TWENTY-NINE

REACHER WAS IN HIS GROUND FLOOR ROOM AT THE COURTYARD Marriott, knee deep in old police reports. He had used the flat-bladed screwdriver from his pocket to slit the tape on all eleven cartons, and he had sampled the first page out of every box to establish the correct date order. He had shuffled the cartons into a line, and then he had started a quick-and-dirty overview of the records, right from the very beginning.

As expected, the notes were comprehensive. It had been a high-profile case with many sensitivities, and there had been three other agencies on the job, the State Police, the National Guard, and the FBI. The county PD had taken pains to be very professional. Multi-agency cases were essentially competitions, and the county PD hadn't wanted to lose. The department had recorded every move and covered every base and covered every ass. In some ways the files were slices of history. They had been nowhere near a computer. They were old-fashioned, human, and basic. They were typewritten, probably on old IBM electric machines. They had misaligned lines and corrections made with white fluid. The paper itself was foxed and brown, thin and brittle, and musty. There were no reams of cell phone records, because no one had had cell phones back then, not even the cops. No DNA samples had been taken. There were no GPS coordinates.

The files were exactly like the files Reacher himself had created, way back at the start of his army career.

Dorothy had called the cops from a neighbour's house, at eight in the evening on an early summer Sunday. Not 911, but the local switchboard number. There was a transcript of the call, by the look of it probably not from a recording. Probably reconstructed from the desk sergeant's memory. Dorothy's last name was Coe. Her only child Margaret had last been seen more than six hours previously. She was a good girl. No problems. No troubles. No reasons. She had been wearing a green dress and had ridden away on a pink bicycle.

The desk sergeant had called the captain and the captain had called a detective who had just gotten off the day shift. The detective was called Miles Carson. Carson had sent squad cars north and the hunt had begun. The weather had been good and there had been an hour of twilight and then darkness had fallen. Carson himself had arrived on scene within forty minutes. The next twelve hours had unfolded pretty much the way Dorothy had described over breakfast, the house to house canvass, the flashlight searches, the loudhailer appeals to check every barn and outbuilding, the all-night motor patrols, the arrival of the dogs at first light, the State Police contribution, the National Guard's loan of a helicopter.

Miles Carson was a thorough man, but he had gotten no result.

In principle Reacher might have criticized a couple of things. No reason to wait until dawn to call in the dogs, for instance. Dogs could work in the dark. But it was a moot point anyway, because as soon as Margaret had gotten on her bicycle, her scent had disappeared, suspended in the air, whisked away by the breeze, insulated by rubber tyres. The dogs tracked her to her own driveway, and that was all. The loudhailer appeals for folks to search their own property were curiously circular too, because what was a guilty party going to do? Turn himself in? Although in Carson's defence, foul play was not yet suspected. The first Carson had heard about local suspicions had come at nine the next morning, when Dorothy Coe had broken down and spilled the beans about the Duncans. That interview had lasted an hour and filled nine pages of notes. Then Carson had gotten right on it.

But from the start, the Duncans had looked innocent.

They even had an alibi. Five years earlier they had sold the family farm, retaining only a T-shaped acre that encompassed their driveway and their three houses, and in the country way of things they had never gotten around to marking off their new boundaries. Their neighbours' last ploughed furrows were their property line. But eventually they decided to put up a post-and-rail fence. It was a big production, much heavier and sturdier than was standard. They hired four local teenagers to come do the work. The four boys had been there all day on that Sunday, dawn to dusk, measuring, sawing, digging deep holes for the posts. The three Duncans and the eight-year-old Seth had been right there with them, all day, dawn to dusk, supervising, directing, checking up, helping out. The four boys confirmed that the Duncans had never left the property, and no one had stopped by, least of all a little girl in a green dress on a pink bicycle.

Even so, Carson had hauled the Duncans in for questioning. By that point a hint of foul play was definitely in the air, so the State Police had to be involved, because of jurisdiction issues, so the Duncans were taken to a State barracks over near Lincoln. Seth went with them and was questioned by female officers, but had nothing to say. The three adults were grilled for days. Nebraska, in the 1980s. Rules and procedures were pretty loose where child kidnapping was suspected. But the Duncans admitted nothing. They allowed their property to be searched, voluntarily. Carson's people did the job thoroughly, which wasn't hard because there wasn't much property. Just the T-shaped acre of land, bounded by the unfinished post-and-rail fence, and the three houses themselves. Carson's people found nothing. Carson called the FBI, who sent a team equipped with the latest 1980s technology. The FBI found nothing. The Duncans were released, driven home, and the case went cold.

Reacher crawled across the room, back to the first carton, hands and knees, overview completed, ready to start in on the fine details.

The doctor didn't answer. He just stood there, bruised, sore, shaking, sweating. Jacob Duncan repeated the question: 'Where is Reacher now?'

The doctor said, 'I would like to sit down.'

'Have you been drinking?'

'A little.'

'At the motel?'

'No,' the doctor said. 'I figured Mr Vincent wouldn't serve me.'

'So where were you drinking?'

'At home.'

'And then you walked to the motel?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'I needed something from my car. Some medical equipment.'

'So you were already drunk when you stole our truck?'

'Yes. I wouldn't have done it if I was sober.'

'Where is Reacher now?'

'I don't know.'

'Would you like a drink?'

The doctor said, 'A drink?'

'You're familiar with the concept, I think.'

