by Lee Child
Just for the drama.
The kid fell down.
Fifty yards away Elizabeth Castle and Carter Carrington stepped out of the bistro. He said something and she laughed. The sound was loud in the empty street. The guys from the truck turned to look. Not the guy on the ground. He wasn’t doing anything.
Fifty yards away Carrington took Elizabeth Castle’s hand, and they turned together and set out walking. Head on. Approaching. They were lit flat and bright by the stopped truck’s lights, like Reacher had been. He watched them for a second, and then he turned to the farm guy and said, “Now you got a choice of your own. The city attorney is coming. A credible witness, if nothing else. I’m prepared to stick around and slug it out. Are you?”
The guy from the farm glanced down the street. At the approaching couple. All lit up. Now forty yards away. Their heels were loud on the brick. Elizabeth Castle laughed again.
The guy from the farm said nothing.
Reacher nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “You don’t like letting things go. Because you’re the top dog. I get it. So I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll make sure we meet again. Tomorrow or the next day. One day soon. I’ll come back to Ryantown. I’m sure I’ll want to. Keep an eye out for me.”
He walked away. He didn’t look back. Behind him he heard nothing for a second, and then he heard muttered commands and scuffling feet, and the truck backing up, and thumps and gasps as the groggy guy was hauled up off the ground and stuffed in a seat. He heard a door slam. Then he turned in on a side street, and heard nothing more, all the way back to his room. Where he stayed the rest of the night. He caught most of a meaningless late-season Red Sox game out of Boston, and then the late local news, and then he went to bed, where he slept soundly.
Until one minute past three in the morning.
Chapter 22
Patty was still awake at one minute past three in the morning, having not slept at all. Shorty had kept her company most of the time, but finally he had closed his eyes. Just a nap, he said, which had so far lasted an hour. He was snoring. They had eaten the fourth of their six meals. They had drunk the fourth of their six bottles of water. They had two of everything left. Breakfast and lunch the next day. Then what? She didn’t know. Which was why she was still awake at one minute past three in the morning. Having not slept at all. She didn’t understand.
They were in a warm and comfortable room, with electricity and hot and cold running water. There was a shower and a toilet. There were towels and soap and tissues. They had not been assaulted, or abused, or threatened, or leered at, or touched, or treated inappropriately in any way. Apart from being locked up against their will. Why? What was the reason? What was the purpose? Who was she, and who was Shorty, in the grand scheme of things? What good were they to anybody?
She took the question seriously. They were poor, and everyone they knew was poor. A ransom note would be a joke. They knew no industrial secrets. They had no specialized knowledge. People had been growing potatoes and sawing wood in North America for hundreds of years. Maybe thousands. Both processes were pretty much figured out by that point.
So why? They were twenty-five and healthy. For a time she thought about organ harvesting. Maybe their kidneys were about to be auctioned on the internet. Or their hearts, or their lungs, or their corneas. Plus whatever else was good. Bone marrow, maybe. The whole long list, like on their driver’s licenses. But then she thought not. No attempt had been made to check their blood types. No casual questions, no accidental nicks or scrapes or cuts. No first aid. No bloodstained gauze. You couldn’t sell a kidney without a blood type. It was the kind of thing people needed to know.
She relaxed, for a moment. But not for long. She didn’t understand. Who was she, and who was Shorty? What were they good for?
—
Reacher woke up at one minute past three in the morning. Same deal. He snapped awake, instantly, like flicking a switch.
Same reason.
A sound.
Which he didn’t hear again.
Nothing.
He padded naked out of bed and checked the alley through the window. Nothing. No glint of raccoon, no ghostlike coyote, no eager dog. A quiet night. Except apparently not, and once again at exactly one minute past three in the morning. He doubted the cocktail waitress would have gone to work that night. Probably fired, or afraid of reprisals. And a new gig in a new place wouldn’t have gotten her home at precisely the same time. Plus the kid wasn’t waiting at her door anymore. He was in the hospital. Plus now the alley where she lived was more than four blocks away. On a diagonal, with plenty of stuff in between. Outside the radius. He wasn’t close enough for a cry to carry.
Therefore the timing was a coincidence. He heard Amos’s voice in his head: They’ll mobilize before midnight. They’ll be here by morning. The distances are not great .
Was it morning? Technically, he supposed. He pictured midnight in Boston, and a car gassing up, and slipping away in the dark. Could it be in Laconia three hours and one minute later? Easily. Probably two times over. He pictured the guy taking his time, prowling, getting the lay of the land, maybe rousing a clerk or an innkeeper here or there, asking his question about a big guy with a cut hand, apologizing when the answer was no, shoving a fifty in a shirt pocket, moving on, back to the car, looking for the next place. Until sooner or later he found the innkeeper who would say, sure, top floor, the room in the back.
Reacher pulled his pants out from under the mattress and put them on. He buttoned his shirt and laced his shoes. He collected his toothbrush from the bathroom glass, and he put it in his pocket. He was good to go.
