“I don’t understand.”
“I think he agreed to the deal but couldn’t carry it through. He couldn’t betray guys just like him. I think he rode up to Despair but didn’t call in to the Marines. I think he hung around on the edge of town and stayed out of sight, because he was conflicted. He didn’t want to know who was involved, because he was afraid he might have to give them away later. He hung out for days, agonizing. He got thirsty and hungry. He started hallucinating and decided to walk over to Hope, and find you, and get out some other way.”
“So where is he?”
“He didn’t make it, Maria. He collapsed halfway. He died.”
“But where is his body?”
“The people in Despair took care of it.”
“I see.”
Then for the second time in an hour Reacher watched a woman cry. Vaughan held her and Reacher said, “He was a good man, Maria. He was just a kid who couldn’t take any more. And in the end he didn’t betray what he believed in.” He said those things over and over again, in different orders, and with different emphases, but they didn’t help.
Maria was all cried out after twenty minutes and Vaughan led her back inside. Then she joined Reacher again and they walked away together. She asked, “How did you know?”
Reacher said, “No other rational explanation.”
“Did he really do what you said? Agonized and then sacrificed himself?”
“Marines are good at self-sacrifice. On the other hand maybe he double-crossed the Corps from the get-go. Maybe he planned all along to head straight to Hope and grab Maria and disappear.”
“It doesn’t take four days to walk from Despair to Hope.”
“No,” Reacher said. “It doesn’t.”
“So he probably did the right thing.”
“I hope that was Maria’s impression.”
“Do you think he told them about the people in California?”
“I don’t know.”
“This will carry on if he didn’t.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It could get out of hand.”
“You could make a couple of calls. They’re in the hotel register in Despair, name and address. You could check and see who they are, and whether they’re still around, or whether they’ve disappeared into federal custody.”
“I’m sorry about what I said before.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
They walked on, and then Reacher said, “And you weren’t wrong, when you did what you did the night before last. Otherwise whoever killed David killed you too. You want to give them that? Because I don’t. I want you to have a life.”
“That sounds like the beginnings of a farewell speech.”
“Does it?”
“Why stay? The Pentagon is washing its dirty linen in private, which isn’t a crime. And we seem to have decided this other thing isn’t a crime either.”
“There’s one more thing on my mind,” Reacher said.
67
Reacher and Vaughan walked back to the diner, where Reacher ate for the first time since the burger he had scored in the Fort Shaw mess the night before. He topped up his caffeine level with four mugs of coffee and when he had finished he said, “We need to go see those MPs. Now you’ve established contact we might get away with a face-to-face meeting.”
Vaughan said, “We’re going to drive through Despair again?”
Reacher shook his head. “Let’s take your truck and go cross-country.”
They peeled the paper barcodes off the new glass and Vaughan fetched paper towels and Windex from her kitchen and they wiped the wax and the handprints off the screen. Then they set off, early in the afternoon. Vaughan took the wheel. They drove five miles west on Hope’s road and risked another nine on Despair’s. The air was clear and the mountains were visible ahead, first invitingly close and then impossibly distant. Three miles before Despair’s first vacant lot they slowed and bumped down off the road, onto the scrub, and started a long loop to the north. They kept the town on their left, on a three-mile radius. It was just a blur in the distance. Not possible to tell if it was guarded by mobs or sentries, or abandoned altogether.
It was slow going across the open land. Undergrowth scraped along the underside and low bushes slapped at their flanks. The ladder and the wrecking bar in the load bed bounced and rattled. The flashlight rolled from side to side. Occasionally they found dry washes and followed them through looping meanders at a higher speed. Then it was back to picking their way around table rocks bigger than the Chevy itself and keeping the sun centered on the top rail of the windshield. Four times they drove into natural corrals and had to back up and start over. After an hour the town fell away behind them and the plant showed up ahead on the left. The wall glowed white in the sun. The parking lot looked empty. No cars. There was no smoke rising from the plant. No sparks, no noise. No activity at all.
Reacher said, “What day is it?”
Vaughan said, “It’s a regular workday.”
“Not a holiday?”
“No.”
“So where is everybody?”
They steered left and narrowed the gap between themselves and the plant. The Chevy was raising a healthy dust plume in the air behind it. It would be visible to a casual observer. But there were no casual observers. They slowed and stopped two miles out and waited. Five minutes. Ten. Then fifteen. No circulating Tahoes came around.
Vaughan asked, “What exactly is on your mind?”
“I like to be able to explain things to myself,” Reacher said.
“What can’t you explain?”
“The way they were so desperate to keep people out. The way they shut down the secret compound for the day just because I was barging around within half a mile of it. The way they found Ramirez’s body and dealt with it so fast and efficiently. It was no surprise to them. It’s like they set themselves up to be constantly vigilant for intruders. To expect them, even. And they worked out procedures in advance for dealing with them. And everyone in town is involved. The first day I showed up, even the waitress in the restaurant knew exactly what to do. Why would they go to those lengths?”
