But they’d gotten somewhere, because the truck was slowing. Then there was a lurch to the right, like a pull off a highway. There was gear noise and thumping over broken pavement. Cornering forces slammed them around. Holly’s crutch slid and rattled side to side across the ridged metal floor. The truck whined up grades and down slopes, paused at invisible road junctions, accelerated, braked hard, turned a tight left, and then drove slowly down a straight lumpy surface for a quarter hour.
“Farming country somewhere,” Reacher said.
“Obviously,” Holly said. “But where?”
Reacher just shrugged at her in the gloom. The truck slowed almost to a stop and turned a tight right. The road surface got worse. The truck bounced forward maybe a hundred and fifty yards and stopped. There was the sound of the passenger door opening up in front. The engine was still running. The passenger door slammed shut. Reacher heard a big door opening and the truck moved slowly forward. The engine noise boomed against metal walls. Reacher heard the door noise again and the engine noise echoed louder. Then it shut down and died away into stillness.
“We’re in some sort of a barn,” Reacher said. “With the door closed.”
Holly nodded impatiently.
“I know that,” she said. “A cow barn. I can smell it.” Reacher could hear muffled conversation outside the truck. Footsteps walking around to the rear doors. A key going into the lock. The handle turning. A blinding flood of light as the door opened. Reacher blinked against the sudden electric brightness and stared out across Holly at three men, two Glocks and a shotgun.
“Out,” the leader said.
They struggled out, handcuffed together. Not easy. They were stiff and sore and cramped from bracing themselves against the wheel well for six solid hours. Holly’s knee had gone altogether. Reacher started back for her crutch.
“Leave it there, asshole,” the leader said.
The guy sounded tired and irritable. Reacher gave him a steady look and shrugged. Holly stiffened and tried her weight on her leg. Gasped in pain and gave it up. Glanced impersonally at Reacher like he was some kind of a tree and stretched around with her free left hand to hold on tight around his neck. It was the only way she could stay upright.
“Excuse me, please,” she muttered.
The leader gestured with his Glock over to his left. They were in a large cow barn. No cows, but they hadn’t been long absent, judging by the odor. The truck was parked in a wide central aisle. Either side were cow stalls, roomy, made up from galvanized steel piping efficiently welded together. Reacher twisted and held Holly’s waist and the two of them hopped and staggered over to the stall the guy with the Glock was pointing at. Holly seized a railing and held on, embarrassed.
“Excuse me,” she muttered again.
Reacher nodded and waited. The driver with the shotgun covered them and the leader walked away. He heaved the big door open and stepped through. Reacher caught a glimpse of darkening sky. Cloudy. No clue at all to their location.
The leader was gone five minutes. There was silence in the barn. The other two guys stood still, weapons out and ready. The jumpy guy with the Glock was staring at Reacher’s face. The driver with the shotgun was staring at Holly’s breasts. Smiling a half-smile. Nobody spoke. Then the leader stepped back in. He was carrying a second pair of handcuffs and two lengths of heavy chain.
“You’re making a big mistake here,” Holly said to him. “I’m an FBI agent.”
“I know that, bitch,” the guy said. “Now be quiet.”
“You’re committing a serious crime,” Holly said.
“I know that, bitch,” the guy said again. “And I told you to be quiet. Another word out of you, I’ll shoot this guy in the head. Then you can spend the night with a corpse chained to your wrist, OK?”
He waited until she nodded silently. Then the driver with the shotgun took up position behind them and the leader unlocked their cuff and freed their wrists. He looped one of the chains around the stall railing and locked the ends into the spare half of the cuff dangling from Reacher’s left arm. Pulled it and rattled it to check it was secure. Then he dragged Holly two stalls away and used the new cuffs and the second length of chain to lock her to the railing, twenty feet from Reacher. Her knee gave way and she fell heavily with a gasp of pain onto the dirty straw. The leader ignored her. Just walked back to where Reacher was chained up. Stood right in front of him.
“So who the hell are you, asshole?” he said.
Reacher didn’t reply. He knew the keys to both cuffs were in this guy’s pocket. He knew it would take him about a second and a half to snap his neck with the loop of chain hanging off his wrist. But the other two guys were out of reach. One Glock, one shotgun, too far away to grab before he’d unlocked himself, too near to get a chance to do that. He was dealing with a reasonably efficient set of opponents. So he just shrugged and looked at the straw at his feet. It was clogged with dung.
“I asked you a damn question,” the guy said.
Reacher looked at him. In the corner of his eye, he saw the jumpy guy ratchet his Glock upward a degree or two.
“I asked you a question, asshole,” the leader said again, quietly.
The jumpy guy’s Glock was jutting forward. Then it was straight out, shoulder-high. Aimed right at Reacher’s head. The muzzle was trembling through a small jerky circle, but probably not trembling enough to make the guy miss. Not from that sort of a close distance. Reacher looked from one guy to the other. The guy with the shotgun tore his attention away from Holly’s breasts. He raised the weapon to his hip. Pointed it in Reacher’s direction. It was an Ithaca 37. Twelve-bore. The five-shot version with the pistol grip and no shoulder stock. The guy racked a round into the chamber. The crunch-crunch of the mechanism was loud in the barn. It echoed off the metal walls. Died into silence. Reacher saw the trigger move through the first eighth-inch of its short travel.
