The agents and the police hold Reacher at gunpoint. The lead agent is armed with a tranquilizer dart gun, which Reacher recognizes from a National Geographic program that featured researchers tranquilizing gorillas. Reacher knows the dart gun has only one round.

Reacher tries to distract the lead agent by talking to him, but the agent shoots him in the leg at once. Reacher collapses, losing consciousness.

A cuffed Reacher awakens in a cell and realizes he has been unconscious for about eight hours. There are two adjacent cells, both of them empty. Reacher studies his surroundings and sees that he is being surveilled. When Reacher tries to struggle against his cuffs, a medical technician to give him a painkiller.

Two of the federal agents soon appear and lead Reacher to another room, where the lead agent interrogates Reacher about his identity. The lead agent’s questions frame Reacher as a non-US citizen, threatening him over the legal consequences of his actions. Reacher is unfazed, turning the questions into insults against the agent. The agent then asks what Reacher did with Susan’s real memory stick, having reviewed the one that Reacher had in his possession and found it empty. Once again, Reacher is uncooperative, angering the agent. Finally, the agent accuses Reacher of working with Lila Hoth, which Reacher denies. From this, Reacher deduces that the federal agents have lost track of the Hoths, which the lead agent admits to. The agent indicates that Lila is dangerous and that they need to find her and the memory stick to stop the leak. Reacher once again denies that he knows anything, but the agent doesn’t believe him. A subordinate agent shoots Reacher again with the dart gun.

Reacher wakes up again in the cell. He discovers that Detective Lee and Jake are now being held in adjacent cells. Lee, who believes the room is bugged, reluctantly tells Reacher they are in the basement of a decommissioned firehouse in Greenwich Village. She also deduces that their captors work directly for the Secretary of Defense.

Reacher learns that Lee was taken from home at 2 pm while she was still asleep, and Jake was abducted from his workplace at noon. Later, their captors provide them with deli sandwiches and bottled water. As Lee reminisces about her experience of the September 11 attacks, Reacher reviews what he knows about the Hoths and Sansom thus far. Jake and Lee are taken away for interrogation separately. Jake signals to Reacher with his fingers, telling him where the agents are stationed and what kind of weapons they have.

When the agents take Reacher for another interrogation, he immediately attacks. He shoves the heavy table into two of the seated agents, pinning them to their chairs. He then tears the dart gun from the third agent’s hands and, while the man is exposed, knees him in the groin and then in the face. Reacher uses the captured weapon to shoot the lead agent in the chest before beating the second agent unconscious with the gun’s butt. A search of the agents and an adjacent office reveals no keys, firearms, or identification.

Reacher returns to the cells and tells Lee and Jake he can break them out. After using computer cords to tie up two of the unconscious agents, Reacher leaves the firehouse barefoot. He takes a cab to a Home Depot, where he purchases a five-foot steel pry bar and a pair of rubber gardening clogs.

Once he returns to the firehouse, Reacher ambushes the technician and forces him to open a medical locker, where he finds darts and nitrogen capsules to reload the dart gun. He tranquilizes the technician and the two agents. Using the pry bar, he systematically breaks the weak spot welds on the floors of the cells, creating an opening for Lee and Jake to escape.

To better blend in, Lee takes a pair of an agent’s shoes, and Jake changes into the medical technician’s clothes. The three escape the firehouse and narrowly avoid being spotted by two arriving FBI agents. After Reacher withdraws $300 from an ATM, Lee buys an emergency cell phone charger for Leonid’s phone. She leaves a message for Docherty.

Taking refuge in a bistro, Reacher explains what he knows about Sansom, the Korengal Valley, and the events of March 1983. Lee grimly concludes that because only the three of them know the truth, the government can easily make them disappear without a trace.

Lee receives a long text message from Docherty. He reports that the four men found dead under the FDR Drive were linked to Lila Hoth through billing records found in their offices. More importantly, Homeland Security has no record of anyone named Hoth entering the country on the flight Lila claimed to have taken. Phone records confirm Susan never placed any calls to London, contradicting Lila’s claim.

Realizing the Hoths’ entire story was a fabrication, Reacher, Lee, and Jake flee on the train. Reacher concludes that the Hoths intentionally orchestrated his encounter with Leonid to implicate him in their scheme. The trio gets off at 33rd Street and finds a run-down hotel to hide in for the night.