“They’re playing ball with the Pentagon. Keeping private things private.”
“Maybe. But I’m not sure. Certainly the Pentagon wouldn’t ask for that. Despair is already in the middle of nowhere and the plant is three miles out of town and the bad stuff happens in a walled-off compound inside it. That’s good enough for the Pentagon. They wouldn’t ask local people to go to bat for them. Because they trust walls and distance and geography, not people.”
“Maybe Thurman asked the people himself.”
“I’m sure he did. I’m certain of it. But why? On behalf of the Pentagon, or for some other reason of his own?”
“Like what?”
“Only one logical possibility. Actually, an illogical possibility. Or a logical impossibility. One word from the MPs and we’ll know. If they talk to us at all.”
“What word?”
“Either yes or no.”
There were four guys in the guard shack, which seemed to be their usual daytime deployment. Overkill, in Reacher’s opinion, which meant the post was most likely commanded by a lieutenant, not a sergeant. A sergeant would have had two in the shack and the other two either resting up with the others or out on mobile patrol in a Humvee, depending on the perceived threat assessment. But officers had to sign off on fuel requisitions, which would nix the mobile Humvee, and officers didn’t like men sitting around with nothing to do, which is why the shack was overcrowded. But Reacher didn’t expect the grunts to be unhappy about it. Or about anything. They had been in Iraq, and now they weren’t. The only question in his mind was whether their officer had been in Iraq with them. If he had, he might be reasonable. If he hadn’t, he might be a royal pain in the ass.
Vaughan drove past the base and U-turned and came back and parked facing the right way, tight on the shoulder, close to b
ut not blocking the gate. Like she would outside a fire station. Respectful. Unwilling to put a foot wrong in the dance that had to be coming.
Two guys came out of the guard shack immediately. They were the same two Reacher had seen before. Morgan, the bespectacled specialist with the squint lines, and his partner, the silent private first class. Reacher kept his hands clearly visible and slid out of the truck. Vaughan did the same thing on her side. She introduced herself by name, and as an officer with the Hope PD. Morgan saluted her, in a way Reacher knew meant the MPs had run her plate the first time around, despite his best efforts, and that they had found out what her husband had been, and what he was now.
Which will help,he thought.
Then Morgan turned and looked straight at him.
“Sir?” he said.
“I was an MP myself,” Reacher said. “I did your lieutenant’s job about a million years ago.”
“Sir, which unit?”
“The 110th.”
“Rock Creek, Virginia,” Morgan said. A statement, not a question.
Reacher said, “I went there a couple of times, to get my ass kicked. The rest of the time, I was on the road.”
“On the road where?”
“Everywhere you’ve ever been, and about a hundred other places.”
“Sir, that’s interesting, but I’m going to have to ask you to move your vehicle.”
“At ease, Corporal. We’ll move it as soon as we’ve talked to your lieutenant.”
“On what subject, sir?”
“That’s between him and us,” Reacher said.
“Sir, I can’t justify disturbing him on that basis.”
“Move along, soldier. I’ve read the manual, too. Let’s skip a few pages, to where you’ve already determined that this is important.”
“Is this about the missing Marine private?”
“Much more interesting.”
“Sir, it would help me to have fuller particulars.”
“It would help you to have a million dollars and a date with Miss America, too. But what are the chances, soldier?”
Five minutes later Reacher and Vaughan were inside the wire, inside one of the six green metal buildings, face-to-face across a desk with a one-striper called Connor. He was a small lean man. He was maybe twenty-six years old. He had been to Iraq. That was for sure. His BDUs were beat up and sandblasted and his cheekbones were burned shiny. He looked competent, and probably was. He was still alive, and he wasn’t in disgrace. In fact he was probably headed for a captain’s rank, pending paperwork. Medals too, maybe. He asked, “Is this an official visit from the Hope PD?”
Vaughan said, “Yes.”
“You’re both members of the department?”
Vaughan said, “Mr. Reacher is a civilian adviser.”
“So how can I help?”
Reacher said, “Long story short, we know about the DU salvage at Thurman’s plant.”
Connor said, “That bothers me a little.”
Reacher said, “It bothers us a little, too. Homeland Security rules require us to maintain a register of chemically sensitive sites within twenty miles.” He said it as if it was true, which it might have been. Anything was possible, with Homeland Security. “We should have been told.”
“You’re more than twenty miles from the plant.”
“Twenty exactly to downtown,” Reacher said. “Only fifteen to the town limit.”
“It’s classified,” Connor said. “You can’t put it in a register.”
Reacher nodded. “We understand that. But we should have been made aware of it, privately.”
“Sounds like you are aware of it.”
“But now we want to verify some details. Once bitten, twice shy.”
“Then you need to speak to the Department of Defense.”
“Better if we don’t. They’ll wonder how we got wind of it. Your guys talking will be their first guess.”
“My guys don’t talk.”
“I believe you. But do you want to take a chance on the Pentagon believing you?”
Connor said, “What details?”
