Blue Moon - Lee Child Page 0,124

or nests or burrows.

He moved on. Hogan followed. Then Abby. Then Barton and Vantresca. The first room on the left was some kind of a security post. Empty. Abandoned. A desk and a chair, unoccupied. Two flat screen televisions on the desk, one labeled Lobby, which was blacked out with paint, and one marked 19th Floor, which showed the view from a camera evidently mounted high on the wall opposite the elevator bank. The angle was downward. The view was of a lot of dead bodies on the floor. More than a dozen.

Told you so, said the back part of his brain.

He moved on. The first room on the right was also empty. It had a floor to ceiling window, facing north. The city lay spread out below. In the room were four armchairs, a buzzing refrigerator, and a coffee machine on a table. A ready room. Or a crew room. Convenient. Close to the elevators.

They moved on. They saw nothing. No people. No kind of technical equipment. Reacher had no real idea what it would look like. He was hung up on Abby’s original description. Like in the movies. The mad scientist in his lab, full of lit-up machines and crackling energy. To him a server was someone playing tennis, or bringing a drink. Vantresca figured the whole installation might be nothing more than half a dozen laptops. Cloud based, he called it. Hogan predicted a low room full of white laminate and chilly air.

They crept onward.

Saw nothing.

“Wait,” Reacher whispered. “We’re wasting time. This is not business as usual. I think they’ve gone straight to the endgame. I think the headless horseman brought every spare guy to the elevator cage. Only people working that exact minute stayed behind and survived. So now they’re hunkered down. It’s Custer’s Last Stand for them.”

“How many?” Hogan asked.

“I don’t care,” Reacher said. “As long as Trulenko is one of them.”

Abby said, “If it’s six laptops, it could be just a couple of guys.”

“Plus guards,” Reacher said. “As many as Moscow decreed should be in the room at all times. Or at least those of them who maintained discipline. Which might be a different number.”

Vantresca said, “Moscow would decree an entire Guards regiment, if it could.”

“I guess it depends how big the room is.”

Hogan said, “If it’s six laptops, it could be a broom closet. Could be anywhere. Could be a secret door in back of a broom closet.”

“No, Trulenko wants windows,” Abby said. “Especially these windows. I bet he loves the view. I bet he loves standing there, looking out through the glass, lording it over the earthlings below. Even though he’s actually a failure and practically a prisoner. I bet it makes him feel better.”

“Wait,” Reacher said again. He looked at Barton. “You said on the fourth floor you could walk all around the building’s core. It was blank on three sides. But on the fifth floor you couldn’t get all the way around. Because of bigger suites in back. Inside of which the long blank face of the core would become a wall inside a room.”

“Yes,” Barton said.

“It’s a pretty good wall to have,” Reacher said. “Isn’t it? It’s as close as you can get to all the risers and the services running up and down behind the elevators.” He looked at Vantresca. “Back in the day, if you had to lay wired communications, how long would you want your wires to be?”

“As short as humanly possible,” Vantresca said.

“Because?”

“Wires are vulnerable.”

Reacher nodded.

“Not mechanically robust,” he said. “Plus that wall gets first call on the power and the water, and whatever the generator kicks out in an emergency. I bet that’s the wall Moscow wanted.” He said the word. A hive or a nest or a burrow, full of something that hummed or buzzed or thrashed around. He said, “They built it out from the back of the elevator core, all the way to the windows opposite. Because Moscow wanted the wall, and guys like Trulenko wanted the view. What else could they do?”

Vantresca said, “That’s a big room.”

Reacher nodded.

“Same size and shape as the lobby downstairs,” he said. “Same space exactly, except flipped around 180.”

“Big enough for a Guards regiment.”

“Couple of rifle companies at the most.”

“Maybe nobody,” Abby said. “Because of human nature. These guys are from Ukraine. Moscow is like a patronizing big brother. They’ll make up their own rules. What does it matter if they’re actually in the room? They have the cage. Everywhere is equally