put my guy in a jam."

Reacher took the Sig and the Glock from his waistband and slid them under a pillow.

Vidic turned and opened the door and a man stepped inside. He looked to be six feet, even, and he was wearing dark chinos, a cream shirt, blue suit coat, and boat shoes. His hair was sandy-colored and thinning and his face was pink from the sun. He was carrying a backpack in his left hand. It was made of black ballistic nylon with all kinds of pockets and flaps and straps. It was scuffed and creased and a little dirty. It lived a busy life. That was clear. Reacher wondered if the bulk of the guy's medical practice lay more on the unofficial side of the scale than Vidic had suggested.

"Buck, thanks for coming." Vidic gestured toward Reacher. "This is the friend I was telling you about. He got banged up in a car wreck. Guess he broke his wrist. Hit his head pretty good, too, so maybe you could take a look at it, as well, while you're here?"

"No problem." Buck Holmes crossed to the bed and set his pack down on its back. He pulled the tag on a zipper that ran from the bottom left, around the top, and all the way down to the bottom right. Then he pulled the front of the pack, folding it over across its base so that it opened completely like a clamshell. The inside was full of small instruments in clear packets and all kinds of bandages and dressings in white sterile packages. "OK. Let's get started. Shirt off, please. Pants, too."

Vidic moved toward the door. "I'm going to step out now. I'll get you some food. What do you like?"

Reacher said, "Sandwiches. Four. Meat or cheese. Nothing green. Chocolate bars. Nothing fancy. Pie, if you can find any to go. Plus coffee, black, and a couple of bottles of Coke."

Vidic closed the door behind him and Reacher turned to Holmes. "You want me to strip? Is that necessary? I hurt my wrist and I'm wearing a T-shirt."

Buck crossed his arms. "Ever served in uniform?"

Reacher nodded. "Army. Thirteen years."

"So you've done basic life support training, as a minimum. Yes?"

Reacher nodded again.

"Cast your mind back to the final assessment. You find your victim. He's lying on the ground, screaming, writhing around, clutching his knee. You dive right in and start bandaging that knee. What happens?"

"You fail the course."

"Correct. Because your patient would die from the internal bleeding in his abdomen that you missed when you only focused on the injury he told you about. See where I'm going with this?"

Reacher slipped off his pants and laid them on the bed, next to the doctor's pack. Then he took off his shirt and placed it on top of the pants.

Holmes stepped in closer and ran his eyes over Reacher's torso, shoulder to shoulder, neck to navel. He was silent for a moment, then said, "This isn't your first rodeo, is it? I see bullet wounds. I see knife wounds. And what's this?" He pointed at a long, curved scar just above the elastic of Reacher's shorts. "Some other kind of blade?"

Reacher said, "Shrapnel. Part of a man's jawbone. Happened in Beirut, a long time ago."

"That's one I haven't heard before. Turn around?"

The doctor visually examined Reacher's back and legs then had him lie on the bed. He poked and prodded areas of soft tissue. Manipulated joints. Tested reflexes. Then finally said, "OK. Everything seems fine, so get dressed and I'll check on your noggin."

Reacher slid back into his T-shirt and pants, then sat on the side of the bed.

Holmes said, "You hit your head in the car wreck?"

"Right."

"Did you lose consciousness?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"I don't know."

"Any memory loss?"

"I can't remember the accident, and maybe an hour before it happened."

"That's probably nothing to worry about. There's a good chance it will come back, given time. Now, who was the 44th President of the United States?"

"Barack Obama. Served two terms: 2009 to 2017. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, August 1961. Married to Michelle. Has two—"

"OK. Your memory's fine. Have you thrown up since the accident?"

"No."

"Any dizziness? Dropping things? Walking into furniture? Doorframes?"

"No."

"Ringing in your ears?"

"A little."

"Eye pain? Double vision?"

"No pain. Eyesight was blurry for a while. It's OK now."

"Sensitivity to light?"

"No more than usual."

Holmes pulled a slim flashlight from his pocket. He switched it on, held it out, and moved it slowly from side to side. "Follow the light with your eyes. Just your eyes. Keep your head still. Does that hurt?"

"No."

"Good. Your pupils are reacting normally. How's your depth perception?"

"Same as always."

Holmes put the flashlight away. "Obviously it would be better if you could go to the hospital, get checked out properly, but I'm not too worried. I think you have a mild concussion. I want you to take it easy for twenty-four hours. You can take Tylenol if you need to, but not aspirin or Advil. No alcohol, either. After that you can get back to light exercise. Whatever feels right. Just make sure not to hit your head on anything. That's very important."

"Understood. Thanks, Doc."

"No problem. Now let's take care of your wrist."

Holmes selected a sterile package from his backpack. It was cylindrical, about twelve inches long and three in diameter. "The pain is sharp, not dull, and eases when your wrist is still and not being touched?"

Reacher nodded.

"OK. Well, in an ideal situation the first step would be to establish the full extent and location of the injury, but that would call for an X-ray machine and obviously we don't have one here. So I'm going to assume the radius or the ulna is fractured, or possibly one of the carpal bones." Holmes tore open the package and took out a roll of some kind of tight, black, mesh-like material. "Hold your hand up, pointing at the ceiling, fingers together, thumb out."

Reacher did as he was asked.

"Good." Holmes pulled out a bunch of rods from the middle of the roll and set them on the bed. The rods were round, made of plastic, and ranged in length from twelve inches to four. He straightened out the material, which made it look more like a mat, a half-inch thick, with long pockets let into one side. He held it up alongside Reacher's hand and forearm. Stared at it for ten seconds. Then rolled it back up, gripped it with both hands, and bent it double like he was trying to snap it in half. "We have to move fast now. There are two chemical compounds in this sleeve and now that they're mixed, they're going to set. Rapidly. And harder than regular plaster. So I need you to be ready. Don't move." Holmes grabbed some of the rods and started to feed them into the pockets in the sleeve. He started with an eight-inch rod in the first pocket. He slid twelve-inch rods into the next six and finished with another eight-inch in the last one. "This will hurt at first. I'm sorry." He held the sleeve up and wrapped it around Reacher's wrist, starting below his knuckles and extending to his forearm, his thumb protruding through the open side. Then Holmes pulled back four broad Velcro tabs—one above Reacher's thumb, three below—and wrapped them around to fasten the sleeve in place.

"Can I move now?"

"Go ahead. Take it easy for ten minutes but once it's set you can do everything you normally would. You can even take a shower. Just don't knock it against anything."

—

Holmes had already left when Vidic got back with Reacher's food and drink. He set the paper sacks on the desk then stepped up close to get a clear look at Reacher's wrist.

Vidic gestured toward the cast. "That thing working? You feeling better?"

Reacher nodded. "Good as new."

"How about your head?"

"Still attached."

"And your memory? Does Buck think it'll come back?"

Something about the tone of the question put Reacher on the defensive. He didn't know why but something made him reluctant to turn his cards face up, so he said, "He wasn't hopeful."

"Oh. That sucks. Well, get some rest. I'll come back for you tomorrow. Maybe the day after. If so I'll bring you some more food. Or send someone you can trust. But whichever day we leave, remember, no one can know you're here. Keep the drapes closed and don't leave the room. Not for a minute."

"Leave here?" Reacher said. "I wouldn't dream of it."