by Lee Child
“Can I call you Carmen?” he asked.
She nodded. “Sure. Please.”
“O.K., Carmen,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on here, will you?”
Her mouth opened, and then it closed again. Opened, and closed.
“I don’t know how to start,” she said. “Now that it’s come to it.”
“Come to what?”
She wouldn’t answer.
“You better tell me exactly what you want,” he said. “Or I’m getting out of the car right here, right now.”
“It’s a hundred and ten degrees out there.”
“I know it is.”
“A person could die in this heat.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You can’t get your door open,” she said. “The car is tilted too much.”
“Then I’ll punch out the windshield.”
She paused a beat.
“I need your help,” she said again.
“You never saw me before.”
“Not personally,” she said. “But you fit the bill.”
“What bill?”
She went quiet again. Came up with a brief, ironic smile.
“It’s so difficult,” she said. “I’ve rehearsed this speech a million times, but now I don’t know if it’s going to come out right.”
Reacher said nothing. Just waited.
“You ever had anything to do with lawyers?” she asked. “They don’t do anything for you. They just want a lot of money and a lot of time, and then they tell you there’s nothing much to be done.”
“So get a new lawyer,” he said.
“I’ve had four,” she said. “Four, in a month. They’re all the same. And they’re all too expensive. I don’t have enough money.”
“You’re driving a Cadillac.”
“It’s my mother-in-law’s. I’m only borrowing it.”
“You’re wearing a big diamond ring.”
She went quiet again. Her eyes clouded.
“My husband gave it to me,” she said.
He looked at her. “So can’t he help you?”
“No, he can’t help me,” she said. “Have you ever gone looking for a private detective?”
“Never needed one. I was a detective.”
“They don’t really exist,” she said. “Not like you see in the movies. They just want to sit in their offices and work with the phone. Or on their computers, with their databases. They won’t come out and actually do anything for you. I went all the way to Austin. A guy there said he could help, but he wanted to use six men and charge me nearly ten thousand dollars a week.”
“For what?”
“So I got desperate. I was really panicking. Then I got this idea. I figured if I looked at people hitching rides, I might find somebody. One of them might turn out to be the right type of person, and willing to help me. I tried to choose pretty carefully. I only stopped for rough-looking men.”
“Thanks, Carmen,” Reacher said.
“I don’t mean it badly,” she said. “It’s not uncomplimentary.”
“But it could have been dangerous.”
She nodded. “It nearly was, a couple of times. But I had to take the risk. I had to find somebody. I figured I might get rodeo guys, or men from the oil fields. You know, tough guys, roughnecks, maybe out of work, with a little time on their hands. Maybe a little anxious to earn some money, but I can’t pay much. Is that going to be a problem?”
“So far, Carmen, everything is going to be a problem.”
She went quiet again.
“I talked to them all,” she said. “You know, chatted with them a little, discussed things, like we did. I was trying to make some kind of judgment about what they were like, inside, in terms of their characters. I was trying to assess their qualities. Maybe twelve of them. And none of them were really any good. But I think you are.”
“You think I’m what?”
“I think you’re my best chance so far,” she said. “Really, I do. A former cop, been in the army, no ties anywhere, you couldn’t be better.”
“I’m not looking for a job, Carmen.”
She nodded happily. “I know. I figured that out already. But that’s better still, I think. It keeps it pure, don’t you see that? Help for help’s sake. No mercenary aspect to it. And your background is perfect. It obligates you.”
He stared at her. “No, it doesn’t.”
“You were a soldier,” she said. “And a policeman. It’s perfect. You’re supposed to help people. That’s what cops do.”
“We spent most of our time busting heads. Not a whole lot of helping went on.”
“But it must have. That’s what cops are for. It’s like their fundamental duty. And an army cop is even better. You said it yourself, you do what’s necessary.”
“If you need a cop, go to the county sheriff. Pecos, or wherever it is.”
“Echo,” she said. “I live in Echo. South of Pecos.”