He walked downstairs to the lobby. Still three hours before the buffet. He waited inside the street door and listened. He heard nothing. He stepped out. He heard the swish of a distant car. He saw no one. He walked to the corner. Nothing there. He heard the car again. Same sound, different position. Far away. Then nearer. As if it had turned in, one block closer. Going nowhere in particular. Just around and around, on a new tighter radius.
For the sake of it Reacher walked the four diagonal blocks and found the alley between the bag store and the shoe store. Where the waitress lived. It was all quiet. No one was there. No disturbance. Just dark blank windows, and mist, and silence.
He heard the car again. Behind him, in the distance. The faint hiss of its tires, the breathing of its engine, a pock as it hit a join in the blacktop. Three blocks away, he thought. No direct line of sight. There was a dogleg in the cross street.
He turned back toward the inn. He walked through cones of yellow light. Once he stopped in the shadows and listened. He could still hear the car. Rolling slow. Still three blocks away. Turning right every now and then, going around and around.
He walked on. The car stepped another block closer. It turned right one street early. Now it was only two blocks away. Going around and around. A giant map-sized spiral. A search pattern. But a lazy one. It proved nothing. There could be a whole football team of big guys with cut hands running around, and a slow spiral could miss every one of them, every time. Not missing one of them would be a random chance.
Therefore maybe not a search pattern. Not yet. Maybe still a lay-of-the-land reconnaissance. It was still very early. Thorough preparations were always to be recommended. A degree of professionalism could be anticipated. Exit routes could be planned. Difficult turns could be noted. Alleys could be inspected, for width and destination.
The car turned right, two blocks behind him.
He walked on. Two blocks to go. Which presented a problem with four dimensions. Where would he be, when the car next passed close to the inn? Where would the car be, when he arrived at its door? Which was the same question. Time, and distance, and direction. Like deflection shooting. Where will the running man be, when the bullet gets there?
He stopped walking. The timing was going to be wrong. Better to wait it out a quarter turn. Better to get there right after the guy drove on, not
right before he was due to arrive. Common sense, surely. He strolled to the corner and waited. The street was deserted. Still the dead of night. All good.
Except right then the car chose to step in another block closer. Way early, compared to its previous pattern. Not remotely predictable. It came rolling down the cross street on Reacher’s left, with its bright lights on, sweeping both sidewalks at once. Reacher was lit up like a movie star. The car stopped fifteen feet away. Idling engine, blinding light. Behind it a door opened. Reacher planned to dive down and to the right of the sound. But forward. Into the light. Safer that way. The guy was probably right-handed. A panic spasm caused by the sudden dive would jerk his gun up and away, not down and in.
If he had a gun.
Behind the light a voice said, “Laconia Police Department.”
Then it said, “Raise your hands.”
“I can’t see you,” Reacher said. “Kill the lights.”
Which was a test, of sorts. A real cop might, and a fake cop wouldn’t. He was still planning on the dive to the right. Then any kind of contact with the open door would get the job done. It would smack back into the guy, and after that it would be a fair fight.
The lights went out.
Reacher blinked a couple of times, and the yellow nighttime glow came back, soft through the misty air, harsh where the streets were wet. The car was a Laconia PD black and white, clean and new, glowing orange inside with technology. The guy behind its open door was in a patrolman’s uniform. His nameplate said Davison. He was maybe in his middle twenties. Maybe a little skinnier than he wanted to be. But bright and alert and resolved. His creases were crisp. His hair was brushed. His equipment belt was in excellent order. He was ready. For once a routine night patrol had turned out interesting.
“Raise your hands,” he said again.
“Not really necessary,” Reacher said.
“Then turn around and I’ll cuff you.”
“Not really necessary either.”
“It’s for your safety as well as mine,” Davison said.
Which Reacher figured had to come from a role play class. Maybe led by a psychologist. Maybe the task of the day was to find a line that could inhibit further resistance simply by stunning vital cortexes in the brain with its blatant opacity. How could putting him in handcuffs help his safety?
But out loud he said, “Officer, I don’t see a lot of probable cause here.”
Davison said, “None is required.”
“Was there a constitutional crisis I didn’t hear about?”
“You’re already a person of interest. You were mentioned in the start-of-watch briefing. A sketch was distributed. You’re not supposed to be seen in public.”
“Who conducted the briefing?”
“Detective Amos.”
“What else did she say?”
“Report immediately if we see a Massachusetts license plate.”
“Did you?”
“Not yet.”
“She’s taking it seriously,” Reacher said.
“She has to. We can’t let anything bad happen. We’ll be crucified.”
“I’m heading back to my hotel now.”
“No sir, you need to come with me.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Sir, Detective Amos informed us of your prior service in the MPs. We’re happy to extend every courtesy.”
“Yes or no?”
“You’re about an inch away,” the kid said, bright and alert and resolved. And sure of himself. And sure of his orders, and the law, and his bosses.
Happy days.
Reacher thought about coffee. Nearly three hours in the future, in the innkeeper’s lobby. No doubt an ever-present fixture in the police station.
