17 A Wanted Man

by Lee Child

  Sorenson said, ‘Yes, sir.’

  Her special agent in charge. Her supervisor. Her boss. A man called Perry, fifty-four years old, a Bureau lifer, ambitious, first name Anthony, called Tony to his face, called Stony behind his back, because of the mineral lump where his heart should have been.

  He said, ‘I called the gas station in Iowa.’

  ‘You did, sir?’

  ‘I’m awake. I might as well do something useful.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They don’t have video.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘The night clerk seems like a smart enough kid. He came through with a pretty coherent story.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘The car was a dark blue Chevy Impala. He didn’t get the plate. Four people in it, three men and a woman. Initially one man and the woman stayed in the car. A second man pumped the gas. First point of interest, he used a credit card we just found out is phony.’

  ‘Was it related to the card used at the Denver airport?’

  ‘We don’t think so. Different source, almost certainly. The second point of interest is the car took only three-point-something gallons, which the kid behind the register thought was strange. The average sale at that location is closer to eleven gallons, unless someone’s filling a can for a lawnmower.’

  ‘So they either part-filled the car, which might mean they’re close to home, or they topped it off, which means they’d stopped before.’

  ‘We’re checking if the same card has been used anywhere else tonight. No results yet. But anyway, while the gas business was happening the third man entered the store alone and waited until the door closed and then asked for the pay phone.’

  ‘This was the driver, sir?’

  ‘Yes. The kid described him as gigantic, with a busted nose, all raw and crusted with blood. The kid admits at first he was a little scared. The guy looked like something out of a slasher movie. Like a wild man. His clothes were dirty and his hair was a mess. But he spoke normally and ultimately he seemed pleasant enough. So the kid pointed him to the phone, which is out of sight near the restrooms. So the kid has no direct knowledge of whether the guy actually used the phone or not. Then the guy who had stayed in the car came in to use the toilet. The slasher movie guy came out and got coffee all around and then the other guy came out and they left together. The car drove away in an orderly fashion and headed south.’

  ‘Atmosphere? Anything squirrelly?’

  ‘Nothing to report. It was the middle of the night, so they all looked a little tired and vague, but there were no bad words, no apparent tension, and no real hurry either, as far as I understand it.’

  ‘Did you listen to the emergency line recording, sir?’

  ‘Yes, I was copied on it, obviously.’

  ‘Did anything stand out for you?’

  ‘The word probably. It makes no sense. If he’s one of them he knows where the crime was committed. In which case he would have said he had information for Omaha, Nebraska, period.’

  ‘You think he’s not one of them?’

  ‘I think he’s low-level muscle. He drives, and he fetches coffee. He doesn’t know the details.’

  Bullshit, Stony, Sorenson thought. He doesn’t sound low-level to me. He sounds smarter than you, for instance.

  She said, ‘Thank you, sir. That’s very useful.’

  ‘Keep in touch,’ the SAC said, and clicked off.

  Sorenson drove on for a mile, thinking, and then she eased back up to ninety miles an hour and went back to e-mail. She turned the sound system’s volume up high and played the recording one more time.

  Just connect me, now.

  The big guy’s first sentence had been reasonable, patient, and explanatory. I have information, probably for your field office in Omaha, Nebraska. A scene-setter. A preamble. But it hadn’t gotten the desired results. The emergency operator hadn’t jumped right to it. So the big guy had gotten impatient. Just connect me, now. Urgent, breathy, frustrated. Some slight wonder and incomprehension in his voice. Some slight emphasis on the last word. Now. A little desperate. As if to say: I have completed the first step of the ritual dance, and I really, really don’t have time for the second, and I really, really can’t understand why you don’t understand that.

  Not a change of heart. The big guy had hung up because he was out of time. Because the other guy had come in to use the bathroom.

  The big guy was one of them. But he was a traitor.