“Wherever,” he said. “Go to the sheriff.”
She was shaking her head. “No, I can’t do that.”
Reacher said nothing more. Just lay half on his back, pressed up against the door by the car’s steep angle. The engine was idling patiently, and the air was still roaring. The woman was still braced above him. She had gone silent. She was staring out past him and blinking, like she was about to cry. Like she was ready for a big flood of tears. Like she was tragically disappointed, maybe with him, maybe with herself.
“You must think I’m crazy,” she said.
He turned his head and looked hard at her, top to toe. Strong slim legs, strong slim arms, the expensive dress. It was riding up on her thighs, and he could see her bra strap at her shoulder. It was snow white against the color of her skin. She had clean combed hair and trimmed painted nails. An elegant, intelligent face, tired eyes.
“I’m not crazy,” she said.
Then she looked straight at him. Something in her face. Maybe an appeal. Or maybe hopelessness, or desperation.
“It’s just that I’ve dreamed about this for a month,” she said. “My last hope. It was a ridiculous plan, I guess, but it’s all I had. And there was always the chance it would work, and with you I think maybe it could, and now I’m screwing it up by coming across like a crazy woman.”
He paused a long time. Minutes. He thought back to a pancake house he’d seen in Lubbock, right across the strip from his motel. It had looked pretty good. He could have crossed the street, gone in there, had a big stack with bacon on the side. Lots of syrup. Maybe an egg. He would have come out a half hour after she blew town. He could be sitting next to some cheerful trucker now, listening to rock and roll on the radio. On the other hand, he could be bruised and bleeding in a police cell, with an arraignment date coming up.
“So start over,” he said. “Just say what you’ve got to say. But first, drive us out of this damn ditch. I’m very uncomfortable. And I could use a cup of coffee. Is there anyplace up ahead where we could get coffee?”
“I think so,” she said. “Yes, there is. About an hour, I think.”
“So let’s go there. Let’s get a cup of coffee.”
“You’re going to dump me and run,” she said.
It was an attractive possibility. She stared at him, maybe five long seconds, and then she nodded, like a decision was made. She put the transmission in D and hit the gas. The car had front-wheel drive, and all the weight was on the back, so the tires just clawed at nothing and spun. Gravel rattled against the underbody and a cloud of hot khaki dust rose up all around them. Then the tires caught and the car heaved itself out of the ditch and bounced up over the edge of the blacktop. She got it straight in the lane, and then she floored it and took off south.
“I don’t know where to begin,” she said.
“At the beginning,” he said. “Always works best that way. Think about it, tell me over coffee. We’ve got the time.”
She shook her head. Stared forward through the windshield, eyes lo
cked on the empty shimmering road ahead. She was quiet for a mile, already doing seventy.
“No, we don’t,” she said. “It’s real urgent.”
Fifty miles southwest of Abilene, on a silent county road ten miles north of the main east-west highway, the Crown Victoria waited quietly on the shoulder, its engine idling, its hood unlatched and standing an inch open for better cooling. All around it was flatness so extreme the curvature of the earth was revealed, the dusty parched brush falling slowly away to the horizon in every direction. There was no traffic, and therefore no noise beyond the tick and whisper of the idling engine and the heavy buzz of the earth baking and cracking under the unbearable heat of the sun.
The driver had the electric door mirror racked all the way outward so he could see the whole of the road behind him. The Crown Vic’s own dust had settled and the view was clear for about a mile, right back to the point where the blacktop and the sky mixed together and broke and boiled into a silvery shimmering mirage. The driver had his eyes focused on that distant glare, waiting for it to be pierced by the indistinct shape of a car.
He knew what car it would be. The team was well briefed. It would be a white Mercedes Benz, driven by a man on his own toward an appointment he couldn’t miss. The man would be driving fast, because he would be running late, because he was habitually late for everything. They knew the time of his appointment, and they knew his destination was thirty miles farther on up the road, so simple arithmetic gave them a target time they could set their watches by. A target time that was fast approaching.
