by Lee Child
The guy said, “Well, I am. A lot. So you drive to wherever it is you want to go, keep me out of trouble, let me sleep it off, and then point me toward Denver, OK?”
Reacher said, “Deal.”
Hitchhiking usually carried with it the promise of random personal encounters and conversations made more intense by the certainty that their durations would necessarily be limited. Not this time. The florid guy heaved himself over into the passenger seat and collapsed its back against a worn mechanism and went straight to sleep without another word. He snored and bubbled far back in his throat and he thrashed restlessly. According to the smell of his breath he had been drinking bourbon all evening. A lot of bourbon, probably with bourbon chasers. He was still going to be illegal when he woke up in four hours’ time and pressed on to Denver.
Not Reacher’s problem.
The Suburban was old and worn and grimy. Its total elapsed mileage was displayed in a window below the center of the speedometer in LED figures like a cheap watch. A lot of figures, starting with a two. The motor wasn’t in great shape. It still had power but it had a lot of weight to haul and it didn’t want to go much faster than sixty miles an hour. There was a cell phone on the center console. It was switched off. Reacher glanced at his sleeping passenger and switched it on. It wouldn’t spark up. No charge in the battery. There was a charger plugged into the cigarette lighter. Reacher steered with his knees and traced the free end of the wire and shoved it into a hole on the bottom of the phone. Tried the switch again. The phone came on with a tinkly little tune. The sleeping guy just snored on.
The phone showed no service. The middle of nowhere.
The road narrowed from four lanes to two. Reacher drove on. Five miles ahead he could see a pair of red tail lights. Small lights, set low, widely spaced. Moving north a little slower than the Suburban. The speed differential was maybe five miles an hour, which meant it took sixty whole minutes to close the gap. The lights were on a U-Haul truck. It was cruising at about fifty-five. When Reacher came up behind it, it sped up to a steady sixty. Reacher pulled out and tried to pass, but the Suburban wouldn’t accelerate. It bogged down at about sixty-two, which would have put Reacher on the wrong side of the road for a long, long time. Maybe forever. So he eased off and tucked in behind the truck and battled the frustration of having to drive just a little slower than he wanted to. The cell phone was still showing no service. There was nothing to see behind. Nothing to see to the sides. The world was dark and empty. Thirty feet ahead, the U-Haul’s back panel was lit up bright by the Suburban’s headlights. It was like a rolling billboard. An advertisement. It had a picture of three trucks parked side by side at an angle: small, medium, and large. Each was shown in U-Haul’s distinctive orange and white colors. Each had U-Haul painted on its front. Each promised an automatic transmission, a gentle ride, a low deck, air conditioning, and cloth seats. A price of nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents was advertised in large figures. Reacher eased the Suburban closer to check the fine print. The bargain price was for in-town use of a small truck for one day, mileage extra, subject to contract terms. Reacher eased off again and fell back.
U-Haul.
You haul. We don’t. Independence, self-reliance, initiative.
In general Reacher didn’t care for the corruption of written language. U for you, EZ for easy, hi for high, lo for low . He had spent many years in school learning to read and spell and he wanted to feel that there had been some point to it. But he couldn’t get too worked up about U-Haul. What was the alternative? Self-Drive Trucks? Too clunky. Too generic. No kind of a catchy business name. He followed thirty feet behind the bright rolling billboard and the triple U-Haul logos blurred together and filled his field of view.
U for you.
Then he thought: You for U.
You did this to me.
To assume makes an ass out of u and me.
He checked the phone again.
No signal. They were in the middle of the Comanche National Grassland. Like being way out at sea. The closest cell tower was probably in Lamar, which was about an hour ahead.
The drunk guy slept noisily and Reacher followed the wallowing U-Haul truck for sixty solid minutes. Lamar showed up ahead as a faint glow on the horizon. Probably not more than a couple of streetlights, but in contrast to the black grassland all around it felt like a destination. There was a small municipal airfield to the west. And there was cell coverage. Reacher glanced down and saw two bars showing on the phone’s signal strength meter. He dialed Vaughan’s home number from memory.
No answer.
He clicked off and dialed information. Asked for the Hope PD. Let the phone company connect him. He figured his sleeping passenger could spring for the convenience. He heard the ring tone and then there was a click and more ring tone. Automatic call forwarding, he guessed. The Hope PD building wasn’t manned at night. Vaughan had mentioned a day guy, but no night guy. Incoming calls would be rerouted out straight to the nighttime prowl car. To a cell provided by the department, or to a personal cell. Ten nights out of fourteen it would be Vaughan answering. But not tonight. She was off duty. It would be another officer out there chasing gum wrappers. Maybe a deputy.
A voice in his ear said, “Hope PD.”
Reacher said, “I need to talk to Officer Vaughan.”
The guy in the passenger seat stirred, but didn’t wake up.
The voice in Reacher’s ear said, “Officer Vaughan is off duty tonight.”
