Lee Child - 61 Hours

The stairs leading upward could be closed off at the bottom with a stout door that opened outward. It could be secured from the inside with an iron bar propped across iron brackets. It was a fine tornado shelter, no question. Probably an adequate bomb shelter. Almost certainly resistant to any kind of small arms fire. Reacher had seen.50 calibre machine guns chew through most things, but hundred-year-old foot-thick close-grain hard-wood would probably hold up until their barrels overheated and warped.

He came back upstairs encouraged and found the night watch cops up and about. They were with their daytime partners in the kitchen. Janet Salter was moving around inside their cordon. There was an atmosphere of custom and comfort. Clearly the strange little household was becoming used to getting along together. The oven was on and it was warming the room. The glass in the window was fogged with moisture. Reacher stepped into the library and checked the view to the rear. Nothing to see. Just a vague sense of flat land receding into the frigid distance. The snow was easing. The falling flakes themselves seemed stunned by the cold.

Reacher turned back from the window and found Janet Salter stepping in through the door. She said, ‘May we talk?’

Reacher said, ‘Sure.’

She said, ‘I know the real reason why you’re here, of course. I know why you’re inspecting the house. You have volunteered to defend me, if the siren should happen to sound, and you’re making yourself familiar with the terrain. And I’m very grateful for your kindness. Even though your psychological imperatives may mean you won’t be here for quite long enough. The trial might not happen for a month. How many new shirts would that be?’

‘Eight,’ Reacher said.

She didn’t reply.

Reacher said, ‘There would be no shame in bowing out, you know. No one could blame you. And those guys will get nailed for something else, sooner or later.’

‘There would be considerable shame in it,’ she said. ‘And I won’t do it.’

‘Then don’t talk to me about psychological imperatives,’ Reacher said.

She smiled. Asked, ‘Are you armed?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Do retired plumbers carry wrenches the rest of their lives?’ She pointed to a low shelf. ‘There’s a book that might interest you. A work of history. The large volume, with the leather binding.’

It was a big old thing about a foot and a half high and about four inches thick. It had a leather spine with raised horizontal ribs and a quaint title embossed in gold: An Accurate Illustrated History of Mr Smith’s & Mr Wesson’s Hand Guns. Which sounded Victorian, which did not compute. Smith & Wesson had made plenty of handguns in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth, but not nearly enough to fill a book four inches thick.

Janet Salter said, ‘Take a look at it.’

Reacher pulled the book off the shelf. It was heavy.

She said, ‘I think you should read it in bed tonight.’

It was heavy because it wasn’t a book. Reacher opened the leather-bound cover and expected to see faded pages with half-tone engravings or hand-tinted line drawings, maybe alternated with tissue paper leaves to protect the art. Instead the cover was a lid and inside was a box with two moulded velvet cavities. The velvet was brown. Nested neatly in the two cavities was a matched pair of Smith & Wesson revolvers, one reversed with respect to the other, cradled butt to muzzle, like quotation marks either end of a sentence. The revolvers were Smith & Wesson’s Military and Police models. Four-inch barrels. They could have been a hundred years old, or fifty. Plain simple steel machines, chequered walnut grips, chambered for the.38 Special, lanyard eyelets on the bottom of the butts, put there for officers either military or civil.

Janet Salter said, ‘They were my grandfather’s.’

Reacher asked, ‘Did he serve?’

‘He was an honorary commissioner, back when Bolton first got a police department. He was presented with the guns. Do you think they still work?’

Reacher nodded. Revolvers were usually reliable for ever. They had to be seriously banged up or rusted solid to fail. He asked, ‘Have they ever been used?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Do you have any oil?’

‘I have sewing-machine oil.’

‘That will do.’

‘Do we need anything else?’

‘Ammunition would help.’

‘I have some.’

‘How old?’

‘About a week.’

‘You’re well prepared.’

‘It seemed the right time to be.’

‘How many rounds?’

‘A box of a hundred.’

‘Good work.’

‘Put the book back now,’ she said. ‘The policewomen need not know. In my experience professionals are offended by amateur plans.’

After dinner the phone rang. It was Peterson, at the police station. He told Janet Salter that the phone on the back corner desk had rung. The 110th MP. The woman wouldn’t talk to him. She wanted Reacher to call her back.

Janet Salter’s phone was in the hallway. It was newer than the house, but not recently installed. It had a push-button dial, but it also had a cord and was about the size of a portable typewriter. It was on a small table with a chair next to it. Like phones used to be, back when one instrument was enough for a household and using it was a kind of ceremony.

Reacher dialled the number he remembered. He waited for the recording and dialled 110.

‘Yes?’

‘Amanda, please.’

There was a click. Then the voice. No dial tone. She already had the phone in her hand. She said, ‘Either you’re crazy or the world is.’

Reacher said, ‘Or both.’

‘Whichever, I’m about ready to give up on you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the place you’re pestering me about doesn’t exist.’

Five to seven in the evening.

Thirty-three hours to go.

REACHER MOVED ON THE HALLWAY CHAIR AND SAID, ‘THE PLACE exists. For sure. I’d believe stone and eyewitness reports before I believed army paperwork.’

The voice said, ‘But you haven’t actually seen the stone for yourself.’

‘Not yet. But why would anyone invent a story like that?’

‘Then the place must have been unbelievably secret. They built it but never listed it anywhere.’

‘And then they let a construction camp get built right over it? How does that work?’

‘Everything changed, that’s how. It was top secret fifty years ago, and it was totally defunct by five years ago. Typical Cold War scenario. Probably declassified in the early nineties.’

‘I don’t care when it was declassified. I just want to know what it is.’

‘I could get on a plane. But you’re closer.’

Reacher asked, ‘How’s your case?’

‘Still waiting. Which doesn’t encourage me. It will probably fall apart by morning.’

‘You working all night?’

‘You know how it is.’

‘So use the down time. Check Congressional appropriations for me. The purpose will be redacted, but the money will be listed. It always is. We can make a start that way.’

‘You know how big the defence budget was fifty years ago? You know how many line items there were?’

‘You’ve got all night. Look for South Dakota involvement, House or Senate. I don’t see any real strategic value up here, so it could have been a pork barrel project.’

‘Checking those records is a lot of work.’

‘What did you expect? A life of leisure? You should have joined the navy.’

‘We have a deal, Reacher. Remember? So tell me about the one-star general.’

‘You’re wasting time.’

‘I’ve got time to waste. Sounds like you’re the one who hasn’t.’

‘It’s a long story.’