Winter Territory_A Get Jack Reacher Novel

by Scott Blade

  “So what killed it?”

  Reacher gripped his hands around the legs. Left hand, front leg. Right hand, back leg. Then he heaved and pulled the corpse out of the snow and peeked underneath.

  That was when the smell hit them like a blast of rotten air. It wasn’t a lot of stench, but it had been covered for a long time and now it came out in one big puff.

  Reacher leaned back and let the smell waft by while Amita took a giant step back and took in a deep breath.

  She repeated, “What killed it?”

  Reacher looked down at a gaping hole in the right side of the animal, just above its back leg. Then he said, “Gunshot.”

  Chapter 29

  The topography through the trees was a gradual rise from a hilly area that eventually turned into a rocky one. The trees soon became sparser and the temperature dropped slightly—a factor of a higher elevation, combined with the gap in the storm closing and becoming blizzard weather again.

  They rode the horses at a fast pace every chance they got, but for the most part the trip was at a fast walk. The flatter land had too many trees and the rocky land was too rocky and steep to full-on gallop with a horse. Then all of it was too snowy to force the animals to run. So it took about 45 minutes, as Amita had predicted.

  The whole trek, both of them wondered who would shoot a Husky. At one point, Reacher thought, What kind of man would do that?

  The other thing that ran through Reacher’s mind was that the whole way so far, there had been a long streak in the snow, followed by paw prints. They were set slow and spread about at first, but then deep and steady, plainly showing the dog’s march to death. The strange thing was that the dog was dragging something. The other thing that was obvious was the long streak of blood that eventually turned into droplets, like at first the dog had been shot, and then the farther it went the more it bled. And the farther they ventured, the more Reacher wondered what it had dragged for such a long distance and where that thing was now.

  Amita spoke first about it.

  She said, “That dog dragged something through the snow and then died. It must have been something important. What would the dog have dragged when it had a bullet in its leg?”

  Reacher said, “I have no idea.”

  Chapter 30

  Police Chief Red Cloud watched the boy from near the window. He stared back out the window and watched the horizon for Amita. He wanted her to come back safely. Something about this whole situation didn’t make sense to him. It didn’t sit right with him. Why would the CIA be interested in Mike Jacobs? As far as he remembered, Jacobs was a not-so-special kid with dreams of leaving his home. As far as the chief was concerned the only thing that Jacobs ever did right was leave his daughter so that she could live her life without him. And thank God that he never got her pregnant. For that, Amita’s father was very grateful. Jacobs would have abandoned her to raise the kid on her own. Of that, Chief Red Cloud had no doubt.

  He looked back at the boy. The boy sat upright. He looked around. No one was paying attention to him anymore. The adults were all preoccupied, talking in whispers.

  Amita’s father watched as the young boy looked around like he was making sure that no one saw him. Then he reached into his coat pocket and pulled something out, something dark and small.

  The boy shifted in his seat and fumbled with it some more. Amita’s father turned fully toward him and started to walk over. He got about halfway and saw that the boy was playing with a device that had a blinking red light on it. It blinked and blinked like the light on a plane.

  The chief walked closer and saw that it was a peculiar thing for a child to have.

  He inspected more closely. The device looked strange, like it had some purpose. Not as a toy.

  It even looked high-tech, like it was military.

  Chapter 31

  The darkness surrounded them for most of the journey up the mountain, until they got to the top of a hill. Then everything was red like the sky just before the sun disappears over the western horizon. They couldn’t see the sky because it was filled with smoke. The smoke was thick and dark on the underbelly. Reacher imagined that above the smoke there were more clouds of harsh snow ready to come down.

  Reacher stood up in his stirrups and gazed through the trees. He saw it.

  Not too far off there was a smoldering structure. A torrent of fire raged and exhaled smoke.

  The flames seethed and roared. The good news was that the only thing on fire was the structure. The trees were too far to catch fire and the ground was covered in snow. And soon the storm would return and put the flames out.

