A Wanted Man

‘He didn’t look like anything. He was covered in blood.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Maximum effort,’ Sorenson said. ‘That’s what they’re asking for. Where are the two guys now?’

‘Now? They could be in a million different places.’

‘So it’s time to gamble. Before I get taken off this thing. Or supervised. One or the other is sure to happen first thing in the morning. That’s what maximum effort means. So suppose the two guys are still on the road?’

‘But which road? There are a million roads.’

‘Suppose they stayed on the Interstate?’

‘Would they?’

‘They’re probably not local. They’re probably running home right now, which could be a big distance.’

‘In which direction?’

‘Either one.’

‘You said they might be travelling separately.’

‘It’s a possibility, but a small one. Statistics show most paired perpetrators stick together after the commission of a serious crime. Human nature. They don’t necessarily trust each other to deal with the aftermath.’

‘Statistics?’

‘We find them to be a useful guide.’

‘OK, if they’re still together, and if they’re still on the Interstate, and if they went west, they must be about a quarter of the way back to Denver by now. And if they went east, they must be well into Iowa.’

‘Speed?’

‘Close to eighty, probably. Most Highway Patrols don’t get very excited by anything less than that. Not around here. Unless there’s weather. But it’s pretty clear tonight.’

Maximum effort. Gamble. Sorenson thought hard for thirty seconds and then got back on her phone and called up two final Hail Mary roadblocks on the Interstate, both to be in place in less than one hour’s time, the first in the west, a quarter of the way back to Denver plus eighty miles, and the second in the east, well into Iowa plus eighty miles. Both were to be on the lookout for two men, unspecified age, average appearance, no distinguishing marks, possible bloodstained clothing, possible possession of a bladed weapon showing signs of recent use.

ELEVEN

REACHER CAME OUT of the food shack carrying four cups of coffee in a pressed cardboard tray. He fully expected three of them to be wasted. He fully expected the car to be gone. But it wasn’t. It had moved off the pump, but it was waiting for him near the air hose and the interior vacuum, with its lights on and its engine running. Alan King was in the front passenger seat and Karen Delfuenso was behind him. Don McQueen was out of the car, standing near the driver’s door, looking cold and tired. Reacher had been right about his height and build. The guy was about six feet and slender, all arms and legs.

Reacher carried the coffee across the two-lane and gave one of the cream-and-sugars to McQueen. Then he tracked around the hood and gave the other to Alan King. Then he opened Delfuenso’s door and held out the third cup. He said, ‘Black, no sugar.’

Delfuenso hesitated a second, and then she took the cup. She said, ‘Thank you. That’s how I like it. How on earth did you know?’

Thirteen words. Which was eight more than he had heard from her so far, ever since they had met. He thought: Everyone knows thin women in their early forties don’t use cream or sugar. He said, ‘It was just a lucky guess.’

‘Thank you,’ she said again.

He stepped over to the trash barrel next to the vacuum and dumped the cardboard tray. Don McQueen opened the driver’s door for him, like a little ceremony. He slid into the seat and put his coffee in the cup holder. McQueen got in behind him.

Reacher found the lever and racked the seat back for legroom. It hit McQueen in the knees. Reacher looked at Alan King and said, ‘Why don’t you trade places with Mr McQueen? We’ve got the two tallest people one behind the other here.’

King said, ‘I always ride in front.’

‘Always?’

‘Without exception.’

So Reacher shrugged and adjusted the mirror and fastened his seat belt and got himself comfortable. Then he nudged the lever into Drive, and touched the gas, and eased out on to the two-lane, and drove the hundred feet, and took the ramp, and got back on the highway.

More proof they hadn’t been driving three hours.

No one had used the restroom.

Sheriff Goodman clicked off his cell and said, ‘Now Missy Smith has got her phone shut down.’

Sorenson nodded. ‘It’s late. The civilians are asleep. Do you know where she lives?’

No answer from Goodman. Wariness in his silence.

‘Obviously you know where she lives,’ Sorenson said. ‘She’s been here for ever. She’s a well known character. We’ll have to go bang on her door, before we go bang on the waitress’s door.’

Goodman said, ‘We can’t go bang on Missy Smith’s door. Not in the middle of the night.’

Sorenson didn’t answer that. She had taken a small sideways step, leftward from the red Mazda’s driver’s-side flank, and she was looking at an angle through the gap between the cocktail lounge and the cinder block bar. She said, ‘I can see the gas station from here. Across the street.’

Goodman said, ‘So?’

‘Anyone over there could see me.’

‘You thinking about witnesses? We’d be pretty lucky if some long haul trucker was pumping his gas at the exact minute our guys arrived here and took off again. And was gazing in the right direction, and was paying close attention instead of scratching his butt. And anyway, how would we find him?’

‘No, I’m thinking the gas station might have cameras. Maybe wide-angle. Like fisheyes. They might see over here.’

Goodman said nothing.

‘Does the gas station have cameras?’

‘I don’t know,’ Goodman said.

‘It might,’ Sorenson said. ‘Some of those big trucks take a hundred gallons. And times are hard right now. Drivers might be tempted to take off before paying. Oil companies wouldn’t like that. They might take defensive measures.’

‘We should go find out.’

‘We will,’ Sorenson said. ‘And then we’ll go bang on Missy Smith’s door. Don’t think we won’t. The old gal can sleep a little more, but not for ever.’

Reacher was an adequate driver, but nothing more than that. Physically his body worked only two ways: either extremely slow or extremely fast. Most of the time he rumbled along with typical big-man languor, often appearing quiet and lazy, sometimes appearing positively comatose. Then if necessary he could explode into furious action, for as long as it took, a blur of hands and feet, and then he would lapse back into torpor. He had no middle setting, and a middle setting was what good driving needed. Action and reaction had to be prompt but controlled, alert but measured, rapid but considered, and it was hard for Reacher to identify that kind of middle ground. Typically he found himself either twitching at a danger two hundred yards ahead, or ignoring it completely, on the grounds that it might go away by itself. He had never killed or injured anyone with a car, except deliberately, but he was a realistic man and didn’t kid himself: his driving was much worse than average.

But as promised the Interstate was straight and wide, back up to three lanes again by that point, and the big soft Chevrolet held its line very well. Night-time traffic was very light and neither action nor reaction was much called for. In fact the biggest challenge was to stay awake, but Reacher was good at that. He could grind along at