  THIRTY

  REACHER PUT HIS hands flat on the floor and pushed himself up off his knees. He turned and looked at the fat man in the office doorway and said, ‘I need to borrow your car.’

  The fat man stared at Reacher’s face.

  He said, ‘What?’

  ‘Your car. Right now.’

  ‘No way.’ The guy was about thirty, prematurely losing his hair, about five feet four high, and about five feet three wide. He was wearing a white shirt and a red sleeveless V-necked sweater. He said, ‘I told you, I already called the cops. They’re on their way. So don’t try anything stupid.’

  Reacher said, ‘How long will it take for the cops to arrive?’

  ‘Two minutes, max. They’re already rolling.’

  ‘From where?’

  The guy didn’t answer.

  Reacher said, ‘County?’

  The guy said, ‘At night we rely on the State Police.’

  ‘They were all on roadblock duty. On the Interstate. A long way west of here. Short notice. No time to organize replacements. I’d say they’re two hours away, minimum. Not two minutes, maximum. If they come at all, that is. No one died here.’

  ‘A shot was fired.’

  ‘And that’s a bad thing, right?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘So they’re the bad guys. Because they fired the shot. And they fired it at me. Which makes me the good guy.’

  ‘Or the even worse guy.’

  ‘Whichever,’ Reacher said. ‘If I’m the good guy you’ll help me because you’re on my side. If I’m the even worse guy you’ll help me because you’re scared of me. But either way you’ll help me. So you might as well just cut to the chase and give me your keys.’

  ‘Won’t do you any good.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I protect myself.’

  ‘Against what?’

  ‘Against people like you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘No gas in my car.’

  ‘There has to be gas in your car. You’re thirty miles from the gas station.’

  ‘There’s a gallon or so. Good for about forty miles. And forty miles is nothing out here.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘It’s the best anti-theft protection there is. Better than an alarm, better than a tracker, better than a fancy lock.’

  ‘You’re pretty smart,’ Reacher said. ‘Or completely nuts. One or the other. What about your guests tonight? Who are they? Maybe I could borrow that pick-up truck.’

  The fat man just said, ‘Oh, man, please.’

  But Reacher didn’t push it. He just stood there, defeated. Because of numbers. Specifically four, and three, and two. Almost four minutes had passed. King and McQueen were about to hit the next road junction. It would be a T-junction, offering two choices, or a crossroads, offering three. Iowa. The chequerboard. The agricultural matrix. To be more than a field’s-length behind a fleeing fugitive meant facing endlessly escalating odds of taking the wrong turn. So far Reacher had seen T-junctions and crossroads in about a two-to-three ratio, spaced an average of about eight miles apart. The fat man’s gallon of gas might last about sixty minutes. And at the end of that hour the odds of being on the right track would have stacked up to around 650 to one against.

  Hopeless.

  Time, and geometry.

  Sorenson’s e-mail pinged again and she found an audio file from the Iowa 911 service. It was the call that had been patched through to the FBI emergency operator.

  What is
your current location?

  Give me the FBI.

  Sir, what is your current location?

  Don’t waste time.

  Do you need fire, police, or ambulance?

  I need the FBI.

  Sir, this is the 911 emergency service.

  And since about September the twelfth 2001 you’ve had a direct button for the FBI.

  How did you know that?

  Just a lucky guess. Hit the button, and hit it now.

  The same nasal voice. The same measured urgency. No panic, but not much patience, either. The same insight. As a matter of fact 911 dispatchers had not gotten an FBI button on September twelfth 2001. The installations had started a week or so later. But in principle the guy was right. He was clued in.

  But how?

  She played the file again, and had got as far as I need the FBI when her ring tone cut in over it. Another live call. The plain electronic tone, loud and thrilling through the speakers. It was her duty officer again, at his desk in Omaha. He said, ‘I don’t know if it means anything, but the Iowa State Police are saying they just got a 911 call about a gunshot fired in a motel lobby, about thirty-some miles south and east of that gas station.’

