by Lee Child
Everyone stood still.
The shaved snow on the street was part bright white powder and part ice crystals. They shone and glittered in the moonlight. Peterson and Holland were staring straight at the two guys and even though he was behind them Reacher was pretty sure the two guys were staring right back. He was shivering hard and his teeth were starting to chatter and his breath was fogging in front of him.
Nobody spoke.
The guy on Reacher’s right was more than six feet tall and close to four feet wide. Some of the bulk was goose-feather insulation in the black winter parka, but most of it was flesh and bone. The guy on Reacher’s left was a little smaller in both directions, and more active. He was restless, moving from foot to foot, twisting at the waist, rolling his shoulders. Cold, for sure, but not actively shivering. Reacher guessed the twitching was all about chemistry, not temperature.
Nobody spoke.
Reacher said, “Guys, either you need to move right along, or one of you needs to loan me a coat.”
The two men turned around, slowly. The big guy on the right had a white slab of a face buried deep in a beard. The beard was rimed with frost. Like a polar explorer, or a mountaineer. The smaller guy on the left had two days of stubble and jumpy eyes. His mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish pecking at the surface. Thin mobile lips, bad teeth.
The big guy on the right asked, “Who are you?”
Reacher said, “Go home. It’s too cold for foolishness on the street.”
No reply.
Behind the two guys Peterson and Holland did nothing. Their guns were holstered and their holsters were snapped shut. Reacher planned his next moves. Always better to be prepared. He anticipated no major difficulty. He would have preferred the bigger guy to be on his left, because that would have maximized the impact from a right-handed blow by allowing a marginally longer swing, and he always liked to put the larger of a pair down first. But he was prepared to be flexible. Maybe the jittery guy should go down first. The bigger guy was likely to be slower, and maybe less committed, without the chemical assistance.
Reacher said, “Coat or float, guys.”
No answer from the two men. Then behind them Chief Holland came to life. He stepped forward one angry pace and said, “Get the hell out of my town.”
Then he shoved the smaller guy in the back.
The smaller guy stumbled toward Reacher and then braced against the motion and spun back and started to whirl a fast one-eighty toward Holland with his fist cocking behind him like a pitcher aiming to break the radar gun. Reacher caught the guy by the wrist and held on for a split second and then let go again and the guy staggered through the rest of his turn all unbalanced and uncoordinated and ineffectual and ended with a weak late swing that missed Holland entirely.
But then he turned right back and aimed a second swing straight at Reacher. Which in Reacher’s opinion took the whole innocent-until-proven-guilty thing right off the table. He stepped left and the incoming fist buzzed by an inch from his chin. The force behind it spun the guy onward and Reacher kicked his feet out from under him and dumped him facedown on the ice. Whereupon the bigger guy started wading in, huge thighs, short choppy steps, fists like hams, trumpets of steam from his nose like an angry bull in a kid’s picture book.
Easy meat.
Reacher matched the guy’s charge with momentum of his own and smashed his elbow horizontally into the middle of the white space between the guy’s beard and his hairline. Like running full-tilt into a scaffolding pipe. Game over, except the smaller guy was already up on his knees and scrabbling for grip, hands and feet, like a sprinter in the blocks. So Reacher kicked him hard in the head. The guy’s eyes rolled up and he toppled sideways and lay still with his legs folded under him.
Reacher put his hands back in his pockets.
Peterson said, “Jesus.”
The two guys lay close together, black humps on the moonlit ice, steam rising off them in a cloud. Peterson said nothing more. Holland stalked back to his unmarked car and used the radio and came back a long minute later and said, “I just called for two ambulances.”
He was looking straight at Reacher.
Reacher didn’t respond.
Holland asked, “You want to explain why I had to call for two ambulances?”
Reacher said, “Because I slipped.”
“What?”
“On the ice.”
“That’s your story? You slipped and just kind of blundered into them?”
“No, I slipped when I was hitting the big guy. It softened the blow. If I hadn’t slipped you wouldn’t be calling for two ambulances. You’d be calling for one ambulance and one coroner’s wagon.”
Holland looked away.
Peterson said, “Go wait in the car.”
The lawyer went to bed at a quarter to eleven. His children had preceded him by two hours and his wife was still in the kitchen. He put his shoes on a rack and his tie in a drawer and his suit on a hanger. He tossed his shirt and his socks and his underwear in the laundry hamper. He put on his pajamas and took a leak and brushed his teeth and climbed under the covers and stared at the ceiling. He could still hear the laugh in his head, from the phone call just before he spun out on the highway. A bark, a yelp, full of excitement. Full of anticipation. Full of glee. Eliminate the witness, he had recited, and the man on the phone had laughed with happiness.
Reacher got back in Peterson’s car and closed the door. His face was numb with cold. He angled the heater vents up and turned the fan to maximum. He waited. Five minutes later the ambulances showed up, with flashing lights pulsing bright red and blue against the snow. They hauled the two guys away. They were still out cold. Concussions, and probably some minor maxillary damage. No big deal. Three days in bed and a cautious week’s convalescence would fix them up good as new. Plus painkillers.
