23 Past Tense

by Lee Child

  “You told me.”

  “That was different.”

  “Tell him there’s something wrong with the story.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Reacher paused a moment, to let a truck roar past on the road. A tow truck. Heading north. It was huge. It was the kind of thing that could haul an eighteen-wheeler off the highway. It was grinding along slow and noisy in a low gear. He realized he had seen it before. It was bright red and spotlessly clean. It had gold stripes all over it. Its passage rocked the Subaru on its springs. It growled away into the distance behind them.

  Reacher put the phone back to his ear.

  He said, “Carrington will get the message. He’ll know what I mean. Tell him to see an opportunity where others might see a crisis. He could take a short vacation. Somewhere romantic. Rates are down after Labor Day.”

  “He has a job,” Amos said. “He might be busy.”

  “Tell him I’m happy to listen to him about census methodology. Tell him he should listen to me about staying-alive methodology.”

  Amos said, “I was feeling pretty good until you laid this on me. We have a bad guy in town, OK, but never mind, because the bad guy has no target. Now you tell me he does have a target after all, kind of, sort of, maybe.”

  “Call me if you need me,” Reacher said. “This number should be good another hour or two. I would be happy to come back to town and lend a hand. You could give my regards to Chief Shaw, if you like, and make him the offer.”

  “Do not come back to town,” Amos said. “Under no circumstances.”

  “Never?”

  “Not soon,” she said.

  Reacher clicked off the call.

  —

  Lunch hour was long gone, and Burke said he was hungry. He said he wanted to go get something to eat. Reacher offered to pay, as a way of saying thank you for all the driving around. So they headed east toward a lake, where Burke said he knew a bait shop that had soda pop and sandwiches, at the head of a trail that led to the water, mostly used by fishermen carrying poles. It was a decent drive, and at the end of it the destination was exactly as advertised. It was a shack with an ice chest outside, and glass chiller cabinets inside, humming loudly, some of them full of stuff for people to eat, and others full of stuff for fish to eat. There was a yard-wide deli counter, with a choice of chicken salad or tuna, on white bread or a hot dog roll, plus a bag of potato chips, plus a bottle of cold water, all for a penny less than three dollars. Soda pop was extra.

  Reacher said, “I told you I was paying. You should have picked out somewhere expensive.”

  Burke said, “I did.”

  He got tuna and Reacher got chicken. They both stuck with water. They ate outside, at a government-brown picnic table near the head of the trail.

  “Now give me the message,” Reacher said. “From the ornithologist.”

  Burke didn’t answer right away.

  Something on his mind.

  In the end he said, “Obviously it’s you he really wants to talk to. He seems extremely excited. He said he was completely unaware that Stan had kids.”

  “Who is he, exactly? Did he tell you?”

  “You know who he is. You called him. He’s a professor at the university.”

  “I mean how is he related?”

  Burke took a long drink of water.

  “He explained in great detail,” he said. “The short version is you count back four generations on your father’s side. Not your father himself, not your grandfather, not your great-grandfather, but your great-great-grandfather. Who was one of seven brothers. Who all had numerous children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. Apparently you and the professor are both in there somewhere.”

  “Plus about ten thousand other people.”

  “He said he wants to talk to you about Stan. He said he feels a connection, because of the birdwatching. He said he wants to meet with you face to face. He said he has an idea he wants to discuss with you.”

  “Five minutes ago he didn’t know I existed.”

  “He was very insistent.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “I felt pressured by him. In the end I took the liberty of telling him in my estimation you would likely move on very soon, not being the type of passerby likely to put down roots, in which case it might prove very difficult to arrange a face to face meeting, simply because of scheduling issues alone.”

  “But?”

  “He said we simply must make it happen.”

  “And?”

  “He’s coming tomorrow.”

  “Coming where?”

  “I was unable to suggest an exact rendezvous. I felt I shouldn’t speak for you. I didn’t know your preferences. In the end he offered a suggestion. I’m afraid I took the liberty of accepting on your behalf. I felt rushed. He put me on the spot.”

  “What was his suggestion?”

  “Ryantown.”

  “Really?”

  “He said he knows where it is. He was there for research. I tested him on a couple of things, and he knows his stuff.”

  “What time tomorrow?”

  “He said he’ll be there at eight o’clock in the morning.”

  “In a ruin in the woods.”

  “He said it was appropriate.”

  “For fighting a duel, maybe.”

  “Appropriate was his word, not mine. And Ryantown was his suggestion, not mine.”

  “Did you like him?” Reacher asked again.

  “Does it matter?”

  “I would like to hear your personal opinion.”

  “Why would I have one?”

  “You heard him talk. You got a sense of the guy.”

  “I’m giving you the message,” Burke said. “That’s what I promised. Don’t ask for editorial comment. It’s none of my business.”

  “Suppose it was.”

  “It’s not for me to say. I wouldn’t want to influence you one way or the other.”

  “When people say that, it means they would, really.”

  “He sounded very eager.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “It could be both.”

  “How?”

