23 Past Tense

by Lee Child

  “Something unsolved.”

  “When do you need it by?”

  “I’ll call you back as soon as I can. I want to hear about Carrington.”

  —

  They passed the wandering turn that led away through the orchards to Ryantown. They stayed on the back road, heading north. Reacher watched the phone. The bars went out, one by one. For a moment the screen said it was searching, and then it gave up and said no service. Up ahead were miles of fields, and then more woods, far in the distance. A left to right wall. Burke drove on toward it. He said he thought the motel entrance was about five miles in. On the left side. He remembered the signs. There was one each way. They said Motel, in plastic letters painted gold. They were mounted on gnarled old posts.

  Five minutes later they drove into the trees. The air felt cooler. Sunlight sparkled through the leaves. Reacher checked the speedometer. They were doing forty. About five miles would take about seven or eight minutes. He counted time in his head. The trees grew thicker. Like a tunnel. No more sunbeams. The light turned green and soft.

  Burke took his foot off the gas at seven minutes exactly in Reacher’s head. Burke said he was pretty sure the turn was coming up. Ahead on the left. Pretty soon. He remembered. But they saw no signs. No plastic letters, no gold paint. Just a pair of twisted old posts, leaning over a little, and the mouth of a track. Left and right of it on the main drag were unbroken walls of trees, both up ahead and far behind.

  “I’m pretty sure this was it,” Burke said.

  Reacher hitched up and pulled his map from his pocket. The one he had bought at the old edge-of-town gas station. He unfolded it and found the back road. He checked the scale and moved his finger. He showed Burke. He said, “This is the only turn for miles around.”

  Burke said, “Maybe someone stole their signs.”

  “Or they went out of business.”

  “I doubt it. They were very committed. They had a business plan. I heard something about them, as a matter of fact. From the county office. They were extremely ambitious. But they got off to a bad start, as it turned out. They got in a fight about a permit.”

  “Who did?”

  “The people developing the property. They said any motel keeper depends on opening on time at the start of the season. They said the county was unreasonably slow with the permit. The county said the developer had started work without permission. They got in a fight.”

  “When was this?”

  “About a year and a half ago. Which is why they were upset about their timetable. They wanted to open the following spring. Which is also why they can’t be out of business yet. Their plan showed a two-year reserve.”

  A patrol car responded to the county offices because a customer was causing a disturbance. He claimed a building permit was slow coming through. He claimed he was renovating a motel somewhere out of town.

  He gave his name as Mark Reacher.

  Reacher said, “I really need to go take a look at this place.”

  Burked turned in, over broken blacktop that was missing altogether in whole table-sized patches. The light was greener still. Branches dipped in close, from both sides, some of them limp and broken, still fresh, as if a large vehicle had brushed by not long ago.

  They found the large vehicle thirty yards later. It was stopped up ahead, tight against the trees on both sides, blocking the track completely.

  It was a tow truck. Huge. Red paint, gold stripes.

  “We just saw this thing,” Reacher said. “And I also saw it yesterday.”

  A yard behind its giant rear tires was a wire, laid side to side across the road. It was fat and rubbery. It was the kind of thing they had at gas stations.

  Reacher wound his window down. There was no noise from the truck’s engine. There were no fumes from its exhaust. Burke stopped the Subaru six feet before the wire. Reacher opened his door. He got out and walked forward. He stepped over the wire. Burke followed him. Reacher made sure Burke stepped over the wire too. He didn’t like wires on roads. Nothing good ever came of them. Best case surveillance, worst case explosions.

