Lee Child - Never Go Back

He asked, ‘Where are yours from?’

‘A friend of Leach’s. She said she knew someone who looked like me.’

‘So what’s your name now?’

Turner answered by flipping the licence into his lap, like a card trick. Illinois, Margaret Vega, five-seven, brown eyes, thirty-one years old. Not an organ donor. The photograph showed a light-skinned Hispanic woman. At first glance a little like Turner, but not a whole lot.

Reacher flipped the licence back.

‘And Ms Vega was happy to give up her DL?’ he said. ‘Just like that? And her credit card too?’

‘We have to return them. And we have to pay back any charges we make. Obviously I had to promise. But Billy Bob’s money can take care of that.’

‘That’s not the point. Ms Vega is way out on a limb now.’

‘I guess Leach can be persuasive.’

‘Only because she thinks you’re worth it.’

‘She had no friends who looked like you. Not even close. Which is why we had to use the locker. Probably Mr Kehoe was the target in a training scenario. He looks like the guy with the chainsaw in a slasher movie.’

‘Should work fine, then. When are we leaving?’

‘As soon as possible,’ Turner said. ‘We’ll catch an early flight.’

They showered and dressed, and then packing was nothing more than jamming their new toothbrushes in their pockets, and putting on their coats. They left the drapes closed and the lights off, and Reacher hung the Do Not Disturb card on the outside handle, and then they hustled down the corridor to the elevator. It was just after five in the morning, and Turner figured the long-hauls to the West Coast would start around six. Not an infinite choice of carriers out of Pittsburgh International, but there would be at least several. Worst case, they could connect through San Francisco, or Phoenix, or Las Vegas.

The elevator reached the lobby and they stepped out to a deserted scene. There was no one at the desk. No one anywhere. So Reacher dropped their key cards in the trash, and they headed for the door, where they got straight into a hesitant after-you-no-after-you thing with a lone guy who had chosen that exact moment to come in from the dark sidewalk outside. He was a compact man in a navy suit and a white shirt and a navy tie. He had a fresh haircut, short and conservative, and a pink face, recently shaved. Eventually they worked out a three-way pecking order. The guy held the door for Turner, who stepped out, and then Reacher hung back, and the guy stepped in, and finally Reacher stepped out.

There were no taxis at the kerb. But there was a hotel shuttle bus, with its engine running and its door open. No driver at the wheel. Inside, maybe, taking a leak.

Ten yards farther on a Crown Vic was parked in the fire lane. Dark blue, clean and shiny, with antennas on the trunk lid. Reacher turned and looked back at the hotel door. Deep in the lobby the guy who had come in was waiting for service at the desk. Navy suit. White shirt. Navy tie. Short hair, pink face, clean shave.

Reacher said, ‘FBI.’

Turner said, ‘They were tracking those names. Sullivan and Temple.’

‘He walked right past us. How long till his brain kicks in?’

‘He’s FBI, so it won’t be instantaneous.’

‘We could head back to the truck and drive ourselves.’

‘No, the truck should stay here. We need to keep breaking the chain. Get on the bus. The driver will be back in a minute. Got to be. He left it running.’

Reacher said, ‘We’ll be sitting ducks.’

‘We’ll be invisible,’ Turner said. ‘Just folks on a bus.’

Reacher glanced around. The guy was still at the counter. No one behind it. The shuttle bus was all done up in chrome and a corporate style. It had black windows. Like a movie star’s limousine. A touch of glamour, for the everyday traveller.

Black windows. Just folks on a bus. Predator and prey, motion and stillness. An old evolutionary legacy. Reacher said, ‘OK, we’ll get on the bus.’

They climbed aboard, and the suspension dipped under their weight, and they shuffled along a low narrow aisle and took seats on the far side, halfway to the back.

And then they sat still and waited.

Not a great feeling.

The view out was not great either, because of the distance and the window tint and the multiple layers of glass, but Reacher could still see the guy. He was getting impatient. He had turned around to face the empty lobby, and he had stepped a yard away from the desk. Claiming the wider space, expressing his resentment, but staying close enough to the help to remain definitively first in line. Not that he had any competition. Nor would he for an hour or so. Red-eye arrivals would start about six, too.

Then the guy suddenly moved forward, a long pace, eager, as if he was about to greet someone. Or accost someone. On the right of the frame a second figure stepped into view. A man, in a black uniform with a short jacket. A bellboy, maybe. The FBI guy asked a question, accompanied by a sweeping gesture with his arm, like where the hell is everybody , and the guy in the short jacket paused, uncomfortable, as if obliged to venture outside his accustomed territory, and then he squeezed behind the counter and rapped on a door, with no result, so he opened the door a crack and called through, enquiringly, and fifteen seconds later a young woman came out, running her fingers through her hair. The FBI guy turned back to the desk, and the young woman moved up face to face with him, and the guy in the short black jacket walked out of the lobby.

Not a bellboy.

The bus driver.

He climbed aboard, and saw that he had customers, and he glanced back at the lobby, to see if he was about to get more, and he must have concluded not, because he asked, ‘Domestic or international?’

Turner said, ‘Domestic.’

So the guy dumped himself down in his seat, and unspooled a long seat belt, and clipped it tight, and the door closed with a wheezing sigh, and the guy put the bus in gear.

And then he waited, because he had to, because an arriving car was manoeuvring around the parked Crown Vic, and thereby blocking his exit.

It was the car with the dented doors.

FORTY-THREE

THE CAR WITH the dented doors squeezed around the parked Crown Vic, and then it slowed to a walk and prepared to pull up just short of the hotel entrance. The bus moved off into the vacated space, grinding slow and heavy, and it passed the car close by, flank to flank. Reacher got up off his seat and stared out the window. All four guys were in the car. The two he had met on the first night, and the third guy, and the big guy with the tiny ears. The whole crew was there.

‘Leave it,’ Turner said.

‘We need to take them off the table.’

‘But not here, and not now. Later. They’re on the back burner, remember?’

‘No time like the present.’

‘In a hotel lobby? In front of an FBI agent?’

Reacher craned around and saw the four guys climb out of the car. They glanced left and right, fast and fluid, and then they headed straight inside, single file, a crisp linear stream, one, two, three, four, like men with an urgent purpose. Turner said, ‘Stand easy, major. Another time, another place. We’re going to LA.’

The bus picked up speed and left the hotel behind. Reacher watched for as long as there was something to see, and then he turned back. He said, ‘Tell me what you know about how the FBI tracked our names.’

‘The modern world,’ Turner said. ‘Homeland Security. It’s an information-dependent operation. All kinds of things are linked together. Airlines, for sure, and no doubt airport hotels too. In which case it would be easy enough to set up an alert in case two specific names appeared in the same place at the same time.’