by Scott Blade
“Whatever they’re after, I didn’t believe was Ebola. But now, I’ll believe anything. They went through a lot of trouble here to get it. It has to be something worth a lot.”
Amita said, “What next?”
Reacher said, “Next we go back to the station. The storm will be back soon. And we need to send off the prints. Find out who this guy is. Maybe we’ll find out who the bad guys are here. And I need to call Shepard.”
Chapter 32
They rode the horses all the way back to the police station. No reason to return them to the ranch. They decided to lock them up in a large, heated shed that was behind the community center. The situation required immediacy and Amita figured that she could apologize to the rancher later.
They reached the station just in the nick of time because not five minutes later the winds picked up and the snow started to hammer down again. It was slow at first, but steadily accelerated.
Reacher decided to call Shepard.
He stayed outside of the stationhouse while Amita went inside.
He pulled out the sat phone that Shepard had given him and opened it up and clicked it on. The light at the top blinked a blue color and the screen lit up. He searched through the contacts. There was only one—Shepard.
He dialed it.
There was a hum and a whine as the phone was relayed through satellites miles above the earth. Then there was a dial tone and a ring. Reacher waited for the phone to ring.
A voice came on.
“Reacher?”
“It’s me.”
Shepard said, “What’s the status? Did you find Jacobs?”
Reacher said, “No. Not sure that he’s alive. But something else is going on here.”
“What do you mean?”
Reacher thought for a second. He wasn’t even sure that he could trust Shepard. Certainly the man was hiding things from him. That was what he did for a living, lie to people.
Reacher said, “There was an attack on the reservation. House explosion. Looks like a siege. Dead bodies. Evidence of a helicopter.”
The line was silent.
Reacher said, “Is there something that you’re not telling me?”
Shepard said, “Reacher, I told you everything that pertains to the situation.”
“You’re sticking to the story of Ebola?”
“That part is real. It is imperative that you locate Jacobs. If he’s dead, did you get a visual confirmation?”
Reacher said, “No. No body.”
Shepard said, “We have to be sure. If he is dead, then you have to acquire intel. The clock is ticking. The CIA will not allow the weapon to get off the reservation.”
“What does that mean?” Reacher asked.
Shepard said, “You know what it means. You have the same time limit as before: when the storm subsides. Unless you have good news for me by then I’ll be forced to notify the Air Force of a new domestic target for them to bomb.”
Reacher stayed quiet.
The truth was that the whole story and threat seemed unbelievable to him. But Reacher knew from his mother’s stories and clues about his father that government cover-up was a real thing. And a guy like Shepard didn’t strike him as the type of guy who bluffs when it comes to national security.
And most certainly, things were far beyond the stage of unbelievability. The bad guys had a helicopter with guns on it, probably a stolen military vehicle or a foreign one at that. And the nearest government with military choppers that would loan them out to terrorists against America was probably across an ocean. Canada wouldn’t perform such an action in a thousand years and Mexico’s military probably couldn’t afford a chopper like that. Therefore, it was stolen, belonged to a group with access to foreign military arms, or was a civilian chopper, heavily modified after market. None of these options made Reacher feel any better.
He said, “Shepard, you need to do some research to find out who could have a military chopper. Look at radar or whatever; it must still be around somewhere. Probably parked on a rooftop or a clearing within 100 miles.
“No way would they get very far in this weather.”
Shepard said, “I’ll do that. If this isn’t a local band of ragtag terrorists then we have bigger problems, which means that we’ll have no option other than erasing the reservation. We can’t let the Ebola canister reach outside of that area.”
Reacher stayed quiet. He squeezed the phone.
Shepard said, “So get on it. Call me ASAP.”
Shepard hung up the phone.
Chapter 33
Cameron Reacher’s mother had taught him many lessons, but he had also learned from his father, even though Jack Reacher had never been around.
One such lesson that his mother taught him was also something that he guessed must have been his father’s practice too. The lesson is sleep when you can. A lesson that his mother had instilled in him with words, but a lesson that he had learned on the road in practice. It is imperative to sleep when you can because on the road, as in the field, you never know when you will have the next opportunity to sleep.
So Cameron Reacher did two things after talking to Shepard on the sat phone.
The first was to copy the fingerprints off the severed finger that he had carried back with him. Amita refused to touch it, so he inked it and fingerprinted it.
Amita took the sheet with the dead guy’s fingerprint and faxed it to the FBI while the phone lines were still up.
Reacher watched her do it and then he told her that she had better try to sleep. He said that he’d do the same.
The second thing that he did was check on the small Mexican boy. The kid was fast asleep.
Reacher returned to the police station and parked himself in the cell that he’d already slept one night in. By now it felt like a second home.
He took off his coat and left it hanging on the back of a chair that was pulled into the cell from the bullpen. Then he dumped himself down on the bed, lay down fully clothed, and shut his eyes. Time to sleep.
Sleep when you can.
