Lee Child - Night School

Then he sprayed a mist of gray over everything else, to calm it down, to give it age. He stood back. He was light-headed from the aerosol fumes. But he was satisfied. It was no longer a new white truck. It was a piece of urban junk. It was no longer worthy of a passing glance. Not that anyone would be passing. Everyone was at the hotel. There would be crowds of law enforcement and all kinds of perimeters. Firefighters and SWAT teams in the center, because of the handgun rounds and the gasoline fires. Then all kinds of security and rubberneckers and glory hunters. I was there, man. The bullets were zipping right over my head .

He opened the double doors all the way, and then he climbed in and started up the rental. He reversed it out, and maneuvered it around, sawing it back and forth until it was lined up perfectly. He watched his mirrors and backed it up slowly, slowly, until its rear bumper kissed the old truck’s rear bumper. He put on the parking brake and shut down the motor. He climbed through from the cab to the load space. He rolled up the rear door from the inside. The old truck’s rear door was right there, an inch away. He unlocked it and rolled it up from the outside.

A wooden crate.

It was six feet high and six feet wide and twelve feet long. It was solidly made from tight-grained softwood, straight and true, once pale, now aged to a tobacco amber. It was a prototype of a standardized container system the Pentagon experimented with in the 1950s. A survivor. A piece of history. It was stenciled here and there with faded whitewash numbers.

It weighed more than six hundred pounds. No way to move it without a forklift truck. One of which he no longer had. He took out a regular slot screwdriver from his bag. Old fashioned. Like the crate. It had screws the size of buttons. They were set on six-inch centers all around the perimeter of the end panel. Forty-four in total. Probably the result of a study by a research and development corporation. Some guy in a suit got a fat check for saying more was better. Which made everyone happy. The Pentagon’s ass was covered. The screw supplier was making out like a bandit. Probably charged a dollar each. Military spec.

Wiley got to work.

–

The phone rang in the consulate room. Griezman. Who said, “Something is happening in the hotel parking garage. Where the hooker vanished. There were gunshots and then a car blew up. Then two more. The fire is contained because there are sprinklers and foam on the ceiling. But we can’t get close. Not until we’re sure about the gun.”

Reacher said, “You think the guy is still in there?”

“Don’t you?”

“We didn’t like the sound. It could have been ammo cooking off. Some kind of a delayed mechanism. You need to consider someone set it up on a timer. In which case he’s long gone. He’s where you’re not.”

“Who?”

“Horace Wiley, maybe. He’s keeping to a busy schedule right now. He might be in need of a decoy. You should put half your men back on the street.”

“You think he’s back in town?”

“I’m beginning to think he never left. He could be moving his truck right now. You should put guys on the street.”

“Impossible. This is a government protocol. There were gunshots and explosions in the center of town. It’s not my decision. They planned for a year. The mayor’s office is in charge and we’re doing it by the book.”

“How long do they plan to wait before they go in?”

“A unit with body armor is on its way. Thirty minutes, possibly.”

“OK,” Reacher said. “Good luck.”

He clicked off the call. No one spoke.

Reacher said, “I’m going out for a walk.”

–

Forty-four screws cost him just shy of twenty minutes, plus a lot of burn in his forearms. But then the panel came free and he laid it down to bridge the gap between the load floors. A flat surface, from one truck to the other. As planned ahead of time. He had thought of everything.

The air in the crate smelled still and stale. Old wood, old canvas, old dust. The old world. The contents were exactly what Uncle Arnold had told him about, all those years before. Ten identical items. All the same. Each one weighed fifty pounds. Each one was ready-packed in a transport container. What Uncle Arnold had called an H-912. Wiley still remembered all the details. The containers had straps all over them. Easy to grab. Easy enough to haul and slide and drag and push. One at a time. From the old truck to the new truck. All the way in. Butted up tight, starting in the far back corner.

Then a pause, and a breath, and back for the next one.

–

Reacher walked south to the Ausenalster lake. The city was quiet. A learned response. Europe was full of explosions. Factions and groups and people’s armies. A big deal for a day or two, until the next thing happened. He turned east at the water, looping around. He was two miles from where Wiley lived. Which had no inconspicuous place to park a panel van. But it made sense to keep it close by. Which was a relative term. A circle on a map would be drawn cautiously large. Some of it would be water. But most would be land. Of which Reacher could cover nothing more than a random and insignificant sliver. But doing something felt better than doing nothing. Walking felt better than sitting around. So he walked.

–

Fifty pounds was a hell of a weight, especially when you had to do it over and over. Wiley took a break after seven units, breathing hard, half bent over. Partly nerves. A simple mechanical task, but the whole ball game right there, nonetheless. The moment of maximum exposure. But much longer than a moment. Close to half an hour already, with vapor lights all over the old docks, and the two trucks jammed together rear end to rear end like some kind of vehicular sodomy, complete with rocking and thumping and grunting inside, while all the time half in and half out of a tumbledown shed no one had used in the last thirty years.

Vulnerable.

Not good.

He took a breath and rolled his aching shoulders and got back to work. He dragged number eight the length of the crate, and up over the lip, and across the last yard of the old truck’s floor, and over the flat wooden panel, slowly, slowly, until it seesawed in the middle and clapped back down, and then onward into the new truck, where he left it standing upright against number seven.

He went back to the crate, to the far back wall, and he got number nine. He dragged it out, and over, and in. All the way. He took a breath and went back for number ten. The last. He pulled it away from the wall. The book was right there. Right where Uncle Arnold said it would be. A khaki file folder striped in red, set in a neat receptacle made of thin plywood, with a half-moon shape scooped out for fingers. Maybe an apprentice’s work, all those years ago. In the crate factory. The folder held mimeographed copies of typewritten pages, all held together with brass fasteners gone dull with age.

He carried the folder in one hand and dragged number ten with the other. He stood ten upright next to nine and wedged the book between them. He dragged the bridge back into the old truck and rolled down the new truck’s door from the outside. He squeezed around the empty crate and climbed out of the old truck through its cab. He hustled around and got in the new truck and started it up. He moved it forward and backed and filled until he had gotten it turned around again, and then he drove it in nose first on the right-hand side, and he shut it down and locked it up. He re-packed his duffel and closed the double doors, and bolted the bolts, and closed the hasp, and clicked the padlocks shut.

Nearly forty minutes. A long time. He walked to the corner and risked a look up the cobblestone street. All the way to the metal bridge. Beyond it on the main road the traffic was moving. Left to right, and right to left. Normal speed. No sirens. No squealing tires. No flashing lights.