An under-window HVAC unit could be opened up, and nine times out of ten there was a plastic pocket expressly designed to hold paperwork, often an instruction manual or a warranty card, among which an enterprising person could conceal dozens of pages.
Handguns were in-room weapons. Under expert control in high-pressure situations the average range for a successful engagement was about eleven feet.
Reacher liked New York more than most places. He liked the casual indifference of it all and the frantic hustle and the total anonymity.
We’re going to beat you so hard your kids will be born dizzy.
He liked the electric darkness and the hot dirty air and the blasts of noise and traffic and the manic barking sirens and the crush of people. It helped a lonely man feel connected and isolated both at the same time.
Staring isn’t difficult. I can do it all day long. Without blinking, if I want to, which is sometimes painful, but always useful. The trick is to not really look at them, but to focus ten yards beyond, on nothing, which produces a glassy effect, which makes them worry, mostly about what’s going on behind your empty eyes.
They were all in line, single file, like an armada from hell. It was a magnificent sight.
Civilian notions about unreasonable search and seizure and warrants and probable cause stop at an army post main gate.
Special Forces guys were usually small. They were usually lean, fast, and whippy. Built for endurance and stamina and full of smarts and cunning. Like foxes, not like bears.
Foreign, for sure. But we all bleed the same color red. No doubt about that. The truth of that statement was plain to see. Reacher put the guy out of misery. A single shot, close range, behind the ear. An unnecessary round expended, but good manners had a price.
Tony Swan, Jorge Sanchez, Calvin Franz, Frances Neagley, Stanley Lowrey, Manuel Orozco, David O’Donnell, and Karla Dixon.
Hence 8197. He liked 97 because it was the largest two-digit prime number, and he loved 81 because it was absolutely the only number out of all the literally infinite possibilities whose square root was also the sum of its digits. Square root of eighty-one was nine, and eight and one made nine. No other nontrivial number in the cosmos had that kind of sweet symmetry. Perfect.
Then we could collate all the possibles and go to work with the holy trinity of detectives everywhere: means, motive, opportunity. Means and opportunity wouldn’t signify much. By definition nobody would be on the possibles list unless they had been proved to have opportunity. And everybody in the army was physically capable of swinging a tire iron or a crowbar against the back of an unsuspecting victim’s head. It was probably a rough equivalent of the most basic entry requirement.
He was listed as right-handed. The army needed to know that because bolt-action sniper rifles are made for right-handers. Left-handed soldiers don’t usually get assigned as snipers. Pigeonholing starts on day one in the military.
I know,” I said. “You already don’t respect me because you saw me naked.
He had no place to go, and all the time in the world to get there, so detours cost him nothing.
It helped a lonely man feel connected and isolated both at the same time.
Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.’” Alice.
People who say “no” right away are usually lying. A truthful person is perfectly capable of saying “no” but generally they stop and think about it first. And they add “sorry” or something like that. Maybe they come out with some questions of their own. It’s human nature. They say, “Sorry, no, why, what happened?
The Zip Code is about the size of Chicago. With five people. But hey, welcome to Wyoming.