Chapter 34
The snowstorm thundered and roared every so often, alerting Reacher’s ears, but he slept fine. The sounds stirred him for a moment and then he wafted back to sleep. No big deal. Nothing lost. Reacher had never slept in a snowstorm before and so he wasn’t familiar with the noises, but he had slept through hurricanes. He found that for the most part the sounds were the same—a lot of howling from the wind.
Amita stood out in front of the community center talking to her father. She explained to her father everything that was going on. She filled him in on the stuff that he didn’t know. The dead bodies. The fire. The Ebola. Everything.
Her father stroked his face, feeling the stubble from not shaving for a day or so underneath his fingers. A look of great worry fell across his face, a look that she hadn’t seen in years. The last time she had seen it was the day that she told him that she wanted to run away with Mike Jacobs, but then he had left her behind.
Her father said, “What do you make of this boy? What does he have to do with this mess?”
Amita asked, “Has he said anything else?”
“Not in English. He only seems to speak Mexican. Which I guess makes sense because that boy is a long way from home.”
Amita said, “I don’t know what he’s doing here. Reacher doesn’t either. You know…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Amita, tell me.”
“Reacher is a pretty smart guy. Why is he a bum?”
Chief Red Cloud said, “He’s not. Technically.”
“He’s homeless.”
Chief Red Cloud said, “He is homeless, but he migrates from place to place. So technically he isn’t a bum. He’s a drifter or even a hobo.”
“Why is he doing that? Why live that way? He should be in college.”
“I agree, but it’s his life. Maybe he knows something that we don’t.”
The small boy rolled over on hi
s cot and opened his eyes. He had forgotten where he was for a moment and felt scared. Then he remembered that his friend had rescued him. He remembered that his friend was still out there and would be coming for him. He believed that.
Then he thought about the monster man. The monster man had been nice to him too. Like his friend. The one who saved him. He wondered if they were friends. He wondered if the monster man was here to protect him too. So he sat upright and turned his head and looked right. Looked left. He saw no one that he knew. There were a lot of old people here. They all looked asleep.
He listened to the wind howl and moan. He looked down the aisle for the monster man. Saw no sign of him. He started to feel scared because the monster man was not around. So he turned and twisted his body and slipped off the bed. He was barefoot. The floor was cold underneath him like cement. He knew that. He had cement at his old house.
He walked quietly away from the bed and then he stopped and went back. He had forgotten his toy. He picked up the little black device and watched the light blink. Then he moved again and walked down the aisles. He peered down each one and looked at every face. There was no sign of the monster man.
The small boy decided to go down the hall and turn into a large room that he figured looked like a police station. He walked past a desk and through a doorway. It looked funny. He had seen it before. It was the type of doorway that detected metal. It was silent as he went through it.
Then he walked around some more desks. He checked between them and under them. Still no sign of the monster man.
He turned and heard a rumbling noise from another room. These rooms had bars in front of them.
He walked over to the first room and peered in. There was no one there. He moved to the second one and looked in. Then he saw him, the monster man. He lay sprawled out on a small bed.
The small boy smiled because the monster man was far too big to be on such a small bed.
He walked closer to the monster man and pulled out his device. The light on it was blinking faster. He didn’t know why. He reached up and tugged on the monster man’s sleeve.
Chapter 35
The night passed and grew old or young. If the days were measured in a life cycle, then this day was either an old, dying man or a young kid, depending on when the birth cycle started. So if midnight was death and zero hour was birth, then this night was a young boy.
The snowstorm thundered and roared every so often, alerting Reacher’s ears, but he slept fine. The sounds would grow and then diminish and then return again. After several hours of this, they began to diminish and didn’t return. And Reacher would’ve slept until morning only he felt something. He opened his eye abruptly and realized that he felt something tugging on his sleeve. He craned his head without sitting up and looked directly into the eyes of the Mexican boy.
“Hi, kid,” he said.
The boy said something in Spanish. It was too fast for Reacher to translate and also his Spanish wasn’t that great. High school Spanish only got a man so far.
Reacher sat up. The Mexican boy repeated what he was saying and still Reacher didn’t understand him so he merely nodded.
The boy reached his hand out, palm up, and showed something to Reacher. It was a small black device with a blinking light on it. Reacher snatched it up and studied it. The boy didn’t seem to mind.
Reacher said, “Shit!”
Chapter 36
The device was a Special Forces tracker or at least it looked like it’d be used by Special Forces. Reacher studied it. No trademarks. No logos. No “Made in China.” Reacher figured that it was definitely some kind of overt ops equipment.
He looked at the boy and asked, “Where did you get this?”
The boy shrugged.
Reacher said, “¿De dónde surgiódesde?”
But he wasn’t sure that he was saying the right thing.
The boy said something else in Spanish and Reacher didn’t follow.
Then the boy said, “Bad guy. Copper.”
Reacher knew he was saying a bad guy from the chopper. So he got up out of bed. The little boy looked up at him with big brown, confused eyes.
Reacher held out his hand gently and the little boy grabbed it. Reacher led him back through the police station, down the hall, and into the community center. They crept through, trying not to wake anyone up. Reacher peered around, studying faces, looking for Amita and her father. Then he heard voices in the distance.
