by Lee Child
Two or three or four such rides could be daisy-chained together, to cover unfeasible distances in total secrecy. Which was the strategy the fourth arrival had employed. He landed for the last time at a flying club near Plymouth, New Hampshire. From where originally, no one knew. Steven had tried to trace his home ISP. But he couldn’t. One moment it seemed to be inside NASA, in Houston, Texas, and then the next moment inside the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia. And then Buckingham Palace, in London, England. An ingenious piece of software, made for a guy who valued his privacy, and could pay the price for the very best. Which obviously this guy could. Steven drove out to meet him, and the first thing he saw was the bag with his money.
It was a soft leather duffel. Maybe not the best quality. Certainly not monogrammed. It was anonymous. Therefore disposable. Steven figured there would be two main ways to do it. He figured some guys would prefer to count it out, one solid brick of bills after another, handed over, one by one, more real that way. Others would just drop a bag and leave it there. A dull dusty thump, and then they would walk away. Without a word. Without a backward glance. Playing it cool. Hence disposable bags.
The guy had two more pieces of soft luggage, matching, better quality, and then two hard cases. Steven helped him unload. The guy insisted on moving the big pieces himself. He was a rangy character, tall and solid, maybe sixty years old, with snow white hair and a brick-red face. He was in jeans and battered boots. From somewhere out west, Steven thought. Montana, Wyoming, Colorado. For sure. Not Houston or Moscow or London.
They packed the stuff in the Mercedes, and Steven drove south, on a road that stayed mostly in the trees. The guy didn’t talk. Thirty minutes later they turned in at the mouth of the track. Between the frost-heaved posts, minus their signs. They ran over the bell wire. They drove on through the tunnel. Two miles and ten minutes later the guy was putting his bags in his room. Then he stepped back out, to the boardwalk, to the parking lot, to cast an eye over a small group of other guys, who seemed to be gathering nearby, forming up like a welcome committee, shuffling closer, casually, getting ready to say hi. The first guys in. The early birds.
There were three of them so far. First they all nodded, by way of introduction. Then they started talking. Initially about how they got there. A neutral subject. They shared some details. They were partly secretive and partly what-the-hell friendly. One said he had driven down in a Volvo wagon. He turned and pointed at it, parked outside his room. He implied most of the year he lived in a house in the woods. He was a pale, wiry man, in a red plaid shirt. Maybe seventy years old. Not naturally a talker, by the look of him, but right then buoyed up with suppressed excitement. He looked a little feverish. A little damp around the mouth.
He was from Maine, the fourth arrival thought. He said drove down, which meant south, which meant he lived to the north. His car said Vermont, but it was sure to be phony. The other big state. A house in the woods.
The second guy didn’t say where he was from, but he offered a long story about charter flights and phony licenses. A long enough story to include just about every kind of vocal sound necessary to prove the guy had lived a long time in the south of Texas. Not a native. He was about fifty. He was a solid guy, restrained by natural country courtesy, as polite as a salesman. But excited, too. The same kind of fever. The same kind of tremor.
The third guy was handsome as a movie star, and built like an athlete. Like a tennis player, maybe, loose and rangy. The kind of guy who was great in college and got no worse for twenty years. He had a certain kind of confidence. Like he belonged. Like he was accustomed to admiration. He said he drove up in a car that didn’t exist, and did the last lap in a van. He pointed to it. Persian carpets. He was from western New York or Pennsylvania, the fourth man thought, given his voice and his manner, and the route implied, and the distances, and the way he said drove up.
The fourth man asked, “Have you seen them yet?”
The second guy said, “Their blind is up. But right now they’re hiding in the bathroom.”
“What are they like?”
“They look great.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“I think they’re going to be real interesting.”
The man from Maine took over and said, “They’re both twenty-five years old. They’re both strong and healthy. They seem to have a close emotional relationship. We looked at some tapes. She gets impatient with him from time to time. But he catches up in the end. They solve problems together.”
The second guy said, “She’s the brains, no question.”
“Are they good looking?”
