Echo Burning jr-5

by Lee Child

  The hammer tripped. The gun fired. There was colossal noise and flame, and the crown of Walker's head blasted backward into the candlelit gloom. It just came off like a lid and splintered into mist. Colt Super Autos with hollow points, Reacher's subconscious mind told him. The flame died abruptly and he saw a blackened hole between Walker's eyes and his hair on fire from the muzzle flash. Then Rusty fired again. The second bullet followed the first straight through Walker's head and he went down and Rusty kept the gun rock-steady in the air above him and fired into space, three, four, five, six. The third shot splintered the wall, and the fourth hit the Coleman lantern and shattered its glass, and the fifth hit its kerosene reservoir and exploded it over a ten-foot square of wall. It blew sideways and ignited with a bright flash and the sixth shot hit the exact center of the flames. She kept on pumping the trigger even after the gun was empty. Reacher watched her finger flexing and the hammer clicking and the cylinder stepping around obediently. Then he turned and watched the wall.

  The kerosene was thicker than water and had more surface tension. It flung outward and dripped and ran and burned fiercely. It set the wall on fire immediately. The dry old wood burned with no hesitation at all. Blue flames crept upward and sideways and the faded red paint bubbled and peeled ahead of them. Tongues of flame found the vertical seams between the boards and raced up them like they were hungry. They reached the ceiling and paused momentarily and then curved horizontally and spread outward. The air in the room stirred to feed them. The candles guttered in the sudden draft. Within five seconds the wall was burning along its full height. Then the fire started creeping sideways. The flames were blue and smooth and curled and liquid, like they were sculpted out of something wet and soft. They glowed with mysterious inner light. Flakes of burning paint were drifting on hot currents and landing randomly. The fire was creeping clockwise, very fast, coming around behind everybody in the room.

  "Out," Reacher shouted.

  Alice was already on her feet and Bobby was staring at the fire. Rusty was sitting absolutely motionless, still patiently working the trigger. The clicking of the firing mechanism was lost behind the crackle of the flames.

  "Get her out," Reacher shouted.

  "We've got no water," Bobby shouted back. "The well pump won't work without electricity."

  "Just get your mother out," Reacher shouted.

  Bobby stood completely still. The flames had found the floorboards. The paint bubbled and peeled outward in a wide arc and the fire started a patient journey in pursuit. Reacher kicked chairs out of the way and lifted the table and overturned it on top of the flames. They died under it and then detoured neatly around it. The ceiling was well alight. Walker's body was sprawled on the floor near the window. His hair was still on fire from the muzzle flash. It smoked and smoldered with flames of a different color. The fire had found the door frame. Reacher stepped across and pulled Rusty out of her chair. Spun her around and straight-armed her through the smoke and out of the room ahead of him. Alice was already in the foyer. She had the front door open. Reacher could feel damp air sucking in to feed the fire. It was keeping low, down by his feet. It was already a strong breeze.

  Alice ran down the steps to the yard and Reacher pushed Rusty after her. She clattered down and staggered out onto the wet dirt and got steady on her feet and just stood there, still holding the empty gun straight out from her shoulder, still clicking the useless trigger. Walker's Lincoln was parked next to the Jeep, wet and dirty and travel-stained. Reacher ducked back inside the foyer. It was filling with smoke. It was pooling near the ceiling and crowding downward in layers. The air was hot and paint was scorching everywhere. Bobby was coughing hard near the parlor door. The parlor was already a mass of flame. An inferno. The fire was curling out of the door. The door itself was on fire. The red-framed mirror cracked in the heat and Reacher turned and saw two of himself staring back. He took a deep spluttering breath and ran toward the flames and grabbed Bobby by the wrist. Twisted his arm and grabbed the back of his belt like he was arresting him and ran him out into the darkness. Hustled him down the steps and shoved him toward the center of the yard.

  "It's burning down," Bobby screamed. "All of it."

  The windows were alive with yellow light. Flames were dancing behind them. Smoke was drifting through the screens and there were loud random cracking sounds from inside as timbers yielded and moved. The soaked roof was already steaming gently.

