Echo Burning jr-5

by Lee Child

"Color?"

  "Gray or blue, maybe. Not dark."

  "You got any humble pie in the kitchen?"

  "Why?"

  "Because I should cram it down your throat until it chokes you. Those fair-haired white people with the blue eyes are the ones who killed Al Eugene. And you gave your own granddaughter to them."

  She stared at him. "Killed? Al is dead?"

  "Two minutes after they took him out of his car."

  She went pale and her mouth started working. She said what about, and then stopped. And again, what about. She couldn't add the word Elite.

  "Not yet," Reacher said. "That's my guess. And my hope. Ought to be your hope, too, because if they hurt her, you know what I'm going to do?"

  She didn't answer. Just clamped her lips and shook her head from side to side.

  "I'm going to come back down here and break your spine. I'm going to stand you up and snap it like a rotten twig."

  * * *

  They made her take a bath, which was awful, because one of the men watched her do it. He was quite short and had black hair on his head and his arms. He stood inside the bathroom door and watched her all the time she was in the tub. Her mommy had told her, never let anybody see you undressed, especially not a man. And he was right there watching her. And she had no pajamas to put on afterward. She hadn't brought any. She hadn't brought anything.

  "You don't need pajamas," the man said. "It's too hot for pajamas."

  He stood there by the door, watching her. She dried herself with a small white towel. She needed to pee, but she wasn't going to let him watch her do that. She had to squeeze very near him to get out of the room. Then the other two watched her all the way to the bed. The other man, and the woman. They were horrible. They were all horrible. She got into the bed and pulled the covers up over her head and tried hard not to cry.

  * * *

  "What now?" Alice asked.

  "Back to Pecos," Reacher said. "I want to keep on the move. And we've got a lot of stuff to do tonight. But go slow, O.K.? I need time to think."

  She drove out to the gate and turned north into the darkness. Switched the fan on high to blow the night heat away.

  "Think about what?" Alice asked.

  "About where Ellie is."

  "Why do you think it was the same people as killed Eugene?"

  "It's a deployment issue," he said. "I can't see anybody using a separate hit team and kidnap team. Not down here in the middle of nowhere. So I think it's one team. Either a hit team moonlighting on the kidnap, or a kidnap team moonlighting on the hits. Probably the former, because the way they did Eugene was pretty expert. If that was moonlighting, I'd hate to see them do what they're really good at."

  "All they did was shoot him. Anybody could do that."

  "No, they couldn't. They got him to stop the car, they talked him into theirs. They kept him quiet throughout. That's really good technique, Alice. Harder than you can imagine. Then they shot him through the eye. That means something, too."

  "What?"

  He shrugged. "It's a tiny target. And in a situation like that, it's a snap shot. You raise the gun, you fire. One, two. No rational reason to pick such a tiny target. It's a kind of exuberance. Not exactly showing off, as such. More like just celebrating your own skill and precision. Like reveling in it. It's a joy thing."

  Silence in the car. Just the hum of the motor and the whine of the tires.

  "And now they've got the kid," Alice said.

  "And they're uneasy about it, because they're moonlighting. They're used to each other alone. They're accustomed to their normal procedures. Having a live kid around makes them worried about being static and visible."

  "They'll look like a family. A man, a woman, a little girl."

  "No, I think there's more than two of them."

  "Why?"

  "Because if it was me, I'd want three. In the service, we used three. Basically a driver, a shooter and a back-watcher."

  "You shot people? The military police?"

  He shrugged. "Sometimes. You know, things better not brought to trial."

  She was quiet for a long moment. He saw her debating whether to hitch an inch farther away from him. Then he saw her decide to stay where she was.

  "So why didn't you do it for Carmen?" she asked. "If you've done it before?"

  "She asked me the same question. My answer is, I really don't know."

  She was quiet again, another mile.

  "Why are they holding Ellie?" she said. "I mean, still holding her? They already coerced the confession. So what's still to gain?"