“Name?” the leader asked.
The shotgun trigger tightened another eighth. If it fired on that trajectory, Reacher was going to lose both his legs and most of his stomach.
“Name?” the leader asked for the second time.
It was a twelve-bore, wouldn’t kill him outright, but he’d bleed to death in the dirty straw. Femoral artery gone, about a minute, maybe a minute and a half. In those circumstances, no real reason to make a big deal out of giving this guy a name.
“Jack Reacher,” he said.
The leader nodded in satisfaction, like he’d achieved a victory.
“You know this bitch?” he asked.
Reacher glanced across at Holly.
“Better than I know some people,” he said. “I just spent six hours handcuffed to her.”
“You some kind of a wise guy, asshole?” the leader asked.
Reacher shook his head.
“Innocent passerby,” he said. “I never saw her before.”
“You with the Bureau?” the guy asked.
Reacher shook his head again.
“I’m a doorman,” he said. “Club back in Chicago.”
“You sure, asshole?” the guy said.
Reacher nodded.
“I’m sure,” he said. “I’m a wise enough guy that I can recall what I do for a living, one day to the next.”
There was silence for a long moment. Tension. Then the jumpy guy with the Glock came out of his shooting stance. The driver with the shotgun swung his weapon down toward the straw on the floor. He turned his head and went back to staring at Holly’s breasts. The leader nodded at Reacher.
“OK, asshole,” he said. “You behave yourself, you stay alive for now. Same for the bitch. Nothing’s going to happen to anybody. Not just yet.”
The three men regrouped in the center aisle and walked out of the barn. Before they locked the door, Reacher saw the sky again, briefly. Darker. Still cloudy. No stars. No clues. He tested the chain. It was securely fastened to the handcuff at one end and the railing at the other. Maybe seven feet long. He could hear Holly
doing the same experiment. Tightening her chain and scoping out the radius it gave her to move through.
“Would you mind looking away?” she called across.
“Why?” he called back.
There was a short silence. Then a sigh. Part embarrassed, part exasperated.
“Do you really need to ask?” she called. “We were in that truck six hours, and it didn’t have a bathroom, did it?”
“You going in the next stall?” he asked.
“Obviously,” she said.
“OK,” he said. “You go right and I’ll go left. I won’t look if you won’t.”
THE THREE MEN came back to the barn within an hour with food. Some kind of a beef stew in a metal messtin, one for each of them. Mostly rare steak chunks and a lot of hard carrots. Whoever these guys were, cooking was not their major talent. Reacher was clear on that. They handed out an enamel mug of weak coffee, one for each of them. Then they got in the truck. Started it up and backed it out of the barn. Turned the bright lights off. Reacher caught a glimpse of dim emptiness outside. Then they pulled the big door shut and locked it. Left their prisoners in the dark and the quiet.
“Gas station,” Holly called from twenty feet away. “They’re filling up for the rest of the ride. Can’t do it with us inside. They figure we’d be banging on the side and shouting out for help.”
Reacher nodded and finished his coffee. Sucked the fork from the stew clean. Bent one of the prongs right out and put a little kink into the end with pressure from his thumb-nail. It made a little hook. He used it to pick the lock on his handcuff. Took him eighteen seconds, beginning to end. He dropped the cuff and the chain in the straw and walked over to Holly. Bent down and unlocked her wrist. Twelve seconds. Helped her to her feet.
“Doorman, right?” she said.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s take a look around.”
“I can’t walk,” she said. “My crutch is in the damn truck.”
Reacher nodded. She stayed in her stall, clinging to the railing. He scouted around the big empty barn. It was a sturdy metal structure, built throughout with the same flecked galvanized metal as the stall railings. The big door was locked from the outside. Probably a steel bar pad-locked into place. No problem if he could get at the padlock, but he was inside and the padlock was outside.
The walls met the floor with a right-angle flange bolted firmly into the concrete. The walls themselves were horizontal metal panels maybe thirty feet long, maybe four feet tall. They were joined together with more right-angle flanges bolted together. Each flange gave a lip about six inches deep. Like a giant stepladder, with the treads four feet apart.
He climbed the wall, hauling himself quickly upward, flange to flange, four feet at a time. The way out of the barn was right there at the top of the wall, seven sections up, twenty-eight feet off the ground. There was a ventilation slot between the top of the wall and the overhanging slope of the metal roof. About eighteen inches high. A person could roll horizontally through the gap like an old-fashioned high jumper, hang down outside and drop twenty feet to the ground below.
He could do that, but Holly Johnson couldn’t. She couldn’t even walk over to the wall. She couldn’t climb it and she sure as hell couldn’t hang down outside and drop twenty feet onto a set of wrecked cruciate ligaments.
“Get going,” she called up to him. “Get out of here, right now.”
