Lee Child - A Wanted Man

Reacher could wink, but only with his left eye. A childhood inheritance. As a kid he had slept mostly on his left side, and on waking would keep his left eye closed against the pillow and open only his right, to peer around whatever darkened bedroom he happened to be in. And he wasn’t sure Delfuenso could see his left eye. Not from the back seat, with the mirror set the way it was. And to mess with his vision was not a good idea at eighty miles an hour, anyway. So he raised his right hand off the shifter, so she could see it, and then he dropped it back.

He jabbed his thumb to the left. No mirror involved. They were both facing the same way. Left was left. He tapped his index finger three times. Then left again, one tap. Then right, nine, his pale finger fast but clear in the low light, and then left, ten, and left, one, and left, three, and finally left, eleven.

He looked in the mirror and raised his eyebrows, to supply the question mark.

Carjack?

Delfuenso nodded back at him, eagerly.

A definite yes .

Which explained a lot of things.

But not the matching outfits.

Reacher took his hand off the shifter and plucked at the shoulder of his coat, finger and thumb, and he looked quizzically in the mirror and mouthed, ‘Shirts?’

Delfuenso glanced left, glanced right, frustrated, as if unable to find a quick way to explain. Then she looked hard to her left, as if checking on McQueen, and she started to unbutton her shirt. Reacher watched the road with one eye and the mirror with the other. Three buttons, four, five. Then Delfuenso pulled her shirt wide open and Reacher saw a tiny black and silver garment under it, like fancy underwear, like a bodice, laced tight against her stomach, her breasts resting high and proud on a fabric shelf made from two vestigial cups.

Reacher nodded in the mirror. He had seen similar outfits. Most men had. Every soldier had. She was a roadhouse waitress, maybe a bartender. She had been coming off her shift, maybe getting into her car, maybe waiting at a light, and the two guys had pounced. They had stopped somewhere and bought her a shirt, to eliminate an APB’s inevitable headline description: a dark-haired woman wearing practically nothing .

Delfuenso started buttoning up again. Reacher jabbed his finger in Alan King’s direction and his thumb in Don McQueen’s, and then he opened his hand and raised it uncertainly, questioningly, like a universal semaphore: Why them too?

Delfuenso opened her mouth and closed it, and then she started blinking again, a long and laborious sequence.

Forward two, forward twelve, backward twelve, backward twelve, forward four.

B-L-O-O-D, blood .

Backward twelve, backward thirteen.

O-N, on .

Backward seven, forward eight, forward five, forward nine, backward nine.

T-H-E-I-R, their .

‘Blood on their clothes?’ Reacher mouthed.

Delfuenso nodded.

Reacher drove on through the darkness, with the white Dodge’s tail lights still a mile ahead, past quiet lonely exits spaced miles apart, with questions in his head spinning like plates on sticks.

SHERIFF GOODMAN HUNCHED deeper into his coat against the cold and turned a full circle in the convenience store’s back lot. He said, ‘I assume they parked here. Therefore they probably changed here too. Maybe they trashed their old jackets. The knife too, possibly. We should check the trash cans.’

Sorenson said, ‘You volunteering?’

‘I have deputies with nothing better to do.’

‘OK,’ Sorenson said. ‘But it’s probably a waste of time. A buck gets ten they pitched the jackets in Delfuenso’s trunk. And they probably dropped the knife down one of the water pipes in the bunker.’

‘Are you going to try a third roadblock?’

‘Iowa doesn’t have the manpower.’

‘Illinois, then. If they’re staying on the Interstate, they’re most likely going all the way to Chicago. You could have the Illinois cops waiting for them, right on the state line.’

‘They have to know they’re pushing their luck. They’ve survived twice. They won’t risk a third time. They’re going to take back roads now. Or go to ground somewhere.’

‘So we’re done with roadblocks?’

‘I think there’s nothing more to be gained.’

‘Will their thinking match yours?’

‘I’m trying to make mine match theirs.’

‘Then that’s bad news for Karen Delfuenso,’ Goodman said. ‘They don’t need the smokescreen any more. They’ll dump her out in the middle of nowhere.’

‘They won’t,’ Sorenson said. ‘She’s seen their faces. They’ll kill her.’

The first question in Reacher’s mind was: would they call out roadblocks in two separate states for a carjacking? And the answer was: yes, probably. Almost certainly, in fact. Because carjacking where the owner was forced to stay on board was kidnapping, and kidnapping was a big, big deal. A federal case, literally, handled by the FBI, which was the only agency capable of coordinating a multi-state response.

And the local terrain was huge and empty. Blocking the roads was about the only option for any kind of law enforcement in that part of the country.

That, and helicopters.

And Reacher had seen a helicopter, a thousand feet up, with a searchlight.

Second question: what were the odds against two sets of roadblock-worthy and helicopter-worthy and FBI-worthy fugitives being on the loose on the same winter night in the same lonely place? Answer: very long odds indeed. Very unlikely. Coincidences happened, but to be there to witness one was a coincidence in itself, and two simultaneous coincidences was one too many.

Therefore: the roadblocks had been for King and McQueen.

Two guys, not one.

Almost certainly.

Which made no sense, initially.

Because: the first roadblock in Nebraska had been looking hard at lone drivers. Which was explicable, in a way. Obviously a lone guy could disguise himself by picking up a second guy, and two guys could disguise themselves by picking up a third guy, and so on, and so on, for ever. An addition method. But subtraction could work too. As in: two guys could disguise themselves by one of them hiding out of sight. And the Nebraska cops had been smart enough to anticipate that manoeuvre. Lone drivers had had their trunks searched, not for drugs or guns or bombs or stolen goods, but for a second guy curled up and hiding.

But: the Nebraska cops shouldn’t have been looking for two people. They should have been looking for three people. The two perpetrators, plus the carjack victim, a more or less topless roadhouse bartender.

Which introduced an incongruity.

As in: King and McQueen clearly believed the APB would be for those three people. Themselves, and Delfuenso. Because they had given Delfuenso a shirt. To alter her appearance. The disguise method. And then they had gone the extra mile. They had given a hitchhiker a ride. Reacher himself, a fourth person. The addition method.

Four people, not three. A smokescreen. A deception, starting with the bland shirts, and continuing even to the extent of getting Reacher himself into the driver’s seat for the second roadblock. A smokescreen, a deception, and more than anything else a diversion. The busted nose. Any cop would have been distracted by it.

And there had been no democratic discussion at the cloverleaf, right back at the beginning. That particular conversation had been of a different kind entirely. King and McQueen had twisted around in their seats and told Delfuenso they would hurt her bad if she betrayed them. They had spelled it out: Keep your mouth shut . Then they had pressed her: Are we clear on that? Do you understand? Reacher had seen her nod, say yes , quiet and scared and timid, just before he got in the car.