  "It's burning down," Bobby screamed again. "What are we going to do?"

  "Go live in the barn," Reacher said. "That's where people like you belong." Then he grabbed Alice's hand and ran straight for the Jeep.

  Chapter 17

  When the storm moved north the driver knew his partners weren't coming back. It was a sensation so strong it took on the weight of absolute fact. It was like the rain had left a void behind that would never be filled. He turned in his chair and stared at the motel room door. Sat like that for minutes. Then he stood up and walked over and opened it. Looked out into the parking lot, focusing left, focusing right. The blacktop was streaming with water. The air smelled sharp and clean.

  He stepped outside and walked ten paces in the dark. There was a running gutter somewhere and the gurgle of street drains and loud dripping from the trees. But nothing else. Nothing else at all. Nobody was coming. Nobody was ever going to come again. He knew it. He turned around. Wet grit slid under his shoes. He walked back. Stepped inside the room and closed the door gently behind him. Looked over at the bed. Looked at the sleeping child in it.

  * * *

  "You drive," he called. "North, O.K.?"

  He pushed her toward the driver's door and ran around the hood. She pulled her seat forward and he racked his backward. Unfolded the maps on his knees. To his left the Red House was burning fiercely. All the windows were bright with flame. Both floors now. The maid ran out of the kitchen door, wrapped in a bathrobe. The light of the fire caught her face. There was no expression on it.

  "O.K., let's go," he said.

  She slammed the selector into Drive and gunned the motor. The transfer case was still locked in four-wheel drive and all four tires spun and scattered wet stones and the car took off. She slewed past Walker's Lincoln. Made the right under the gate without pausing. Accelerated hard. He turned his head and saw the first flames appear at the eaves of the roof. They licked outward and paused and ran horizontally, searching for sustenance. Steam was pouring off the soaked shingles and mixing with smoke. Rusty and Bobby and the maid were watching it drift, hypnotized. He glanced away and didn't look back again. Just stared ahead and then riffed through the maps on his knees and found the large-scale sheet showing Pecos County in its entirety. Then he reached up and clicked the dome light on.

  "Faster," he said. "I've got a real bad feeling about this."

  * * *

  The four hours were long gone, but he waited anyway. He felt a certain reluctance. How could he not? He wasn't a monster. He would do what he had to do, for sure, but he wasn't going to enjoy it, exactly.

  He walked over and opened the door again and hung the Do Not Disturb tag on the outside handle. Closed the door and locked it from the inside. He appreciated the locks motels put on their doors. A big lever to turn on the inside, a satisfying heavy click, smooth and oily, no corresponding catch on the outside. It helped. Absolute undisturbed security was a useful thing. He slipped the chain on and started into the room.

  * * *

  Alice drove as fast as she dared. The Jeep wasn't a great road vehicle. It rolled too much and rocked violently from side to side. The steering was vague. It required constant correction. It was a problem. But Reacher ignored it and just held the map high, where it caught the light from the roof console. He stared hard at it and checked the scale and held his finger and thumb apart like a little compass and traced a circle.

  "You done any tourist stuff around here?" he asked.

  She nodded at the wheel. "Some, I guess. I went to the McDonald Observator
y. It was great."

  He checked the map. The McDonald Observatory was southwest of Pecos, high up in the Davis Mountains.

  "That's eighty miles," he said. "Too far."

  "For what?"

  "For them to have been today. I think they'll have been a half hour from Pecos by road, max. Twenty-five miles, thirty tops."

  "Why?"

  "To be close to Walker. He might have planned on smuggling Carmen out, if necessary. Or maybe bringing Ellie in to see her. Whatever it took to convince her that the threat was real. So I think they'll have holed up somewhere nearby."

  "And near a tourist attraction?"

  "Definitely," he said. "That's key."

  "Can this work?" she asked. "Finding the right place in your head?"

  "It's worked for me before."

  "How many times? As a percentage?"

  He ignored the question. Went back to the map. She gripped the wheel and drove. Dropped her eyes to the speedometer.

