by Scott Blade
The giant man didn’t scare him, even though he was scary, because the man had a nice manner. He was kind to the boy. He had put blankets on him and made sure that the boy was comfortable. Plus there was a Mexican police officer with him. At least she looked Mexican. She had dark hair and brown eyes. But she was somehow different from the Mexicans that he had known his whole life. And she spoke perfect English.
They had waited for the boy to get his breath back and his warmth.
The woman said, “Where are you from, honey?”
The small boy didn’t answer. His English was broken, but he understood that they wanted to know where he lived.
The monster man asked, “Where are your parents?”
The boy said nothing.
The monster man knelt down beside him and asked, “Do you remember anything?”
The boy scrunched his face in a funny expression that the monster man had never seen before.
Then he said, “Loud noise. Engine. Vrrrrm. Vrrrrm.”
The monster man looked at the cop.
She knelt down closer to the boy and asked, “Noise?”
The boy said, “Copper. Copper. Boom.”
The police woman asked, “Boom?”
Then the monster man folded his hands together and separated them in a violent, swift movement like an explosion. The small boy knew what he was asking and nodded.
He said, “Plosion.”
The woman police officer asked, “Explosion? Where?”
The monster man said, “Where did you hear the explosion?”
The small boy said, “Mi amigo. He protect. He protect.”
“Amigo,” the police woman asked. “Where is he now?”
The small boy swallowed and said, “Él está muerto.”
The monster man looked at the cop and said, “He is dead.”
She replied in a hushed voice, “Maybe it was his father?”
The monster man asked, “What’s his name?”
The small boy said, “Miguel.”
Then he paused a beat and said, “Pero algunos chicos le llamaban Jacobs.”
The policewoman froze and turned to the monster man and asked, “What?”
The monster man spoke Spanish because he translated. He said, “But some guys call him Jacobs. Mike Jacobs, our missing agent.”
Chapter 27
The snow piled up to Reacher’s shins. He knew that just by eyeballing it from the community center’s front windows. Even though everything outside was black from the power outage, he could still see because at the moment the stars shone through the break in the cloud cover.
The storm had a major pocket in the center that made it seem like it had blown past, but according to Amita’s father it was just the beginning. He had lived on the reservation all of his life and had experienced plenty of snowstorms.
“Plus,” he had added, “The guy on the radio said that there was more.”
The main street was far too snowed over to traverse by car. Reacher couldn’t see the entire road, only the whiteness of the snow in the parking lot that disappeared into the darkness like a white tongue vanishing down the back of someone’s throat.
Amita came up behind Reacher and tapped him on the back of the shoulder.
He looked back at her. She held out a police coat with the tribal police patches on it and a nice thick lining made of wool that had aged from a white to a sandy color.
She handed it to him along with a brown wool cap.
She said, “These are extras, my father’s. You should wear them. It’s far too cold out there for you to just wear that.”
He said, “Thank you.”
He grabbed the coat and the cap and draped the coat over his left forearm and held the cap in his left hand. He turned and looked down at her.
She said, “We’ve got to get out there. If the boy was talking about an explosion, there could be people who got hurt. We need to check it out.”
Reacher said, “I agree. We’d better get going now. This weather won’t stay quiet all night. We should start at the Jacobs’ family house. You said that he had a house somewhere?”
Amita said, “It’s up on the mountain, far away from almost everyone else.”
Reacher said, “Then that’s what I suggest. If he’s in trouble, he might be holing up there.”
“What about this kid? How does he fit in?”
Reacher said, “I have no idea. But we aren’t going to get the answers from him. We need to find Jacobs.”
“Agreed.”
“How do we get up there?”
Amita said, “Horseback is the only way.”
“What about snowmobile?”
“No snowmobile. The road is the only way smooth enough for snowmobile. I know that snowmobiles can traverse rugged terrain, but not like this. Trust me. Horseback is the best way. The terrain is far too rugged.”
Reacher shrugged. “Sounds good. Let’s get going. Where do we get horses?”
“The police department has some on standby. They belong to us but a local rancher stables them for us.”
Reacher said, “Where?”
“Just down the street. Not far. We’ll walk there. I’ve radioed ahead and told the rancher. He’ll have the horses saddled and ready to ride by the time we walk there. It’ll take us at least 15 minutes in the snow.”
Reacher stayed quiet. He nodded.
Amita said, “Also, my father wants me to give you a gun. We’ll be up there alone. He has to stay behind. He’s the only other officer. It’ll just be the two of us.”
Before Amita said another word, Reacher drew the Walther P99 and showed it to her.
Amita asked, “Where the hell did you get that?”
Reacher said, “The CIA agent gave it to me.”
“Is that the James Bond gun?”
Reacher said, “It is.”
“That’s a peashooter.”
“Hey. It’s not that bad. Not as bad as the smaller Sean Connery gun. This one has plenty of stopping power. Besides, if it’s good enough for 007, then it’s good enough for me.”
“Whatever. Does it work?”
