Lee Child: 61 Hours

Reacher asked, ‘Where are we going?’

‘Western suburbs.’

‘Why?’

‘Intruders.’

‘In a house?’

‘On the street. It’s a Neighbourhood Watch thing.’ No further explanation. Peterson just drove, hunched forward over the wheel, tense and anxious. Reacher sprawled in the seat beside him, wondering what kind of intruders could get a police department’s deputy chief to respond so urgently to a busybody’s call.

Seventeen hundred miles south the man in the walled Mexico City villa dialled long distance to the United States. His final task of the day. Eleven o’clock local time, ten o’clock Central Time in the big country to the north. The call was answered and the man in the villa relayed Plato’s instructions, slowly and precisely. No room for misunderstanding. No room for error. He waited for confirmation and then he hung up. He didn’t call Plato back. No point. Plato didn’t understand the concept of confirmation. For Plato, obedience followed command the same way night followed day. It was inevitable. The only way it wouldn’t happen was if the world had stopped spinning on its axis.

PETERSON HAD HIS DASHBOARD RADIO TURNED UP HIGH AND Reacher picked out four separate voices from four separate cars. All of them were prowling the western suburbs and none of them had seen the reported intruders. Peterson aimed his own car down the streets they hadn’t checked yet. He turned right, turned left, nosed into dead ends, backed out again, moved on. There was a moon low in the sky and Reacher saw neat suburban developments, small houses in straight rows, warm lights behind windows, all the sidewalks and driveways and yards rendered blue and flat and uniform by the thick blanket of snow. Roofs were piled high with white. Some streets had been visited by the ploughs and had high banks of snow in the gutters. Some were still covered with an undisturbed fresh layer, deep but not as deep as the yards and the driveways. Clearly this current fall was the second or the third in a week or so. Roads were covered and cleared, covered and cleared, in an endless winter rhythm.

Reacher asked, ‘How many intruders?’

Peterson said, ‘Two reported.’

‘In a vehicle?’

‘On foot.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Just walking around.’

‘So stick to the ploughed streets. Nobody walks around in six inches of snow for the fun of it.’

Peterson slowed for a second and thought about it. Then he turned without a word and picked up a ploughed trail and retraced it. The plough had zigzagged through main drags and cross streets. The snow had been sheared thin and low and white. The excess was piled high to the sides, still soft and clean.

They found the intruders four minutes later.

There were two of them, shoulder to shoulder in a close standoff with a third man. The third man was Chief Holland. His car was parked twenty feet away. It was an unmarked Crown Vic. Either navy blue or black. It was hard to say, in the moonlight. Police specification, with antennas on the trunk lid and concealed emergency lights peeping up out of the rear parcel shelf. The driver’s door was open and the engine was running. Twin puddles of black vapour had condensed and pooled in the thin snow beneath the twin exhausts. Holland had gotten out and stepped ahead and confronted the two guys head on. That was clear.

The two guys were tall and heavyset and unkempt. White males, in black Frye boots, black jeans, black denim shirts, black leather vests, fingerless black gloves, black leather bandannas. Each had an unzipped black parka thrown over everything else. They looked exactly like the dead guy in the crime scene photographs.

Peterson braked and stopped and stood off and idled thirty feet back. His headlights illuminated the scene. The standoff looked like it wasn’t going well for Holland. He looked nervous. The two guys didn’t. They had Holland crowded back with a snow bank behind him. They were in his space, leaning forward. Holland looked beaten. Helpless.

Reacher saw why.

The holster on Holland’s belt was unsnapped and empty, but there was no gun in his hand. He was glancing down and to his left.

He had dropped his pistol in the snow bank.

Or had it knocked from his hand.

Either way, not good.

Reacher asked, ‘Who are they?’

Peterson said, ‘Undesirables.’

‘So undesirable that the chief of police joins the hunt?’

‘You see what I see.’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘It’s tricky. They’re probably armed.’

‘So are you.’

‘I can’t make Chief Holland look like an idiot.’

Reacher said, ‘Not his fault. Cold hands.’

‘He just got out of his car.’

‘Not recently. That car has been idling in place for ten minutes. Look at the puddles under the exhaust pipes.’

Peterson didn’t reply. And didn’t move.

Reacher asked again, ‘Who are they?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Just curious. They’re scaring you.’

‘You think?’

‘If they weren’t they’d be cuffed in the back of this car by now.’

‘They’re bikers.’

‘I don’t see any bikes.’

‘It’s winter,’ Peterson said. ‘They use pick-up trucks in winter.’

‘That’s illegal now?’

‘They’re tweakers.’

‘What are tweakers?’

‘Crystal meth users.’

‘Amphetamines?’

‘Methylated amphetamine. Smoked. Or to be technically accurate, vaporized and inhaled. Off of glass pipes or busted light bulbs or aluminum foil spoons. You heat it up and sniff away. Makes you erratic and unpredictable.’

‘People are always erratic and unpredictable.’

‘Not like these guys.’

‘You know them?’

‘Not specifically. But generically.’

‘They live in town?’

‘Five miles west. There are a lot of them. Kind of camping out. Generally they keep themselves to themselves, but people don’t like them.’

Reacher said, ‘The dead guy was one of them.’

Peterson said, ‘Apparently.’

‘So maybe they’re looking for their buddy.’

‘Or for justice.’ Peterson watched and waited. Thirty feet ahead the body language ballet continued as before. Chief Holland was shivering. With cold, or fear.

Or both.

Reacher said, ‘You better do something.’

Peterson did nothing.

Reacher said, ‘Interesting strategy. You’re going to wait until they freeze to death.’

Peterson said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘Only problem is, Holland will freeze first.’

Peterson said nothing.

‘I’ll come with you, if you like.’

‘You’re a civilian.’

‘Only technically.’

‘You’re not properly dressed. It’s cold out.’

‘How long can it take?’

‘You’re unarmed.’

‘Against guys like that, I don’t need to be armed.’

‘Crystal meth is not a joke. No inhibitions.’

‘That just makes us even.’

‘Users don’t feel pain.’

‘They don’t need to feel pain. All they need to feel is conscious or unconscious.’

Peterson said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘You go left and I’ll go right. I’ll turn them around and you get in behind them.’

Thirty feet ahead Holland said something and the two guys crowded forward and Holland backed off and tripped and sat down heavily in the snow bank. Now he was more than an arm’s length from where his gun must have fallen.

Half past ten in the evening.

Reacher said, ‘This won’t wait.’

Peterson nodded. Opened his door.

‘Don’t touch them,’ he said. ‘Don’t start anything. Right now they’re innocent parties.’

‘With Holland down on his ass?’

‘Innocent until proven guilty. That’s the law. I mean it. Don’t touch them.’ Peterson climbed out of the car. Stood for a second behind his open door and then stepped around it and started forward. Reacher matched him, pace for pace.