“An arrest won’t be necessary,” he said. “I’ll ride with you of my own free will. But in the front. Call it a rule.”
They got in the car, and they drove on, at the same speed Reacher had heard in the distance, slow and deliberate, nosing around corners, dutifully completing whichever lap it was of the night-long patrol. Reacher’s seat was cramped by an overspill of equipment from the center console. There was a laptop computer on a gooseneck stalk. There were holders and holsters for small specialist items. The vinyl on the dash was shiny and clean. The air smelled new. The car could have been a month old.
Then whichever lap it was on ended, and Davison turned a corner near the city office, and set out on a wider street, in a direction that Reacher recognized led to the station. A straight shot. About half a mile. Davison drove it a little faster than before. With panache. With a certain swagger. The master of the nighttime universe. He pulled in outside the lobby doors. He got out. Reacher got out. They went inside together. Davison explained the situation to the night guy. Who was unclear on only one point.
He said, “Until nine-thirty, do I need to lock him up?”
Davison looked at Reacher.
He said, “Does he?”
“Not really necessary.”
“You sure?”
“I don’t want anything bad to happen either. All I want is coffee.”
Davison turned back to the night guy.
He said, “Find him an office to wait in, and get him a cup of coffee.”
Then ahead of them the double doors swung open and Brenda Amos walked through.
“We’ll use my office,” she said.
Chapter 23
The first arrival happened well before dawn. A repeat customer. He lived in the far northern part of Maine, in a wooden house in the center of eighty square miles of forest, all of which he owned. As always he drove only by night, in a beat-up old Volvo wagon, not worth a second glance, but just in case it got one, it was also fitted with fake Vermont plates made up with an unissued number. His phone told him where to turn, but of course he remembered the place anyway. From his first visit. How could he forget? He recognized the mouth of the track, and the sketchy blacktop, and the fat rubber wire. Which rang a bell somewhere, to scare up a welcome.
Which this time was offered in the motel office. By Mark only. The others were nowhere to be seen. Watching the security cameras, the new guest assumed. And hoped. Mark offered him room three, and he took it. Mark watched him as he parked the wagon. Watched him as he carried his bags inside. He was wondering which bag held his money, the new guest assumed. He set his stuff down near the closet and stepped outside again, to the predawn darkness. To the soft misty air. He couldn’t contain himself. He crept along the boardwalk, past room four, past five, toward a dead-looking Honda Civic, crouching blackly in the moonlight. He stepped out into the lot at that point and looped around behind it, so he could take in the whole of room ten from a distance. The first look. It was occupied. The e-mail said so. But it was currently blank and quiet. The window blind was down. There was no light inside. No sound. Nothing was happening.
The new guest stood for a minute, and then he walked back to room three.
—
Reacher took coffee from the squad room pot, and then Amos walked him back to her office. The same as before. The old structure, the new contents. The desk, the chairs, the cabinets, the computer.
She said, “I asked you to play it safe, for my sake.”
He said, “Something woke me up.”
“Is there a law that says therefore automatically you have to get up?”
“Sometimes.”
“They could have been arriving right then.”
“Exactly. I thought I should at least get my pants on. Then I went out to take a look. Nothing doing, except an excellent performance from Patrolman Davison. With which I had no problem. I’m happy to wait here. All good. Except I’m sorry you had to get up early.”
“Yeah, me too,” Amos said. “You also went out for dinner.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Take a guess.”
Because of blood on the street, he thought, or a random traffic stop a block or two later, or both. The guys from the apple farm. Had to
be.
But out loud he said, “I don’t know.”
“Carter Carrington told us,” she said. “You walked eight blocks to the same bistro he was in. And eight blocks back. That wasn’t playing it safe.”
“At the time I thought it was, in a roundabout way.”
“You should have called me. I gave you my card. I would have brought pizza to your room.”
“Why did you ask Carrington about me?”
“We didn’t. We needed a legal opinion. Your dinner plans came up in the subsequent conversation.”
“What kind of legal opinion?”
“Who we can detain, before they’ve actually done anything wrong.”
“And what was the answer?”
“These days, practically anybody.”
“Maybe no one is coming,” Reacher said. “The kid was an asshole.”
“No chance whatsoever.”
“OK, but maybe it’s not top of their list. Maybe they have to pick up the dry cleaning first. I’ll be out of here at half past nine. They’ll find me gone.”
“I sincerely hope every part of what you just said is true.”
“Let’s hope some of it is.”
“We got some news,” she said. “Slightly encouraging for us. Not so much for you.”
“What is it?”
“Current thinking has downgraded the risk of drive-by casualties. Now we think they’re somewhat unlikely. Chief Shaw was on the phone with the Boston PD. They think the attempt will not be made here. They think their preferred tactic will be to get you in their car, so they can drive you back to Boston, where they’ll throw you off an apartment building. That’s what they do. Like a signature. Like a press release. Makes a splash, in every way. I would prefer that didn’t happen to you.”