by Lee Child
Their walkie-talkie hissed at them. Moynahan put his binoculars down and picked it up. He said, “Go ahead.”
The man with the jeans and the hair said, “I need you boys to stay up there until the morning train. Your replacements are late.”
Moynahan looked at the Cadillac driver. Who shrugged. The third morning. Panic had turned to routine.
Moynahan said, “OK.”
He put the walkie-talkie down.
He looked at his watch and said, “Twenty minutes.”
He picked up his binoculars and raised his right palm against the sun.
He said, “I got something here.”
The Cadillac driver took a last look at the empty west and turned around. He put his right hand up for shade. The binoculars shook a little. The eastern horizon was bright. The sun was still low enough to roil the air. Worse, with the telephoto optics. There was a tiny square shape on the road, somehow rocking from side to side, but in place. No apparent forward motion. An optical illusion, because of the binoculars. It was a truck, doing maybe forty-five miles an hour. Mostly white. Coming straight at them.
The Cadillac driver said, “Keep an eye on it. Make sure there’s nothing behind.”
He turned back west and pulled up his knees.
He steadied his binoculars.
He said, “Shit, I got something too.”
Moynahan said, “What is it?”
Best guess, it was a red car. Just a dot, tiny in the distance, with low sun winking in its windshield. Close to fifteen miles away. Same thing as the east, rocking in place, no forward motion. An illusion.
He said, “How’s yours doing?”
“Still coming on.”
“Nothing behind it?”
“Can’t tell. Not yet. It could be a whole convoy.”
“Mine too.”
They watched. Distant vehicles on a dead-straight road, head-on, the image magnified but flattened by the binocular lenses. Roiling air, urgent side-to-side rocking, no forward motion, plumes of dust.
Moynahan picked up the walkie-talkie. He clicked the button and when he got the go-ahead he said, “We’ve got incoming vehicles east and west. Moderate speed. Probable ETA about the same as the morning train.”
The man with the jeans and the hair said, “This is it. No brainer. They want us worried about three things at once.”
The Cadillac driver turned and checked east, because Moynahan was on the radio. The truck was still there. Still square, still rocking. No apparent forward motion. Mostly white. But only mostly. There were flashes of other colors.
Familiar purples and oranges.
He said, “Wait.”
Moynahan said, “Wait one, boss.”
The Cadillac driver said, “It’s FedEx. For me.”
Moynahan said, “East is clear, boss. It’s only FedEx. West is still unknown.”
The man with the jeans and the hair said, “Keep an eye on it.”
“Will do.”
Moynahan put the walkie-talkie down. He checked on the FedEx truck, just briefly, and then turned to look west. Maybe two heads would be better than one. The car was still coming. Still far away. Just reflected sun and flashing chrome, and a hint of red. Weak new thermals off the blacktop ahead of it, and a low billow of dust behind it. It could have been anything.
The Cadillac driver broke off and checked the railroad line. Nothing in the north. No walkers. No self-propelled machines. But the southern horizon was winking silver. The morning train, fifteen miles away. Coming up from Oklahoma City. A tiny pinprick disturbance in the air.
He checked east. The FedEx truck was still there, rocking in place.
He said, “I just realized. I’m going to miss the delivery. I’m stuck up here.”
Moynahan said, “Long way to come back tomorrow.” Then he gestured west, with his chin. “This is the slowest car in the world.”
“It’s not slow. They’re timing it. They want to get here with the train. So our attention is divided two ways. Which is why they’re coming in from the west. They don’t need to use the crossing.”
“How far is the train now?”
“The car is closer.”
“But the train is faster.”
The Cadillac driver didn’t answer. It was like the crap they asked in high school. If a car is twelve miles away and traveling at forty-eight miles an hour, and a train is fifteen miles away and doing sixty, which will get here first?
Both of them. It was coordinated. It was a no brainer.
The car kept on coming. The train kept on coming. Vectoring in. Collision course. Way below them in the plaza folks were reporting for duty, scurrying like ants. Guys were coming out of the diner. Getting into their trucks. Smart move. They were sending out a holding party. A roadblock, maybe a mile out. Always better to deal with a problem somewhere else. Unless the car was a decoy. Maybe they were on the train. Like an old Western movie. The sides of the cars fall open, and all kinds of sheriffs burst out on horseback. There would be four guys on the ramp to meet them. Plus one on the blind side, just in case. Should be enough. You all know the plan. You all know it works.
Now the train was big enough to see. It was sunlit on one side, and shadowed on the other. Like the truck and the car it seemed to be jerking side to side, without actually going anywhere. The air was boiling all around it, like a luminescent slipstream.
The car was still coming. Two pick-up trucks were ready to meet it. About a mile out of town, parked side by side, one in each lane. Lined up exactly. Proud. Almost ceremonial. Like stone lions at a mansion gate.
Then they heard the whap-whap-whap of rotor blades.
Chapter 53
Moynahan and the Cadillac driver danced around like crazy men, twisting and turning, like men attacked by bees, looking up, searching the sky for the helicopter. And finding it in two different places.