“Plain,” the good-looking guy said. “Not ugly. They both have muscles. He’s a farmer and she’s a sawmill worker. They’re Canadian, so they had healthcare growing up. You could call her strapping. That might be the right word for the woman. For him, not so much. His name is Shorty for a reason. He’s compact. But high quality. I have to say, I was very pleased when I saw them.”
“Me too,” said the man from Maine.
“I told you,” the second man said. “They look great.”
“How many more players will there be?”
“Two more,” the guy said. “For a total of six. If they make it.”
The fourth man nodded. Rules were rules. If you got there late, you got there never. Room Ten Is Occupied . The clock was ticking from the get-go. There was a cut-off point. No excuses. No exceptions. Hence the air taxis, daisy-chained together. Unfeasible distances.
He said, “Why is there no window in their bathroom?”
“Don’t need one,” the second man said. “There are cameras in there. Go over to the house and take a look.”
Chapter 28
The Reverend Patrick G. Burke insisted on driving as far as his restraining order would permit, which was all the way to the forty-year-old fence, beyond which the road no longer ran anyway. He said he would wait there. Reacher said he didn’t have to. But Burke insisted. In turn Reacher insisted he turn his car around. Nose out, not in. Ready for a fast getaway, in a forward gear. If necessary. Worst case. Turning around in the narrow fenced space made for an awkward maneuver. Back and forth, shoulder to shoulder, many times. But eventually the task was accomplished. The Subaru sat like a dragster at the start of the strip.
Reacher further insisted Burke keep his engine running. Yes, pollution. Yes, the price of gas. But better than fumbling the key. Better than the car not starting. When the time came. If necessary. Worst case. Burke agreed. Then Reacher insisted he feel free to take off without him. Immediately, no warning, at any time at all, for any reason or none, whatever his gut or his instincts told him.
“Don’t second-guess it,” Reacher said. “Don’t overthink it. Don’t wait even half a second.”
Burke didn’t answer.
“I mean it,” Reacher said. “If they come for you, it means they got past me. In which case you really don’t want to meet them.”
Burke agreed.
Reacher got out of the car. He closed the door. He swung his legs over the fence. He set out walking. The weather was the same. The smells were the same. The heavy ripe fruit, the hot dry grass. He heard the same buzz of the same insects. Overhead was a hawk, on the thermals. Two more, in the far distance, widely separated. Too far away to tell what kind. Stan would have said it was typical raptor behavior. Each one claimed an exclusive slice of the action. My street corner, your street corner. No trespassing. Like tough guys everywhere.
Reacher walked on, looking straight ahead. Refusing to glance left, at the top of the rise, where they might be waiting and watching. Refusing to give them the satisfaction. Let them come to him. He walked on. He got halfway across the orchard. Where he had knocked the kid down. There was no sign. No evidence. Maybe a little scuffed grass, from tensed-up footsteps. Maybe in a TV show they would make something out of it. But not in the real world. He walked on.
He made it all the way to the second fence. Undisturbed. All around was peace and
quiet and silence. Nothing was moving. Straight ahead the leaves were darker, and the smell was ranker. The sunless shadows looked colder. He glanced back. Nothing doing.
He climbed over the fence.
Ryantown, New Hampshire.
He walked down Main Street, like the day before, stepping between swaying pipe-thin trees, stumbling now and then on tipped-up stones, passing the low remains of the church, and the school. He picked his way onward, to the four-flats. To the right-hand foundation. To the remains of the kitchen, in the far back corner. The fragment of tile. He pictured his grandfather, like a clean-shaven Blackbeard, yelling and screaming and throwing punches and knocking people down. Probably drinking. He pictured his grandmother, hard and cold and sour. Never smiling. Never saying a nice thing. Always looking cross. Angrily sewing the kind of bedsheets she would never get to use.
He pictured his father, crawling around on the floor. Or not. Maybe sitting quietly in a corner, staring out the window. At a teeming patch of sky.
Your dad joined the Marines at seventeen , Carter Carrington had said. Got to be a reason .
