Page 28 of Chain Reaction

“I think he’s fine.”

“Based on what?”

“Based on this whole place,” Reacher said. “It’s themed and branded and styled like crazy. Warm and clean and crisp. Lots of precise attention to every detail. Very self-conscious and wholehearted and, well, Swiss.”

“Therefore?”

“Their master keys wouldn’t look like scruffy pieces of crap. They would be branded and shiny, just like the guest keys. They’re part of the uniform, literally. A visible part. On their belts, like you said. The public see them all the time. The management here knows details matter. It’s a question of presentation.”

“We can’t both go. We have dead people in our rooms.”

“Close the drapes, shut the door,” Reacher said. “No one will know. They’re not leaking yet.”

He took the first guy’s master key with him.

—

The lobby was softer lit than the first time they had seen it. Some kind of nighttime setting. Warm and relaxing. Otherwise the place was the same as before. The same guy was at the desk. Working late. Still dressed in his traditional suit. Like a costume. Short boxy jacket in rough brown wool. All he needed was a hat with a feather in the band. And a herd of cows with bells around their necks. And a wife who yodeled across the valley to tell him lunch was ready. He was staring at his computer screen. Then he tore himself away and glanced up. An open and innocent expression. No black eye. No cuts or bruises. No other visible injuries. Not tense or nervous or afraid. Puzzled by something, maybe. A little frustrated.

Reacher took the first guy’s master key out of his pocket. The grubby plastic rectangle. He held it up. He said, “I found this outside on the path. I wondered if maybe one of your staff had dropped it.”

“What is it?” the guy asked.

Reacher held it closer. He said, “I thought it might be a master key.”

“Not one of ours,” the guy said. He pulled on a curly black cord hitched to a belt loop. He said, “Ours are like this.”

It was branded and shiny. Like the guest keys. It had the same picture on it. Mountains, with the motel building in front of them.

The guy said, “Possibly a guest lost it. Or one of the maids. Some of them work other places. Leave it with me, if you like, and I’ll return it if anyone claims it.”

“Sure,” Reacher said. He put the card on the counter. The computer screen was blank. He said, “Everything OK?”

“The security cameras are down,” the guy said. “I can’t figure it out. Must be a network problem.”

“Did you try turning it off and turning it on again? People say that usually fixes things.”

“I tried that three times,” the guy said. “No dice.”

“Well, good luck,” Reacher said. He and Turner walked back to room ten. She opened the door with her guest key. They stepped over the dead guy and sat side by side on her bed.

Reacher said, “There was no interaction in the lobby. They hacked this place’s computer system, from the outside, remotely, ahead of time, before they arrived. Or someone else did, on their behalf. To smooth their way. They stopped the cameras and cloned the master key code onto blank cards.”

He picked up the dead guy’s phones. He discarded the fancier model. He looked at the plainer one. The burner. He checked the call log. There was an incoming call about four minutes after they left the motel to find the restaurant. He showed it to Turner. She nodded. Their fate had been sealed while they were strolling the first few hundred yards of El Camino Real, cars hissing past, knots of people up ahead.

The call was from a number they recognized.

“Lazarus Lorenzo,” Turner said. “The full-service law firm.”

“Fast reaction,” Reacher said. “The tip came in just minutes after you switched your phone off again.”

“The tip from Elwood. Nothing about this exonerates him.”

“Maybe it does. Maybe they hacked your office system too. From the outside. Maybe they’ve been eavesdropping all along, right from when Bisley first started poking around. Maybe there is no bad apple. They don’t need one. They’re watching everything you do.”

“That’s a hell of a leap. Hacking a motel is one thing. Our system was built by the National Security Agency. Government work. It’s supposed to be impregnable.”

“This is Palo Alto. They invented this shit here. You can buy a pizza with cryptocurrency. I wouldn’t necessarily bet on the government being a step ahead. Bisley got close to something. Someone needed to know how close exactly.”