by Lee Child
“So they must have gotten close to the wrong American.”
“Without even knowing it,” Reacher said. “Don’t you think? A handgun to the head is an up-close-and-personal kind of a thing. Which they wouldn’t have allowed, surely, if they had the slightest suspicion.”
“Very neat,” Turner said. “They shut me down, at both ends. Here, and there. Before I got anything at all. As in, right now I have nothing. Not a thing. So I’m totally screwed. I’m going down, Reacher. I don’t see a way out of this now.”
Reacher said nothing.
* * *
They got off the bus in Berryville, Virginia, which was one town short of its ultimate destination. Better that way, they thought. A driver might remember a pair of atypical passengers who stayed on board until the very end of the line. Especially if it came to radio or TV appeals, or routine police interviews, or public enemy photographs in the post office.
The rain had stopped, but the air was still damp and cold. Berryville’s downtown area was pleasant enough, but they backtracked on foot, back the way the bus had come, across a railroad track, past a pizza restaurant, to a hardware store they had seen from the window. The store was about to close, which was not ideal, because clerks tend to remember the first and last customers of the day. But they judged yet more time in ACU pants was worse. So they went in and Turner found a pair of canvas work pants similar to Reacher’s. The smallest size the store carried was going to be loose in the waist and long in the leg. Not perfect. But Turner figured the discrepancy was going to be a good thing. A feature, not a bug, was how she put it. Because the pant legs would pool down over her army boots, thereby hiding them to some extent, and making them less obvious.
They bought the pants and three pairs of boot laces, one for Reacher’s boots, and one for Turner’s, and one for her to double up and use as a belt. They conducted their business in as unmemorable a manner as they could. Neither polite nor impolite, neither rushing nor stalling, not really saying much of anything. Turner didn’t use the rest-room. She wanted to change, but they figured for the last customer of the day to go in wearing ACU pants and come out in a new purchase would likely stick in the clerk’s memory.
But the store had a big parking lot on one side, and it was empty and dark, so Turner changed her pants in the shadows and dumped her army issue in a trash container at the rear of the building. Then she came out, and they traded jacket for shirt, and they sat down on a curb together and tied their boots.
Good to go, with four dollars left in Reacher’s pocket.
* * *
Four bucks was a week’s wage in some countries of the world, but it wasn’t worth much of a damn in Berryville, Virginia. It wouldn’t buy transportation out of the state, and it wouldn’t buy a night in a motel, and it wouldn’t buy a proper sit-down meal for two, not in any kind of restaurant or diner known to man.
Turner said, “You told me there’s more than one kind of ATM.”
“There is,” Reacher said. “Fifty miles ahead, or fifty miles back. But not here.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Me, too.”
“There’s no point in holding on to four dollars.”
“I agree,” Reacher said. “Let’s go crazy.”
They walked back toward the railroad track, fast and newly confident in their newly laced boots, to the pizza restaurant they had seen. Not a gourmet place, which was just as well. They bought a single slice each, to go, pepperoni for Reacher, plain cheese for Turner, and a can of soda to share between them. Which left them eighty cents in change. They ate and drank sitting side by side on a rail at the train crossing.
Turner asked, “Did you lose guys when you were CO?”
“Four,” Reacher said. “One of them was a woman.”
“Did you feel bad?”
“I wasn’t turning cartwheels. But it’s all part of the game. We all know what we’re signing up for.”
“I wish I’d gone myself.”
Reacher asked, “Have you ever been to the Cayman Islands?”
“No.”
“Ever had a foreign bank account?”
“Are you kidding? Why would I? I’m an O4. I make less than some high school teachers.”
“Why did you take a day to pass on the name of the Hood guy’s contact?”
“What is this, the third degree?”
“I’m thinking,” Reacher said. “That’s all.”
“You know why. I wanted to bust him myself. To make sure it was done properly. I gave myself twenty-four hours. But I couldn’t find him. So I told the FBI. They should think themselves lucky. I could have given myself a week.”
“I might have,” Reacher said. “Or a month.”
They finished their pizza slices, and drained the shared can of soda. Reacher wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then wiped the back of his hand on his pants. Turner said, “What are we going to do now?”
“We’re going to walk through town and hitch a ride west.”
“Tonight?”
“Better than sleeping under a bush.”
“How far west?”
“All the way west,” Reacher said. “We’re going to Los Angeles.”
“Why?”
Samantha Dayton.
Sam.
Fourteen years old.
“I’ll tell you later,” Reacher said. “It’s complicated.”
They walked through the downtown area, on a street called East Main, which became a street called West Main after a central crossroads. All the store windows were dark. All the doors were shuttered. Berryville was no doubt a fine American town, matter-of-fact and unpretentious, but it was no kind of hub. That was for damn sure. It was all closed up and slumbering, even though it was only the middle of the evening.