He stood there for a long moment more, and then he said his goodbyes to the place. He turned and retraced his steps. Out the kitchen, through the hallway, past the trees, through the lobby, out the street door.
No one there. Nothing but peace and quiet and silence, all over again. He walked back up Main Street. He stopped at the school. Up ahead the street bent around to meet the church. Without sixty years of trees the vista would have been wide open. A person would have seen a big patch of sky. Maybe right there was their birdwatching spot. Where they saw the hawk. Maybe the binoculars belonged to the school. A grant from the county. Communally owned. Not to be taken away. Or maybe a kindly teacher had found them in a junk shop, and laid out a couple of bucks.
He walked on. He passed the church. He got back to the fence. Ryantown’s city limit. Ahead of him was the orchard. Where the road used to be. A straight shot, a hundred yards, to the parked Subaru. Which was still there. It was clearly visible in the distance. Between it and him were only two points of interest. The more distant was Burke himself. He was standing in the space between the back of his car and the safe side of the fence, and he was hopping from foot to foot, and jumping up and down, and waving his arm.
The second point of interest was fifty yards closer. Halfway across the orchard, strung out across the width of the stolen road, was a line of five men.
Overhead the hawk circled slowly.
Reacher climbed the fence. He left the mossy tangle of unchecked nature behind him, and walked between orderly lines of pruned and identical trees. Up ahead the five men stood still. They were shoulder to shoulder, but not quite touching. They looked like a singing group, about to start up with a tune. Like a barbershop quartet, plus one. Maybe an alto, two tenors, a baritone and a bass. In which case the bass would be the guy in the center. He was bigger than the others. Reacher was pretty sure he hadn’t seen him before. Also he was pretty sure the older guy was standing on the big guy’s right. The middle generation. Better jeans, cleaner shirt, grayer hair. The other three were the same as the night before. Minus the one that got popped. Big healthy specimens, but no military service or prison time or secret sessions with Mossad.
He walked on.
They waited.
Way beyond them in the distance Burke was still hopping up and down and waving his arm. Reacher wasn’t sure why. As a warning it would always be too late. Because of the linear geometry. He would see the problem before he saw the warning. Which made no sense. Maybe Burke was offering tactical advice. Do this, then do that. But Reacher couldn’t understand the semaphore. And he felt it would likely be superfluous anyway. No doubt a man like Burke had many and various talents, but brawling didn’t seem to be one of them. Not so far.
Maybe it was just general agitation.
Reacher walked on.
The guy in the center of the line of five was tall and wide and shaped like an artillery shell. He had a small head set on a thick bull neck fully four inches wider than his temples. Below that his shoulders sloped down, smooth and fast, like a sea creature. He had a big barrel chest, which made his arms and legs look short. He looked young, and fit, and strong.
He was a wrestler, Reacher thought. Maybe once a high school star. Then a college star. Now an apple picker. Was there a big leagues for college wrestlers? If so, the guy hadn’t made it. That was clear.
But still, he was big.
Twenty yards to go.
They waited.
The wrestler was staring dead ahead. He had tiny dark eyes set back deep in his tiny head. Not much expression. Altogether passive. Hence his relative lack of success in the post-college world, perhaps. Perhaps he lacked drive. Perhaps he failed to interpret the world around him. In which case, too bad. He was going to have to suck it up. He had been warned. Obviously. He had been drafted as a replacement. There was a clue in the word. He knew what he was getting into. He could have declined.
Fifteen yards to go.
The older guy was glancing left and right at his troops. He looked mostly excited. He was about to see some real good fun. But he was a little anxious too. In a faraway corner of his mind. Which he knew was crazy. How could they lose? It was a slam dunk, surely. But he couldn’t shake the feeling. Reacher saw it in his face. He helped it along, any way he could. The slow walk. The long strides, the loose shoulders. The hands away from the sides. The head up, and the eyes hard on the guy. The primitive signal, learned long ago.
Ten yards out.
The older guy couldn’t shake the feeling. It was right there in his face. Suddenly he looked like he was working on a contingency plan. A potential change of tactics. Just in case. As an alternative. He looked ready to shout new orders. Which made him a legitimate target. Even though he was fifty-something and soft. He was a commander in the field. Rules of engagement. They were what they were. He was going to have to suck it up too.