He ignored her and peered out through the slot into the darkness. The overhanging eaves gave him a low horizon. Empty country as far as the eye could see. He climbed down and went up the other three walls in turn. The second side gave out onto country just as empty as the first. The third had a view of a farmhouse. White shingles. Lights in two windows. The fourth side of the barn looked straight up the farm track. About a hundred and fifty yards to a featureless road. Emptiness beyond. In the far distance, a single set of headlight beams. Flicking and bouncing. Widely spaced. Growing larger. Getting nearer. The truck, coming back.
“Can you see where we are?” Holly called up to him.
“No idea,” Reacher called back. “Farming country somewhere. Could be anywhere. Where do they have cows like this? And fields and stuff?”
“Is it hilly out there?” Holly called. “Or flat?”
“Can’t tell,” Reacher said. “Too dark. Maybe a little hilly.”
“Could be Pennsylvania,” Holly said. “They have hills and cows there.”
Reacher climbed down the fourth wall and walked back to her stall.
“Get out of here, for Christ’s sake,” she said to him. “Raise the alarm.”
He shook his head. He heard the diesel slowing to turn into the track.
“That may not be the best option,” he said.
She stared at him.
“Who the hell gave you an option?” she said. “I’m ordering you. You’re a civilian and I’m FBI and I’m ordering you to get yourself to safety right now.”
Reacher just shrugged and stood there.
“I’m ordering you, OK?” Holly said again. “You going to obey me?”
Reacher shook his head again.
“No,” he said.
She glared at him. Then the truck was back. They heard the roar of the diesel and the groan of the springs on the rough track outside. Reacher locked Holly’s cuff and ran back to his stall. They heard the truck door slam and footsteps on the concrete. Reacher chained his wrist to the railing and bent the fork back into shape. When the barn door opened and the light came on, he was sitting quietly on the straw.
7
THE MATERIAL USED to pack the twenty-two-inch cavity between the outside of the old walls and the inside of the new walls was hauled over from its storage shed in an open pickup truck. There was a ton of it, and it took four trips. Each consignment was carefully unloaded by a team of eight volunteers. They worked together like an old-fashioned bucket brigade attending a fire. They passed each box along, hand to hand, into the building, up the stairs to the second floor. The boxes were stacked in the hallway outside the modified corner room. The three builders opened each box in turn and carried the material into the room. Then they stacked it carefully into the wide spaces behind the new softwood framing. The unloaders generally paused for a moment and watched them, grateful for a moment of rest.
The process lasted most of the afternoon, because of the amount of material and the care they took in moving it. When the last of the four loads was stacked upstairs, the eight volunteers dispersed. Seven of them headed for the mess hall. The eighth stretched in the last of the afternoon sun and strolled off. It was his habit. Four or five times a week, he would take a long walk on his own, especially after a period of heavy work. It was assumed to be his way of relaxing.
He strolled in the forest. There was a beaten path running west through the silence. He followed it for a half-mile. Then he paused and stretched again. He used the weary twisting motion of a tired man easing a sore back to glance around a complete circle. Then he stepped sideways off the path. Stopped strolling. Started an urgent walk. He dodged trees and followed a wide looping course west, then north. He went straight for a particular tree. There was a large flat rock bedded in needles at its base. He stood still and waited. Listened hard. Then he ducked down and heaved the rock to one side. Underneath was a rectangular shape wrapped in oilcloth. He unfolded the cloth and took out a small handheld radio. Pulled the stubby antenna and hit a button and waited. Then he whispered a long and excited message.
WHEN THE OLD building was quiet again, the employer stopped by with some strange new instructions. The three builders asked no questions. Just listened carefully. The guy was entitled to get what he wanted. The new instructions meant a certain amount of work would have to be redone. In the circumstances, not a problem. Even less of a problem when the employer offered a cash bonus on top of the bid price.
The three builders worked fast and it took them less time than it might have. But it was already evening by the time they finished. The junior man
stayed behind to pack tools and coil cables. The crew chief and the other guy drove north in the dark and parked exactly where the employer had told them to. Got out of their truck and waited in the silence.
“In here,” a voice called. The employer. “All the way in back.”
They went in. The place was dark. The guy was waiting for them, somewhere in the shadows.
“These boards any use to you?” the employer asked.
There was a stack of old pine boards, way in back.
“They’re good lumber,” the employer said. “Maybe you can use them. Like recycling, you know?”
There was something else on the ground beside the stack of boards. Something strange. The two carpenters stared. Strange humped shapes. The two carpenters stared at the strange humped shapes, then they stared at each other. Then they turned around. The employer smiled at them and raised a dull black automatic.
THE RESIDENT AGENT at the FBI’s remote satellite station was a smart enough guy to realize it was going to be important. He didn’t know exactly how or why it was going to be important, but an undercover informant doesn’t risk a radio message from a concealed location for no reason. So he copied the details into the FBI computer system. His report flashed across the computer network and lodged in the massive mainframe on the first floor of the FBI’s Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. The Hoover Building database handles more new reports in a day than there are seconds, so it took a long moment for the FBI software to scan through and pick out the key words. Once it had done so, it lodged the bulletin high in its memory and waited.
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