  The fat man hovered nervously behind the reception counter and Reacher took a look at the bullet hole in his wall. It was directly above the office door, maybe nine inches left of centre, close to the ceiling, maybe an inch and a half below the crown moulding. It looked like the round had hit near a stud or a screw. The impact had blasted off a large shallow flake of plaster, about the size of a teacup saucer, and the flake had left a corresponding crater. The centre of the crater was drilled with the .22 hole, neat and precise, a little smaller than a pencil.

  Reacher backed off and stood where McQueen had stood. He turned sideways. He bent his knees and lowered himself five inches, to make himself McQueen’s height. He raised his arm and straightened it and pointed his index finger at the hole.

  He closed one eye.

  He shook his head.

  It had been a bad miss, in his opinion. Because it would have missed even if he hadn’t fallen down on the floor. It would have missed even if he had stretched up high on tiptoes. It would have missed even if he had jumped up in the air. It might have grazed a seven-five NBA star, but at six-five Reacher would have been OK under any circumstances.

  If he was going to miss, he was going to miss high.

  Civilian marksmanship was appalling, for a population obsessed with guns.

  Reacher straightened up again and turned back to the fat man and said, ‘I need to use your phone.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  JULIA SORENSON DROVE some fast minutes uninterrupted, and then her phone rang again, loud over the speakers. Her duty officer, in Omaha. He said, ‘It’s your lucky night. I think.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘The same guy is on the line again.’

  ‘The nasal guy?’

  ‘Right now, live and in person.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘On the same phone that just called in the 911 in Iowa.’

  ‘The motel lobby thing?’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘How far out are the Iowa cops?’

  ‘A long way. The roadblocks screwed them up.’

  ‘OK, put the guy on.’

  ‘You sure? Stony will want this one.’

  ‘My case,’ Sorenson said. ‘Put the guy on. I’ll deal with Stony later.’

  She heard clicks and hiss and then a new acoustic. A room, not large. Hard surfaces. Probably an office. Laminate desks, metal cabinets. She heard the nasal voice. It said, ‘Hello?’

  She said, ‘This is FBI Special Agent Julia Sorenson. What is your name, sir?’

  Reacher put an elbow on the fat man’s laminate desk and trapped the receiver against his shoulder. He said, ‘I’m not going to tell you my name. Not yet, anyway. We need to talk first.’

  The woman named Sorenson said, ‘About what?’

  She was from Minnesota, Reacher thought. Originally. She sounded a little Scandinavian, like her name. And she seemed businesslike. She didn’t waste words. She was direct and to the point. He said, ‘I need to understand my personal situation.’

  ‘Is Karen Delfuenso still alive?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘Then it’s her personal situation we should be considering.’

  ‘I am considering it,’ Reacher said. ‘That’s my point. Are you going to slow me down or help me out?’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Finding her.’

  ‘You’re no longer with her?’

  ‘No. They shot at me and drove off. Delfuenso is still in the car.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you my name.’

  ‘No, I mean I need to understand your involvement.’

  ‘I have no involvement.’

  ‘You were seen driving the car.’

  ‘They asked me to.’

  ‘So you’re their driver?’

  ‘I never saw them before.’

  ‘What does that mean? You were what, a random stranger? A passerby? And they just stopped and asked you to drive their car?’

  ‘I was hitching rides. They picked me up.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Nebraska.’

  ‘And they asked you to drive the car? Is that normal?’

  ‘Not in my experience.’

  No response from Sorenson.

  Reacher said, ‘I think they were expecting roadblocks and they wanted cover. I think they were anticipating a three-person APB, so they wanted four people in the car. I think they wanted someone else at the wheel, not one of them. Someone the cops would see first. My busted nose was a bonus. I bet that was ninety per cent of the description you got. A guy with his face smashed in.’

  ‘A gorilla.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A gorilla with its face smashed in. Not very nice, I know.’