He went outside and found them standing near the entrance. The freezing weather engulfed his face like a burst of flames. He nudged the small boy back inside so he wouldn’t freeze and went back out into the cold.
Amita said, “You’re awake. Neither of us could sleep. Not that we should anyway with all that’s going on.”
Reacher studied Amita’s face. She looked tired. Dark circles under her eyes, her makeup practically gone at this point. Her father looked even worse. He needed sleep. His face was worn, like old leather.
Reacher said, “You two should’ve gotten some sleep.”
Amita said, “We’ll sleep tomorrow.”
Reacher hoped that she was right. Then he said, “Do you see this?”
He showed them the device.
“I found the boy with it.”
The father said, “I saw him with it earlier. What is it?”
Reacher said, “It’s a tracker. He must have gotten it off one of the bad guys, probably the dead one. The charred guy. I think that he picked it up while he was escaping. Then he collapsed in the cold and the dead dog we found dragged him through the snow and down some of the mountain until it died from a gunshot. The bad guys must have been shooting at it.”
Amita said, “Why would they shot at a little boy?”
Reacher said, “I don’t think that they were trying to kill him. I think maybe they were trying to recover him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But there’s more going on here than a canister of Ebola.”
“What else is going on?”
Reacher said, “Something to do with this boy. He’s from Mexico. We know that, but how did he get here? Where are his parents?”
Amita shrugged.
“We need to find Jacobs,” Reacher said. “He holds the answers.”
Amita asked, “Is he alive?”
Reacher said, “We haven’t found him dead. Maybe he was in the fire, but maybe not. If he didn’t die and the bad guys didn’t get what they wanted then they’ll be back. The boy picked up this tracker not knowing what it was. But this means that now they know where he is. Or they’ll figure it out soon.”
Then Reacher dropped the tracker to the ground and stomped on it hard. Once. Twice. Three times. Finally it shattered into tiny fragments.
Reacher said, “We’d better get ready. This storm is slowing down. We may have visitors. Amita, you’d better check to see if the FBI responded on that print. We need to know who we’re dealing with exactly. And call them. And call the state police. We’ll need some backup.”
“What about the CIA?”
Reacher said, “They aren’t going to help us. But I’ll call Shepard and make sure that he doesn’t use any drastic measures.”
Reacher pulled out the sat phone and dialed and let it ring and ring.
Shepard answered, “Reacher, have you found him yet?”
Reacher said, “I don’t know where the hell you got your intel from, but it’s a joke.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Reacher said, “We got some problems up here. There is no Indian terrorist group. There’s a much bigger threat here. There’s an outside hostile force.”
Shepard said, “What are you talking about?”
“If you want to get this canister of Ebola back, then you need to quarantine the reservation and send in the National Guard. We’ve got a well-armed force coming up here. From out there. They attacked Jacobs at a nearby house and blew it up. And Shepard, they have some impressive firearms. I
found a Heckler and Koch G36.”
Silence on the other line.
Reacher said, “Also they have a military chopper. With guns.”
Shepard said, “Military chopper? Reacher, are you sure?”
“About as sure as I can be. I saw the tracks from the landing gear. Also they used a Vulcan machine gun to destroy a house.”
Shepard said, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. There were shell casings from the bullets all over the ground.”
Silence again.
Then Shepard said, “This is serious, Reacher. We’ll get you out of there. Then you’re right. This situation is too big for us. We’ll have to involve the governor and National Guard.
“Just stay put for now. I’ll get back to you.”
Then he clicked off and the line went dead.
Reacher stared at the phone and slipped it into his pocket.
Amita had left while he was on the call. He looked at the chief.
Red Cloud said, “This Shepard doesn’t seem trustworthy.”
“I know. CIA never is.”
Red Cloud said, “What do you think?”
Reacher said, “I don’t know yet. But we can’t just wait. We need to find Jacobs.”
Amita came back out of the community center, holding a fax in her hand. She showed it to them. Half of the page was blank like it had gotten cut off in the transmission.
She said, “The phone lines are down. Right in the middle of sending it. The Internet is out too. Right now your sat phone is the only working communicator.”
Reacher said, “And that will only last as long as the weather holds up.”
Amita said, “You have to see this guy’s FBI file. There’s something seriously wrong with it.”
Reacher looked at it. The guy’s name was Cory Philips. He had all the basic background aspects that Reacher had expected—place of birth, age, college, military service, Special Forces training, tours in Iraq, and redacted missions as well. The one thing that was unusual was that Cory Philips had died two years ago in a helicopter crash.
Chapter 37
The snow continued to fall, but was no longer beating down. The skies were still clearing and Reacher knew that this meant that Shepard would be getting anxious for news on Jacobs. So far all they had was no terrorist cell, no Jacobs, and no sign of a weaponized Ebola. Instead they had a dead mercenary, who was apparently supposed to have been dead years ago, and a Mexican boy that made no sense why he was even here.