  The truck had a long sloping haunch at the back, with a short sturdy crane and a giant tow hook. It had lockers with gleaming chrome doors. Reacher squeezed down the driver’s side, leading with his left shoulder, keeping his left elbow high, keeping the twigs away from his face. He slid past the owner’s name, which was Karel, proudly painted a foot high in gold letters. He made it level with the cab. He stepped up on the bottom rung of the ladder and tried the driver’s door. It was locked. He stepped down again and forced his way around the hood to the front of the truck. Ahead of him the track ran on through the woods. The surface remained the same. Worn blacktop, missing in places, randomly covered in grit, gravel, dirt, and leaf mold. There were tire tracks here and there, some of them ancient, some of them recent. Twenty yards farther on there was a hole in the trees. Like a natural recess. It had brand new tire tracks. Two tight V shapes. Like a car had backed in to turn around. Which made some kind of sense. Because the tow truck driver didn’t seem to be around anymore. Possibly a car had driven down to pick him up. It would have stopped nose to nose with the truck, and then backed up and turned and driven away forward.

  Reacher looked ahead.

  He said, “I’m going to go take a look at what they got up there.”

  “How?” Burke said.

  “I’m going to walk.”

  “Your map showed this track is more than two miles long.”

  “I need a place to sleep. Also I’m curious.”

  “About what?”

  “I think the guy who got in the fight about the permit was a kid named Reacher.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It was in the police computer. A squad car had to go calm things down. A year and a half ago.”

  “Are you related?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe as much as I am to the professor from the university.”

  “Do you want company?”

  “We could be walking two miles back again, if we don’t get lucky.”

  “That’s OK,” Burke said. “I guess now I’m curious too.”

  They set out together. By geographic map-making standards the land was dead flat, which made walking easy, but up close and personal the track was uneven and pitted, which made it hard. Every step was an inch and a half higher or lower than the one before, which meant any step could become a stumble. At one early point they passed through a grassy ring, where no trees were growing. It was maybe sixty feet wide. It seemed to curve away, in both directions, as if it ran in a circle all the way around. As if it defined an inner part of forest. A woods within a woods. It was like a giant crop circle, but carved out of sixty-foot maple trees, not stalks of corn. All the way across they felt the warmth of the sun. Then the cold green shadow claimed them again. They had crossed the boundary. Now they were in the inner forest. They were in the woods within the woods. They were walking toward its center.

  Two miles would have taken Reacher thirty minutes, but they took Burke forty-five. They came out of the trees together, and they saw the track run on ahead, through a couple of grassy acres, to what looked like a dirt parking lot in front of what was indisputably a motel. It had an office at the left-hand end, and a station wagon and a panel van and a compact car and a pick-up truck, all parked at intervals outside the rooms.

  They set out walking toward it.

  —

  They were instantly detected. Two separate ways. Robert had copied a facial recognition algorithm from a photo chip and coded it into the close-up camera. As soon as the algorithm detected a face among the trees it rang a bell and flashed a light, like a distant early warning. Like radar. Persons approaching. But by chance Steven was watching the right screen anyway, as part of a disciplined rotation through the points of the compass. The movement caught his eye. He saw two men step out of the shadows and into the sunshine.

  He said, “Mark, look at this.”

  Mar
k looked.

  And said, “Who the hell are they?”

  Robert zoomed the camera all the way. The image trembled with distance, and wavered with haze. Two guys were walking toward the lens. Head on. Seemingly making no progress, because of the extreme telephoto. One guy was small and old. Slightly built, and slow. Denim jacket, gray hair. The other guy was huge. As wide as a door. Hair sticking up all over. A face like the side of a house.

  He looked rough.

  Mark said, “Shit.”

  Steven said, “You told us he wouldn’t come here. You said he was a different branch of the family. You said he wouldn’t be interested.”

  Mark didn’t answer.

  Then Peter buzzed through from the office. His voice came out of the intercom speaker. He said, “But actually it turns out the guy was interested enough to walk two whole miles past the roadblock. Good call, bro.”

  Again Mark didn’t answer.

  He was quiet a long moment more.

  Then he said, “Keep everyone inside the house. Give them all another cup of coffee. Show them another video. Keep the doors closed. Make sure no one leaves.”

  Chapter 32

  Burke and Reacher stepped off the last of the blacktop onto the dirt of the motel lot. By then they had a pretty good close-up view of what was waiting ahead. Reacher heard Amos’s voice in his mind, talking about LSD in her coffee. Now he knew what she meant. Because up close the panel van parked second in line from the motel office turned out to be blue. A dark, dignified shade. Enhanced and explained by curls of gold writing. Persian carpets. Expert cleaning. A Boston address. A Massachusetts license plate.

