Lee Child - 61 Hours

‘Really?’

‘Really and truly.’

‘Outstanding. Congratulations. How is it?’

‘I’m sure you can imagine. I’m sitting at your old desk, right now, both metaphorically and literally. Do you remember your desk?’

‘I had a lot of desks.’

‘Here at Rock Creek.’

Actually Reacher remembered it pretty well. An old-style government desk, made of steel, painted green, the finish on the edges already worn back to bright metal by the time he inherited it.

The voice said, ‘There’s a big dent on the right-hand side. People say you made it, with someone’s head.’

‘People say?’

‘Like a folk legend. Is it true?’

‘I think the movers did it.’

‘It’s perfectly concave.’

‘Maybe they dropped a bowling ball.’

‘I prefer the legend.’

Reacher asked, ‘What’s your name?’

The voice said, ‘Make one up for me.’

‘What?’

‘Let’s keep this off the record. Give me a code name.’

‘This is a private conversation.’

‘Not really. Our system shows you’re calling from a police station. I’m sure it has a switchboard and recording devices.’

Reacher said, ‘OK, keep talking. I should try to make the name fit the person.’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Read the phone book. That would work for me.’

Another smile in the voice. ‘People say the dent in the desk came from a colonel’s head. They say that’s why you got canned from the 110th.’

‘I didn’t get canned. I got new orders, that’s all.’

‘Only because no one liked that particular colonel. But you definitely walked the plank. That’s what people say.’

‘Amanda.’

‘Amanda? OK, that’s who I am. You need me again, call the number and ask for Amanda. Now, what can I do for you today?’

‘There’s a small town in South Dakota called Bolton. Roughly in the middle of the state, twelve or thirteen miles north of I- 90.’

‘I know where it is. Our system includes your coordinates. I’m looking at Bolton right now.’

‘Looking at it how?’

‘On my laptop. With Google Earth.’

‘You guys have it easy.’

‘Technology is indeed a wonderful thing. How can I help you?’

‘Five miles west of town is an abandoned Cold War installation. I need to know what it was.’

‘Can’t you tell what it was?’

‘I haven’t seen it. And apparently there isn’t much to see. It could be nothing. But I want you to check it out for me.’

‘You sure it isn’t a missile silo? The Dakotas are full of them.’

‘They say it isn’t a silo. Doesn’t sound like one, either.’

‘OK, hold on. I’m zooming and scrolling. According to the most recent image the only thing west of town looks like a prison camp. Fifteen huts and an older building, in two lines of eight. Plus a long straight road. Maybe two miles of it.’

‘Does the older building look like a house?’

‘From above it looks exactly like a house.’

‘OK, but I need more than that.’

‘You want me to come all the way up to South Dakota and go out there and look at it with you?’

‘Since I’m stuck here in a snowstorm with nothing much else to do, that would be great. But a records check will do it. It’ll show up somewhere. I need to know its purpose, its scope, and its architecture.’

‘Call me back at close of business.’

Then there was a click, and the voice was gone. Five to ten in the morning.

Forty-two hours to go.

THE LAWYER PARKED HIS CAR IN HIS OFFICE LOT AND PUT ON HIS overshoes. He took them off again inside his building’s lobby and placed them in a plastic grocery bag and carried the bag with his briefcase to the elevator. His secretary greeted him at her cubicle outside his door. He didn’t answer. He didn’t yet know whether it was or wasn’t a good morning. He just held out his hand for his message slips.

There were eight of them.

Three were trivial inter-office issues.

Four were legitimate legal matters.

The last was a request for a client conference at the prison, on an urgent matter relating to case number 517713, at noon.

Reacher sat alone for a spell and then wandered out and found Peterson in an empty office off the corridor near the entrance to the squad room. The office had four desks boxed together in the centre of the space. The walls had long horizontal pin boards extending waist-high to head-high. Peterson was tacking yesterday’s crime scene photographs to the boards. The dead guy, dressed in black. The establishing shot, the close-ups. Snow on the ground, blunt force trauma to the right temple. No blood.

Peterson said, ‘We just got the autopsy report. He was definitely moved.’

Reacher asked, ‘Were there other injuries?’

‘Some perimortem bruising.’

‘Are there bad parts of town?’

‘Some are worse than others.’

‘Have you checked the bars?’

‘For what?’

‘Newly cleaned floors, suspicious stains.’

‘You think this was a bar fight?’

‘Somewhere in the low rent district, but not in the war zone.’

‘Why?’

‘Tell me what the pathologist said about the weapon.’

‘It was round, fairly smooth, probably machined metal or wood, maybe a fence post or a rainwater pipe.’

‘Neither one of those,’ Reacher said. ‘A fence post or a rainwater pipe has a uniform diameter. Too wide to grip hard enough to swing hard enough. My guess is it was a baseball bat. And baseball bats are relatively hard to find in the winter. They’re in closets or garages or basements or attics. Except sometimes they’re under bars, where the bartender can grab them real quick. Not in the good part of town, of course, and in the war zone they’d probably want a shotgun.’

Peterson said nothing.

Reacher asked, ‘Where do the prison guards drink?’

‘You think it was one of them?’

‘It takes two to tango. Prison guards are used to the rough and tumble.’

Peterson was quiet for a beat. ‘Anything else?’

Reacher shook his head. ‘I’m going out. I’ll be back later.’

The snow was still heavy. Peterson’s car was already just a humped white shape in the lot. Reacher turned up the hood of his borrowed coat and walked straight past it. He made it out to the sidewalk and peered left, peered right. The snow swirled around him and blew in under his hood and clogged his hair and his eyelashes and drifted down his neck. Directly opposite him was some kind of a public square or town park and beyond that was an array of commercial establishments. The distance was too great and the snow was too thick to make out exactly what they were. But one of them had a plume of steam coming out of a vent on the roof, which made it likely that it was either a dry cleaner or a restaurant, which made it a fifty-fifty chance that a late breakfast could be gotten there.

Reacher headed over, floundering through ploughed snow, slipping and sliding through the square. His ears and nose and chin went numb. He kept his hands in his pockets. The place with the steam was a coffee shop. He stepped inside, to hot wet air. A counter, and four tables. Jay Knox was alone at one of them. The bus driver. Judging by the state of his table he had finished a large meal some time ago. Reacher stepped up opposite him and put his hand on a chair back, ready to pull it out, like a request. Knox seemed neither pleased nor displeased to see him. Just preoccupied, and a little sullen.

Reacher sat down anyway and asked, ‘You making out OK?’

Knox shrugged. ‘They put me with some people.’

‘And?’

‘I suppose they’re nice enough.’

‘But you came out for a long slow breakfast.’