  "You're the lawyer," he said. "You have to figure that one out. When does it become set in stone? You know, irrevocable?"

  "Never, really. A confession can be retracted anytime. But in practice, I guess if she answered nolo contendere to the grand jury indictment, that would be regarded as a milestone."

  "And how soon could that happen?"

  "Tomorrow, easily. Grand jury sits more or less permanently. It would take ten minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour."

  "I thought justice ground real slow in Texas."

  "Only if you plead not guilty."

  Silence again, for many miles. They passed through the crossroads hamlet with the school and the gas station and the diner. It whipped backward through the headlight beams, three short seconds end to end. The sky up ahead was still clear. The stars were still visible. But the clouds were building fast behind them, in the south.

  "So maybe tomorrow they'll let her go," Alice said.

  "And maybe tomorrow they won't. They'll be worried she could make the ID. She's a smart kid. She sits quiet, watching and thinking all the time."

  "So what do we do?"

  "We try to figure out where she is."

  He opened the glove compartment and took out the maps again. Found a large-scale plan of Pecos County and spread it on his knee. Reached up and clicked on the dome light.

  "How?" Alice asked. "I mean, where do you start?"

  "I've done this before," Reacher said. "Years and years, I hunted deserters and AWOLs. You train yourself to think like them, and you usually find them."

  "That easy?"

  "Sometimes," he said.

  Silence in the speeding car.

  "But they could be anywhere," Alice said. "I mean, there must be a million hide-outs. Abandoned farmsteads, ruined buildings."

  "No, I think they're using motels," Reacher said.

  "Why?"

  "Because appearances are very important to them. Part of their technique. They suckered Al Eugene somehow, and they looked plausible to Rusty Greer, not that she cared too much. So they need running water and showers and closets and working electricity for hairdryers and shavers."

  "There are hundreds of motels here," she said. "Thousands, probably."

  He nodded. "And they're moving around, almost certainly. A different place every day. Basic security."

  "So how do we find the right one tonight?"

  He held the map where it caught the light.

  "We find it in our heads. Think like them, figure out what we'd do. Then that should be the same thing as what they'd do."

  "Hell of a gamble."

  "Maybe, maybe not."

  "So are we going to start now?"

  "No, we're going back to your office now."

  "Why?"

  "Because I don't like frontal assaults. Not against people this good, not with a kid in the crossfire."

  "So what do we do?"

  "We divide and rule. We lure two of them out. Maybe we capture a tongue."

  "A tongue? What's that?"

  "An enemy prisoner who'll talk."

  "How do we do that?"

  "We decoy them. They're already aware we know about them. So they'll come for us, try a little damage control."

  "They know we know? But how?"

  "Somebody just told them."

  "Who?"

  Reacher didn't reply. Just stared down at the map. Looked at the faint
red lines that represented roads meandering across thousands of empty miles. Closed his eyes and tried hard to imagine what they looked like in reality.

  * * *

  Alice parked in the lot behind the law offices. She had a key to the rear door. There were a lot of shadows, and Reacher was very vigilant as they walked. But they made it inside O.K. The old store was deserted and dusty and silent and hot. The air conditioner had been turned off at the end of the day. Reacher stood still and listened for the inaudible quiver of people waiting. It's a primeval sensation, received and understood far back in the brain. It wasn't there.

  "Call Walker and give him an update," he said. "Tell him we're here."

  He made her sit back-to-back with him at somebody else's desk in the center of the room, so he could watch the front entrance while she watched the rear. He rested the pistol in his lap with the safety off. Then he dialed Sergeant Rodriguez's number in Abilene. Rodriguez was still on duty, and he sounded unhappy about it.

  "We checked with the bar association," he said. "There are no lawyers licensed in Texas called Chester A. Arthur."

  "I'm from Vermont," Reacher said. "I'm volunteering down here, pro bono."

  "Like hell you are."

  The line went quiet.

  "I'll deal," Reacher said. "Names, in exchange for conversation."