“We think we’re entitled to know when and how the scrap DU gets transported out, and what route is used.”
“Worried about it rolling down First Street?”
“You bet.”
“Well, it doesn’t.”
“It all goes west?”
Connor said, “It goes nowhere.”
Vaughan said, “What do you mean?”
“You guys aren’t the only ones with your panties in a wad. Colorado’s pretty uptight. They want to close the Interstate and use an armed convoy. Which they can’t contemplate on a regular basis. Once every five years is what they’re thinking.”
“How long ago did the first convoy leave?”
“It didn’t. The first convoy will happen about two years from now.”
Reacher said, “So right now they’re stockpiling the stuff at the plant?”
Connor nodded. “The steel moves out, the DU stays.”
“How much have they got there?”
“As of right now, maybe twenty tons.”
“Have you seen it?”
Connor shook his head. “Thurman reports monthly by mail.”
“You like that?”
“What’s not to like?”
“The guy is sitting on a mountain of dangerous stuff.”
“And? What could he possibly do with it?”
68
Reacher and Vaughan got back in the truck and Vaughan said, “Was that answer a yes or a no?”
“Both,” Reacher said. “No, it doesn’t get moved out, yes, it’s all still there.”
“Is that a good both or a bad both?”
Reacher ducked his head and looked up through the screen. The sun was a dull glow behind the cloud, but it was still way above the horizon.
“Four hours until dark,” he said. “We’ve got time for a considered decision.”
“It’s going to rain.”
“Probably.”
“Which will wash more TCE into the aquifer.”
“Probably.”
“We’re not going to sit here until dark, in the rain.”
“No, we’re not. We’re going to the Holiday Inn in Halfway again.”
“Only if we get separate rooms.”
“Shut up, Vaughan. We’re going to get the same room we got before, and we’re going to do all the same things.”
The same room was not available, but they got one just like it. Same size, same décor, same colors. Indistinguishable. They did all the same things in it. Showered, went to bed, made love. Vaughan was a little reserved at first, but got into it later. Afterward she said that David had been better in bed. Reacher wasn’t offended. She needed to believe it. And it was probably true.
They lay in the rucked sheets and Vaughan explored Reacher’s scars. She had small hands. The bullet hole in his chest was too big for the tip of her little finger. Her ring finger fitted it better. Every woman he had been naked with was fascinated by it, except the woman he had gotten it for. She had preferred to forget. The rain started after an hour. It was heavy. It drummed on the hotel’s roof and sheeted against the window. A cozy feeling, in Reacher’s opinion. He liked being inside, in bed, listening to rain. After an hour Vaughan got up and went to shower. Reacher stayed in bed and leafed through the Bible that the Gideons had left in the nightstand.
Vaughan came back and asked, “Why does it matter?”
“Why does what matter?”
“That Thurman is stockpiling depleted uranium?”
Reacher said, “I don’t like the combination. He’s got twenty tons of radioactive waste and twenty tons of TNT. He’s an End Times enthusiast. I spoke to a minister last night. He said that End Times people can’t wait to get things started. Thurman himself said there might be precipitating events on the way. He said it kind of smugly, like he secretly knew it was true. And the whole town seems to be waiting for something to happen.
”
“Thurman can’t start the Armaggedon. It’ll happen when it happens.”
“These people are fanatics. They seem to think they can nudge things along. They’re trying to breed red cows in Israel.”
“How would that help?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“Cows aren’t dangerous.”
“Another requirement seems to be a major war in the Middle East.”
“We’ve already got one.”
“Not major enough.”
“How could it be worse?”
“Lots of ways.”
“Personally I don’t see any.”
“Suppose another country joined in?”
“They’d be crazy to.”
“Suppose someone fired the first shot for them?”
“How would they?”
Reacher said, “Suppose a dirty bomb went off in Manhattan or D.C. or Chicago. What would we do?”
“According to you, we’d evacuate the city.”
“And then?”
“We’d investigate.”
Reacher nodded. “We’d have people in hazmat suits crawling all over the wreckage. What would they find?”
“Evidence.”
“For sure. They’d identify the materials involved. Suppose they found TNT and depleted uranium?”
“They’d make a list of possible sources.”
“Correct. Everyone in the world can buy TNT, but DU is rarer. It’s a byproduct of an enrichment process that occurs in maybe twenty places.”
“Nuclear powers.”
“Exactly.”
“A list of twenty suspects wouldn’t help.”
“Exactly,” Reacher said again. “And the intended victim isn’t going to stand up and take responsibility, because the intended victim didn’t know anything about anything in the first place. But suppose we were nudged in the preferred direction?”
“How?”
“Remember Oklahoma City? The Federal Building? That was a big explosion, but they knew it was a Ryder truck. Within hours. They’re great at putting tiny fragments together.”
“But presumably one uranium fragment is like another.”
“But suppose you were a state-sponsored terrorist from overseas. You’d want maximum bang for the buck. So if you didn’t have quite enough uranium when you were building your bomb, you might use other stuff to pack it out.”
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