They walked on. Turner looked good in the shirt, even though she could have gotten herself and her sister in it together. But she had rolled the sleeves, and she had shrugged and wriggled like women do, and it had draped and fallen into some kind of a coherent shape. Somehow its hugeness emphasized how slender she was. Her hair was still down. She moved with lithe, elastic energy, a wary, quizzical look never leaving her eyes, but there was no fear there. No tension. Just some kind of an appetite. For what, Reacher wasn’t entirely sure.
Totally worth the wait, he thought.
They walked on.
And then on the west edge of town they came to a motel.
And in its lot was the car with the dented doors.
Chapter 25
The motel was a neat and tidy place, entirely in keeping with what they had seen in the rest of the town. It had some red brick, and some white paint, and a flag, and an eagle above the office door. There was a Coke machine, and an ice machine, and probably twenty rooms in two lines, both of them running back from the road and facing each other across a broad courtyard.
The car with the dented doors was parked at an angle in front of the office, carelessly and temporarily, as if someone had ducked inside with a brief inquiry.
“Are you sure?” Turner asked, quietly.
“No question,” Reacher said. “That’s their car.”
“How is that even possible?”
“Whoever is running these guys is deep in the loop, and he’s pretty smart. That’s how it’s possible. There’s no other explanation. He heard we broke out, and he heard we took thirty bucks with us, and he heard about that Metro cop finding us on Constitution Avenue. And then he sat down to think. Where can you go with thirty bucks? There are only four possibilities. Either you hole up in town and sleep in a park, or you head for Union Station, or the big bus depot right behind it, and you go to Baltimore or Philly or Richmond, or else you head the other way, west, on the little municipal bus. And whoever is doing the thinking here figured the little municipal bus was the favorite. Because the fare is cheaper, and because Union Station and the big bus depot are far too easy for the cops to watch, as are the stations and the depots at the other end, in Baltimore
and Philly and Richmond, and because sleeping in the park really only gets you busted tomorrow instead of today. And on top of all that they claim to know how I live, and I don’t spend much time on the East Coast. I was always more likely to head west.”
“But you agreed to head for Union Station.”
“I was trying to be democratic. Trying not to be set in my ways.”
“But how did they know we’d get out of the bus in Berryville?”
“They didn’t. I bet they’ve already checked everywhere from about Leesburg onward. Every visible motel. Hamilton, Purcellville, Berryville, Winchester. If they don’t find us here, that’s where they’re heading next.”
“Are they going to find us here?”
“I sincerely hope so,” Reacher said.
The motel office had small windows, for a decorative effect, like an old colonial house, and on the inside they were fitted with sheer drapes of some kind. No way of telling who was in the room. Turner walked to a window, and put her face close to the glass, and looked ahead, and left, and right, and up, and down. She whispered, “No one there. Just the clerk, I think. Or maybe he’s the owner. Sitting down, in back.”
Reacher checked the car doors. They were locked. As was the trunk. He put his hand on the hood, above the radiator chrome. The metal was hot. The car hadn’t been parked there long. He moved left, into the mouth of the courtyard. No one there. No one going from room to room, no one checking doors or looking in windows.
He stepped back and said, “So let’s talk to the guy.”
Turner pulled the office door, and Reacher went in ahead of her. The room was a lot nicer than the kind of place Reacher was used to. A lot nicer than the place a mile from Rock Creek, for instance. There was quality vinyl on the floor, and wallpaper, and all kinds of framed commendations from tourist authorities. The reception desk was an actual desk, like something Thomas Jefferson might have used to write a letter. Behind it was a red leather chair with a guy in it. The guy was about sixty, tall and gray and impressive. He looked like he should have been running a big corporation, not a small motel.
Turner said, “We’re looking for our friends. That’s their car outside.”
“The four gentlemen?” the guy said, with a tiny and skeptical hesitation before the word gentlemen.
“Yes,” Turner said.
“I’m afraid you just missed them. They were looking for you about ten minutes ago. At least, I assume it was you they were looking for. A man and a woman, they said. They wondered if you’d checked in already.”
“And what did you tell them?” Reacher asked.
“Well, naturally, I told them you hadn’t arrived yet.”
“OK.”
“Are you ready to check in now?” the guy asked, in a tone that suggested it wouldn’t break his heart if they didn’t.
“We need to find our friends first,” Reacher said. “We need to have a discussion. Where did they go?”
“They wondered if perhaps you’d gone to get a bite to eat. I directed them to the Berryville Grill. It’s the only restaurant open at this time of the evening.”
“The pizza place doesn’t count?”
“It’s not exactly a restaurant, is it?”
“So where’s the Berryville Grill?”
“Two blocks behind us. An easy walk.”
“Thank you,” Turner said.
There were two ways to walk two blocks behind the motel. On the left-hand cross street, or the right-hand cross street. Covering both at once would involve splitting up, which would risk a potential one-on-four confrontation for one of them. Reacher was happy with those odds, but he wasn’t sure about Turner. She was half his size, literally, and she was unarmed. No gun, no knife.
He said, “We should wait here. We should let them come to us.”
But they didn’t come. Reacher and Turner stood in the shadows, for five long minutes, and nothing happened. Turner moved a little, to let the light play along the flank of the car. She whispered, “Those are pretty good dents.”
