Lee Child - A Wanted Man

The guy came on slowly, left foot, right foot, and then he saw Reacher’s legs and stopped. No big shock. No great surprise.

The guy gave an amiable grin.

Reacher said, ‘Were you this drunk when you saw the red car?’

The guy thought about it and said, ‘Approximately.’

‘Who talked to you about it?’

‘Sheriff Goodman and the blonde lady from the FBI.’

‘What didn’t you tell them?’

‘I told them everything.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Reacher said. ‘No eyewitness ever does. You left things out. Things you weren’t sure about, things that might have sounded stupid, things you were doing that you shouldn’t have been doing.’

‘I was looking for my truck.’

‘Where was it?’

‘I couldn’t remember. That’s why I was looking for it.’

‘Did you tell them that part?’

‘They didn’t ask.’

‘And you were going to drive home like that?’

‘It’s not far. I know the turns.’

‘And?’

‘I got caught short. I stopped to take a leak.’

‘Where?’

‘In back of the old pumping station. I didn’t tell them that part, either.’

Reacher nodded. Things you were doing that you shouldn’t have been doing . Public urination, and drunk driving. Illegal in every town in America. He said, ‘So you didn’t really see them. Not if you were behind the building.’

The guy said, ‘No, I saw them real close. I was all done by then. I was all zipped up and coming out.’

‘Did they see you?’

‘I don’t think so. It was pretty dark. There was a shadow.’

‘How far away were you?’

‘Ten feet, maybe.’

Reacher asked, ‘What did you notice?’

‘I told the sheriff,’ the guy said. ‘And the blonde lady.’

‘You answered their questions. That’s not the same thing.’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Concentrate.’

The guy closed his eyes. He swayed back and forth on his heels. He raised his hand and held it palm out, as if he was steadying himself against the old concrete building. He was using physical cues. He was thinking himself back into the moment.

He said, ‘The first guy was hurrying. He wanted to get in there first. He was unzipping his coat.’

‘Had they been in a group of three before that? Walking together?’

‘I can’t be sure. But I think so. It felt like that. Like suddenly the first guy had bolted ahead, and the other two guys were hustling to keep up.’

‘Suits, right?’

‘No coats at all.’

‘Anything in their hands?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What did you do when all three of them were inside?’

‘I headed back across the road.’

‘Why?’

‘I needed to find my truck. And I didn’t want to stick around.’

‘Why not?’

‘Bad feeling.’

‘From the guys in the suits?’

‘More from the first guy. In the green coat. I didn’t like him.’

Reacher asked, ‘Did you hear anything?’

The guy said, ‘A little shouting and yelling. Like they were fighting.’

‘Where were you when the guys in the suits came out again?’

‘On the other sidewalk.’

‘Anything else?’

The guy said, ‘I shouldn’t be talking about this. They told me not to.’ And then he stepped around Reacher, carefully and elaborately and precisely, and he carried on along the path. Reacher started after him, and then he stopped. Because he heard the soft whisper of a car on the road. A quarter-mile away, maybe. He turned and saw lights in the distance, vague diffuse beams bouncing and stabbing through the mist.

Then the gate began to open, not fast, not slow, and silent.

EVIDENTLY JULIA SORENSON had not gotten her phone back. Or her car. Or her reputation. She had not become a hero. Reacher saw a shiny black Crown Vic pull in off the two-lane and drive through the still-moving gate. Its headlight beams turned in a wide arc and it hissed over the concrete roadway and came to a stop on the circle near the main office door. A guy Reacher hadn’t seen before got out of the front passenger seat and opened the rear passenger door. He didn’t seem to say anything. He just pointed with his chin. Like Dawson had.

Julia Sorenson slid out of the back and stood up and stood still. She looked tired in the low light, and a little defeated. A little round-shouldered. The night breeze caught her coat and flapped it open. She was still wearing the new shirt. But her holster was empty. She had surrendered her weapon.

The guy from the front closed her door behind her and slid back in his seat. The car drove off and left her standing there alone. The gate started to open again. The car drove through it, and paused a beat, and turned right, and drove back the way it had come.

The gate closed again behind it. Reacher watched the car until its lights were gone and its whisper had died away to silence. Then he turned around and watched Sorenson.

She stood still for a moment more, and then she went inside. Reacher counted out time in his head, for the greeting from the motherly type at the reception desk, and the smile and the welcome, and the kings and the queens and the twins, and the armchairs, and the floor space, and the majority preferences. All that kind of stuff. We’ve been expecting you . Four minutes, he figured. Maybe less, if the conversation went faster, which he figured it might, because it would be one agent to another. Or maybe more than four minutes, if Sorenson was up on her high horse and asking all kinds of outraged and resentful questions.

It took four minutes exactly. Sorenson came out with a key in her hand. She looked resigned. She checked the numbers on the low fingerposts and set off in Reacher’s direction. Then she checked again at the next fork and headed off at a shallow angle down a different path.

‘Julia,’ Reacher called, softly.

She stopped walking.

She called, ‘Reacher?’

‘Over here.’

She stepped off the path and walked over the crushed stone to him. He asked, ‘What happened with you?’

She said, ‘We’re not supposed to communicate.’

‘Or what? They’re going to lock us up?’

‘Well, we can’t talk out here. Where can we go?’

They went to Reacher’s room. Sorenson took a good look around it and said, ‘This is completely bizarre. It’s just like a regular motel.’

Reacher said, ‘It is a regular motel. Or it was. The Kansas City field office bought it three years ago. They told me. You never heard about it?’

‘Not a word. Are the others here too?’

Reacher nodded. ‘Delfuenso and her kid, and the eyewitness. Safe and sound. They’re all having a good time, actually.’

‘Even though they’re locked up?’

‘They’ve been told they’re sequestered. Like a jury. For their own good. Not the same thing as being locked up. They’re all treating it like a vacation. Mini golf and free beer.’

‘Is it legal?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. But it probably is. Except that it probably shouldn’t be. You know how these things are.’

‘Who brought them here?’ she said. ‘Who burned in the car?’

‘Alan King burned in the car,’ Reacher said. ‘But he was shot in the heart first. By McQueen. McQueen is one of you, undercover. Out of Kansas City. Which is why Dawson and Mitchell came straight up to babysit you at the pumping station. They were doing damage control. McQueen burned the car and he and Delfuenso were picked up by part of his Bureau support team. In a Bureau sedan, like the tyre marks showed, again out of Kansas City. McQueen came here with them but left again immediately. Apparently he said he had to get back in position.’