Reacher said, “I know. But I need her cell number.”
“I can’t give that to you.”
“Then call it yourself and ask her to call me back on this number.”
“I might wake her.”
“You won’t.”
Silence.
Reacher said, “This is important. And be quick. I’ll be heading out of range in a minute.”
He clicked off. The town of Lamar loomed up ahead. Low dark buildings, a tall water tower, a lit-up gas station. The U-Haul pulled off for fuel. Reacher checked the Suburban’s gauge. Half-full. A big tank. But a thirsty motor and many miles to go. He followed the U-Haul to the pumps. Unplugged the phone. It showed decent battery and marginal reception. He put it in his shirt pocket.
The pumps were operational but the pay booth was closed up and dark. The guy from the U-Haul poked a credit card into a slot on the pump and pulled it out again. Reacher used his ATM card and did the same thing. The pump started up and Reacher selected regular unleaded and watched in horror as the numbers flicked around. Gas was expensive. That was for damn sure. More than three bucks for a gallon. The last time he had filled a car, the price had been a dollar. He nodded to the U-Haul guy, who nodded back. The U-Haul guy was a youngish well-built man with long hair. He was wearing a tight black short-sleeve shirt with a clerical collar. Some kind of a minister of religion. Probably played the guitar.
The phone rang in Reacher’s pocket. He left the nozzle wedged in the filler neck and turned away and answered. The Hope cop said, “Vaughan didn’t pick up her cell.”
Reacher said, “Try your radio. She’s out in the watch commander’s car.”
“Where?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Why is she out in the watch commander’s car?”
“Long story.”
“You’re the guy she’s been hanging with?”
“Just call her.”
“She’s married, you know.”
“I know. Now call her.”
The guy stayed on the line and Reacher heard him get on the radio. A call sign, a code, a request for an immediate response, all repeated once, and then again. Then the sound of dead air. Buzzing, crackling, the heterodyne whine of nighttime interference from high in the ionosphere. Plenty of random noise.
But nothing else.
No reply from Vaughan.
61
Reacher got out of the gas station ahead of the minister in the U-Haul and headed north as fast as the old Suburban would go. The
drunk guy slept on next to him. He was leaking alcohol through his pores. Reacher cracked a window. The night air kept him awake and sober and the whistle masked the snoring. Cell coverage died eight miles north of Lamar. Reacher guessed it wouldn’t come back until they got close to the I-70 corridor, which was two hours ahead. It was four-thirty in the morning. ETA in Hope, around dawn. A five-hour delay, which was an inconvenience, but maybe not a disaster.
Then the Suburban’s engine blew.
Reacher was no kind of an automotive expert. He didn’t see it coming. He saw the temperature needle nudge upward a tick, and thought nothing of it. Just stress and strain, he figured, because of the long fast cruise. But the needle didn’t stop moving. It went all the way up into the red zone and didn’t stop until it was hard against the peg. The motor lost power and a hot wet smell came in through the vents. Then there was a muffled thump under the hood and strings of tan emulsion blew out of the ventilation slots in front of the windshield and spattered all over the glass. The motor died altogether and the Suburban slowed hard. Reacher steered to the shoulder and coasted to a stop.
Not good, he thought.
The drunk guy slept on.
Reacher got out in the darkness and headed around to the front of the hood. He used the flats of his hands to bounce some glow from the headlight beams back onto the car. He saw steam. And sticky tan sludge leaking from every crevice. Thick, and foamy. A mixture of engine oil and cooling water. Blown head gaskets. Total breakdown. Repairable, but not without hundreds of dollars and a week in the shop.
Not good.
Half a mile south he could see the U-Haul’s lights coming his way. He stepped around to the passenger door and leaned in over the sleeping guy and found a pen and an old service invoice in the glove compartment. He turned the invoice over and wrote: You need to buy a new car. I borrowed your cell phone. Will mail it back. He signed the note: Your hitchhiker. He took the Suburban’s registration for the guy’s address and folded it into his pocket. Then he ran fifty feet south and stepped into the traffic lane and held his arms high and waited to flag the U-Haul down. It picked him up in its headlights about fifty yards out. Reacher waved his arms above his head. The universal distress signal. The U-Haul’s headlights flicked to bright. The truck slowed, like Reacher knew it would. A lonely road, and a disabled vehicle and a stranded driver, both of them at least fleetingly familiar to the Good Samaritan behind the wheel.
The U-Haul came to rest a yard in front of Reacher, halfway on the shoulder. The window came down and the guy in the dog collar stuck his head out.
“Need help?” he said. Then he smiled, wide and wholesome. “Dumb question, I guess.”
“I need a ride,” Reacher said. “The engine blew.”
“Want me to take a look?”