Reacher proposes that their best option is to contact Congressman Sansom for help. He instructs Lee to call Sansom’s office in the morning and use hints to secret information to force a direct conversation with the congressman.

Reacher elaborates on his theory, recalling how Springfield warned him about continuing his investigation. Reacher believes that Springfield was hinting at a present secret that could affect Sansom. He also believes Sansom doesn’t trust the DoD agents and was discreetly seeking an outside ally. He theorizes that Sansom’s apparent “slips of the tongue” (320) during their meeting in Washington D.C. were actually deliberate clues intended to test and recruit Reacher.

Reacher then announces he is leaving to act as bait for Lila Hoth’s crew, hoping to draw them out. He tells Lee and Jake to meet him at Madison Square Park at 10 am and leaves the hotel to walk the city streets alone.

Reacher wanders through Manhattan, trying to make himself visible to Lila Hoth’s people while avoiding the police. Near Broadway and 22nd Street, he spots a black Crown Victoria he identifies as a federal vehicle.

Two agents in suits get out of the vehicle, display their badges, and identify themselves as federal agents before confronting him. When Reacher puts a hand in his pocket for his MetroCard, the agents draw their weapons. At that moment, Reacher feels the vibration of an approaching uptown subway train and prepares to make his escape. Just as the train arrives, Reacher uses the last credit on his old MetroCard to pass through a high, unmanned turnstile. Because the full-height bars cannot be jumped, the federal agents are trapped on the other side. He boards the R train and escapes.

To avoid a police dragnet, he gets off at 59th and Fifth, waits ten minutes for the initial search to pass, and then exits to the street. Reacher deduces that Susan was never heading for the Four Seasons Hotel but to a secret townhouse nearby. He begins to methodically search the quiet, residential streets of the Upper East Side for the Hoths’ base. While Reacher is walking on 56th Street, a car stops and drops Leonid in front of him.

A second man gets out and positions himself behind Reacher, trapping him. Both men quickly arm themselves with brass knuckles. Leonid offers Reacher a chance to surrender and come see Lila, but Reacher refuses. After a tense verbal standoff, the two men lunge at him simultaneously.

In the ensuing fight, Reacher uses a series of brutal punches, elbow strikes, and a headbutt to knock both assailants unconscious. To ensure they won’t be a threat again soon, he dislocates both of their right elbows. After taking their cell phones, Reacher finds a pen in their rental car and writes a message for Lila to reach him on Leonid’s forehead. He then steals their car and phones.

Reacher abandons the car near the FDR Drive, hoping the police will find it and recover forensic evidence. At 5 am, while Reacher is resting in Union Square, Lila calls one of the stolen phones. She accuses him of starting a war and confirms her crew has already fled the country, making her “fireproof.” She also claims Peter Molina is with her but evades questions about whether he is alive.

Shortly after the call ends, a police car enters the square and officers begin checking on people. Reacher keeps the phones but heads for the subway, which he soon realizes was a bad mistake.

Inside the station, newspaper headlines announce a federal manhunt for him, Lee, and Jake. Two police officers spot Reacher. Reacher swipes a new MetroCard and makes his way onto a crowded uptown subway platform. He is quickly surrounded by eight police officers who begin closing in, carefully moving commuters out of the way.

Reacher positions himself at the platform’s edge as an uptown train roars into the station. At the same moment, a downtown train appears on the opposite track, approaching from the other direction. Trapped by the police with trains bearing down on him from both sides, Reacher jumps down onto the tracks and travels to the platform across, narrowly avoiding the two speeding trains. Onlookers on the opposite platform pull him to safety and cheer as he runs off.

Reacher spends the next four hours eluding capture by moving between various shops and diners. At 10 am, he meets Lee and Jake in Madison Square Park.

Lee shares new intelligence from Docherty: The four men from Lila Hoth’s crew flew to Tajikistan. Furthermore, Homeland Security data reveals the Hoths entered the US three months prior on passports from Turkmenistan, not Ukraine. Reacher concludes the Hoths are from Afghanistan and that Lila’s story was partly true: Svetlana was a mujahideen fighter who committed atrocities during the war, not a victim. When Jake asks about Peter, Reacher urges him to be realistic, adding that the mujahideen went on to become the Taliban and Al Qaeda.