  “Fire,” Reacher said. “Just over there. Looks like a house. Explosion. Maybe.”

  Amita said, “Oh Jesus! That’s Mike’s house. Mr. Gareth!”

  She kicked the pinto and screamed, “Yaw!”

  The animal made a noise and picked up her pace and Reacher watched as Amita galloped up and passed the trees, heading toward the house.

  Reacher kicked his horse in the rear and followed behind. He got to the house only a moment after she did, but he might as well have been a half hour after because she was already off her horse and standing over a dead body. It was turned over and she was kneeling down beside it like she had tried to resuscitate it and failed. Her shoulders hunched over and her head was buried in her hand.

  Reacher walked up behind her. The flames crackled and one final remaining section of the house burned and crumbled and collapsed to the ground. The fire ate the house like a monster devouring breakfast.

  “Who is it?” Reacher asked.

  Amita looked back up at him with a look that Reacher had seen before. He had seen it on his mother whenever someone from her community had died in a traffic accident or a homicide or drug overdose and even a few suicides.

  “It’s Mr. Gareth,” she said.

  Reacher put his hand on her shoulder. He knew what it was like to support a woman cop during such a tragedy. His mother had relied on him many times for such a thing.

  Then he studied the terrain. There was another corpse off about 40 feet from the house.

  “Stay here,” Reacher said. He removed his hand and started to walk over to the corpse.

  Amita stayed quiet.

  He walked over to it and drew his gun. Kept it pointed at the ground down by his side. It was cold in his hand. The bullets, ready for his command, were cold in the magazine with one in the chamber.

  Reacher stopped at the corpse and looked around. The fire from the house ripped some more and the flames bounced in the air, allowing him to see in a 360-degree radius for about 100 yards. Orange and red hues shone on the bottoms of the branches of the nearby trees like a strange reflection.

  The heat melted the snow from the branches and near the bottom of the house.

  The only things that didn’t burn on the house were the brick steps that once led to the front door and probably to a porch. Reacher imagined a big front porch. He imagined that when Jacobs was a boy, he and his father built the porch together. They hammered in the wood and shingled the roof and painted the whole thing. Maybe they hung a porch swing. Father and son working together, bonding. Something that he had never known.

  Then years later, Mr. Gareth came along and enjoyed the fruits of their labor. And now he was dead.

  Reacher studied the surrounding area. No one was around. No bad guys. No other bodies.

  He looked down and investigated the dead body. It was charred. Completely.

  Nothing was left but a shriveled dark man. No way to identify him. Anything that was in his pockets was burned to ash. His face was scorched to the bone. He had died a horrible death. If he had lived during the burning, it would’ve been the most horrible pain that Reacher could’ve imagined.

  The only way to make a positive ID of the dead guy was teeth or fingerprints. The guy had worn gloves. Perhaps some of his fingerprints were still intact.

  Reacher examined him closely. Most of the guy’s clothes were ruined. Burne
d up. No way to tell anything about him from that, but he was well armed.

  Strapped to his leg was a charred gun. Reacher grabbed it and pulled it out of a hip holster. Only the holster came apart. Some of it still stuck to the gun. Fused to it.

  The gun looked like a Beretta, but was badly damaged. No way to be sure. It had most likely been a 9mm.

  There was also an all-steel three-inch knife shoved into a sheath on the guy’s belt. Most of the belt had been charred to nothing just like the rest of him. The knife was still intact. It was still a little warm from the fire.

  Reacher pulled it out. Good knife. No reason to waste it. He couldn’t keep it, but he could put it to use. Maybe this was Jacobs. No way to identify his body by sight. So he grabbed the guy’s hand and peeled one of the fingers free from the gloves. Then he inspected it. Looked like the fingerprint was still visible on his left hand index finger. So Reacher hacked off the finger with one hard stab from the knife. The blade stuck deep into the ground beneath the hand. The tip of the finger leaped off like it was ready to separate.

