Lee Child - A Wanted Man

‘The motel keeper knows I did.’

‘You could shoot him in the head.’

‘I was tempted.’

‘Do we have a deal?’

‘You have to come back with me afterwards.’

‘That wasn’t in the deal. Not yet. Not technically. That was to be decided later. I said, and then we’ll talk some more.’

‘If you’re telling the truth, you have nothing to worry about.’

‘You still believe stuff like that?’

Sorenson said, ‘Yes, I do.’

Reacher said nothing.

‘Weigh it up,’ Sorenson said. ‘Think about it. Make a choice. You have no car, no phone, no contacts, no support, no help, no back-up, no budget, no facilities, no lab, no computers, and you have absolutely no idea where those guys have gone. You need food and rest. You need medical attention for your face. But I could leave you here like that. Right here, right now, alone, in the middle of nowhere, with the rain coming. Then I’d be fired, and guess what? You’d be hunted down like a dog anyway.’

Reacher said, ‘What’s my other option?’

‘Come back with me to Omaha, help us out, and maybe even pick up some information as you go along. To do with as you wish.’

‘Information from where?’

‘From who, not from where.’

‘OK, from who?’

‘From me.’

‘Why would you?’

‘Because I’m improvising here. I’m trying to find a way to get you in the car.’

‘So now you’re the one offering a deal.’

‘And it’s a good deal. You should take it.’

Reacher took his photographs while Sorenson called the county sheriff back in Nebraska. It was a digital camera. He half remembered maybe once taking a picture with a cellular telephone, but apart from that vague possibility the last time he had handled a camera had been back in the age of film. Not that it made much difference, he assumed. In both cases there was a lens, and a little button to press, and a little thing to look through. Except there wasn’t. There was no viewfinder hole. Instead the operator had to do the whole thing on a tiny television screen. Which meant working with the camera held out at arm’s length, and walking backward and forward. Like a man in a hazard suit with a Geiger counter.

But he got the two shots he wanted, and he headed back to the car. Sorenson was through with her call by then. It hadn’t been fun, by the look of it. Not a barrel of laughs. She said, ‘OK, let’s go. You can ride in the front.’

He said, ‘Look at the pictures first.’

The rain started to fall. Big heavy drops, some of them vertical, some of them sideways on the gusting wind. They got in the car, and he passed her the camera. She knew how to use it. She toggled forward, and then back again.

‘You only took two pictures?’ she said.

‘Two was all I needed.’

‘Two of the same thing?’

‘They’re not of the same thing.’

The rain hammered on the Crown Vic’s roof. Sorenson looked at the first photograph, very carefully, and then the second, just as carefully. They were both close-ups of tyre marks in the mud. Apparently the same tyre, and the same mud. She went back and forth between them, once, twice, three times. She said, ‘OK, they’re identical. And they’re from the car that U-turned, correct? So what are they, left and right? Or front and rear?’

‘Neither,’ Reacher said.

‘So what are they?’

‘Only one is from the car that U-turned.’

‘What about the other one?’

‘That’s from your car.’

SORENSON LOOKED AT the pictures again, first one, and then the other, back and forth, over and over. The same tyre, and the same mud. She said, ‘This doesn’t necessarily mean anything.’

‘I agree,’ Reacher said. ‘Not necessarily.’

‘I was never here before.’

‘I believe you.’

‘And the Bureau doesn’t have its own make of tyres. I’m sure we just buy them, like anyone else. Probably from Sears. I’m sure we look for something cheap and reliable. Something generic. Whatever’s on sale. Like everyone does. So these go on all the big sedans. There must be half a dozen different makes and models. Fleet vehicles, rentals, the big things old people drive. I bet there are a million tyres like this in the world.’

‘Probably more,’ Reacher said.

‘So what are we saying?’

‘We’re saying we know for sure what kind of tyres the bad guys have on their car. The same kind as yours. Which means their car is probably a big domestic sedan. It’s a start.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Anything else would be speculation.’

‘We’re allowed to speculate.’

‘Then I would say they are urban. Or at least suburban. Big sedans are rare in farm country. It’s all pick-up trucks and four wheel drives out here.’

‘How urban?’

‘From the kind of place that has taxi companies and car services. And offices and maybe an airport. The local market has to be right. I’m sure you couldn’t buy tyres like these out here, for instance. Why would anyone keep them in stock?’

‘So you’re not saying there’s Bureau involvement here?’

‘I’m sure there isn’t.’

‘But?’

‘Nothing.’

‘But?’

‘But I’m pretty much a black and white kind of a person, and I like things confirmed yes or no, beyond a reasonable doubt.’

‘Then no. It’s confirmed. Right now. Straight from the horse’s mouth. For absolute sure. Beyond any kind of doubt. It is completely inconceivable the Bureau was involved with this. That’s the worst kind of crazy thinking.’

‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Let’s go. Tell me if you want me to drive for a bit. I know the way.’

Sorenson pulled a big wide U-turn of her own, and then she hit it hard and hurried north through the rain. They passed the motel doing about sixty. It looked different by day. The low bulkhead lights were off, and the siding looked paler.

Reacher said, ‘I paid for two nights in there. And I spent about thirty seconds in the room.’

Sorenson said, ‘Why did you pay?’

‘I was feeling guilty about the guy’s wall.’

‘Not your fault.’

‘That was my impression at the time.’

‘So you shouldn’t feel guilty. Not about him, anyway. I didn’t like him.’

‘Well, I’ve still got his key. It’s in my pocket. Maybe I’ll mail it back, and maybe I won’t.’

Then they came to the first junction, and Sorenson braked late and made the left with all kinds of squealing and sliding on the slick surface. She came off the gas and got straightened out and hit it again.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

Reacher said nothing. He was in no position to complain. They were still on the road. He would have been in a field.

‘The tyres are worn,’ she said. ‘I noticed on the way out here.’

Reacher said nothing.

She said, ‘Which means the bad guys’ tyres are worn too. If the pictures are identical, that is. Which is step two. We know what kind of tyres they have, and we know approximately how old they are. Maybe an older car. Maybe an older driver. Could be some old person around here, with one of those big old cars.’

‘I doubt it,’ Reacher said. ‘I don’t think old people really love to come out in the middle of the night to watch women burn to death. Because you realize that fire was started when they were all still there? They didn’t set a fuse. It wasn’t spontaneous combustion. They lit it and they all stood around and watched and waited until they were sure it was going well.’

‘OK,’ Sorenson said. ‘It wasn’t a local senior. It was someone from somewhere urban.’

‘With taxi companies and car services and offices and an airport,’ Reacher said. ‘And maybe with a metro-area population around a million and a half. That’s something Alan King let slip. He said a million and a half people live where he lives.’