Reacher said, “No.” He didn’t want the minister to see the drunk guy. From a distance he was out of sight on the reclined seat, below the window line. Close up, he was big and obvious. Abandoning a broken-down truck in the middle of nowhere was one thing. Abandoning a comatose passenger was another. “No point, believe me. I’ll have to send a tow truck. Or set fire to the damn thing.”
“I’m headed north to Yuma. You’re welcome to join me, for all or part of the way.”
Reacher nodded. Called up the map in his head. The Yuma road crossed the Hope road about two hours ahead. The same road he had come in on originally, with the old guy in the green Grand Marquis. He would need to find a third ride, for the final western leg. His ETA was now about ten in the morning, with luck. He said, “Thanks. I’ll jump out about halfway to Yuma.”
The guy in the dog collar smiled his wholesome smile again and said, “Hop in.”
The U-Haul was a full-sized pick-up frame overwhelmed by a box body a little longer and wider and a lot taller than a pick-up’s load bed. It sagged and wallowed and the extra weight and aerodynamic resistance made it slow. It struggled up close to sixty miles an hour and stayed there. Wouldn’t go any faster. Inside it smelled of warm exhaust fumes and hot oil and plastic. But the seat was cloth, as advertised, and reasonably comfortable. Reacher had to fight to stay awake. He wanted to be good company. He didn’t want to replicate the drunk guy’s manners.
He asked, “What are you hauling?”
The guy in the collar said, “Used furniture. Donations. We run a mission in Yuma.”
“We?”
“Our church.”
“What kind of a mission?”
“We help the homeless and the needy.”
“What kind of a church?”
“We’re Anglicans, plain vanilla, middle of the road.”
“Do you play the guitar?”
The guy smiled again. “We try to be inclusive.”
“Where I’m going, there’s an End Times Church.”
The minister shook his head. “An End Times congregation, maybe. It’s not a recognized denomination.”
“What do you know about them?”
“Have you read the Book of Revelation?”
Reacher said, “I’ve heard of it.”
The minister said, “Its correct title is The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. Most of the original is lost, of course. It was written either in Ancient Hebrew or Aramaic, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Koine Greek, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Latin, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Elizabethan English and printed, with opportunities for error and confusion at every single stage. Now it reads like a bad acid trip. I suspect it always did. Possibly all the translations and all the copying actually improved it.”
“What does it say?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Are you serious?”
“Some of our homeless people make more sense.”
“What do people think it says?”
“Broadly, the righteous ascend to heaven, the unholy are left on earth and are visited by various colorful plagues and disasters, Christ returns to battle the Antichrist in an Armageddon scenario, and no one winds up very happy.”
“Is that the same as the Rapture?”
“The Rapture is the ascending part. The plagues and the fighting are separate. They come afterward.”
“When is all this supposed to happen?”
“It’s perpetually imminent, apparently.”
Reacher thought back to Thurman’s smug little speech in the metal plant. There are signs, he had said. And the possibility of precipitating events.
Reacher asked, “What would be the trigger?”
“I’m not sure there’s a trigger, as such. Presumably a large element of divine will would be involved. One would certainly hope so.”
“Pre-echoes, then? Ways to know it’s coming?”
The minister shrugged at the wheel. “End Times people read the Bible like other people listen to Beatles records backward. There’s something about a red calf being born in the Holy Land. End Times enthusiasts are real keen on that part. They comb through ranches, looking for cattle a little more auburn than usual. They ship pairs to Israel, hoping they’ll breed a perfect redhead. They want to get things started. That’s another key characteristic. They can’t wait. Because they’re all awfully sure they’ll be among the righteous. Which makes them self-righteous, actually. Most people accept that who gets saved is God’s decision, not man’s. It’s a form of snobbery, really. They think they’re better than the rest of us.”
“That’s it? Red calves?”
“Most enthusiasts believe that a major war in the Middle East is absolutely necessary, which is why they’ve been so unhappy about Iraq. Apparently what’s happening there isn’t bad enough for them.”
“You sound skeptical.”
The guy smiled again.
“Of course I’m skeptical,” he said. “I’m an Anglican.”
There was no more conversation after that, either theological or secular. Reacher was too tired and the guy behind the wheel was too deep
into night-driving survival mode, where nothing existed except the part of the road ahead that his headlights showed him. His eyes were wedged open and he was sitting forward, as if he knew that to relax would be fatal. Reacher stayed awake, too. He knew the Hope road wouldn’t be signposted and it wasn’t exactly a major highway. The guy behind the wheel wouldn’t spot it on his own.
It arrived exactly two hours into the trip, a lumpy two-lane crossing their path at an exact right angle. It had stop signs, and the main north-south drag didn’t. By the time Reacher called it and the minister reacted and the U-Haul’s overmatched brakes did their job they were two hundred yards past it. Reacher got out and waved the truck away and waited until its lights and its noise were gone. Then he walked back through the dark empty vastness. Predawn was happening way to the east, over Kansas or Missouri. Colorado was still pitch black. There was no cell phone signal.
No traffic, either.