  "Oh GW," she whispered.

  He didn't look up. "What?"

  "We're out of gas. It's right on empty. The warning light is on."

  He was quiet for a second.

  "Keep going," he said. "We'll be O.K."

  She kept her foot hard down.

  "How? You think the gauge is broken?"

  He looked up. Glanced ahead.

  "Just keep going," he said.

  "We're going to run out," she said.

  "Don't worry," he said.

  She drove on. The car rocked hard. The headlights bounced ahead of them. The tires whined on the streaming blacktop. She glanced down again.

  "It's right on empty, Reacher," she said. "Below empty."

  "Don't worry," he said again.

  "Why not?"

  "You'll see."

  He kept his eyes on the windshield. She drove on, as fast as the Jeep would go. The engine was growling loud. A gruff old straight-six, drinking gasoline at the rate of a pint every minute.

  "Use two-wheel drive," he said. "More economical."

  She wrestled with the drivetrain lever and wrenched it forward. The front end of the car went quiet. The steering stopped fighting her. She drove on. Another half mile. Then a mile. She glanced down at the dash again.

  "We're running on fumes," she said.

  "Don't worry," he said for the third time.

  Another mile. The engine stumbled and coughed once and ran ragged for a second and then picked up again. Air in the fuel line, he thought, or sludge dredged up from the bottom of the tank.

  "Reacher, we're out of gas, "Alice said.

  "Don't worry about it."

  "Why not?"

  Another mile.

  "That's why not," he said suddenly.

  The right edge of the headlight beam washed over the ragged gravel shoulder and lit up a steel-blue Ford Crown Victoria. It had four VHP antennas on the back and no wheel covers. It was just sitting there, inert and abandoned, facing north.

  "We'll use that," he said. "It'll have most of a tank. They were well organized."

  She braked hard and pulled in behind it. "This is theirs? Why is it here?"

  "Walker left it here."

  "How did you know?"

  "It's pretty obvious. They came down from Pecos in two cars, this and the Lincoln. They dumped the Lincoln here and used the Ford the rest of the way. Then Walker ran away from the mesa, put the pick-up back in the barn, drove the Ford back up here, retrieved his Lincoln and came back down in it for our benefit. To make us think it was his first visit, if we happened to be still alive and looking."

  "What about the keys?"

  "They'll be in it. Walker wasn't in the right frame of mind to worry about Hertz losing a rental car."

  Alice jumped out and checked. Gave a thumbs-up. The keys were in it. Reacher followed her with the maps. They left the Greers' Jeep with the doors standing open and the motor idling through the last of its gas. They got into the Crown Vic and he racked his seat back and she pulled hers forward. She fired it up and they were on the road again within thirty seconds, already doing sixty miles an hour.

  "It's three quarters full," she said. "And it drives much better."

  He nodded. It felt low and fast and smooth. Exactly like a big sedan should.

  "I'm sitting where Al Eugene sat," he said.

  She glanced at him. He smiled.

  "Go faster," he said. "Nobody will stop you. We look just like a squad car."

  She accelerated to seventy-five, then eighty. He found the dome light and clicked it on and returned to the maps.

  "O.K., where were we?" he said.

  "The McDonald Observatory," she said. "You didn't like it."

  He nodded. "It was too far out."

  He tilted the map to catch the light. Stared hard at it. Concentrate, Reacher. Make it work. If you can.

  "What's at Balmorhea State Recreation Area?" he asked. It was still southwest of Pecos, but only thirty miles out. The right sort of distance.

  "It's a desert oasis," she said. "Like a huge lake, very clear. You can swim and scuba dive there."

  But not the right sort of place.

  "I don't think so," he said.

  He checked northeast, up to thirty miles out.

  "What about Monahans Sandhills?"

  "Four thousand acres of sand dunes. Looks like the Sahara."

  "That's it? And people go there?"

  "It's very impressive."

  He went quiet and checked the map all over again.

  "What about Fort Stockton?" he asked.

  "It's just a town," she said. "No different than Pecos, really." Then she glanced across at him. "But Old Fort Stockton is worth seeing, I guess."

