‘Anything left behind?’
‘Nothing.’
‘So we’re no closer. We still don’t know who it is.’
Reacher nodded.
‘But I know how to find out,’ he said.
FORTY-ONE
REACHER SAID, ‘IT’S GOING TO SNOW AGAIN SOON. THE RUNWAY is going to get covered again and the bikers aren’t there to plough it any more. Weather is unpredictable, therefore time is tight. Therefore Plato is on his way, probably right now. Because he needs to get his jewellery out before the sale goes through. He’s probably going to double-cross the Russian and take some of the meth, too. Maybe most of it. He’s got a big plane. So my guess is he told his guy to be there to help. So the guy will pull off the perimeter at some point and head up there. Maybe real soon. All we have to do is get there before him. We’ll hide out and see who shows up. He’ll walk straight into our arms.’
Holland said, ‘You think?’
‘For sure.’
‘We could be waiting there for hours.’
‘I don’t think so. Plato needs to get in and get out. He can’t afford to get trapped in a storm. A big plane on the ground, no proper facilities, he could be stuck until the start of summer.’
‘What kind of help would he need, anyway?’
‘Got to be something.’
‘He’ll bring people with him. It’s just walking up and down a staircase.’
‘You don’t buy a dog and bark yourself.’
‘You sure?’
‘They’re going to land a big plane in the middle of nowhere. Someone might hear it. Anything might happen. A local cop is always useful.’
‘We have to hide out up there? It’s very cold.’
‘Cold?’ Reacher said. ‘This is nothing.’
Holland thought about it for a minute. Reacher watched him carefully. Holland’s mouth worked silently and his eyes danced left and right. He started out reluctant, and then he got right into it.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’
Five minutes to three in the morning.
One hour to go.
Holland drove. His unmarked car was still warm inside. The roads were still frozen and empty. The middle of the night, in the middle of winter, in the middle of nowhere. Nothing was moving, except the wind. They passed the end of Janet Salter’s street. It was deserted. Holland was sitting close to the wheel, belted in his seat, his parka still zipped, its material stiff and awkward against him. Reacher was sprawled in the passenger seat, no belt, his coat open, its tails hauled around into his lap, his gloves off, his hands in his pockets. The ruts on the road were worn and wizened by the cold. The front tyres hopped left and right, just a little. The chains on the back whirred and clattered. There was a moon high in the sky, close to full, pale and wan, behind thin tattered ribbons of frozen cloud.
Reacher asked, ‘How long are you guys supposed to stay deployed on the perimeter?’
Holland said, ‘There’s no set time. It will be a gut call by the warden.’
‘Best guess?’
‘Another hour.’
‘So any cop we see before then is our boy.’
‘If we see one at all.’
‘I think we will,’ Reacher said.
They made the turn on the old county two-lane parallel with the highway and headed west. Five miles, not fast, not slow. Wind and ice in the air. Then they turned again, north, on the narrow wandering ribbon, eight long miles. Then the runway loomed up, spectacular as always, imposing, massive, wide, flat, infinitely long in the headlight beams, still clear and dry. Holland didn’t slow down. He just thumped straight up on the moonlit concrete and held his line and held his speed. There was nothing but grey darkness ahead. No lights. No activity. Nothing moving. No one there. The wooden huts looked black in the distance, and behind them loomed the stone building, larger and blacker still.
Two hundred yards out Holland took his foot off the gas and coasted. He was still upright, still close to the wheel, still belted in, still trapped and mummified by the stiff nylon of his coat.
‘Where should I put the car?’ he asked.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Reacher said. He was still sprawled out, no belt, his hands in his pockets.
‘We should hide it. The guy will see it. If he comes.’
Reacher said, ‘He’s already here.’
‘What?’
‘He just arrived.’
The car coasted and slowed. It rolled to a stop thirty yards from the first line of huts. Holland kept his foot on the floor. Not on the brake. The lever was still in gear. The engine’s idle speed was not enough to push through the resistance of the snow chains. The whole car just hung there, trembling a little, not quite moving, not quite inert, right on the cusp.
Holland asked, ‘How long have you known?’
Reacher said, ‘For sure, about three minutes. Beyond a reasonable doubt, about thirty minutes. Retrospectively, about thirty-one hours. But back then I didn’t know I knew.’
