Lee Child - Never Go Back

She didn’t answer. There was still motor noise in the lot. It sounded like multiple vehicles were driving around and around, in a big circle. Maybe three or four of them, one after the other. Up one side of the building, and down the other. An endless loop.

Turner asked, ‘What time is it?’

‘Nine minutes before noon.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I always know what time it is.’

‘What time is check-out?’

Then they heard footsteps on the walkway outside, and an envelope slid under the door, and the footsteps reversed direction, and faded away.

‘Check-out time is noon, I guess,’ Reacher said. ‘Because I assume that envelope is our copy of the invoice, paid in full.’

‘That’s very formal.’

‘They have a computer.’

The motor noise was still there. Reacher assumed the lizard part of his brain had already screened it for danger. Were they army vehicles? Cop cars? FBI? And apparently the lizard brain had made no comment. Correctly, in this case, because they were clearly civilian vehicles outside. All gasoline engines, including an out-of-tune V-8 with a holed muffler, and at least one weak four-cylinder cheap-finance-special-offer kind of a thing, plus crashing suspensions and rattling panels. Not military or paramilitary sounds at all.

They got louder and faster.

‘What is that?’ Turner said.

‘Take a look,’ Reacher said.

She padded slender and naked to the window. She made a peephole in the drapes. She looked out, and waited, to catch the whole show.

‘Four pick-up trucks,’ she said. ‘Various ages, sizes, and states of repair, all of them with two people aboard. They’re circling the building, over and over again.’

‘Why?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘What town are we in?’

‘Petersburg, West Virginia.’

‘Then maybe it’s an old West Virginia folk tradition. The rites of spring, or something. Like the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Except they do it in pick-up trucks, in Petersburg.’

‘But it looks kind of hostile. Like those movies you mentioned, where they say it’s too quiet. The parts where the Indians ride in a circle around the wagon with the busted wheel. Faster and faster.’

Reacher looked from her to the door.

‘Wait,’ he said.

He slid out of bed and picked up the envelope. The flap was not gummed down. Inside was a piece of paper. Nothing sinister. As expected. It was a tri-folded invoice showing a zero balance. Which was correct. Room eleven, thirty bucks, less thirty bucks cash upfront.

But.

At the bottom of the invoice was a cheery printed thank-you-for-staying-with-us line, and below that the motel owner’s name was printed like a signature, and below that there was a piece of completely gratuitous information.

‘Shit,’ Reacher said.

‘What?’

He met her by the bed and showed her.

We surely appreciated you staying with us!

John Claughton, Owner.

There have been Claughtons in Grant County for three hundred years!

THIRTY-SIX

REACHER SAID, ‘I guess they’re really serious about that Corvette. They must have gotten on some kind of a phone tree last night. A council of war. A call to action. Hampshire County Claughtons, and Grant County Claughtons, and Claughtons from other counties, too, I’m sure. Probably dozens of counties. Probably vast swathes of the entire Mountain State. And if Sleeping Beauty in the office last night was a son or a nephew, then he’s also a cousin. And now he’s a made man. Because he dimed us out.’

‘That Corvette is more trouble than it’s worth. It was a bad choice.’

‘But it was fun while it lasted.’

‘Got any bright ideas?’

‘We’ll have to reason with them.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Spread love and understanding,’ Reacher said. ‘Use force if necessary.’

‘Who said that?’

‘Leon Trotsky, I think.’

‘He was stabbed to death with an ice pick. In Mexico.’

‘That doesn’t invalidate his overall position. Not in and of itself.’

‘What was his overall position?’

‘Solid. He also said, if you can’t acquaint an opponent with reason, you must acquaint his head with the sidewalk. He was a man of sound instincts. In his private life, I mean. Apart from getting stabbed to death with an ice pick in Mexico, that is.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘We should start by getting dressed, probably. Except that most of my clothes are in the other room.’

‘My fault,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t make a whole big thing out of it. We’ll survive. You get dressed, and we’ll both go next door, and I’ll get dressed. Safe enough. We’ll only be out there a couple of seconds. But take a shower first. There’s no rush. They’ll wait. They won’t come in here. They won’t break down Cousin Asshole’s door. I’m sure that’s part of the Claughton family code.’

Turner matched Reacher’s habitual shower time exactly, dead on eleven minutes, from the first hand on the faucet to stepping out the door. Which in this instance involved a long pause, spent trying to time it right, to get to the next room unseen by a circling pick-up truck, and then deciding that with four of them each moving at close to thirty miles an hour, remaining unseen was not an available option. So they went for it, and for ten of the twenty feet they were ahead of the game, until a truck came around and Reacher heard a rush under its hood, as the driver reacted instinctively to the sudden appearance of his quarry, by stamping on the gas. Chasing it, Reacher supposed. Running it down. An evolutionary mechanism, like so many things. He unlocked his door and they spilled inside. He said, ‘Now they know for sure we’re here. Not that they didn’t know already. I’m sure Cyber Boy has been giving them chapter and verse.’

His room was undisturbed. His boots were under the window, with his socks nearby, and his underwear, and his second T-shirt on a chair, and his jacket on a hook. He said, ‘I should take a shower too. If they keep on driving circles like that, they’ll be dizzy before we come out.’

Reacher was ready in eleven minutes. He sat on the bed and laced his boots, and he put his coat on and zipped it up. He said, ‘I’m happy to do this by myself, if you like.’

Turner said, ‘What about the troopers across the street? We can’t afford for them to come over.’

‘I bet the troopers let the Claughtons do whatever they want. Because I bet the troopers are mostly Claughtons too. But I’m sure we’ll do it all out of sight, anyway. That’s what usually happens.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Have you done this before?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Not too many times.’

‘They won’t all fight. There’ll be a congestion problem, apart from anything else. And we can kerb their enthusiasm by putting the first few down hard. The key is not to spend too much time on any one individual. The minimum, ideally. Which would be one blow, and then move on to the next. Elbows are better than hands, and kicking is better than both.’

‘OK.’

‘But I’ll talk to them first. It’s not like they don’t have a slight point.’

They opened the door and stepped out to the walkway and the bright noon light, and as Reacher expected they saw the four trucks drawn up tight, nose-in at the bottom of the concrete staircase, like suckerfish. Eight guys were leaning against their doors and their fenders and their load beds, patiently, like they had all the time in the world, which they did, because there was no way down from the second-floor walkway other than the concrete staircase. Reacher recognized the three guys from the night before, on the hill road, small, medium and large, the latter two looking more or less the same as they had before, and the small guy looking much better, like he was most of the way recovered from whatever binge had led to his accident. The other five were similar fellows, all hardscrabble types, the smallest of them a wiry guy all sinew and leathery skin, the largest somewhat bloated, by beer and fast food, probably. None of them was armed in any way. Reacher could see all sixteen hands, and all sixteen were empty. No guns, no knives, no wrenches, no chains.