Reacher waited in the car. Thirty feet ahead of him through the clear frigid air he could see Holland and Peterson talking. They were standing close together, half-turned away, speaking low. Judging by the way they never glanced back, Reacher guessed they were talking about him.
Chief Holland was asking: “Could he be the guy?”
Peterson was saying, “If he’s the guy, he just put two of his allies in the hospital. Which would be strange.”
“Maybe that was a decoy. Maybe they staged it. Or maybe one of them was about to say something compromising. So he had to shut them up.”
“He was protecting you, Chief.”
“At first he was.”
“And then it was self-defense.”
“How sure are you he’s not the guy?”
“One hundred percent. It’s just not feasible. It’s a million-to-one chance he’s here at all.”
“No way he could have caused the bus to crash right there?”
“Not without running up the aisle and physically attacking the driver. And no one said he did. Not the driver, not the passengers.”
“OK,” Holland said. “So could the driver be the guy? Did he crash on purpose?”
“Hell of a risk.”
“Not necessarily. Let’s say he knows the road because he’s driven it before, summer and winter. He knows where it ices up. So he throws the bus into a deliberate skid.”
“A car was coming right at him.”
“So he says now.”
“But he could have been injured. He could have killed people. He could have ended up in the hospital or in jail for manslaughter, not walking around.”
“Maybe not. Those modern vehicles have all kinds of electronic systems. Traction control, anti-lock brakes, stuff like that. All he did was fishtail around a little and drive off the shoulder. No big deal. And then we welcomed him with open arms, like the Good Samaritan.”
Peterson said, “I could talk to Reacher, tonight. He was a witness on the bus. I could talk to him and get a better picture.”
Holland said, “He’s a psychopath. I want him gone.”
“The roads are cl
osed.”
“Then I want him locked up.”
“Really?” Peterson said. “Tell the truth, Chief, he strikes me as a smart guy. Think about it. He saved you from a busted nose and he saved me from having to shoot two people. He did us both a big favor with what he did tonight.”
“Accidentally.”
“Maybe on purpose.”
“You think he knew what he was doing? Right there and then?”
“Yes, I think he did. I think he’s the sort of guy who sees things five seconds before the rest of the world.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve spent a little time with him.”
Holland shrugged.
“OK,” he said. “Talk to him. If you really want to.”
“Can we use him for more? He’s ex-military. He might know something.”
“About what?”
“About what’s out there to the west.”
“You like him?”
“Doesn’t matter if we like him. We can use him. It would be negligent not to, under the current circumstances.”
“That’s an admission of defeat.”
“No sir, it’s common sense. Better to ask for help beforehand than get our asses kicked afterward.”
“How much would we have to tell him?”
“Most of it,” Peterson said. “Maybe all of it. He’d probably figure it out anyway.”
“Is this what you would do if you were chief?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
Holland thought about it. Nodded.
“OK,” he said again. “Good enough for me. Talk to him.”
Five minutes to eleven in the evening.
Fifty-three hours to go.
Chapter 7
Peterson drove home in his squad car. Which Reacher thought was unusual. In his experience town cops dumped their squads in a motor pool and rode home in their personal vehicles. Then the next watch climbed in and drove away while the motors and the seats were still warm. But Peterson said the Bolton PD had a lot of cars. Every member of the department was issued with one. And every member of the department was required to live within ten minutes’ drive of the station house.
Peterson lived within two minutes’ drive, a mile out of town to the east, in a house sitting on a remnant of an old farm. The house was a solid wooden thing shaped like a pound cake, painted red with white trim, with warm yellow light in some of the windows. There was a matching barn. Both roofs were piled high with snow. The surrounding land was white and frozen and flat and silent. The lot was square. Maybe an acre. It was bounded by barbed-wire strung on wizened posts. Maybe a foot of the fence showed above the fall.
The driveway was plowed in a Y-shape. One leg led to the barn and the other led to the front of the house. Peterson parked in the barn. It was a big old open-fronted structure with three bays. One was occupied by a Ford pick-up truck with a plow blade on it, and one was full of stacked firewood. Reacher climbed out of the car and Peterson joined him and they backtracked down the plowed strip and turned the tight angle and headed for the house.
The front door was a plain slab of wood painted the same red as the siding. It opened up just as Peterson and Reacher got close enough to touch it. A woman stood in the hallway with warm air and warm light behind her. She was about Peterson’s age, well above medium height, and slender. She had fair hair pulled back into a ponytail and was wearing black pants and a wool sweater with a complex pattern knitted into it.
Peterson’s wife, presumably.
All three of them paused in a mute pantomime of politeness, Peterson anxious to get in from the cold, his wife anxious not to let the heat out of the house, Reacher not wanting to just barge in uninvited. After a long second’s hesitation the woman swung the door wider and Peterson put a hand on Reacher’s back and he stepped inside. The hallway had a polished board floor and a low ceiling and wallpapered walls. On the left was a parlor and on the right was a dining room. Straight ahead in the back of the house was a kitchen. There was a wood stove going hard somewhere. Reacher could smell it, hot iron and a trace of smoke.