“So let’s do it,” the driver said.
He stepped out of the car into the heat and clicked the hood down into place. Slid back into the seat and took a ball cap from the woman. It was one of three bought from a souvenir vendor on Hollywood Boulevard, thirteen ninety-five each. It was dark blue, with FBI machine-embroidered in white cotton thread across the front. The driver squared it on his head and pulled the peak low over his eyes. Moved the transmission lever into drive and kept his foot hard on the brake. Leaned forward a fraction and kept his eyes on the mirror.
“Right on time,” he said.
The silver mirage was boiling and wobbling and a white shape pulled free of it and speared out toward them like a fish leaping out of water. The shape settled and steadied on the road, moving fast, crouching low. A white Mercedes sedan, wide tires, dark windows.
The driver eased his foot off the brake and the Crown Vic crawled forward through the dust. He touched the gas when the Mercedes was still a hundred yards behind him. The Mercedes roared past and the Crown Vic pulled out into the hot blast of its slipstream. The driver straightened the wheel and accelerated. Smiled with his lips hard together. The killing crew was going to work again.
The Mercedes driver saw headlights flashing in his mirror and looked again and saw the sedan behind him. Two peaked caps silhouetted in the front seat. He dropped his eyes automatically to his speedometer, which was showing more than ninety. Felt the cold oh-shit stab in his chest. Eased off the gas while he calculated how late he was already and how far he still had to go and what his best approach to these guys should be. Humility? Or maybe I’m-too-important-to-be-hassled? Or what about a sort of come-on-guys, I’m-working-too camaraderie?
The sedan pulled alongside as he slowed and he saw three people, one of them a woman. Radio antennas all over the car. No lights, no siren. Not regular cops. The driver was waving him to the shoulder. The woman was pressing an ID wallet against her window. It had FBI in two-inch-high letters. Their caps said FBI. Serious-looking people, in some kind of duty fatigues. Serious-looking squad car. He relaxed a little. The FBI didn’t stop you for speeding. Must be something else. Maybe some kind of security check, which made sense considering what lay thirty miles up the road. He nodded to the woman and braked and eased right, onto the shoulder. He feathered the pedal and coasted to a stop in a big cloud of dust. The Bureau car eased up and stopped behind him, the brightness of its headlight beams dimmed by the cloud.
The way to do it is to keep them quiet and alive as long as possible. Postpone any kind of struggle. Struggling leads to evidence, blood and fibers and body fluids spraying and leaking all over the place. So they all three got out of the car at a medium speed, like they were harassed professionals dealing with something important, but not something right up there at the top of their agenda.
“Mr. Eugene?” the woman called. “Al Eugene, right?”
The Mercedes driver opened his door and slid out of his seat and stood up in the heat and the glare. He was around thirty, not tall, dark and sallow, soft and rounded. He faced the woman, and she saw some kind of innate southern courtesy toward women place him at an immediate disadvantage.
“What can I do for you, ma’am?” he asked.
“Your cellular phone not working, sir?” the woman asked.
Eugene patted at the pocket of his suit coat.
“Should be,” he said.
“May I see it, sir?”
Eugene took it out of his pocket and handed it over. The woman dialed a number and looked surprised.
“Seems O.K.,” she said. “Sir, can you spare us five minutes?”
“Maybe,” Eugene said. “If you tell me what for.”
“We have an FBI assistant director a mile up the road, needs to speak with you. Something urgent, I guess, or we wouldn’t be here, and something pretty important, or we’d have been told what it’s all about.”
Eugene pulled back his cuff and looked at his watch.
“I have an appointment,” he said.
The woman was nodding. “We know about that, sir. We took the liberty of calling ahead and rescheduling for you. Five minutes is all we need.”
Eugene shrugged.
“Can I see some ID?” he asked.