Reacher figured the other three would run away. Or at least they would back off, palms out, and they would stammer their way through some kind of not-our-idea plea deal. Loyalty had its limits. Especially to promises of menial labor from people who were pretty much assholes anyway.
They would run.
Five yards to go.
Reacher believed in staying flexible, but also having a plan, and in his experience it was about fifty-fifty which got used in the end. On this occasion the plan was to never slow down, to arrive at full speed, and to head-butt the wrestler mid stride. Which would check all the boxes. Surprise, overwhelming force, general shock and awe. With a convenient ethical twist. Literally. It would leave the older guy perfectly situated for a left hook, which was Reacher’s weaker hand, which was about as humane as he could see how to make it.
But it turned out flexibility was better. Because of the wrestler. He dropped into some kind of combat stance. Like a theatrical pose. Like a photographer was egging him on. Telling him to bring it. Maybe for the front page of the local newspaper. High School Star Wins Trophy . That kind of thing. The guy was giving it his best shot. Wasn’t really working. He looked like a fat kid pretending to be a grizzly bear. Stubby arms, like claws. At the ready. Kind of crouching, knees bent, feet apart.
So Reacher modified the plan. On the fly. West Point would have been proud of him. He preserved the essentials, and altered only the details. He never slowed down. He arrived at full speed. But instead of head-butting the guy, he kicked him in the balls. A sudden target of opportunity. Because of the feet apart. He got him with pace, and momentum, and a vicious scything upswing, and a dead-on perfect connection.
A football would have left the stadium.
It came out both good and bad.
The good part was it put him exactly where he should be. Ready for the left hook. Which he delivered. It was short and choppy by classical standards. Not elegant at all. Not much more than a whipped-in clout. But it was effective. Bang . Daddy went down sideways
. His command influence was terminated.
The bad part was the wrestler was wearing an athletic protector. A cup. Smart kid. He had interpreted the world. He had prepared. Even so, he had taken a heavy blow. Like a blunt cookie-cutter smashing down on tough and gristly dough. But he wasn’t disabled. He was still on his feet, stumping around, breathing hard. Shock, yes. Awe, not so much. Which meant the other three guys didn’t run away. They didn’t back off, palms out, pleading. Instead they crowded in a step, a blocking maneuver, to let their quarterback recover behind them.
Reacher thought, damn. The vagaries of chance. He should have stuck to the original plan. The guy wasn’t wearing a football helmet. He wanted to back off a pace, to reset the geometry, but he didn’t let himself. It would send the wrong message. Instead he hit the guy crowding nearest. A solid shot to the gut. Which doubled the guy over, his face on his knees, puking and gasping, so Reacher hit him again, with an elbow chopped down hard against the back of the guy’s head, which planted him face first in the grass. Game over right there, so Reacher stepped left and lined up the next guy. No delay. Nothing to be gained by standing around shooting the breeze. Better just to set them up and knock them down.
But the next guy was barged out the way. By the wrestler coming through the line. His hands were out and his body was all swelled up with rage. He shoved another guy out the way. He was coming on like a dump truck. Then he planted his feet. He crouched. Face to face. Like the start of a bout. He glared. He snarled.
Reacher thought, OK, then.
He knew squat about wrestling. He had never tried it. Never felt the need. Too sweaty. Too many rules. Too much like a last resort. He believed a fight should be won or lost long before it came to rolling around on the floor.
In the distance Burke was still jumping up and down and waving his arm.
The wrestler moved. His body turned like a single rigid unit, and he thumped his right foot down, just ahead of where it had been before. Then he turned the other way, just as rigid, and he thumped his left foot down. Like sumo. Now he was half a step closer. He was maybe a couple inches shorter than Reacher. But probably twenty pounds heavier. He was a big solid guy. That was for damn sure. He was all hard sleek muscle, smoothed out into a fluid shape, as if by passage through air or water. Like a bull seal. Or a mortar shell.