Tripwire by Lee Child

Garber, the name on the mailbox. Leon Garber, for many years his commanding officer. He recalled their early acquaintance, getting to know each other at backyard barbecues on hot, wet evenings in the Philippines. A slender girl gliding in and out of the shadows around the bleak base house, enough of a woman at fifteen to be utterly captivating but enough of a girl to be totally forbidden. Jodie, Garber’s daughter. His only child. The light of his life. This was Jodie Garber, fifteen years later, all grown up and beautiful and waiting for him at the bottom of a set of cement steps.
    He glanced at the crowd and went down the steps to the lawn.
    “Hello, Reacher,” she said again.
    Her voice was low and strained. Sad, like the scene around her.
    “Hello, Jodie,” he said.
    Then he wanted to ask who died? But he couldn’t frame it in any way which wasn’t going to sound callous, or stupid. She saw him struggling, and nodded.
    “Dad,” she said simply.
    “When?” he asked.
    “Five days ago,” she said. “He was sick the last few months, but it was sudden at the end. A surprise, I guess.”
    He nodded slowly.
    “I’m very sorry,” he said.
    He glanced at the river and the hundred faces in front of him became a hundred faces of Leon Garber. A short, squat, tough man. A wide smile he always used whether he was happy or annoyed or in danger. A brave man, physically and mentally. A great leader. Honest as the day is long, fair, perceptive. Reacher’s role model during his vital formative years. His mentor and his sponsor. His protector. He had gone way out on a limb and promoted him twice in an eighteen-month span which made Reacher the youngest peacetime major anybody could remember. Then he had spread his blunt hands wide and smiled and disclaimed any credit for his ensuing successes.
    “I’m very sorry, Jodie,” he said again.
    She nodded, silently.
    “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I can’t take it in. I saw him less than a year ago. He was in good shape then. He got sick?”
    She nodded again, still silent.
    “But he was always so tough,” he said.
    She nodded, sadly. “He was, wasn’t he? Always so tough.”
    “And not old,” he said.
    “Sixty-four.”
    “So what happened?”
    “His heart,” she said. “It got him in the end. Remember how he always liked to pretend he didn’t have one?”
    Reacher shook his head. “Biggest heart you ever saw.”
    “I found that out,” she said. “When Mom died, we were best friends for ten years. I loved him.”
    “I loved him, too,” Reacher said. “Like he was my dad, not yours.”
    She nodded again. “He still talked about you all the time.”
    Reacher looked away. Stared out at the unfocused shape of the West Point buildings, gray in the haze. He was numb. He was in that age zone where people he knew died. His father was dead, his mother was dead, his brother was dead. Now the nearest thing to a substitute relative was dead, too.
    “He had a heart attack six months ago,” Jodie said. Her eyes clouded and she hooked her long, straight hair behind her ear. “He sort of recovered for a spell, looked pretty good, but really he was failing fast. They were considering a bypass, but he took a turn for the worse and went down too quickly. He wouldn’t have survived the surgery.”
    “I’m very sorry,” he said, for the third time.
    She turned alongside him and threaded her arm through his.
    “Don’t be,” she said. “He was always a very contented guy. Better for him to go fast. I couldn’t see him being happy lingering on.”
    Reacher had a flash in his mind of the old Garber, bustling and raging, a fireball of energy, and he understood how desperate it would have made him to become an invalid. Understood too how that overloaded old heart had finally given up the struggle. He nodded, unhappily.
    “Come and meet some people,” Jodie said. “Maybe you know some of them.”
    “I’m not dressed for this,” he said. “I feel bad. I