  "With who?"

  "With you, maybe. How long have you been a Ranger?"

  "Seventeen years."

  "How much do you know about the border patrol?"

  "Enough, I guess."

  "You prepared to give me a straight yes-no answer? No comebacks?"

  "What's the question?"

  "You recall the border patrol investigation twelve years ago?"

  "Maybe."

  "Was it a whitewash?"

  Rodriguez paused a long moment, and then he answered, with a single word.

  "I'll call you back," Reacher said.

  He hung up and turned and spoke over his shoulder to Alice.

  "You get Walker?" he asked.

  "He's up to speed," she said. "He wants us to wait for him here, for when he's through with the FBI."

  Reacher shook his head. "Can't wait here. Too obvious. We need to stay on the move. We'll go to him, and then we'll get back on the road."

  She paused a beat. "Are we in serious danger?"

  "Nothing we can't handle," he said.

  She said nothing.

  "You worried?" he asked.

  "A little," she said. "A lot, actually."

  "You can't be," he said. "I'm going to need your help."

  "Why was the lie about the ring different?"

  "Because everything else is hearsay. But I found out for myself the ring wasn't a fake. Direct personal discovery, not hearsay. Feels very different."

  "I don't see how it's important."

  "It's important because I've got a whole big theory going and the lie about the ring screws it up like crazy."

  "Why do you want to believe her so much?"

  "Because she had no money with her."

  "What's the big theory?"

  "Remember that Balzac quotation? And Marcuse?"

  Alice nodded.

  "I've got another one," Reacher said. "Something Ben Franklin once wrote."

  "What are you, a walking encyclopedia?"

  "I remember stuff I read, is all. And I remember something Bobby Greer said, too, about armadillos."

  She just looked at him.

  "You're crazy," she said.

  He nodded. "It's only a theory. It needs to be tested. But we can do that."

  "How?"

  "We just wait and see who comes for us."

  She said nothing.

  "Let's go check in with Walker," he said.

  * * *

  They walked through the heat to the courthouse building. There was a breeze again, blowing in from the south. It felt damp and urgent. Walker was on his own in his office, looking very tired. His desk was a mess of phone books and paper.

  "Well, it's started," he said. "Biggest thing you ever saw. FBI and state police, roadblocks everywhere, helicopters in the air, more than a hundred and fifty people on the ground. But there's a storm coming in, which ain't going to help."

  "Reacher thinks they're holed up in a motel," Alice said.

  Walker nodded, grimly. "If they are, they'll find them. Manhunt like this, it's going to be pretty relentless."

  "You need us anymore?" Reacher asked.

  Walker shook his head. "We should leave it to the professionals now. I'm going home, grab a couple hours rest."

  Reacher looked around the office. The door, the floor, the windows, the desk, the filing cabinets.

  "I guess we'll do the same thing," he said. "We'll go to Alice's place. Call us if you need us. Or if you get any news, O.K.?"

  Walker nodded.

  "I will," he said. "I promise."

  * * *

  "We'll go as FBI again," the woman said. "It's a no-brainer."

  "All of us?" the driver asked. "What about the kid?"

  The woman paused. She had to go, because she was the shooter. And if she had to split the team two and one, she wanted the tall guy with her, not the driver.

  "You stay with the kid," she said.

  There was a moment's silence.

  "Abort horizon?" the driver asked.

  It was their standard operating procedure. Whenever the team was split, the woman set an abort horizon. Which meant that you waited until the time had passed, and then, if the team wasn't together again, you got the hell out, every man for himself.

  "Four hours, O.K.?" the woman said. "Done and dusted."

  She stared at him a second longer, eyebrows raised, to make sure he understood the implication of her point. Then she knelt and unzipped the heavy valise.

  "So let's do it," she said.