  ‘Not very nice to the gorilla,’ Reacher said. ‘But whatever, I was useful to them. But then they came off the Interstate. So they didn’t need me any more.’

  ‘So they shot you? Are you hurt?’

  ‘I said they shot at me. They missed.’

  ‘Do you know where they’re going?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Then how can you find Delfuenso?’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘If they don’t need you any more, they don’t need her any more, either. Just her car.’

  ‘So we’d better be quick.’

  ‘I’m still an hour away.’

  ‘Are the troopers coming?’

  ‘They’re all behind me.’

  Reacher said, ‘I’ve lost them anyway. The roads out here are impossible. I’m going to have to come at this from a different direction.’

  ‘What were you doing in Nebraska?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Is that where you broke your nose?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘The sergeant at the roadblock said you admitted you’d been fighting.’

  ‘Not really. I said he should see the other guy. That was all. It was a conventional pleasantry.’

  ‘He told us you said the other guy was in a state other than Iowa.’

  ‘I can’t comment on what he told you. I wasn’t there for that conversation.’

  ‘Was the other guy in Nebraska?’

  ‘You’re wasting time.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m driving as fast as I can. What else can I do at the moment?’

  ‘Drive faster still.’

  Sorenson asked, ‘Where were you going?’

  Reacher said, ‘When?’

  ‘When they picked you up.’

  ‘Virginia.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘What’s in Virginia?’

  ‘Many things. It’s an important state. Twelfth largest in the Union in terms of populat
ion. Thirteenth, in terms of GDP. You could look it up.’

  ‘You’re not convincing me. You’re not helping your personal situation.’

  ‘Why am I calling you?’

  ‘Maybe you want a deal.’

  ‘I don’t. I don’t need a deal. I need to help Delfuenso if I can, and then I need to go to Virginia.’

  ‘Why would you need to help Delfuenso?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? I’m a human being.’

  No answer from Sorenson.

  Reacher asked, ‘What did those guys do, anyway?’

  ‘I think I won’t discuss that with you. Not yet.’

  ‘I know they jacked Delfuenso’s car. I know they had blood on their clothes.’

  ‘How do you know that? They bought shirts and changed.’

  ‘Delfuenso told me.’

  ‘You talked?’

  ‘She blinked it out. In secret. A simple letter code.’

  ‘Smart woman. Brave woman, too.’

  ‘I know,’ Reacher said. ‘She warned me about the guns. I let her down.’

  ‘Evidently.’

  ‘You didn’t do so great either, with the two-man APB.’

  ‘One would think a BOLO for two men would logically include more than two. By a simple inference.’

  ‘Troopers don’t infer things. They don’t take the initiative. Nine times out of ten it gets them in trouble.’

  Sorenson asked, ‘How is Delfuenso doing?’

  Reacher said, ‘She’s not exactly having the time of her life.’

  ‘She has a kid back home.’

  ‘I know,’ Reacher said. ‘She told me.’

  Sorenson asked, ‘Do you have access to a vehicle?’

  Reacher said, ‘Not really. There are a couple here I might be able to borrow, but it’s pointless anyway. Those guys could be anywhere by now.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘OK, stay right where you are. I’ll see you when I get there.’

  ‘You might,’ Reacher said. ‘Or you might not.’

  Drive faster still, the nasal guy had said, and Sorenson tried very hard to. She eased up to nearly a hundred miles an hour, which was outside her personal comfort zone. But the road was straight and wide and empty. I never saw them before, he had said. I was hitching rides. Did she believe him? Maybe. Or maybe not. It was a very neat and comprehensive explanation of the facts. Therefore perhaps suspicious in itself. Because real life was neither neat nor comprehensive. Not usually. And who hitchhiked any more? Especially in the wintertime? The guy sounded educated. And not noticeably young. Not a normal hitchhiking demographic. Statistics. The Bureau found them to be a useful guide.