  He left the knife in the ground and scooped up the fingertip. He had nothing to wrap it up in so he just slipped it into his coat pocket—opposite side from the P99.

  He returned to Amita.

  She said, “Who is it? Is it him?”

  “I don’t know who it is.”

  “Should I look?” she asked.

  “No. No point. The body is charred beyond recognition. Not even his momma would recognize him.”

  Amita asked, “What are we going to do?”

  Reacher said, “The power is on at the stationhouse right?”

  “Generator.”

  “I took his fingerprint,” Reacher said.

  Amita asked, “How? You don’t have a fingerprint kit?”

  “I mean that I took his fingerprint.”

  Amita started to ask and then realized what he meant. He took his finger. Instead she said, “We can send it to the FBI. See who he is.”

  Reacher stayed quiet.

  She said, “What do you think happened here?”

  Reacher said, “I don’t know for sure.”

  He looked around some more. Walked away from her and stood over some shrapnel from the explosion. The front yard was littered with tiny fragments of the house. No sign of Jacobs. Some of the large pieces still burned far from the house.

  Reacher walked around some more. Stared at something about 50 feet from the south side of the house. There were large imprints in the snow. Buried deep. Probably reached into the soil below. Reacher wasn’t sure what it was. Not completely.

  The imprints were in the shape of a triangle. Each was several feet apart. There were no other tracks.

  Reacher peered up at the sky. There was a clearing above the area and the house. No tree limbs. Just open air.

  Amita said, “What?”

  Reacher stayed quiet.

  Amita said, “Reacher, what is it?”

  Reacher looked around some more. He walked back to the charred corpse. Studied it closer. Then he walked back to the fire and stared at it. He looked around the house. Circled it. Searched the perimeter thoroughly. Then he returned to the corpse and searched farther away from it. He made it all the way to the trees before he saw a black object buried in the snow.

  It was lone and black. The deadly end pointed directly at him. The safer end dug deep into the snow. He reached down and grabbed it with an assault grip. It was an ultra-short assault rifle by Heckler and Koch—the G36C. It had a collapsible stock and a silencer attached. No scope. This was a serious weapon. Expensive and no special forces. It was more likely used by mercenaries. Reacher figured that it was more likely a favorite of a particular freelance merc. Probably he was a part of a team.

  The G36C fired a 5.56mm NATO round. It wasn’t as powerful as a rocket launcher, but it was far from a toy gun.

  The G36C had been buried to the trigger in snow. It was backward so Reacher figured that there probably was no snow packed into the muzzle. Even if there had been, chances were that he could remove the silencer and the muzzle would’ve still been clear of snow. He figured that it would fire just fine. Just to be sure he unscrewed the silencer and slipped it into his coat pocket. He ejected the magazine and cocked the gun and a live round popped out of the side door. He repeated the action and nothing happened. No more rounds in the gun.

  He inspected the muzzle and looked into the barrel. No trace of snow.

  He reinserted the magazine and aimed it up into the trees and set the gun to single round fire. Then he breathed in and squeezed the trigger. The gun fired. The sound echoed in the trees and across the landscape and died into the clouds. The gun worked just fine. He brushed off the remaining snow from around the stock and the handle. There was no strap so he set the safety on and held the gun one-handed with the muzzle pointed downward and his palm around the magazine.

  He turned and walked back around the house one more time. This time he walked back to the triangle and then saw something behind it. He walked a little farther and saw a pile of large, shiny metal objects. It looked like someone had dumped a large box full of coins onto the ground. After a moment of studying the metal objects, he grabbed one and squeezed it in his hand and then he walked to Amita.

  He made his way back over to her. She was standing by the horses, holding their reins in one hand, down by her side.

  She asked, “What the hell is that?”

  She pointed at the assault rifle under his arm.

  “It’s a Heckler and Koch G36C. Slightly modified.”

  “Modified?”

