Running Blind(The Visitor) - By Lee Child Page 0,124

his buddies or a night in front of the television with his wife. Or however the hell he spends his downtime.

So your window extends to about forty minutes, say seven to seven-forty. You plan it in two halves. First the house, then the surrounding area. You drive back from the airport and you approach on the through road. You drive straight through the junction three streets from her house. You stop at a hikers' parking area two hundred yards farther north. There's a wide gravel trail leading east up the slope of Mount Hood. You get out of your car and you turn your back on the trail and you work your way west and north through lightly wooded terrain. You're about level with your first position, but on the other side of her house, behind it, not in front of it.

The terrain means the houses don't have big yards. There are slim cultivated strips behind the buildings, then fences, then steep hillside covered in wild brush. You ease through the brush and come out at her fence. Stand motionless in the dark and observe. Drapes are drawn. It's quiet. You can hear a piano playing, very faintly. The house is built into the hillside, and it's at right angles to the street. The side is really the front. The porch runs all the way along it. Facing you is a wall dotted with windows. No doors. You ease along the fence and check the other side, which is really the back of the house. No doors there either. So the only ways in are the front door on the porch, and the garage door facing the street. Not ideal, but it's what you expected. You've planned for it. You've planned for every contingency.

"OK, COLONEL KRUGER," Leighton said. "We're on your ass now."

They were back in the duty office, damp from the jog through the nighttime rain, high with elation, flushed with cold air and success. Handshakes had been exchanged, high fives had been smacked, Harper had laughed and hugged Reacher. Now Leighton was scrolling through a menu on his computer screen, and Reacher and Harper were sitting side by side in front of his desk on the old upright chairs, breathing hard. Harper was still smiling, basking in relief and triumph.

"Loved that business with the stool," she said. "We watched the whole thing on the video screen."

Reacher shrugged.

"I cheated," he said. "I chose the right stool, is all. I figured visiting time, that sergeant sits on the one by the door, wriggles around a little because he's bored. Guy that size, the joints were sure to be cracked. The thing practically fell apart."

"But it looked real good."

"That was the plan. First rule is to look real good."

"OK, he's in the personnel listings," Leighton said. "LaSalle Kruger, bird colonel, right there."

He tapped the screen with his nail. It made the same glassy thunk they'd heard before. Like a bottle.

"Has he been in trouble?" Reacher asked.

"Can't tell, yet," Leighton said. "You think he'll have an MP record?"

"Something happened," Reacher said. "Special Forces in Desert Storm, and now he's working supply? What's that about?"

Leighton nodded. "It needs explaining. Could be disciplinary, I guess."

He exited the personnel listings and clicked on another menu. Then he paused.

"This will take all night," he said.

Reacher smiled. "You mean you don't want us to see anything."

Leighton smiled back. "Right first time, pal. You can smack the prisoners around as much as you want, but you can't look at the computer stuff. You know how it is."

"I sure do," Reacher said.

Leighton waited.

"That inventory thing about the jeep tires?" Harper said suddenly. "Could you trace some missing camouflage paint in there?"

"Maybe," Leighton said. "Theoretically, I guess."

"Eleven women on his list, look for about three hundred gallons," she said. "If you could put Kruger together with the paint, that would do it for me."

Leighton nodded.

"And dates," she said. "Find out if he was off duty when the women were killed. And match the locations, I guess. Confirm there were thefts where the women served. Prove they saw something."

Leighton looked across at her. "The Army is going to just love me, right? Kruger's our guy, and I'm busting my ass all night so we can give him away to the Bureau."

"I'm sorry," she said. "But the jurisdiction issue is clear, isn't it? Homicide beats theft."

Leighton nodded, suddenly somber.

"Like scissors beats paper," he said.

YOU'VE SEEN ENOUGH of the house. Standing there in the dark staring at it and listening to her play