Lee Child - 61 Hours

‘Dude, life sucks.’

‘What did you just call me?’

‘I was trying to sound blond and Californian.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you?’

‘You’re not blond or Californian.’

‘Is that OK?’

‘Brunette could work for me. Brown eyes?’

‘You got it.’

‘Long hair, right?’

‘Longer than it should be.’

‘Excellent.’

‘You want to revisit the A-cup thing too?’

‘Got to be honest. I’m just not hearing it.’

She laughed. ‘OK, I confess. You’re right.’

‘Height?’

‘Five feet seven.’

‘Pale or dark?’

‘Neither, really. But I tan well.’

‘You want to see South Dakota in the winter?’

She laughed again. ‘I prefer the beach.’

‘Me too. Where are you from?’

‘Montana. A small town you never heard of.’

‘Try me. I’ve been to Montana.’

‘Hungry Horse?’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Told you,’ she said. ‘It’s near Whitefish.’

‘You like the army?’

‘Did you?’

‘You’ve got my file,’ Reacher said.

‘And half the time I’m thinking, man, if you hated it that bad, you should have just gotten out while the getting was good.’

‘I never hated it. Not for a minute. I just wanted to fix what was wrong with it.’

‘Above your pay grade.’

‘I learned that, eventually.’ Reacher looked around the hallway. The closed door, the dark panelling, the oil paintings, the Persian carpet. The rare woods, the wax, the polish, the patina. He had all the information he was ever going to get from or through the 110th. No real reason to keep on talking.

The voice asked, ‘What are you doing in South Dakota anyway?’

He said, ‘I was on a bus that crashed. I got hung up here.’

‘Life is a gamble.’

‘But the deck is stacked. No bus that I was on ever crashed in a warm place.’

‘You behaving yourself up there?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘These files get tagged if an outside agency asks to take a look. You know, the FBI or a local police department or something. And yours is tagged to hell and back. Folks have been all over you for the last twelve years.’

‘Anything from here in the last two days?’

‘A transcript went out to someone called Thomas Holland at the Bolton PD.’

‘The Chief of Police. Probably routine. He wanted to know I was qualified, because he wanted my help. Back when he thought the stone building was an army place. Any follow-up?’

‘No.’

‘That’s because I’m behaving myself.’

A long pause.

Time to go.

He asked, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘I could find out. The way the army is now, you’re probably on a web site somewhere.’

‘Are you kidding? The 110th? No way. We don’t exist.’

‘So what’s your name?’

‘Susan.’

‘Nice name.’

‘I think so too.’

Another long pause.

Time to go.

He asked, ‘Is your air force guy at Lackland?’

‘Yes. Talking to their records guys in Colorado.’

‘Ask him to try one more time. Obviously that stuff was flown in. There has to be a cargo manifest somewhere.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Call me back?’ he asked.

‘You bet,’ she said.

Reacher went back to the kitchen and took another cup of coffee. The house was quiet. No significant sound from the outside. No significant sound from the inside either, except for the subliminal vibe of calm alert people concentrating hard on the business at hand. It was the kind of silence Reacher had heard a hundred times before. He carried his mug to the parlour and found Janet Salter reading there. She looked up from her book and said, ‘You’re drinking coffee.’

Reacher said, ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Not at all. But doesn’t it keep you awake?’

He nodded. ‘Until I want to go to sleep.’

‘How was she?’

‘Who?’

‘The woman in Virginia.’

‘She was fine.’ Reacher stepped to the window and took a look at the street. Snow, ice, the parked cruiser, frozen foliage moving stiffly in the wind. A little moonlight, a little high cloud, a distant orange glow from vapour lamps on the streets to the north and the east. He said, ‘All quiet.’

Janet Salter asked, ‘Do you think the state penitentiary and the federal prison have the same lock-down time as the county jail?’

‘I imagine so.’

‘Then we’re safe for a spell, aren’t we? Heads have been counted and there’s no opportunity for mass disturbance until the morning.’

‘In principle.’

‘But?’

‘Hope for the best, plan for the worst.’

‘Is that your motto?’

‘One of many.’

‘What are the others?’

‘Never forgive, never forget. Do it once and do it right. You reap what you sow. Plans go to hell as soon as the first shot is fired. Protect and serve. Never off duty.’

‘You’re as hard on yourself as you are on others.’

‘Cruel but fair.’

‘I can’t stand this kind of tension much longer.’

‘I hope you won’t have to.’

‘For the first time in my life I’m afraid. It’s a very elemental thing, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a choice,’ Reacher said. ‘That’s all.’

‘Surely everyone’s afraid of death.’

‘That was another motto. I’m not afraid of death. Death’s afraid of me.’

‘You sound like you were trying to convince yourself.’

‘We were. All the time. Believe me.’

‘So you are afraid of death.’

‘We all have to go sometime. Depends what form it takes, I guess.’

Janet Salter went quiet for a moment. Then she said, ‘I met my successor at Yale two years ago. At a library conference. It was an interesting experience. I imagine you feel the same way, talking to the woman in Virginia.’

‘She isn’t my successor. Not directly. There could have been six or seven other people in between me and her. Maybe more. It’s a distant connection. Almost archaeological.’

‘Is she better than you?’

‘Probably.’

‘That’s how I felt, too. At first I was depressed about it. Then I realized actually I should feel encouraged about it. Progress is being maintained. The world is still moving forward.’

‘How long have you been retired?’

‘A little more than ten years.’

‘So you got back here before the prison was built.’

‘Years before. It was a different town then. But not too different, I suppose. The real change is still to come. We’re still in a transitional phase. The real change will come when we get used to it. At the moment we’re a town with a prison in it. Soon we’ll be a prison town.’

‘So what was it like?’

‘Gentle,’ Janet Salter said. ‘Quiet. Half the size. No fast food, only one motel. Chief Holland was a young man with a family. Like Andrew Peterson is now. I don’t know why, but that symbolizes the change for me. Everything felt cheerful and young and lighthearted. Not old and tired and bitter, like it is now.’

‘What happened to Holland’s wife?’

‘Cancer. But mercifully quick. Their daughter Liz was fifteen at the time. Which could have been awkward, but she seemed to handle it quite well. She was named for her mother. Her mother went by Betty, and she went by Liz. They were very similar in every way. Which could have been awkward for the chief, too, but he got past it. He was already involved in the early stages of planning the prison by then, which took his mind off it.’

‘And what was the Lowell divorce all about?’

‘I told you, I don’t know. But the fact that no one speaks of it invites speculation, doesn’t it?’