The woman handed over her wallet. It was made of worn black leather and had a milky plastic window on the outside. There was an FBI photo-ID behind it, laminated and embossed and printed with the kind of slightly old-fashioned typeface the federal government might use. Like most people in the United States, Eugene had never seen an FBI ID. He assumed he was looking at his first.
“Up the road a-piece?” he said. “O.K., I’ll follow you, I guess.”
“We’ll drive you,” the woman said. “There’s a checkpoint in place, and civilian cars make them real nervous. We’ll bring you right back. Five minutes, is all.”
Eugene shrugged again.
“O.K.,” he said.
They all walked as a group back toward the Crown Vic. The driver held the front passenger door for Eugene.
“You ride up here, sir,” he said. “They’re listing you as a class-A individual, and if we put a class-A individual in the backseat, then we’ll get our asses kicked but good, that’s for damn sure.”
They saw Eugene swell up a little from his assigned status. He nodded and ducked down and slid into the front seat. Either he hadn’t noticed they still had his phone, or he didn’t care. The driver closed the door on him and ducked around the hood to his own. The tall fair man and the woman climbed into the rear. The Crown Vic eased around the parked Benz and pulled left onto the blacktop. Accelerated up to about fifty-five.
“Ahead,” the woman said.
The driver nodded.
“I see it,” he said. “We’ll make it.”
There was a plume of dust on the road, three or four miles into the distance. It was rising up and dragging left in the faint breeze. The driver slowed, hunting the turn he had scouted thirty minutes before. He spotted it and pulled left and crossed the opposite shoulder and bumped down through a depression where the road was built up like a causeway. Then he slewed to the right, tight in behind a stand of brush tall enough to hide the car. The man and the woman in the rear seat came out with handguns and leaned forward and jammed them into Eugene’s neck, right behind the ears where the structure of the human skull provides two nice muzzle-shaped sockets.
“Sit real still,” the woman said.
Eugene sat real still. Two minutes later, a big dark vehicle blasted by above them. A truck, or a bus. Dust clouded the sky and the brush rustled in the moving air. The driver got out and approached Eugene’s door with a gun in his hand. He opened the door and leaned in and jammed the muzzle into Eugene’s throat, where the ends of the collarbones make another convenient socket.
“Get out,” he said. “Real careful.”
“What?” was all Eugene could say.
“We’ll tell you what,” the woman said. “Now get out.”
Eugene got out, with three guns at his head.
“Step away from the car,” the woman said. “Walk away from the road.”
This was the tricky time. Eugene was glancing around as far and as fast as he dared move his head. His eyes were jumping. His body was twitching. He stepped away from the car. One pace, two, three. Eyes everywhere. The woman nodded.
“Al,” she called loudly.
Her two partners jumped away, long sideways strides. Eugene’s head snapped around to face the woman who had called his name. She shot him through the right eye. The sound of the gun clapped and rolled across the hot landscape like thunder. The back of Eugene’s head came off in a messy cloud and he went straight down and sprawled in a loose tangle of arms and legs. The woman stepped around him and crouched down and took a closer look. Then she stepped away and stood up straight with her legs and arms spread, like she was ready to be searched at the airport.
“Check,” she said.
The two men stepped close and examined every inch of her skin and clothing. They checked her hair and her hands.
“Clear,” the small dark man said.
“Clear,” the tall fair man said.
She nodded. A faint smile. No residue. No evidence. No blood or bone or brains anywhere on her person.
“O.K.,” she said.
The two men stepped back to Eugene and took an arm and a leg each and dragged his body ten feet into the brush. They had found a narrow limestone cleft there, a crack in the rock maybe eight feet deep and a foot and a half across, wide enough to take a man’s corpse sideways, too narrow to admit the six-foot wingspan of a vulture or a buzzard. They maneuvered the body until the trailing hand and the trailing foot fell into the hole. Then they lowered away carefully until they were sure the torso would fit. This guy was fatter than some. But he slid in without snagging on the rock. As soon as they were sure, they dropped him the rest of the way. He wedged tight, about seven feet down.