Reacher said, “I haven’t field tested it.”
Amita said, “Better check it. Always check your weapon first. Don’t use an untested gun.”
“I know. I know. Let’s go outside and I’ll try it.”
They walked to the outer doors and Reacher stopped and slipped the Walther P99 back into the front pocket in his trousers. He opened up the extra police coat and slipped it on. The inner lining was nice and thick and warm. The coat was a decent fit. The sleeves were a little too short, but he had expected that. There weren’t a lot of clothes in the world that did fit his arms. Not in the greater sense of the world’s size and population, like when he thought about how many clothes were out there in the world. The world had seven billion people living in it and most of them had more than one set of clothes. Some had hundreds of items. Even thousands. Reacher wasn’t sure. He could imagine some celebrities owning maybe even a million sets of clothes. Some rich old actress. Collecting clothes her whole career. She could have mansions full of clothes.
Seven billion people on the planet. If everyone owned only two sets of clothes, then there would be fourteen billion sets of clothes in the world. Considering that most people owned lots of clothes and then others owned way more, Reacher couldn’t even calculate or imagine how many sets of clothes that there were in the world. A trillion? A hundred trillion? Who knows?
He was grateful to have the warm police coat even if it was a little short in the sleeves.
He followed Amita out into the snow. They walked to the rear of her police cruiser and stopped at the trunk. She pointed to a thick wooden fencepost at the rear of the community center. It was about 60 yards away.
She said, “There. Let’s go there.”
They walked through the snow and closer to the fence. When they got 25 yards from it, she stopped and pointed at it.
“Shoot at tha
t.”
Reacher squinted his eyes so he could see and gazed at the fence and saw older bullet holes in the hoary wood. A device that Amita used regularly for target practice, he presumed.
He wasn’t sure about where she had imagined a bad guy to be, but it if was the obvious place, the spot where a bad guy could stand clearly, then she was a great shot. There was one space with many bullet holes clustered around it like that was where she imagined a heart to be.
Reacher pulled the P99 out of his pocket and rechecked the magazine and loaded it and cocked it. He looked down the sights at the fence. He braced the gun with one hand and held it out with the other. He didn’t need to brace himself for it. The P99 was a decent handgun. No reason to worry about muzzle climb or kick. It was a standard 9mm piece—lightweight and compact.
He breathed in and squeezed the trigger. Reacher hadn’t fired a gun in six months. But somewhere in his genes he knew that he would fire a gun sometime in the future. From what he knew of his father, remembered about his mother, and predicted about his future, he knew that guns were a vital part of that, no matter what.
The bullet rocketed through the air and the gunshot rang out and echoed through the trees and across the tops of the nearby buildings. Reacher fired only once. He tilted his head and looked beyond the barrel at the target. His shot had plugged a standard 9mm hole into the wood.
Amita giggled.
He turned and looked at her and asked, “What?”
“You call that shooting?”
“I hit the target.”
“Your shot is six inches from mine, which is obviously the center mass of that board.”
Reacher said, “I didn’t realize that you wanted me to aim. I was only trying to hit the fence.”
Amita said, “Whatever. Try it again.”
Reacher said, “Better that I don’t. The gun only holds 15 rounds in the magazine. Now it’s chambered and there are 14 rounds left in it. We might need them.”
Amita shrugged and then she said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
Reacher pocketed the P99, but this time he slipped it into his coat pocket. There was plenty of room in there, more than in his pants pocket.
They faced east and walked beyond the community center, along the road for a while, and then they turned north. Amita led the way. She walked through snow with ease like she was born in it. Reacher took slower steps, partially because he was heavy and his feet kept sinking into the snow. He felt like the tin man after a long period of being rusted over and not having any oil. If only there was an oil can for him to use. He wondered how Amita walked so gracefully through the terrain. Maybe it was because she was lighter. Maybe it was because she was used to it. Maybe her boots had some special winter soles. At any rate she was much faster and a lot more graceful than he was.
They walked for 39 minutes and 47 seconds, traversing hilly terrain and walking between some of the thickest trees that Reacher had ever seen, in real life or on TV or on the Internet or in magazines.
Amita twisted and bobbed and walked through a clearing. Reacher followed. They crossed over a snow-filled ditch and Reacher saw a long wooden fence made of two parallel posts like the ones that he had seen in old Western movies on a cattle ranch. Then he saw a large brick house with snow-covered windows and smoke coming out of a chimney.
He heard sounds coming from the house. Television sounds. The guy still had power. As Reacher neared the house he saw and heard a generator underneath a canopy at the rear of the house.
Amita pointed beyond the house to a stable. She said, “There.”
Reacher saw the rancher. He was a short guy with features similar to Henry Little’s, only he was actually little. Same facial structure, like they could have been brothers.
The guy was smoking a cigarette and standing in a large doorway that led into the stable.
He watched them approach, took one last big puff from his cigarette, and flicked it into the snow. Reacher guessed it didn’t make any sense to put it out first. The snow wasn’t flammable.