  The biggest déjà vu in history.

  Except not exactly, because he hadn’t actually seen the van before. He had only heard about it on the radio. It had been caught by the cameras, coming off the highway, too early for a residential customer. Whereas he had actually seen the tow truck before. That was for damn sure. Two separate times. That really was déjà vu all over again. He had squeezed past a truck he had seen twice before, and then the very next vehicle he came upon was a van he had heard about on a police dispatcher’s broadcast. He slowed half a step, automatically, thinking. Burke got a step in front of him, and walked on ahead, slow but unflagging.

  Beyond him Reacher saw that the station wagon parked first in line was a Volvo, with a Vermont plate on the back. The small compact was blue, probably an import, with a plate he didn’t know. The pick-up truck was a workhorse. It was the kind of thing a carpenter would use, to get boards in the back. It was dirty white. It had what he thought was an Illinois plate. Hard to be sure, given the distance. It was last in line. It was outside of what would be room eleven. The Volvo was outside of three, and the carpet van outside of seven. The small blue import was outside of ten. Ten’s window blind was down, and five’s lawn chair had been used. It had been scooted out of line.

  They walked on toward the office, which had a red neon sign. They went in. There was a guy behind the counter. In his late twenties, maybe, with dark hair, and pale skin, and a slight look-away shyness in his manner. He had an air of intelligence. He was educated. He was healthy and fit. Maybe a college athlete. But a runner, not a weightlifter. Middle distance. Maybe a master’s degree in a technical subject. He was wiry, and coiled, and shot through with some kind of nervous buzz.

  Reacher said, “I need a room for the night.”

  The guy said, “I’m really sorry, but the motel is closed.”

  “Is it?”

  “I took the signs down at the entrance. I hoped I would save people a wasted trip.”

  “There are plenty of vehicles here.”

  “Work people. I’m way behind with the maintenance. There are things I really need to fix before the leaves turn and the tourists come back. Turns out the only viable way to do it was close for two weeks. I’m really sorry about that.”

  “Are you doing all the rooms at once?”

  “The plumber turned the water off. The electrician is messing with the power. There’s no heat and no AC. I’m way below code right now. I wouldn’t be allowed to give you a room, even if I could.”

  “You got Persian carpets?”

  “They’re organic jute, actually. I’m trying to be sustainable. It should last ten years, but only if you clean it carefully. It would be a false economy to use a regular commercial crew. These guys get Boston prices, believe me, but the spreadsheet says it should be worth it in the long term.”

  Reacher asked, “What’s your name?”

  “My name?”

  “We’ve all got one.”

  “Tony.”

  “Tony what?”

  “Kelly.”

  “Mine is Reacher.”

  The guy looked blank for a second, but then he focused, as if he was snagging on an odd coincidence.

  He said, “I bought this place from a family called Reacher. Are you related?”

  “I don’t know,” Reacher said. “I guess everyone is related if you go back far enough. When did you buy it?”

  “Nearly a year ago. It was halfway renovated. I got it open in time for the season. But now I have some catching up to do.”

  “Why did they sell?”

  “A grandson took it on, but honestly, I think he found it wasn’t for him. He was more of an ideas guy. There was a lot of detail involved. He got in trouble with permits, I think. Pretty soon he decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. But my spreadsheet told me it was. So I bought him out. I like detail.”

  “Is the electrician from Vermont, or the plumber?”

  “The plumber. They have the best three-season guys in the world up there. Costs me more to bring them south, but my spreadsheet tells me it would be penny wise and pound foolish not to.”

  “Same thing with the electrician from Illinois, I suppose.”

  “Actually that’s slightly different. There’s unemployment out there, so they work for less, which offsets getting them here, so it’s a wash in terms of cost. But it’s way better in terms of how they do the job. These guys are auditioning, basically. This is a whole new market. There’s infinite work here, at their hourly rates. They want word of mouth recommendations. So their quality is excellent. Plus they already know their way around motels like this. There are more of them in the Midwest than here.”