There were two helicopters.
They were coming in nose down, fast and low, one from the north and east, which was half to the right, and one from the north and west, which was half to the left. Whap-whap-whap. Both looked to be painted black. Glassy cabins, but smoked windows. Below them the wheat was thrashing and boiling in long straight lines, the start of a massive letter V, where the tip of the V looked to be right where they were. The top of Elevator Three.
The car was still coming. The train was still coming.
Their walkie-talkie hissed. The man with the jeans and the hair said, “Stay eyes-on at all times. I need to know what gets out of these things. And where.”
Then the call cut off. They could see the guy far below, tiny and truncated in shape by the downward perspective. His was striding around, his radio up at his face.
Whap-whap-whap.
The car was still coming. The train was still coming. Both getting close. No need for binoculars. Not anymore. The rotors were getting louder, beating out of sync, and the scream of the turbines was breaking through.
Everything getting very close.
Less than a minute, maybe.
A whole bunch of things happened. Moynahan and the Cadillac driver spun around and around, trying to see it all. Trying to stay eyes-on. First the right-hand helicopter pounced ahead on a wide track to the east, sliding in again behind the town and heading due south, full speed, which was pretty damn fast.
Toward the farm.
Then the car reached the roadblock and stopped. It was a red sedan. Domestic. Cheap but supernaturally clean. Therefore a rental. Two of the guys from the diner were leaning down, talking in through the window.
Then the left-hand helicopter pulled away west, and hovered in place, like it was waiting, and then it came back again. Right over the plaza. Hovering low. Real low. Lower than the old concrete giant. They were looking down on it. The noise and the updraft tore at their clothes and knocked them about. The downdraft blasted dirt and crap everywhere. Like a dust storm, right there on Main Street.
Then the FedEx truck crossed the railroad crossing, abou
t thirty yards ahead of the train. Thirty yards from getting T-boned by a thousand tons. The guy didn’t even speed up. It was his regular route. He knew what he was doing.
Then way in the south the right-hand helicopter dropped over the far horizon. On approach to the farm, they guessed, because what else was there?
And then right at their feet the train came in, loud and long, hot and brutal, hissing and clattering and humming and grinding, but for once in its life drowned out by the thump of the blades and the whine of the jets.
The guys from the diner were still talking through the car window.
The train doors opened.
Whap-whap-whap.
No one got out.
Nothing on the blind side.
Whap-whap-whap.
The train doors closed.
The train moved away, sliding out from under their feet, slowly, slowly, car after car.
The guys from the diner were still talking.
The last car rolled away and grew smaller, rocking, as tired rails yielded an inch.
The jets screamed and the helicopter rose up high.
The FedEx truck crossed the railroad crossing again and headed home. Moderate speed. ETA whenever.
The helicopter wheeled away, and banked over, so its downdraft blew sideways, pushing them across the walkway, blasting them with airborne dust and deafening noise. In the south the other helicopter came over the horizon and mirrored the same maneuver. Up, and then over, and then away. Nose down, low and fast. Getting smaller all the time. Flying a brand-new V, where the new tip was pointed far away.
It got suddenly quiet. There was nothing to hear, except the wheat. And the wheat was soothing.
Their walkie-talkie hissed.
Moynahan got it and said, “No one got out of the helicopter. It didn’t even land. No one got out of the train either. Nothing on the blind side.”
Out on the road the guys from the diner were backing their trucks away. The red sedan was nosing through. Coming to town.
Moynahan said, “What’s up with that?”
The man with the jeans and the hair said, “He claims he’s a customer. He brought a lot of money. We’re going to take a look.”
They brought the guy to the diner, but before they let him in they talked among themselves about the helicopters. Everyone was there, apart from Moynahan’s brother. The one who had gotten kicked in the balls and had his gun taken. The discussion was brief, and there was no consensus. There were two trains of thought. Either it was general reconnaissance ahead of a further incursion at a future date, in which case it had likely involved cameras and thermal imaging and ground-penetrating radar, or it was the actual search for Keever itself, which they had long predicted would include the air, in which case it would involve pretty much the same technology, but it would find nothing either, because of the hogs.
Brief.
No consensus.
Either they were coming back, or they weren’t.
No vote was taken.
The guy they showed in looked healthy. Like a guy from the National Geographic channel. Scruffy gray hair, scruffy gray beard. Forty-five, maybe. Weird kind of clothes with a lot of zippers. Bootlaces like mountain-climbing ropes.
He said his name was Torrance.
He said he had ditched his ID. Not just an insurance thing. Although there were certain clauses in his policy. But mostly he wanted to leave people guessing. That was his aim. No trace at all. His paper trail stopped seven hundred miles ago. A small fire, in the bathroom sink in a Nevada motel. All gone. He had driven onward only by night, to minimize risk. He wanted to leave people unsure. And inconvenienced. Seven long years, before a legal presumption.
The man with the jeans and the hair said, “You’ll forgive us for being cautious, Mr. Torrance.”