The cigarette landed three feet from the guy. The flame died in a matter of seconds, partially because of the snow and partially because it was freezing out. That was the first time that Reacher had realized just how warm his new coat was. He felt much more comfortable than before. The temperature was cold, and that was an understatement to a guy like him, a guy who had never lived in cold weather, not like the mountains of northern Wyoming.
Amita stopped and talked to the guy for a moment and Reacher shook his hand and they introduced themselves.
The guy showed them to the horses. There were three of them, two large black ones and one pinto, with white and black coloring.
Amita asked, “Why are there three saddled up?”
The rancher said, “Your father said that you might need backup.”
“Backup?”
The rancher said, “You know, like reinforcements. He said that you guys were looking for a dangerous man.”
“No. We don’t need that. You stay behind. We can handle it.”
The rancher said, “But your father said...”
“I don’t care what he said. Tell him that I made you stay behind. Tell him that you went and everything was kosher. I don’t care, but you can’t go.”
“But what about the horses? The terrain?”
Amita rolled her eyes and said, “We’ll be fine. I’ve ridden horses before and I’ve lived here my whole life. You know that. No more arguing. We need to get going.”
The rancher shrugged and said nothing else about it. He turned and pointed at the horses and said, “You know what to do.”
Then he turned and strolled off back toward the house. He looked defeated and let down like a big kid not getting his way. Maybe he wanted to go. A dangerous mission probably sounded exciting to him. Maybe the guy never had any visitors. Not much excitement in his life. And therefore he jumped at the opportunity to do her father a favor and watch over her on this excursion. But Amita was right. As a police officer, it was her duty to protect the citizens of the reservation. She made the right call. Reacher didn’t know what to expect when they got to Jacobs’ family house. Maybe they’d find a CIA agent and maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d find danger and maybe they wouldn’t. The only thing that Reacher felt pretty positive about was that they weren’t going to find a CIA agent playing hooky. Which was the best case scenario, but playing hooky was something that high school kids did. People with regular jobs. Sometimes even cops and sometimes even soldiers, but never government agents of the most elite secret agency in the world. CIA recruits might have been guilty of playing hooky, but they probably never made it to a second day of being a recruit, much less a regular field agent. This wasn’t kid stuff.
Amita led Reacher to the horses, grabbed the reins on the pinto, and tugged on them. The horse huffed a low rumbling sound and followed her lead out of the stable. Then she looked at Reacher and said, “Grab the other one.”
Reacher assumed that it didn’t matter which horse and he reached for the younger-looking one and followed Amita’s lead. They all walked out of the stables and followed the snowy path that led off back into the trees and up the nearest peak.
Amita used her left foot in the stirrup and pulled herself up on the horse. Then she looked at Reacher, who seemed clueless.
She asked, “Ever rode a horse?”
“Once, a long time ago. I was a kid. I get the mechanics of it; I just haven’t tried in many years.”
She said, “Well. Come on. We don’t have all day. Maybe another two hours by the look of the weather and it’s going to take us 45 minutes to get to Jacobs’ house.”
Reacher shrugged and grabbed the horn with one hand and hauled himself up onto the horse. He pivoted one foot and launched himself over the top of the saddle. Then he righted himself until he was comfortable. The animal moved and shifted to counter his weight.
Amita laughed and smiled and started to make a wisecrack, but she just exhaled instead a
nd shook her head. Then she kicked the horse gently and steered it off toward the path.
She called back to him, “Come on, city boy. Giddyap.”
Reacher smiled. City boy? No one had ever called him that before. But then again she didn’t know that he was from the rural corner of a rural state.
The two of them traversed through the ranch and into the trees. It only took about five minutes before they saw their first dead body.
Chapter 28
It was a dead dog.
Reacher and Amita stared down from their perch on their horses at a half-frozen dead Siberian Husky. Its tongue rolled out of its mouth and across its sharp canines. The tongue was the color of light blue. Reacher guessed that the poor animal hadn’t been dead very long. Less than two hours probably, mainly because it wasn’t covered in snow yet. Then again, the snow had slowed and the heavy tree branches above could’ve acted as an umbrella. Also, the cold weather could have preserved it or it could’ve made it look older than it was by turning parts of it blue.
Amita asked, “What happened to it?”
Reacher said, “There’s blood all underneath its hindquarters. See?”
He pointed at a deep black spot that sank way down in the snow.
He spun slowly and stumbled about and slid off of the horse. Amita followed suit, only she did it with the grace of an experience rider—one fluid action.
They huddled around the dog.
Reacher asked, “Recognize it?”
Amita said, “I don’t know. There are lots of them around here. Popular dog.”
Reacher nodded. He looked at the neck and said, “No tag.”
“They chew them off. Hard to keep a collar on a Husky. They won’t stop until they get out of it.”
Reacher stayed quiet.
Amita said, “No smell.”
Reacher said, “Too cold. The snow has buried part of the dog and probably masked the smell. So I’m guessing that he’s been dead for less than four hours.”