In this 13th Reacher novel, the former military police major and notorious drifter Jack Reacher grows suspicious of a fellow subway passenger as their train approaches Grand Central Station in New York City. As a shady situation develops, Reacher debates between intervening to save surrounding lives or avoiding the predicament in order to save his own. He confronts a suicide bomber on the nearly deserted Manhattan subway car--a confrontation that will lead him back to the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s and forward to the war on terrorism as he tracks down and eliminates the bad guys.