A Wanted Man

Then a voice broke through and said, ‘Sheriff Goodman, this is Agent Dawson with FBI counterterrorism out of Kansas City. We met last night. I need you to call me back as soon as possible. And until then I need to warn you about a man travelling with Agent Sorenson out of our Omaha office. He’s a dangerous fugitive and should be apprehended on sight. My partner and I are on our way to you. We’ll deal with the situation after we get there, but please take care until we do. We’ll be with you in about thirty minutes or less. We’ll check in at the department and hope to see you there.’

Then there was more watery distortion, and then there was silence.

Just the purr of the motor, and the whir of the heater.

Sorenson said, ‘Not our county after all.’

FIFTY-ONE

REACHER DIDN’T MOVE the car. It was in as good a place as any. He said, ‘Clearly Omaha isn’t talking to Kansas City. If your guy had known Dawson and Mitchell were on the way here he wouldn’t have asked Goodman to be his eyes and ears.’

‘More likely the other way around,’ Sorenson said. ‘Kansas City isn’t talking to Omaha. They’re operating independently. Which is typical, for a bunch of counterterrorism hotshots.’

‘Do they think I’m a terrorist?’

‘They know you were driving the car for King and McQueen. Who killed a guy you’re pretty sure was CIA. Which puts you all in the relevant category, wouldn’t you say?’

‘There was a black guy in a pick-up truck who almost stopped for me. Not long before King and McQueen showed up. I was kind of glad at the time. I was cold and it looked like his heater was busted. Now I wish he had stopped. I’d be in Virginia by now.’

‘With pneumonia, maybe.’

‘Let’s go get you a shirt and a shower.’

‘But we only have half an hour. Or less.’

‘Until what? No one’s got a beef with you. And no one will even see me.’

‘They think I’ve been kidnapped. They’ll rescue me. Same thing as taking me prisoner.’

‘Your boss hasn’t talked to them. They know nothing about the alleged kidnap. They said I was travelling with you, not holding you hostage. They’ll say hi, you’ll say hi, they’ll ask you about the guy with the nose, you’ll say you have no idea where he is. That’s if they find you at all. Which they won’t. They won’t want a room at the motel, and even if they do, the clerk won’t put them in the same room as you. That’s not how motels work, generally.’

‘OK,’ Sorenson said. ‘Let’s go.’

Goodman’s car had no GPS on the dash and no map in the glove box. No obvious need for either thing. Presumably Goodman had known his county like the back of his hand. Probably he had grown up there and lived there all his life. So Reacher navigated by memory and common sense and guesswork. He was about two miles north and east of the crossroads and he needed to get three miles due north of the crossroads. So he threaded basically west through the chequerboard and came out on the main drag opposite the sad line of for-sale farm junk. He paused there and checked both ways and saw nothing to worry about. No Bureau sedans, no SWAT teams, no armoured trucks. No local deputies, no roadblocks, no choppers in the air. So he turned north and cruised the last mile and looped in behind the convenience store.

Sorenson detached Goodman’s phone from its cradle and put it in her bag. She went in the store and five minutes later she came out again with the same kind and the same size of shirt that Delfuenso had been given, and a smaller softer packet Reacher guessed was dollar underwear and socks. The best-looking motel was on the other side of the road, so Reacher drove over there but parked some distance away. He figured it was better if Sorenson approached the place on foot. In his experience hotel keepers were habitual gossips, and he didn’t want a county- wide bulletin about a stranger driving the sheriff’s car. He watched Sorenson go into the office, and he saw her come out again five minutes later with a key. He watched her walk down the row of rooms, and he saw her go into one.

Thirty minutes, he figured, for a fastidious woman whose last shower had been more than thirty hours ago. Or forty minutes, possibly, if she was the kind of person who dried her hair with electricity.

He moved the car and parked it behind a bar that was closed in the daytime. Sin City as a whole was pretty quiet. The diners all had signs reading Last Food Before the Interstate and the gas stations had signs reading Last Gas Before the Interstate. He figured the Chamber of Commerce could have put up a sign saying Last Everything Before the Interstate without a word of a lie. But not many drivers were availing themselves of their final opportunities.

He got out of the car and locked it up and walked away. He crossed the road and looped around behind Delfuenso’s cocktail lounge. The red Mazda was still there. Five doors, four seats. The locks had been jimmied, presumably by Sorenson’s tech team. The interior was bland and clean. The driver’s seat was set for a person of average height. A rental car, typical in every respect.

If in doubt drink coffee was Reacher’s operating principle, so he headed back across the road to the diner nearest Sorenson’s motel. He got a high-backed corner booth with a blank wall behind him, and a heavy pottery mug full to the brim with a strong brew. A bad receptacle, but decent coffee. And a good tactical position. He could see the room and he could see the street. The restroom corridor was three feet from his left shoulder and there was a fire exit at the end of it. He watched out the window and saw traffic on the road. An eighteen-wheeler heading north, and a similar thing heading south. A battered pick-up truck, a boxy four wheel drive covered in mud, and a delivery van lacy with rust.

And then a dark blue Ford Crown Victoria, coming north.

Same make and model and colour as Sorenson’s car.

Needle antennas on the trunk lid, just like Sorenson’s antennas.

FBI.

Two men in it.

It was going slow. Too slow. A telling percentage slower than normal caution. It was going at search speed. The driver was scanning left, and the passenger was scanning right. Reacher watched it crawl past. He thought the guys in it were two of the four he had seen in the lot behind the FBI building in Omaha. Maybe. Dawson and Mitchell. Possibly.

He sipped his coffee and measured time and speed and distance in his head. And right on cue the blue Crown Vic came back, now heading south, still going slow, the two heads in it turning as the two pairs of eyes scanned the shoulders, the buildings, the people, the cars, pausing here and there and hanging up and then jumping ahead again.

Then the car slowed some more.

And turned in.

It bumped over a broken kerb and crunched over the gravel into the diner’s front lot and came closer and parked with its nose a yard from Reacher’s window. The two guys in it sat still. No urgency. No purpose. A coffee break, after a long and fruitless search. That was all. Reacher was pretty sure he recognized them. He was pretty sure they were Dawson and Mitchell. They were blinking and yawning and wagging their necks to ease out the kinks. They were dressed in dark blue suits and white shirts and blue ties. They looked a little ragged. A little tired. One looked a little taller and a little thinner than the other, but otherwise they were a matching pair. Both had fair hair and red faces. Both were somewhere in their early forties.

Do they think I’m a terrorist?

They know you were driving the car for King and McQueen.

They got out of the car together and stood for a moment in the cold. The driver stretched with his arms straight and his hands held low and the passenger stretched with his elbows bent high and his fists near his ears. Reacher figured they would have Glocks in shoulder holsters and cuffs on their belts. And the Patriot Act and unlimited authority and all kinds of national security bullshit to back them up.

They glanced left, glanced right, and located the diner door.

Reacher took a last sip of his coffee and trapped two dollar bills under his mug. Then he slid out of his booth