  “Look, he’s a professor at the university. An academic. I respect that tremendously. I was a teacher myself, don’t forget. But it’s different now. They have to promote themselves all the time. It’s not just publish or perish anymore. They have to be on social media. They need something new every day. I would worry that some tiny part of what he wants is a picture of you in Ryantown, for a blog post or an on-line article. Or to re-launch the research he did before. Or some combination. Absolutely can’t blame him. He needs to feed the beast, or his students will rate him low. Visuals are important. Hence the early start. The morning light will be atmospheric. You could stare moodily into the sky, looking for the lost bird.”

  “You’re a very cynical man, Reverend Burke.”

  “It’s different now.”

  “But everyone takes pictures. Everyone puts stuff on line. It’s no big deal. It’s not a reason to worry about meeting a person. You’re overselling it. You’re trying to head me off at the pass. You should tell me what’s really on your mind.”

  Burke was quiet a long moment.

  Then he said, “If you meet with him, he’ll tell you something upsetting.”

  “We don’t need to walk on eggs,” Reacher said.

  “Different kind of upsetting.”

  “What kind?”

  “I heard him talk. I felt not everything he said made sense. At first I wasn’t sure he was getting it straight. Then I thought I was misunderstanding the ancestry jargon.”

  “What wasn’t straight?”

  “He kept referring to Stan in the present tense. He was saying, Stan is this, Stan is that, Stan is here, Stan is there. At first I assumed that ancestry buffs talk that way. To bring the subject alive. But he kept on doing it. In the end I asked him.”

 
; “Asked him what?”

  “Why he was talking that way.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He thinks Stan is still alive.”

  Reacher shook his head.

  “That’s crazy,” he said. “He died years ago. He was my father. I was at his funeral.”

  Burke nodded.

  “Which is why I thought it would upset you,” he said. “Obviously the professor is either mistaken or confused. Or a crank of some kind, with a bee in his bonnet. All of which can be distressing, after a family bereavement. Naturally there are sensitivities involved.”

  “It was thirty years ago,” Reacher said. “I got over it.”

  “Thirty years?”

  “Give or take,” Reacher said. “I was a company commander in West Germany, with the CID. I remember flying back. He was buried in Arlington Cemetery. My mother wanted that for him, because he fought in Korea and Vietnam. She thought he deserved it.”

  Burke said nothing.

  Reacher said, “What?”

  “Coincidence, I’m sure,” Burke said.

  “What is?”

  “The professor said the family story has it that Stan Reacher was working away from home for a very long time, completely out of touch, but then finally he retired, and he came back to live in New Hampshire.”

  “When?”

  “Thirty years ago,” Burke said. “Give or take. Those were the professor’s exact words.”

  “That’s crazy,” Reacher said again. “I was at the funeral. The guy is wrong. I should call him back.”

  “You can’t. He’s tied up the rest of the day.”

  “Where is this old guy who came back to New Hampshire supposed to be living now?”

  “With the granddaughter of a relative.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “You can hear it from the horse’s mouth first thing tomorrow.”

  “I’m trying to get to San Diego. I need to get going.”

  “Are you upset about what he said?”

  “Not upset at all. Just not sure what to do. I don’t want to waste time talking to an idiot.”

  Burke was quiet a moment.

  “I feel I shouldn’t dissuade you further,” he said. “My only worry was emotional strain. In its absence, I suppose you could give the professor the benefit of the doubt. It might be an innocent error. A simple transposition of two similar names, or something. You might still enjoy talking to him. About Ryantown, if nothing else. He knows a lot about it. He did research there.”

  “I would need a motel,” Reacher said. “I can’t go back to Laconia.”

  “There’s a place north of Ryantown. About twenty miles. I told you about it. Supposed to be good.”

  “Deep in the woods.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Sounds perfect, under the circumstances. If I gave you fifty bucks for gas, would you drive me there?”

  “Fifty bucks is too much.”

  “We’ve done a lot of miles. And there are tires to consider, and general wear and tear, plus a share of the overhead. Insurance, for instance, and servicing, and repairs.”

  “I would take twenty.”

  “Deal,” Reacher said.

  They climbed out of the picnic table and walked back to the Subaru.

  —

  Karel was the sixth and final arrival. He worked the morning as normal, starting early, out at the highway, where he got instantly lucky with a semi-serious fender bender, which then became doubly lucky, because both insurance companies hired him to haul the wrecks. Which paid the rent for the day. The rest was icing on the cake. There were no more crashes, but he got three separate breakdowns. Which was pretty damn good for the time of year. And then a fourth, he thought for a happy moment, after he had clocked off and was heading north, when he saw an old Subaru stalled on the shoulder. But it turned out to be nothing. Two guys in it, admiring the view, one of them talking on the phone. A little burble of fumes coming out at the back. The old Subaru was running fine.