  They did the exact same things they had done for Al Eugene, except they did them a whole lot faster because the Crown Vic was parked in the motel's lot, not hidden in a dusty turnout miles from anywhere. The lot was dimly lit and mostly empty, and there was nobody around, but it still wasn't a secure feeling. They pulled the wheel covers off and threw them in the trunk. They attached the communications antennas to the rear window and the trunk lid. They zipped blue jackets over their shirts. They loaded up with spare ammunition clips. They squared the souvenir ballcaps on their heads. They checked the loads in their nine-millimeter pistols and racked the slides and clicked the safety catches and jammed the guns in their pockets. The tall fair man slipped into the driver's seat. The woman paused outside the motel room door.

  "Four hours," she said again. "Done and dusted."

  The driver nodded and closed the door behind her. Glanced over at the kid in the bed. Done and dusted meant leave nothing at all behind, especially live witnesses.

  * * *

  Reacher took the Heckler & Koch and the maps of Texas and the FedEx packet out of the VW and carried them into Alice's house, straight through the living room and into the kitchen area. It was still and cool inside. And dry. The central air was running hard. He wondered for a second what her utility bills must be like.

  "Where's the scale?" he asked.

  She pushed past him and squatted down and opened a cupboard. Used two hands and lifted a kitchen scale onto the countertop. It was a big piece of equipment. It was new, but it looked old. A retro design. It had a big white upright face the size of a china plate, like the speedometer on an old-fashioned sedan. It was faced with a bulbous plastic window with a chromium bezel. There was a red pointer behind the window and large numbers around the circumference. A manufacturer's name and a printed warning: Not Legal For Trade.

  "Is it accurate?" he asked.

  Alice shrugged.

  "I think so," she said. "The nut roast comes out O.K."

  There was a chromium bowl resting in a cradle above the dial. He tapped on it with his finger and the pointer bounced up to a pound and then back down to zero. He took the ma
gazine out of the Heckler & Koch and laid the empty gun in the bowl. It made a light metallic sound. The pointer spun up to two pounds and six ounces. Not an especially light weapon. About right, he figured. His memory told him the catalog weight was in the region of forty-three ounces, with an empty magazine.

  He put the gun back together and opened cupboards until he found a store of food. He lifted out an unopened bag of granulated sugar. It was in a gaudy yellow packet that said 5 Ibs. on the side.

  "What are you doing?" Alice asked.

  "Weighing things," he said.

  He stood the sugar upright in the chromium bowl. The pointer spun up to five pounds exactly. He put the sugar back in the cupboard and tried a cellophane-wrapped packet of chopped nuts. The pointer read two pounds. He looked at the label on the packet and saw 2 Ibs.

  "Good enough," he said.

  He folded the maps and laid them across the top of the bowl. They weighed one pound and three ounces. He took them off and put the nuts back on. Still two pounds. He put the nuts back in the cupboard and tried the FedEx packet. It weighed one pound and one ounce. He added the maps and the pointer inched up to two pounds and four ounces. Added the loaded gun on top and the pointer jerked around to five pounds and three ounces. If he had wanted to, he could have calculated the weight of the bullets.

  "O.K., let's go," he said. "But we need gas. Long ride ahead. And maybe you should get out of that dress. You got something more active?"

  "I guess," she said, and headed for the stairs.

  "You got a screwdriver?" he called after her.

  "Under the sink," she called back.

  He bent down and found a brightly colored toolbox in the cupboard. It was made out of plastic and looked like a lunch pail. He clicked it open and selected a medium-sized screwdriver with a clear yellow handle. A minute later Alice came back down the stairs wearing baggy khaki cargo pants and a black T-shirt with the sleeves torn off at the shoulder seams.

  "O.K.?" she asked.

  "Me and Judith," he said. "Got a lot in common."

  She smiled and said nothing.

  "I'm assuming your car is insured," he said. "It could get damaged tonight."

  She said nothing. Just locked up her door and followed him out to the VW. She drove out of her complex, with Reacher craning his neck, watching the shadows. She got gas at a neon-bright all-night station out on the El Paso road. Reacher paid for it.