by Lee Child
Sorenson said, “Nothing came through between you and me, right? So this guy must have gotten here hours ago.”
“No, he came north,” Reacher said. “Not south. He didn’t come past the motel. He U-turned right here, he picked them up, and he headed back where he came from. You can see all that from the tracks.”
“Are you certain?”
“What else can have happened? They didn’t jack another car. That’s for sure. There’s no traffic out here. You could wait forever. And I doubt if they’re walking. So they were picked up. This was a rendezvous. They got here first. They were waiting. They know this place. Which is how they know that back road off the Interstate.”
“Who picked them up?”
“I don’t know,” Reacher said again. “But this thing is starting to look like a big operation. Three coordinated crews, at least.”
“Why three? There were only two here. King and McQueen, plus whoever picked them up.”
“Plus whoever was simultaneously disappearing your eyewitness, all the way back in Nebraska. That’s what I mean by coordination. They’re cleaning house. They’re taking care of everyone who ever laid eyes on King and McQueen.”
The break of day brought with it a cold breeze out of the north. There was rain coming. And soon. Reacher hunched down in his coat. Sorenson’s pants legs flapped like sails. She walked twenty yards into a field. To get away from the smell on the wind, Reacher figured. He followed her, with stiff stalks crunching under his feet. Just to keep her company. He didn’t need to move. Right then he couldn’t smell anything at all. But he had smelled similar things before, from time to time in the past, back when his nose still worked. Oil, gas, plastic, charred meat. A chemical stink, plus rotting forgotten barbecue. Worse. Any sane person would want to get out of the way.
Sorenson called the Iowa troopers and claimed the scene for the FBI. She said it was not to be approached, and nothing was to be touched, and nothing was to be moved. Then she called her own tech team and told them to make the long trip over. She told them she wanted the best crime scene analysis ever attempted, and the best autopsy ever performed.
“Waste of time,” Reacher said, when she clicked off. “There’s virtually nothing to be found after a fire like that.”
“I just need to know,” she said.
“Know what?”
“That she was dead before the fire started. If I could know that, I might be able to carry on.”
They walked back to Sorenson’s car, a long curving route around the wreck, away from the heat and the smell, and when they got twenty feet from it she did what she had to do: she cleared her throat and took a breath and pulled her gun and arrested Jack-none-Reacher, on suspicion of conspiracy, and homicide in the first degree, and kidnapping.
Chapter 38
Sorenson was holding her Glock two-handed again, steady and straight and level, feet properly planted, weight properly braced. She was less than four yards from Reacher. Her head was turned again, to the side, just a little, the same way as it had been before, as if quizzically. The same strand of hair was over the same eye.
She said, “Look at it from my point of view. What’s my alternative? What else am I supposed to do? We lost the hostage, so the game has changed. Now it moves up a level. And we need to start with an arrest, or we’ll be crucified. You understand that, right?”
Reacher said, “Are you apologizing to me?”
“Yes. I suppose I am. I’m very sorry. But you know how these things work. If you are who you say you are, that is.”
“I am who I say I am. You’re a very suspicious woman. A person’s feelings could get hurt.”
“I have to be suspicious. But I’m sorry about that too.”
Reacher smiled, just briefly. “I must say this is a very civilized arrest. Could be the politest ever. Apart from the gun, that is. You don’t need it. Where am I going to escape to?”
“Forgive me. But I need the gun. You’re a legitimate suspect. And you have valuable information. I’m sure my SAC would prefer to airbrush the Omaha field office right out of this whole thing altogether, but it’s far too late for that now. So he’s got to be able to show something for a night’s work. Either a suspect, or a material witness. And you’re one or the other. Maybe you’re both.”
“Suppose I don’t want to go to Omaha?”
“She’ll wait.”
“Who will?”
“The woman in Virginia. Or maybe she won’t. Or maybe she’s already forgotten all about you. But whatever, that’s all on hold now.”
“I wasn’t thinking about Virginia. I agree, that’s on hold now. I was thinking about Iowa. Right here, right now. This is where the trail starts. With those tire tracks.”
Tire tracks.
Reacher glanced behind him, at the yard-wide skim of mud on the edge of the road, but he couldn’t see what he needed to see.
Sorenson said, “Where the hell do you think you are, in the movies? You’re a civilian. This isn’t your trail. This isn’t my trail anymore, either. We lost the hostage. Remember? An innocent woman. An innocent member of the public. A carjacking victim. A mother, for God’s sake. You get that? There’s going to be a big task force now. Dozens of people. Maybe even hundreds. An Assistant SAC leading it at the very least. There’s going to be media. Cable news. It’s all going to be way above my pay grade. They’re going to hide me away like an idiot child. So there’s nothing for either one of us here in Iowa. Not now. Get used to it.”
Reacher said, “The trail will go cold before the task force even gets here.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that.”
