by Lee Child
“Yes, sir.”
“What does Billy do for a living?”
“He works the snowplow.”
“What about the summer?”
“I think he buys and sells things.”
“What kind of things does he sell?”
“Just things. Like flea-market things.”
“Where does he sell them?”
“I think all around. Wherever people are who want to buy them.”
“Do you know any of his customers?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen a woman who looks like my friend here?”
“No.”
“Do you know what an accessory is?”
“Something you put on your truck.”
“Also a legal word,” Reacher said. “It means if you know a secret, and you don’t tell, then you go to jail too. Billy has strayed far from the narrow path of righteousness, I’m afraid. He has made some poor choices in his life. The government seized this house yesterday. A federal agent put glue in the lock. That’s what they do now. So this is our last chance to help you, Mason. If you know where Billy is, you better tell us, right now.”
“I don’t know where Billy is,” the brother said, kind of happily. “But don’t worry. He’ll be back in a year or two. That’s what happened the last two times.”
Reacher looked at Bramall, who shrugged. Then at Mackenzie, who nodded. She believed the kid.
Who said, “How do I get in the house?”
“You don’t,” Reacher said. “No point. The money is long gone. It was in a federal evidence locker before you woke up this morning. But you can keep the truck. Get a blade for the plow, and you could set up in business.”
They watched the kid drive away. Mackenzie stayed on the porch and looked at the view. The wide empty plains on the right. The old post office, and the firework store. The pronghorns, about a mile away. The red road, still neatly scraped, still nicely cambered. On the left, the low jagged peaks, like miniature mountain ranges.
She said, “Logically we should keep on going. She’s not here. She’s not at Porterfield’s place, which is next. She’s not at the pie lady’s place, which comes after that. So logically we could just keep on going, and then stop before the fourth place. We’d be closer. Nothing could happen behind us. It would still all be ahead of us.”
“If Reacher is right,” Bramall said. “Which he might not be.”
“Then why has no one seen her?”
Bramall didn’t answer.
Reacher said, “I guess the gift of the truck was a cowboy kind of thing. Billy was making sure someone looked after his best horse, so to speak, come what may. All that kind of good stuff. But ten grand in a box is different. That’s a lot of money to give away. I don’t think he wanted to. I think he was out on the road when he got the call from Montana. Too far from home to come back and get it. The pact meant he had no time. He had to go to Casper immediately. And given the direction the other guy was driving from Billings, we have to assume they carried on east through Nebraska. And if we time it from Scorpio’s first voicemail, this all was at least forty-eight hours ago. They’re in Chicago by now. Except I don’t think they went to Chicago. I don’t think they would have felt at home there. My guess is they turned south for Oklahoma. They could make some kind of living there. Or the same kind of living.”
“Possible,” Bramall said.
Mackenzie said, “But Special Agent Noble will never be able to figure that out, because he’ll never know where the truck was found, because of our decision to give it to the brother.”
Bramall said, “Our?”
“Nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sure it was done with the best of intentions. Job creation is a wonderful thing. But I want Special Agent Noble to have a shot at finding Billy. Because I think he would tell us if he does. Why wouldn’t he? I think we should call him. I think we should tell him about Oklahoma.”
“It was only a guess,” Bramall said.
“Based on a fact,” she said. “Which Noble hasn’t got.”
“He might guess different.”
“At least he’ll get a chance to.”
“You really want me to call him?”
“I think we should.”
Bramall looked at Reacher.
Reacher said, “He cooked, after all. Normally we would send a note of some kind.”
Bramall took out his tortoiseshell reading glasses, and a small notebook. He opened it with his thumb.
Reacher said, “You have Noble’s number in there?”
Bramall said, “Just the western division’s switchboard.”
He dialed and played phone tag for a long minute, saying the name over and over again, with variations, Special Agent Kirk Noble, Special Agent Noble, Kirk Noble. Eventually the guy himself must have come on the line, because Bramall reminded him who he was, in terms of the bacon-and-egg dinner, and then he said now there was very strong reason to believe the fugitives had gone to Oklahoma.
Evidently Noble asked to speak to Reacher.
Bramall passed the phone.
Noble said, “There’s a problem with Porterfield.”
Chapter 26
Noble said, “I typed it up, word for word based on what you told me, and then I ran it through some software we have, which automatically checks against our existing databases, to see if we know the names already, for other reasons. And Seymour Porterfield came up blocked. I dug around and found three separate files on the guy, all locked, all needing high-level passwords.”
Reacher said, “What kind of a guy would get a file like that?”
“A source of information,” Noble said. “It’s a security measure.”
“Interesting.”
“I need to know who Porterfield was.”
“He had an expensive kitchen.”
“I need you to tell me what you know.”
“I don’t know anything about Porterfield. He wore blue jeans a lot and had an eye for décor. But I don’t really care. He’s not why I’m here.”
“One of the files was about Porterfield and a second person. Judging by the codes, the second person was a woman. I can’t read the date on the file but the sequencing suggests it was first opened about two years ago and last looked at by someone not long before Porterfield died.”
“Interesting,” Reacher said again. “How deep in your system are these files?”
“Very deep. But I don’t think they’re DEA originals. I think we got copied in as a courtesy, by someone else.”
“Who?”
“It’s a weird code. Not the FBI or the ATF. It’s like what we used to get when we had Special Forces deployed in Colombia. Not a remote source, you understand. Somewhere fairly near our main office.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “I understand. Don’t forget to call Oklahoma.”
He clicked off. Told the others.
Mackenzie said, “Does this help us?”
“I don’t know,” Reacher said. “Who Porterfield was two years ago doesn’t necessarily tell us where Rose is now. We shouldn’t invest too much time in it. I guess we could go pull off the road ahead of the fourth place, and I could make a call from there, while we were waiting.”