  Twenty miles later he slowed to a crawl, and he turned hard left, into the narrow opening. Into the mouth of the track. Which was barely wider than the truck itself. Leaves and branches brushed and battered both sides. The huge tires bounced and slapped through the potholes. He slowed again, barely a walk, idling in his lowest stump-pulling gear. The wire was up ahead. Across the blacktop. The warning bell. He wanted all three axles to ring it separately. That was the code. Bing, bing-bing . Hence the low speed.

  He rolled slowly over the wire. And stopped. He set the brakes. He shut down the engine. He opened his door against the press of the foliage and dropped his bags down ahead of him. Then he squeezed out sideways and locked the door from below. He gathered his luggage, and hauled it ten yards along the track, and set it down in a neat array. He turned and looked back. His truck was jammed in. There was no space either side. Obviously not for a car. Not for a quad-bike, even. A pedestrian, maybe, leading with a shoulder, getting whipped in the face by branches.

  It was a perfect roadblock.

  He turned again and looked ahead and waited. Four minutes later Steven showed up in his black SUV. The Mercedes. He looked out the window at the truck. To the left of it, to the right of it, below it, above it. As if he was judging it. As if there was a whole lot of choice exactly how to position it. Karel loaded his bags. Steven backed up to a hole in the trees and turned the car around. They drove on.

  Karel said, “Happy so far?”

  Steven said, “Shorty smashed up the bathroom.”

  “A small price to pay.”

  “Mark wants a favor. We screwed up with their window blind. Now we got tension between the guys who saw them already and the guys who didn’t. Their heads would explode if they knew you had actually talked to them. Or been in the same room as them. Or touched them, or something.”

  “I didn’t touch them,” Karel said. “And I wasn’t in the same room. I stayed outside. I talked to them, sure.”

  “Mark wants you to act like you didn’t. He wants you to balance it out, three and three. He thinks that will keep the situation under control.”

  “Got it,” Karel said.

  They drove out through the meadow. Peter was in the office. Karel got room two. OK with him. The room didn’t matter. He put his bags inside. He said hi to the other guys. They were all gathering. They stumped around and swapped stories. Karel made out he had never been there before. He told them he was Russian, just for the fun of it. He asked all the right wide-eyed questions about Patty and Shorty, as if he had never seen them before. He found himself secretly agreeing with some of the answers. Then the two guys who hadn’t seen them yet got a little disgruntled all over again, which Karel quelled simply by siding with them. The natural three-and-three balance calmed things down. Maybe Mark was right.

  Then Peter stuck his head out the office door, and called down the row to say everyone was invited to walk over to the house, for a cup of coffee, and an introductory briefing, and a look at the video highlights from the last three days. So they all wandered over, just strolling, feeling good. Starting to believe. The party was complete. All six of them were present. They were sealed off from the world. It was real. It was happening. It wasn’t a scam. Deep down they all thought it would be. But it wasn’t. It was true and it was hours away. First sheer relief welled and bloomed, like a tide, and then buzzing excitement took over, a little breathless, a little gulped, to be resisted, to be controlled, because nothing was certain yet, because disappointment was always possible, because chickens should not be counted.

  But they were starting to believe.

  Chapter 31

  Burke and Reacher drove back on the same road, west toward Ryantown. Reacher watched the bars on Burke’s old phone. When they dropped from three to two he asked Burke to pull over on the shoulder, so he could call Amos again, before service ran out completely. He dialed, and she answered, on the third ring.

  She said, “Where are you now?”

/>   “Don’t worry,” Reacher said. “I’m still out of town.”

  “We can’t find Carrington.”

  “Where have you looked?”

  “His home, his office, the coffee shop he likes, the lunch places he goes.”

  “Did he tell his office he would be out?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Does he have a cell phone?”

  “He’s not answering.”

  “Try the city records department,” Reacher said. “Ask for Elizabeth Castle.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s his new girlfriend. Maybe he’s hanging out over there.”

  He heard her call across the room, Elizabeth Castle, city records.

  He asked, “Any sign of the guy from Boston?”

  She said, “We’ve been running every plate we’ve seen, in and out of town. We have automatic software now. Nothing yet.”

  “Want me to come back to help?”

  “No,” she said.

  “I could walk around and flush the guy out.”

  “No,” she said again.

  He heard someone shouting a message.

  She said, “Elizabeth Castle is not at work either.”

  “I need to come back to town.”

  “No,” she said, for the third time.

  “Last chance,” he said. “I’m about to head north to a motel. I’m going to lose cell service.”

  “Do not come back to town.”

  “OK,” he said. “But in exchange I need you to do something for me.”

  “Like what?”

  “I need you to look at ancient history on your computer again.”

  “I already have plenty to do today.”

  “It only takes a minute. You have a really good system there.”

  “Are you flattering me?”

  “Did you design the system?”

  “No.”

  “Then no, I’m not. All I’m saying is it won’t take much time. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked. I know you’re extremely busy.”

  “Now you’re respecting me to death. What would I be looking for?”

  “Check the files after that thing with my father, seventy-five years ago. The next twenty-four months, until September 1945.”

  “What happened then?”

  “He joined the Marines.”

  “What would I be looking for?”