“There is. We can stop wasting time. We can make a start.”
“Have you got unemployment insurance?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. So don’t include me in your harebrained schemes.”
“OK, I could make a start.”
“How? You’re a civilian. You’re one man. You have no resources. What could you possibly do?”
“I could find them.”
“Because?”
“I’ve found people before.”
“And then what?”
“I could impress upon them the error of their ways.”
“An eye for an eye?”
“I’m not interested in their eyes.”
“I can’t let that happen. It would be a crime in itself. There has to be due process. Let the law take care of it. That’s the price of civilization.”
“Civilization can go sit on its thumb. I liked Delfuenso. She was a nice woman. Brave too. And smart. And tough. She worked all evening at a shitty job, and still she was thinking right to the end.”
“I don’t dispute any of that.”
“They opened the wrong door, Julia. They get what they get.”
“From you? How so? Who died and made you king of the world?”
“Someone has to do it. Are you guys going to?”
Sorenson didn’t answer.
Reacher said, “I’ll take that as a no, shall I?”
Sorenson shrugged, and then she nodded, reluctantly, as if despite herself. She said, “There’s another call I have to make.”
“To who?”
“A county sheriff back in Nebraska. Delfuenso’s daughter is about to wake up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So I need to put the cuffs on you. I need to put you in the back of the car.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“This is not a game.”
“It’s going to rain,” Reacher said. “We’re going to lose the tire marks.”
“Turn around,” Sorenson said. “Hold your hands out behind you.”
“Have you got a camera?”
“What?”
“A camera,” Reacher said. “Have you got one?”
“Why?”
“We need pictures of the tire marks. Before it rains.”
“Turn around,” Sorenson said again.
&nbs
p; “Let’s make a deal.”
“What kind of a deal?”
“You lend me your camera, and I’ll take pictures of the tire marks, while you make your call to the county sheriff.”
“And then what?”
“And then we’ll talk some more.”
“About what?”
“About my personal situation.”
“What’s my other option?”
“You don’t have another option.”
“I’m the one with the gun here.”
“Except you’re not going to use it. We both know that. And you have my word. I won’t run. You can trust me. I swore an oath too. In the army. A bigger oath than yours.”
“I have to take you back with me. You understand that, right? Omaha has to do something right tonight.”
“You could say you never found me.”
“The motel keeper knows I did.”
“You could shoot him in the head.”
“I was tempted.”
“Do we have a deal?”
“You have to come back with me afterward.”
“That wasn’t in the deal. Not yet. Not technically. That was to be decided later. I said, and then we’ll talk some more.”
“If you’re telling the truth, you have nothing to worry about.”
“You still believe stuff like that?”
Sorenson said, “Yes, I do.”
Reacher said nothing.
“Weigh it up,” Sorenson said. “Think about it. Make a choice. You have no car, no phone, no contacts, no support, no help, no back-up, no budget, no facilities, no lab, no computers, and you have absolutely no idea where those guys have gone. You need food and rest. You need medical attention for your face. But I could leave you here like that. Right here, right now, alone, in the middle of nowhere, with the rain coming. Then I’d be fired, and guess what? You’d be hunted down like a dog anyway.”
Reacher said, “What’s my other option?”
“Come back with me to Omaha, help us out, and maybe even pick up some information as you go along. To do with as you wish.”
“Information from where?”
“From who, not from where.”
“OK, from who?”
“From me.”
“Why would you?”
“Because I’m improvising here. I’m trying to find a way to get you in the car.”
“So now you’re the one offering a deal.”
“And it’s a good deal. You should take it.”
Reacher took his photographs while Sorenson called the county sheriff back in Nebraska. It was a digital camera. He half-remembered maybe once taking a picture with a cellular telephone, but apart from that vague possibility the last time he had handled a camera had been back in the age of film. Not that it made much difference, he assumed. In both cases there was a lens, and a little button to press, and a little thing to look through. Except there wasn’t. There was no viewfinder hole. Instead the operator had to do the whole thing on a tiny television screen. Which meant working with the camera held out at arm’s length, and walking backward and forward. Like a man in a hazard suit with a Geiger counter.
But he got the two shots he wanted, and he headed back to the car. Sorenson was through with her call by then. It hadn’t been fun, by the look of it. Not a barrel of laughs. She said, “OK, let’s go. You can ride in the front.”
He said, “Look at the pictures first.”
The rain started to fall. Big heavy drops, some of them vertical, some of them sideways on the gusting wind. They got in the car, and he passed her the camera. She knew how to use it. She toggled forward, and then back again.
“You only took two pictures?” she said.
“Two was all I needed.”
“Two of the same thing?”
“They’re not of the same thing.”