They parked on the slope of the shoulder, at an angle, like a cop with a radar gun. Ahead of them were twelve more homesteads, all widely separated and out of sight, all along forty more miles of the dirt road. And then nothing. No one was coming. Reacher borrowed Bramall’s phone and dialed the same ancient number from memory.
The same woman answered.
“West Point,” she said. “Superintendent’s office. How may I help you?”
“This is Reacher.”
“Hello, major.”
“I need to speak with the supe.”
“You don’t know his name, do you?”
“I guess not currently.”
“It’s General Simpson. He’ll be happy you called. He has information for you. Wait one, major.”
; There were clicks and dead air, and then the supe’s voice came on the line.
It said, “Major.”
Reacher said, “General.”
He didn’t use the name Simpson. Just in case it wasn’t. West Point culture was full of practical jokes, and although he very much doubted the woman who answered the phone would set him up, he couldn’t be sure.
The supe said, “What progress are you making?”
“Some,” Reacher said. “I think I’m close to the right location.”
“Which is where?”
“Bottom right-hand corner of Wyoming.”
“So she went home.”
“Not exactly, but not far away. I found trace evidence in a house in a place called Mule Crossing. She was there about a year and a half ago. My sense is she’s still in the general neighborhood.”
The supe said, “There’s something you need to know. It might be important. Out of curiosity I tried to take a look at Sanderson’s service record and medical file. I couldn’t get in. They’re sealed tighter than a duck’s butt on a choppy day. I think your people did it.”
“My people?”
“Military police.”
“When?”
“Hard to tell exactly. Not recently. But after she left the service, almost certainly. Two years ago, possibly.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “Now guess what I was calling about?”
“How could I?”
“The house where I found evidence was owned by a guy who also has a sealed file in a government database. Three sealed files, in fact. One of which was first opened around two years ago, and features the guy with a woman. Apparently they are not native files. The folks at the database think the agency in question was copied in as a courtesy, by another agency.”
“Do they know which one?”
“They hinted at the Pentagon.”
“I find that interesting,” the supe said. “As you knew I would. But you didn’t call just to entertain me. You want me to do something.”
“Who do you know down there?”
“A couple of people.”
“Do they owe you?”
“How big of a risk would they be taking?”
“Not much. This thing went cold a year and a half ago. It’s ancient history now. And they don’t have to give us chapter and verse. Just confirm or deny if Sanderson is the woman in the file with the guy who owned the house. His name was Seymour Porterfield. Social Security should show a county sheriff’s notification of death around the start of spring last year.”
“He’s dead?”
“It’s Wyoming. He was eaten by a bear.”
Reacher spelled Porterfield’s names, first and last.
The supe repeated them back.
“Thank you, general,” Reacher said, “You can call me back on this number. My partner Mr. Bramall will answer.”
“Thank you, major.”
Reacher said, “Sir, is your name Simpson?”
“Correct,” the supe said. “Sean Simpson.”
“Yes, sir,” Reacher said, purely out of habit.
He clicked off, and gave the phone back to Bramall, who plugged it in to charge.
They waited an hour on the shoulder, and saw no one coming, except a small herd of elk, who came out of the trees on one side of a gulch, and into the trees on the other. Overhead, black birds of prey hovered motionless, high in the sky.
The road stayed empty.
“I’m sorry,” Mackenzie said. “I did it again. Every idea looks like a good idea. Until it turns out wrong.”
“Neither of us had a better idea,” Reacher said.
“Maybe it’s a good thing if we don’t see her. It would mean she doesn’t need what Billy was selling. It would mean she’s OK. Someone stole her ring. You said so yourself.”
“Best case.”
“Which sometimes happens.”
“Sometimes,” Reacher said.
“How often?”
“More than never. Less than always.”
“Wait,” Bramall said.
He pointed.
There was a dust cloud on the road ahead. In the west, way far in the distance, on the rising horizon. There was a tiny dot at its head, smoothed by the haze, but coming on fast.
They waited. The dot grew bigger and the cloud spun and howled behind it, furiously and endlessly generating itself anew, exactly the shape of a parachute, but infinitely long, hanging together with some kind of internal aerodynamic constraint, before finally going limp, and succumbing to wind and gravity, and drifting back to earth.
“Stand by,” Bramall said.
He pulled his phone off the charger, ready to take a photograph.
They waited.
An SUV flashed by, moving fast, an ancient model, boxy and battered and square, covered with rust and red dust so thick it looked baked on. The window glass was just as bad, except the front windshield, which had two smeared arcs from the wipers, where the dust was thinner. Through them they got a fractured split-second glimpse inside.
Just a dull and hazy impression.
A small figure, flinching away.
A silvery color.
Chapter 27
Bramall swung off the shoulder and took off in pursuit like the highway patrol. The truck up ahead was still moving fast. The road ran straight for long stretches, then dipped through hollows, and rose over knolls, and curved out of sight, but the dust cloud was always there, showing the way. The big Toyota growled along, pattering hard over the rough surface, going plenty fast itself, but their quarry wasn’t slowing any. In fact it was speeding up. At times the cloud between them grew half a mile long.
And then it was gone.
The Toyota came leaning out of a long fast curve, through the last of the dust, into clear air, pure and bright and empty for miles ahead.
No truck. Nothing there.
Behind them the severed cloud swayed in the wind, and pulled off the road, and died in the scrub.
Bramall stopped.
“She turned off,” Reacher said. “There’s no dust on the ranch roads. What’s back there?”
Bramall made a U-turn, shoulder to shoulder, and went back to see.
“Driveway on the left,” Mackenzie said. “I think. It’s hard to be sure.”