  “OK,” Reacher said.

  “I’m really sorry about the wasted trip,” the guy said.

  Then he stopped, and defocused again, and said, “Wait.”

  They waited.

  The guy glanced out the window.

  Then he said, all in a rush, “How did you get here? I completely didn’t think. Don’t tell me you walked. But you can’t have driven. I just realized. The wrecker is stuck.”

  “We walked,” Reacher said.

  “I am so sorry. Today has been one damn thing after another. The last guest I had before I closed abandoned a broken-down car. Apparently it wouldn’t start, so he called a cab and disappeared. Naturally I wanted the car towed, and today was supposed to be the day, but it turned out the tow truck is so huge it got jammed in the trees.”

  Then the guy looked out the window again, left and right, checking.

  He said, quieter, “Or else he just doesn’t want to scratch his paint. I have to say, I’m not very satisfied. The trees on both sides of that track are trimmed precisely according to Department of Transportation guidelines. I’m pretty much a detail guy. I take care of things like that, believe me. Any highway-legal commercial vehicle should fit just fine.”

  Then he stopped again, struck by another new thought, and he said, “Let me drive you back. At least that far. I assume your car is parked behind the truck. It’s the least I can do.”

  Reacher said, “What was wrong with the abandoned car?”

  “I don’t know,” the guy said. “It’s pretty old.”

  “What’s the plate on it?”

  “Canadian,” the guy said. “Maybe one-way airfare is cheaper than the disposal fees they
charge up there. I’m sure there are environmental regulations. Maybe he drove the car here just to dump it. It would be a simple profit and loss calculation.”

  “OK,” Reacher said. “You can drive us back now.”

  “Thank you,” Burke said.

  The guy ushered them out of the office, and locked the door behind them, and asked them to wait in the lot. Then he jogged away, toward a barn, maybe thirty yards distant. It was a blunt square building, with nine quad-bikes parked outside, in a neat three-by-three formation. Beyond the barn was a house, with heavy furniture on wide porches.

  A minute later the guy drove out of the barn in a black SUV. It was medium sized, and shaped like a fist. Probably European. Maybe a Porsche or a Mercedes-Benz. Or a BMW. Maybe an Audi. It was a Mercedes. It stopped right beside them. Reacher saw the badge. It had a V8 engine. The guy at the wheel waited, expectantly, so Burke climbed in the front, and Reacher got in the back. The guy crunched through the lot and thumped up on the blacktop and sped through the meadow.

  He said, “You should head east toward the lake country. You’ll find plenty of options there, I’m sure.”

  They re-entered the woods through the same natural arch they had come out of. The guy drove fast. He knew there was going to be no oncoming traffic. The two miles that had taken Burke three quarters of an hour took the Mercedes three minutes. The guy stopped nose to nose with the tow truck. The light was dim and green and the red paint looked soured, like blood. The trees were tight on either side, pressing in with bent boughs and leaves spread like fingers. The lower canopy flopped down, level with the top of the windshield. The truck was in firm contact with the surrounding vegetation, certainly. But it was not physically restrained, surely. Not with the torque of its giant motor and the traction of its giant tires. The guy wasn’t stuck. He was worried about his paint. Understandable. It must have cost a buck or two. Multiple coats of red. Miles and miles of gold pinstripes, all done by hand. His name, Karel, fortunately short, spelled out in expensive copperplate, like a letter from an old Victorian aunt.

  The guy at the wheel apologized again for their wasted trip, and he wished them good luck, and Burke said thank you, and got out, and Reacher followed him. Burke squeezed down the side of the truck, and Reacher went after him, elbow high, but then he stopped where the cab towered over him, and he turned around to watch. The Mercedes backed up smartly, and the guy reversed into and drove out of the natural hole in the trees, neatly, crisply, and fast. As if he had done it before. Which he had. He had picked up the truck driver.