Peterson made the introductions. He spoke quietly, which made Reacher think there must be sleeping children upstairs. Peterson’s wife was called Kim and she seemed to know all about the accident with the bus and the need for emergency quarters. She said she had made up a pull-out bed in the den. She said it apologetically, as if a real bedroom would have been better.
Reacher said, “Ma’am, the floor would have been fine. I’m very sorry to put you to any trouble at all.”
She said, “It’s no trouble.”
“I hope to move on in the morning.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to. It will be snowing hard before dawn.”
“Maybe later in the day, then.”
“They’ll keep the highway closed, I’m afraid. Won’t they, Andrew?”
Peterson said, “Probably.”
His wife said, “You’re welcome to stay as long as you need to.”
Reacher said, “Ma’am, that’s very generous. Thank you.”
“Did you leave your bags in the car?”
Peterson said, “He doesn’t have bags. He claims he has no use for possessions.”
Kim said nothing. Her face was blank, as if she was having difficulty processing such information. Then she glanced at Reacher’s jacket, his shirt, his pants. Reacher said, “I’ll head out to a store in the morning. It’s what I do. I buy new every few days.”
“Instead of laundry?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s logical.”
“You’ll need a warm coat.”
“Apparently.”
“Don’t buy one. Too expensive, for just a few days. We can lend you one. My dad is your size. He keeps a coat here, for when he visits. And a hat and gloves.” She turned away and opened a closet door and leaned in to the back and wrestled a hanger off the rail. Came out with an enormous tan parka, the color of mud. It had fat horizontal quilts of down the size of inner tubes. It was old and worn and had darker tan shapes all over it where patches and badges had been unpicked from it. The shapes on the sleeves were chevrons.
“Retired cop?” Reacher asked.
“Highway Patrol,” Kim Peterson said. “They get to keep the clothes if they take the insignia off.”
The coat had a fur-trimmed hood, and it had a fur hat jammed in one pocket and a pair of gloves jammed in the other.
“Try it on,” she said.
It turned out that her father was not Reacher’s size. He was bigger. The coat was a size too large. But too big is always better than too small. Reacher pulled it into position and looked down at where the stripes had been. He smiled. They made him feel efficient. He had always liked his sergeants. They did good work.
The coat smelled of mothballs. The hat smelled of another man’s hair. It was made of tan nylon and rabbit fur.
“Thank you,” Reacher said. “You’re very kind.” He shrugged the coat off again and she took it from him and hung it on a hook on the hallway wall, just inside the entrance, next to where Peterson was hanging his own police-issue parka. Then they all headed for the kitchen. It ran left to right across most of the width of the house. There was all the usual kind of kitchen stuff in it, plus a beat-up table and six chairs, and a family-room area with a battered sofa and two armchairs and a television set. The wood stove was at the far end of the room. It was roaring like a locomotive. Beyond it was a closed door.
“That’s the den,” Kim said. “Go straight in.”
Reacher assumed he was being dismissed for the night, so he turned to say thanks once again, but found that Peterson was following right behind him. Kim said, “He wants to talk to you. I can tell, because he isn’t talking to me.”
The man who had been told to kill the witness and the lawyer set about cleaning the gun he had been given for the job. It was a Glock 17, not old, not new, well proven, well maintained. He strippe
d it, brushed it out, oiled it, and reassembled it. The cheeks of the grip were stippled, and there was some accumulated grime in the microscopic valleys. He worked it out with a Q-tip soaked in solvent. The maker’s name was embossed near the heel, an overcomplicated and rather amateur graphic featuring a large letter G surrounding the rest of the word. It was easy to see the G merely as an outline, and therefore to overlook it. At first glance the name appeared to be LOCK. There was dirt over the whole thing. The man soaked the Q-tip again and started working and had it clean a minute later.
Peterson’s den was a small, dark, square, masculine space. It was in the back corner of the house and had two outside walls with two windows. The drapes were made of thick plaid material and were drawn back, open. The other two walls had three doors in them. The door back to the family room, plus maybe a closet and a small bathroom. The remainder of the wall space was lined with yard-sale cabinets and an old wooden desk with a small refrigerator on it. On top of the refrigerator was an old-fashioned alarm clock with a loud tick and two metal bells. Out in the body of the room there was a low-slung leather chair that looked Scandinavian, and a two-seat sofa that had been pulled out and made up into a narrow bed.
Reacher sat down on the bed. Peterson took two bottles of beer from the refrigerator and twisted the tops off and pitched the caps into a trash basket and handed one of the bottles to Reacher. Then he lowered himself into the leather chair.
He said, “We have a situation here.”
Reacher said, “I know.”
“How much do you know?”
“I know you’re pussyfooting around a bunch of meth-using bikers. Like you’re scared of them.”