  He looked at the map. Old Fort Stockton was marked as a historic ruin, north of the town itself. Nearer Pecos. He measured the distance. Maybe forty-five miles.

  Possible.

  "What is it exactly?" he asked.

  "Heritage site," she said. "An old military fort. The Buffalo Soldiers were there. Confederates had torn the place down. The Buffaloes rebuilt it. Eighteen sixty-seven, I think."

  He checked again. The ruins were southeast of Pecos, accessible from Route 285, which looked like a decent road. Probably a fast road. Probably a typical road. He closed his eyes. Alice raced on. The Crown Vic was very quiet. It was warm and comfortable. He wanted to go to sleep. He was very tired. Wet spray from the tires hissed against the underside.

  "I like the Old Fort Stockton area," he said.

  "You think they were there?"

  He was quiet again, another whole mile.

  "Not there, "he said. "But nearby. Think about it, from their point of view."

  "I can't," she said. "I'm not like them."

  "So pretend," he said. "What were they?"

  "I don't know."

  "They were professionals. Quiet and unobtrusive. Like chameleons. Instinctively good at camouflage. Good at not being noticed. Put yourself in their shoes, Alice."

  "I can't," she said again.

  "Think like them. Imagine. Get into it. Who are they? I saw them and thought they were a sales team. Rusty Greer thought they were social workers. Apparently Al Eugene thought they were FBI agents. So think like them. Be them. Your strength is you look very normal and very ordinary. You're white, and you look very middle-class, and you've got this Crown Victoria, which when it's not all tricked up with radio antennas looks like an ordinary family sedan. The FBI con helped, but basically you looked harmless enough that Al Eugene felt safe to stop for you, but also somehow commanding enough that he also had to. Wanted to. So you're ordinary, but you're respectable and plausible. And businesslike."

  "O.K."

  "But now you've got a kid with you. So what are you now?"

  "What?"

  "Now you're a normal, ordinary, respectable, plausible middle-class family."

  "But there were three of them."

  He was quiet a beat. Kept his eyes closed.

  "One of the men was
an uncle," he said. "You're a middle-class family, on vacation together in your sedan. But you're not a loud Disneyland type of family. You're not in shorts and brightly colored T-shirts. You look quiet, maybe a little earnest. Maybe a little nerdy. Or maybe a little studious. Maybe you look like a school principal's family. Or an accountant's. You're obviously from out of state, so you're traveling. Where to? Ask yourself the same question they must have asked themselves. Where will you blend in? Where's the safest place around here? Where would an earnest, studious, middle-class family go, with their six-and-a-half-year-old daughter? Where's a proper, enlightening, educational kind of a place to take her? Even though she's way too young and doesn't care? Even though people laugh behind your back at how politically correct and cloyingly diligent you are?"

  "Old Fort Stockton," Alice said.

  "Exactly. You show the kid the glorious history of the African-American soldiers, even though you'd have a heart attack if she grew up and wanted to date one. But you're driving a Ford, not a BMW or a Cadillac. You're sensible. Which means not rich, basically. Careful about your expenditure. You resent overpaying for something. Motels, just as much as cars. So you drive in from the north and you stay at a place far enough out to be reasonable. Not the dumps in the middle of nowhere. But on the first distant fringes of the Fort Stockton tourist area. Where the value is good."

  He opened his eyes.

  "That's where you would stay, Alice," he said.

  "It is?"

  He nodded. "A place where they get plenty of earnest, striving, not-rich middle-class families on vacation. The sort of place that gets recommended in boring AAA magazines. A place where you fit right in. A place with lots of people exactly like you. A place where you won't stand out in anybody's memory for a second. And a place where you're only thirty, thirty-five minutes from Pecos by a fast road."

  Alice shrugged and nodded all at the same time.

  "Good theory, I guess," she said. "Good logic. Question is, were they following the same logic?"

  "I hope so," Reacher said. "Because we don't have time for a big search. I don't think we have much time for anything. I'm getting a bad feeling. I think she's in real danger now."