Running Blind (The Visitor) Read Online Free PDF Page B

to later.
    “So let’s go,” the gray-haired guy said.
    Reacher was crowded out into the gray corridor and into a big knot of people. The woman was there, and the sandy guy with the mustache, and the older guy with the blood pressure, and the younger guy with the lean face and the shirtsleeves. They were buzzing. It was late in the evening, but they were all pumped up with excitement. They were up on their toes, weightless with the intoxication of progress . It was a feeling Reacher recognized. It was a feeling he had experienced, more times than he cared to remember.
    But they were divided. There were two clear teams. There was tension between them. It became obvious as they walked. The woman stuck close to his left shoulder, and the sandy guy and the blood pressure guy stuck close to her. That was one team. On his right shoulder was the guy with the lean face. He was the second team, alone and outnumbered and unhappy about it. Reacher felt his hand near his elbow, like he was ready to make a grab for his prize.
    They walked down a narrow gray corridor like the bowels of a battleship and spilled into a gray room with a long table filling most of the floor space. The table was curved on both long edges and chopped off straight at the ends. On one long side, backs to the door, were seven plastic chairs in a line, well spaced out, with the curve of the table edge focusing them all across toward a single identical chair placed in the exact center of the opposite side.
    Reacher paused in the doorway. Not too difficult to work out which chair was his. He looped around the end of the table and sat down in it. It was flimsy. The legs squirmed under his weight and the plastic dug into the muscle under his shoulder blades. The room was cinder block, painted gray like the first one, but this ceiling was finished. There was stained acoustic tile in warped framing. There was track lighting bolted to it, with large can-shaped fixtures angled down and toward him. The tabletop was cheap mahogany, thickly lacquered with shiny varnish. The light bounced off the varnish and came up into his eyes from below.
    The two junior agents had taken up position against the walls at opposite ends of the table, like sentries. Their jackets were open and their shoulder holsters were visible. Their hands were folded comfortably at their waists. Their heads were turned, watching him. Opposite him, the two teams were forming up. Seven chairs, five people. The gray-haired guy took the center chair. The light caught his eyeglasses and turned them into blank mirrors. Next to him on his right-hand side was the guy with the blood pressure, and next to him was the woman, and next to her was the sandy guy. The guy with the lean face and the shirtsleeves was alone in the middle chair of the left-hand three. A lop-sided inquisition, hunching toward him, indistinct through the glare of the lights.
    The gray-haired guy leaned forward, sliding his forearms onto the shiny wood, claiming authority. And subconsciously separating the factions to his left and right.
    “We’ve been squabbling over you,” he said.
    “Am I in custody?” Reacher asked.
    The guy shook his head. “No, not yet.”
    “So I’m free to go?”
    The guy looked over the top of his eyeglasses. “Well, we’d rather you stayed right here, so we can keep this whole thing civilized for a spell.”
    There was silence for a long moment.
    “So make it civilized,” Reacher said. “I’m Jack Reacher. Who the hell are you?”
    “What?”
    “Let’s have some introductions. That’s what civilized people do, right? They introduce themselves. Then they chat politely about the Yankees or the stock market or something.”
    More silence. Then the guy nodded.
    “I’m Alan Deerfield,” he said. “Assistant Director, FBI. I run the New York Field Office.”
    Then he turned his head to his right and stared at the sandy guy on the end of the line and waited.
    “Special Agent Tony Poulton,” the sandy