The rain hammered on the Crown Vic’s roof. Sorenson looked at the first photograph, very carefully, and then the second, just as carefully. They were both close-ups of tire marks in the mud. Apparently the same tire, and the same mud. She went back and forth between them, once, twice, three times. She said, “OK, they’re identical. And they’re from the car that U-turned, correct? So what are they, left and right? Or front and rear?”
“Neither,” Reacher said.
“So what are they?”
“Only one is from the car that U-turned.”
“What about the other one?”
“That’s from your car.”
Chapter 39
Sorenson looked at the pictures again, first one, and then the other, back and forth, over and over. The same tire, and the same mud. She said, “This doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“I agree,” Reacher said. “Not necessarily.”
“I was never here before.”
“I believe you.”
“And the Bureau doesn’t have its own make of tires. I’m sure we just buy them, like anyone else. Probably from Sears. I’m sure we look for something cheap and reliable. Something generic. Whatever’s on sale. Like everyone does. So these go on all the big sedans. There must be half a dozen different makes and models. Fleet vehicles, rentals, the big things old people drive. I bet there are a million tires like this in the world.”
“Probably more,” Reacher said.
“So what are we saying?”
“We’re saying we know for sure what kind of tires the bad guys have on their car. The same kind as yours. Which means their car is probably a big domestic sedan. It’s a start.”
“That’s all?”
“Anything else would be speculation.”
“We’re allowed to speculate.”
“Then I would say they are urban. Or at least suburban. Big sedans are rare in farm country. It’s all pick-up trucks and four-wheel-drives out here.”
“How urban?”
“From the kind of place that has taxi companies and car services. And offices and maybe an airport. The local market has to be right. I’m sure you couldn’t buy tires like these out here, for instance. Why would anyone keep them in stock?”
“So you’re not saying there’s Bureau involvement here?”
“I’m sure there isn’t.”
“But?”
“Nothing.”
“But?”
“But I’m pretty much a black and white kind of a person, and I like things confirmed yes or no, beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“Then no. It’s confirmed. Right now. Straight from the horse’s mouth. For absolute sure. Beyond any kind of doubt. It is completely inconceivable the Bureau was involved with this. That’s the worst kind of crazy thinking.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “Let’s go. Tell me if you want me to drive for a bit. I know the way.”
Sorenson pulled a big wide U-turn of her own, and then she hit it hard and hurried north through the rain. They passed the motel doing about sixty. It looked different by day. The low bulkhead lights were off, and the siding looked paler.
Reacher said, “I paid for two nights in there. And I spent about thirty seconds in the room.”
Sorenson said, “Why did you pay?”
“I was feeling guilty about the guy’s wall.”
“Not your fault.”
“That was my impression at the time.”
“So you shouldn’t feel guilty. Not about him, anyway. I didn’t like him.”
“Well, I’ve still got his key. It’s in my pocket. Maybe I’ll mail it back, and maybe I won’t.”
Then they came to the first junction, and Sorenson braked late and made the left with all kinds of squealing and sliding on the slick surface. She came off the gas and got straightened out and hit it again.
“Sorry,” she said.
Reacher said nothing. He was in no position to complain. They were still on the road. He would have been in a field.
“The tires are worn,” she said. “I noticed on the way out here.”
Reacher said nothing.
She said, “Whi
ch means the bad guys’ tires are worn too. If the pictures are identical, that is. Which is step two. We know what kind of tires they have, and we know approximately how old they are. Maybe an older car. Maybe an older driver. Could be some old person around here, with one of those big old cars.”
“I doubt it,” Reacher said. “I don’t think old people really love to come out in the middle of the night to watch women burn to death. Because you realize that fire was started when they were all still there? They didn’t set a fuse. It wasn’t spontaneous combustion. They lit it and they all stood around and watched and waited until they were sure it was going well.”
“OK,” Sorenson said. “It wasn’t a local senior. It was someone from somewhere urban.”
“With taxi companies and car services and offices and an airport,” Reacher said. “And maybe with a metro-area population around a million and a half. That’s something Alan King let slip. He said a million and a half people live where he lives.”
“That’s potentially interesting. Unless it was misdirection.”
“I don’t think it was. I don’t think they had a script. They were generally fast and smart, but it was a random question and an instant answer. No thinking time. Too fluid for a lie. Their other lies were slower and more clumsy.”
“Anything else?”
“At one point McQueen used what I felt was an odd word choice. I was skeptical about the gas station being where the highway sign said it was, and when we got there McQueen said You should have trusted me. I think most people would have said believed instead. Don’t you think? You should have believed me?”
“What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure. In the service we were taught to listen for odd words. The Russians had language schools, with perfect accents, and slang and so on and so forth, and sometimes the only tells were odd words. So for a minute I wondered if McQueen was foreign.”
Sorenson drove on and said nothing.
She was thinking: The shirt was bought in Pakistan, or possibly the Middle East. She asked, “Did McQueen have an accent?”
Reacher answered, “None at all. Very generic American.”
