then sprinting back along the neat little path, and hurling himself back into the car, and the car howling away with spinning wheels and blue tyre smoke. Reacher scrambled up to his knees and got there in time to see McQueen slam his door and the car rock through a wild 180 turn, back on to the road, facing south again, and then it accelerated away, hard, nose high, tail low, wheels spinning and scrabbling for grip and pouring smoke. The last thing Reacher saw through the haze was a brief flash of white in the Chevy’s rear window, which was Karen Delfuenso’s pale face, turning back in horror, her mouth wide open.
Reacher stayed on his knees. Silence came back. White gypsum powder drifted down on him, slowly, weightless, like talc, on his shoulders, in his hair. Tyre smoke hung in the night air under the porte cochère, and it rolled slowly forward in a ghostly dissipating cloud, which followed the trajectory of the 180 turn, like a description, like an explanation, like proof, and then it disappeared completely, like it had never been there at all.
Then the office door opened a crack and a short fat man stuck his head out and looked around and said, ‘Just so you know, I already called the cops on you.’
Julia Sorenson heard her phone ping over the noise of her speeding car and she opened her e-mail and found an audio attachment from the emergency operator in D.C. Her phone cradle was hooked up to her car’s stereo system, which was the base Ford option and therefore nothing fancy, but it was plenty loud and clear. She turned the volume up and hit Play and heard a short fifteen-second recording, of two voices on the telephone, one in the Hoover Building and the other allegedly in Iowa.
This is the FBI. What is the nature of your emergency?
I have information, probably for your field office in Omaha, Nebraska.
What is the nature of your information?
Just connect me, now.
Sir, what is your name?
Then there was a short pause, just a beat really, and then: Connect me now or you’ll lose your job.
Then there was another short pause, then dead air, then a new dial tone.
Then nothing.
She played it again, and listened exclusively to the caller, not the operator.
I have information, probably for your field office in Omaha, Nebraska.
Just connect me, now.
Connect me now or you’ll lose your job.
Six seconds. Twenty-three words, spoken with urgency but also with a certain weird patience. A very nasal intonation, full of breath sounds, entirely consistent with a badly broken nose, the M sounds shading towards B sounds, information more like inforbation, and Omaha more like Obaha.
She played it again, zeroing in.
Probably for your field office in Omaha, Nebraska.
Or you’ll lose your job.
Clearly the strange urgent-but-patient blend meant the guy was accustomed to making important operational calls, or issuing instructions of some kind, and that he knew even alert and intelligent listeners needed a chance to get from zero to sixty. But he wasn’t just a businessman. Even a high-level guy used to trading millions on the phone would get a little more freaked about calling an FBI emergency line in the middle of the night. This guy sounded like it was routine to him. The your in your field office meant he wasn’t actually FBI himself, at least not currently, but he seemed to know how things worked, and in a sense the your sounded like he considered himself a peer, or a part of the same world. Your field office, my field office.
The probably was intriguing. It was measured, and considered, and intelligent. As if the guy was in reality almost a hundred per cent certain he wanted Omaha, but didn’t want to derail the process with an initial assumption that could conceivably prove faulty later on. Or as if he wanted to recruit the emergency operator as a kind of partner, to let the operator own some component of the ultimate decision, to oil the wheels, to speed things along.
Her gut feeling told her again: this was a guy accustomed to making important operational calls. He had very sound bureaucratic instincts.
As in: or you’ll lose your job. Preceded by the very short pause for thought. This was a guy who knew exactly what to say. Who had gone through duty officers before. Who had maybe even been a duty officer once upon a time.
So what was he doing driving a car full of two murderers and a hostage?
And why did he make the call and then hang up prematurely?
She got no further with those questions, because right then her phone rang with a live call, the plain electronic tone blasting loud and deep and sonorous through dashboard speakers and door speakers and a subwoofer under the rear parcel shelf. She dropped the volume a notch and touched Accept. It was her duty officer on the line, at her field office in Omaha. The guy who hadn’t picked up in time.
He said, ‘I have the SAC holding for you.’
Sorenson slowed down to eighty. She checked the road ahead and checked her mirrors. She said, ‘Put him on.’
There was a static click, loud and emphatic through the sound system. Then a voice said, ‘Sorenson?’
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 wou
ld 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