Reacher said back, “How long does it take to check out a damn restaurant?”
“Maybe they got sent on somewhere else. Maybe there’s a bar with hamburgers. Or a couple of them. Which don’t count as restaurants, with the motel guy.”
“I don’t hear any bars.”
“How do you hear a bar?”
“Hubbub, glasses, bottles, extractor fans. It’s a distinctive sound.”
“Could be too far away to hear.”
“In which case they’d have come back for their car.”
“They have to be somewhere.”
“Maybe they’re eating at the grill,” Reacher said. “Maybe they got a table. A last-minute decision. We were hungry, they could be hungry too.”
“I’m still hungry.”
“It might be easier to take them inside a restaurant. Crowded quarters, a little inhibition on their part. Plus knives on the tables. Then we could eat their dinners. They must have ordered by now. Steak, ideally.”
“The waiter would call the cops.”
Reacher checked the cross street on the right. Nothing doing. He checked the cross street on the left. Empty. He walked back to where Turner was waiting. She said, “They’re eating. They have to be. What else could they be doing? They could have searched the whole of Berryville by now. Twice over. So they’re in the restaurant. They could be another hour. And we can’t stay here much longer. We’re loitering on private property. And I’m sure Berryville has laws. And a police department. The motel guy could be on the phone two minutes from now.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “Let’s go check it out.”
“Left or right?”
“Left,” Reacher said.
They were cautious at the corner. But the left-hand cross street was still empty. It was more of an alley than a street. It had the motel’s wooden fence on one side, and the blank flank of a brick-built general store on the other. A hundred yards later it was crossed by a wider street that ran parallel with West Main. The second block was shorter and more varied, with some standalone buildings, and some narrow vacant lots, and then up ahead were the rear elevations of the buildings that stood on the next parallel street, including one on the right, which had a tall metal kitchen chimney, which was blowing steam, pretty hard. The Berryville Grill, for sure, doing some serious mid-evening business.
Turner said, “Back door or front door?”
“Front window,” Reacher said. “Reconnaissance is everything.”
They turned right out of the cross street and got cautious again. First came a dark storefront that could have been a flower shop. Then came the restaurant, second in line. It was a big place, but deeper than it was wide. It had four front windows, separated into two pairs by a central door. The windows came all the way down to the floor. Maybe they opened up, for the summer. Maybe they put tables on the sidewalk.
Reacher kept close to the wall and moved toward the near edge of the first window. From that angle he could see about a third of the interior space. Which was considerable. And well filled. The tables were small and close together. It was a family-style restaurant. Nothing fancy. The wait staff looked to be all girls, about high school age. The tables were plain wood. About half of them were occupied. By couples, and threesomes, and by family groups. Old people and their adult children, some of them having fun, some of them a little strained and quiet.
But none of the tables was occupied by four men. Not in the part of the restaurant Reacher could see. He backed off. She leapfrogged past him and walked briskly along the restaurant frontage, looking away, and she stopped beyond the last window. He watched the door. No reaction. No one came out. She hugged the wall and crept back and looked inside from the far edge of the last window. Reacher figured from there she could see a symmetrical one-third, the same as he had, but on the other side of the room. Which would leave a central wedge unexamined.
She shook her head. He set off, and she set off, and they met at the
door. He pulled it, and she went in first. The central wedge had plenty of tables. But none of them was occupied by four men. There was no maitre d’ lectern. No hostess station, either. Just empty floor inside the door. A young woman bustled over. A girl, really. Seventeen, maybe. The designated greeter. She was wearing black pants, and a black polo shirt with short sleeves and an embroidered Berryville Grill logo on the front. She had a livid red birthmark on her forearm. She said, “Two for dinner?”
Turner said, “We’re looking for some people. They might have been asking for us.”
The girl went quiet. She looked from Turner to Reacher, suddenly understanding: a man and a woman.
“Were they here?” Reacher asked. “Four men, three of them big, and one of them bigger?”
The girl nodded, and rubbed her forearm, subconsciously. Or nervously. Reacher glanced down.
It wasn’t a birthmark.
It was changing shape. And changing color.
It was a bruise.
He said, “Did they do that?”
The girl nodded.
“The big one,” she said.
“With the shaved head and the small ears?”
“Yes,” the girl said. “He squeezed my arm.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to know where else you could be. And I couldn’t tell him.”
It was a big mark. From a big hand. More than six inches across.
The girl said, “He really scared me. He has cruel eyes.”
Reacher asked, “When were they here?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell them where to look.”
“No bars, no hamburger joints?”
“That’s exactly what he asked. But there’s nothing like that here.”
The girl was close to tears.
Reacher said, “They won’t be coming back.”
It was all he could think of to say.
They left the girl standing there, rubbing her arm, and they used the cross street they hadn’t used before. It was a similar thoroughfare, narrow, unlit, raggedy at first, and then firming up on the second block, with the motel’s fence on the right. They took the corner cautiously, and scanned ahead before moving out.