‘Something I said?’
‘Stuff you didn’t say. Stuff you didn’t do.’
‘Like what?’
‘Most recently you didn’t slow down and kill your headlights when we hit the runway. The guy could have been here already. But you knew he wasn’t. Because you’re the guy.’
Holland said, ‘You’re wrong.’
Reacher said, ‘I’m afraid not. We spent an hour underground earlier tonight, and the first thing you should have done when we got back to the surface was call the Salter house. But you didn’t. I had to remind you. Turned out she was OK, because the guy hadn’t gotten to her during that hour. And you knew that in advance, because you’re the guy. Which is why you didn’t think to call. You should have faked it better.’
Holland said nothing.
Reacher said, ‘I had a conversation with Peterson last night. He came over at eight o’clock, when we thought the head count at the jail was going to come up one short. We were worried. We were tense. He took me to one side and asked me, was I armed? I said yes. I told him Mrs Salter was, too. Obvious questions, in a situation like that. You didn’t ask those questions the night before. You should have.’
Holland said, ‘Maybe I assumed. I knew Mrs Salter had guns in the house. She asked me for advice about ammunition.’
‘And it was good advice you gave. But you should have made absolutely sure those guns weren’t still in the box that night. Verbally at least, if not visually. Anyone would have done that, except a guy who knew for sure they weren’t going to be needed.’
Holland said nothing.
Reacher said, ‘Right back at the beginning, we found you confronting those bikers on the street. But you weren’t really confronting them, were you? You were listening to them. You were getting your instructions. A regular ten-minute lecture. Plato had decided. Kill the lawyer, kill Janet Salter. They were passing on the message. Then you heard Peterson’s car behind you and you threw your gun down in the snow, just to give yourself a reason to be standing there so long. Then you shoved one of them and started a fight. All staged, for Peterson’s benefit. And mine, I guess. And that thing about rolling the dice? No way could they have avoided random checks so long, unless you were calling them and tipping them off. You were all working for the same guy. Which is why you let them leave town without a word.’
Holland said nothing.
Reacher said, ‘Then much later Peterson and I put you on the spot. We showed up here just when it was safe for you to get the key out of the stove. You knew where it was. But you hadn’t figured it out. You had been told. You were there to set things up. But we all went downstairs together. Because you couldn’t think of a convincing way of stopping that from happening. And so Peterson saw stuff he was obviously going to react to. So you put that crap on the radio so when you killed him straight afterwards there would be sixty suspects in the frame, and not just you. And then you lied to me about Kapler. You tried to point me in the wrong direction. There were no rumours about drug money in Miami. If there were, my friend in Virginia would have found them long ago.’
Holland said, ‘I could have killed Peterson here. At the time. Underground.’
‘True. But not me too. You knew that. You’re scared of me. You checked my record with the army. The woman in Virginia told me that. Your tag is on my file. So you knew the lawyer and Peterson and Janet Salter were one thing, and you knew I was another thing. They were easy. You waited on the road and put your strobes on and waved him down and the lawyer stopped right there. Why wouldn’t he? He probably knew you. A chief of police from the next county? You’ve probably had breakfast together half a dozen times. And Peterson would follow you anywhere. And Janet Salter was probably thrilled to see you. Until you pulled your gun.’
Holland said nothing.
Reacher said, ‘Three shell cases. Two of them right inside this car, and the third picked up off Janet Salter’s floor. I’m guessing you dumped them in the trash cans right outside the police station. Should I call the old guy on the desk and ask him to take a look?’
Holland said nothing.
Reacher said, ‘I’m guessing the fourth round is chambered right now. My round. Some kind of an old throw-down pistol. Maybe lost property, maybe a cold case. Or maybe the bikers supplied it. Want to empty your pockets and prove me wrong?’
Holland said nothing.
Reacher said, ‘But my round is going to stay right there in the chamber. Because I’m not like the other three. You knew that. You sensed it, maybe, and then you confirmed it with the army. So you were cautious with me. As you should be. I notice things. You’ve been trying to get to me for the last three hours. Dragging me here, dragging me there, always talking to me, always trying to figure out how much I knew, always biding your time, always waiting for your moment. Like right now. Back in the station house, you were debating with yourself. You didn’t want to bring me here, and then