  “Silencer,” he said and pulled it out of his pocket, showed it to her, and slipped it back into his pocket.

  She asked, “Where the hell did you get that?”

  Reacher said, “I’m assuming that the charred body brought it with him.”

  She asked, “Is it Mike? Do you think?”

  “I don’t. I think that the dead guy over there was trying to attack the house. Mr. Gareth here was a casualty. Probably, Jacobs was holed up inside and he and Mr. Gareth tried to defend the house from invaders.”

  Amita said, “Invaders? What is this? That’s a serious weapon.”

  Reacher said, “Looks like a siege.”

  “A siege? So Mike came to his old home to hide out. Mr. Gareth let him stay. Then the terrorist attacked the house and it exploded? Now what? Mike is dead inside? Or they got him?”

  Reacher said, “I don’t know. But I doubt that these were terrorists. At least they aren’t Native American terrorists.”

  “So what then?”

  “Best guess?”

  Amita said, “Yes.”

  “I think that there’s something valuable at play here and these terrorists, whoever they are, are trying to get Jacobs. They are desperate and well financed,” Reacher said.

  “How do you know that they aren’t Native? Didn’t you say that the CIA said they were Native?”

  “That’s what they told me. But the CIA isn’t exactly famous for telling the truth.”

  Amita nodded.

  Reacher said, “There’s more. They also told me this wild story about a canister of weaponized Ebola.”

  Amita’s jaw dropped and she said, “What the hell? You didn’t think to tell us this earlier?”

  Reacher said, “I didn’t believe it. Not then.”

  “Why not?”

  “Weaponized Ebola? On an Indian reservation? Sounds more like fiction. It’s hard enough for me to swallow a story about a terrorist cell made up of local Native Americans and a missing undercover CIA agent,” Reacher said.

  “So what? You think these CIA guys are lying to you?”

  “One.”

  “What?”

  “I only met with one CIA guy, Shepard. He told me the whole story. I thought he was full of shit. But now.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now I’m not so sure.”

  “Why?”

  Reacher said, “I doubt
the story about the Indian terrorists. But there are definitely bad guys here and they’re very serious guys. A Heckler and Koch G36 is expensive equipment. Plus...”

  “Plus what?”

  “Look around, Amita. Look at the ground. It’s covered in snow.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Besides the dog tracks leading from the house what other tracks do you see?”

  Amita looked at the ground. She ignored the shrapnel and studied the snow. She saw footprints. Everywhere. And nothing else.

  She said, “Footprints. Lots of them.”

  “What else?”

  She looked again and then she said, “Nothing. Nothing else.”

  “So how did these guys get here?”

  Amita said nothing.

  Reacher said, “We had to ride horseback up the mountain just to get here. This house was attacked probably by several guys. There are footprints everywhere and different sets. There were at least five guys here. One is dead. I doubt that they walked up here. So they got here somehow.”

  Amita nodded. She asked, “How?”

  “Think about the boy. He said that he heard a loud engine.”

  “Snow cat? But there are no tracks for that.”

  Reacher shook his head. He pointed at the triangle where the deep holes were.

  He said, “Helicopter. The bad guys have a helicopter. Those are landing gear marks. The chopper has retractable wheels.”

  Amita stared at the holes in the ground.

  Reacher said, “And how did the house explode exactly?”

  Amita shook her head.

  Reacher opened his hand and revealed the metal object that he had found in the snow. It was shell casing for M50 ammunition. It was a colossal bullet. Huge. The bullet would rip a limb off. It would tear a hole through a man so fast that it would knock him off his feet before the bullet exited. It could shoot through an engine block. No problem.

  “They blew the house up with machine gun rounds from a big machine gun.”

  Amita’s face turned as white as a ghost.

  Reacher said, “There’s a mountain of these casings over there by the landing gear marks. I think this was from a Vulcan machine gun. It’s a turret attached to a helicopter. Normally a military chopper would have this kind of equipment. That means that our terrorists are well financed and well equipped.