Then he looked at the Moynahan who had gotten hit in the head, and he said, “Where’s your damn brother?”
Moynahan said, “I don’t know.”
“I need him here.”
Their usual policy for messages in a meeting was last in, first out. Moynahan had been last in. He had been slow, down the old concrete giant. Because of his head. Because of his balance.
He said, “OK, I’ll go find him.”
He headed for the street.
The man with the jeans and the hair looked back at Westwood and said, “Mr. Torrance, I guess our first question would be whether you’re wearing a wire.”
Westwood said, “I’m not.”
“Then you’ll be happy to unbutton your shirt.”
Westwood did. A sturdy chest, plenty of flesh, curly gray hair. No microphone.
The man with the jeans and the hair said, “Our second question would be how you found us.”
“On-line,” Westwood said. “Through a board. A buddy of mine named Exit told me.”
“We knew her.”
Her. Knew.
Westwood said, “She told me she was coming here with her friend Michael. Also a buddy of mine. He posted as Mike.”
“She did. We knew Mike too.”
“I figured what was good enough for them was good enough for me.”
“Our third question would be what you planned to do with your rental car. That’s a bright red paper trail right there.”
“I wondered if I paid extra one of you would get rid of it for me. You could dump it all the way over in Wichita or Amarillo. It would get stolen pretty quick.”
“Such a thing could be arranged. And if it ever showed up, in the barrio or wherever, it would only add to the mystery. Or make people think homicide.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“As you know, we provide end of life choices. And choice means exactly that. We don’t judge. We don’t make people state their reasons. We don’t offer counseling, and we don’t try to change your mind. But you have arrived in an unconventional manner. So we need to ask why. Exceptionally.”
Westwood said, “I’ve had enough. I never asked to be born. I haven’t really enjoyed it, to be honest.”
“Specifically?”
“I owe a lot of money. I can’t pay. I can’t face what comes next.”
“Gambling?”
“Worse.”
“The government?”
“I made some errors.”
The man with the jeans and the hair looked at his crew. All there, apart from the Moynahan brothers. Five guys. They shuffled, and grimaced thoughtfully, and nodded vague assent.
The man with the jeans and the hair looked back at Westwood and said, “I think we can help you, Mr. Torrance. But I’m afraid it will cost all of what you brought.”
Westwood said, “I want the gasoline engine. That’s how I want to do it.”
“It’s a popular option.”
“Is it leaded gas?”
“It runs on unleaded now. Special cylinder heads. The carbon monoxide is the same as it always was. It’s the catalyst that takes it away, not unleaded. And the smell is better. The benzene makes it sweet. It’s a nice way to go.”
“What do other people choose?”
“Most choose both. Certainty of outcome is considered paramount. Hence all the statistics they study.”
“Should I do both?”
“No need for it. The gasoline engine is a hundred percent effective. You can trust it.”
Then the guy looked at the street door.
He said, “Where did the Moynahans get to?”
Last in, first out.
The spare-parts guy from the irrigation store said, “I’ll go find them.”
He headed out.
The man with the jeans and the hair looked back at Westwood and said, “It’s an odd question, Mr. Torrance, but would you like to join us for breakfast?”
Westwood thought about it and then said yes, and the counterman temporarily put aside his community membership in favor of his professional duties, by stepping back there and setting up a fresh pot of coffee. The Cadillac driver said he better go check on his delive
ry first, back in a minute, but the store owner and the hog farmer and the one-eyed guy from the motel all sat down right away. The waitress came over and took their orders. Coffee was poured, and plates were delivered. Then the store owner got up again and said he wanted to run next door to get something. Heartburn medicine, the others thought. He too said he would be back in a minute.
But he wasn’t.
Neither was the Cadillac driver.
Or the Moynahans, or the guy gone looking for them.
The man with the jeans and the hair stared at the door. He said, “What the hell is going on here? People keep leaving and not coming back.”
He got up and stepped to the window. There was nothing out there. As in, nothing at all. Just stillness. No traffic, no pedestrians. Nothing moving. Hot sun, empty streets.
The guy said, “We have a problem. Out the back, right now. Mr. Torrance, excuse us. We’ll come by for you later.”
And then he ran, through the kitchen, followed by the hog farmer and the counterman and the one-eyed clerk, to the alley in back, where the counterman’s crew-cab was parked. They piled in and took off, back to the plaza, south to the far end, into the mouth of the narrow dirt road. Like a private driveway, twenty miles long.
Westwood stood alone in the silent diner. Until the street door opened and Chang came in, followed by Reacher.
Chapter 54
The biggest chunk of the money had gone for the helicopters. Two air limousines, touting for corporate business out of Kansas City. Like Town Cars in the sky. No chance of getting them to land. Not on unapproved sites. No chance of them letting anyone rappel out on ropes. Their insurance wouldn’t permit it. But they were happy to fly there and back empty. They were happy to add a little drama. For a video shoot, they were told. They got the exact GPS coordinates direct from Google. Timing was the tricky part. So the cameras could roll. But they had computers in the cockpits. It might be possible.