'Yes, I would like a drink.'

Jacob Duncan got up and stepped across his kitchen to a cabinet on the wall. He opened it up and took out a bottle of Wild Turkey, almost full. From another cabinet he took a glass. He carried both back to the table and set them down. He took stuff off a chair in the corner, a pair of boots, old mail, a ball of string, and he carried the chair across the room and placed it behind the doctor.

He said, 'Sit down, please. And help yourself.'

The doctor sat down and shuffled the chair closer to the table and uncorked the bottle. He poured himself a generous measure and drank it all in one go. He poured a second glass.

Jacob Duncan asked, 'Where is Reacher now?'

The doctor said, 'I don't know.'

'I think you do. And it's time to make your choice. You can sit here with us and drink my fine bourbon and pass the time of day in pleasant conversation. Or we could do it another way. We could have Seth break your nose, for instance. I'm pretty certain he would like to. Or we could have your wife join us, and we could subject her to petty humiliations. My guess is she wouldn't put up much of a fight, having known us all these years. No marks, no overt damage. But the shared experience might have an effect on your marriage, in the years to come, you having shown yourself unable to defend her. Because she'll see it as unwilling, not unable. You should think about it.'

'Reacher's gone,' the doctor said.

'Gone?'

'He left this afternoon.'

'How?'

'He got a ride.'

'Impossible,' Jacob said. 'We blocked the road, north and south.'

'Not in time.'

'Did you see him go?'

'He was at the motel. I think he changed the plates because he was going to use your truck. But someone else came along and he hitched a ride, which was better.'

'Who came along?'

'Not one of us. Just someone driving through.'

'What kind of car?'

'I'm not good with cars. I think it was white.'

'Did he say where he was going?'

The doctor drank most of his second glass. Gulp, swallow, gulp, swallow. He said, 'He's going to Virginia.'

'Why?'

'I don't know,' the doctor said. He filled his glass again. 'But that's all he's ever talked about, right from the first moment he got here. He's on his way to Virginia, and always was.'

'What's in Virginia?'

'He didn't say. A woman, perhaps. That's the impression I got.'

'From what?'

'Just a feeling.'

Jacob Duncan said, 'You're nervous.'

The doctor said, 'Of course I am.'

'Why? You're just sharing a drink with your neighbours.'

The doctor said nothing.

Jacob Duncan said, 'You think he's coming back.'

'I don't.'

'Is he coming back?'

The doctor said nothing.

'Tell us.'

The doctor said, 'He was a military cop. He knows how to do things.'

'What things?'

'He said he's going to visit with the county police. Tomorrow morning, I suppose. He said he's going to look at the file from twenty-five years ago. If it's OK, he's going to Virginia. If it's not, he's coming back here.'

'Why would he?'

'To get you, that's why.'

Up in Canada, the white van had made the right turn just shy of the town called Medicine Hat, and was heading south on the lonely road that led down towards Pakowki Lake. It was already full dark up there. No lights at all, and no moon or stars either, because of the cloud. The road was bad. It was pitted with potholes. It twisted and it wandered, and it rose and it fell. It was hard going, and not entirely safe. It was dangerous, even, because at that stage a broken axle or a busted half-shaft would ruin everything. So the driver turned left, on a rough grassy track he had used before, and bumped and bounced two hundred yards to a picnic spot provided for summer visitors. In winter it was always deserted. The driver had seen bears there, and coyotes, and red foxes, and moose, and twice he thought he had seen elk, although they might have been shadows, and once he thought he had seen a wolf, but it might have been just another coyote. But he had never seen people. Not in winter. Not even once.

He parked under a towering pine and shut down for the night.

Roberto Cassano and Angelo Mancini pulled their rented Impala around the back of the Marriott and slotted it next to a black Cadillac that was standing alone in the rear of the lot. They got out and stretched and checked their watches. They figured they had time for a quick dinner before their reinforcements arrived. The diner or the rib shack? They liked neither one. Why would they? They had taste, and the retard local yokels sure as hell didn't. But they were hungry, and they had to eat somewhere.

They pondered for a second and decided on the diner. They turned away from the hotel lobby and headed for the main drag.

The Duncans let the doctor finish a third glass of Wild Turkey, and then they sent him on his way. They pushed him out the door and told him to walk home. They watched him down the driveway, and then they turned and strolled back and regrouped in Jacob's kitchen. Jacob put the bottle back in the cupboard, and put the glass in the sink, and returned the chair to the corner of the room. His brother Jasper asked, 'So what do you think?'

Jacob said, 'About what?'

'Should we call the county and stop them showing Reacher the files?'

'I don't see how we could do that.'

'We could try.'

'It would draw attention.'

Jonas asked, 'Should we call Eldridge Tyler? Strictly as a backup?'

'Then we would owe him something.'

'It would be a wise investment, if Reacher is coming back.'

'I don't think he's coming back,' Jacob said. 'That's my first thought, certainly.'

'But?'

'Ultimately I guess it depends on what he finds, and what he doesn't find.'

THIRTY

REACHER FOUND A STATEMENT FROM THE LITTLE GIRL'S FATHER. IT was long and detailed. Cops weren't dumb. Fathers were automatic suspects when little girls disappeared. Margaret's father had been Arthur Coe, universally known as Artie. At the time of his daughter's disappearance he was thirty-seven years old. Relatively ancient for a father of an eight-year-old, back in the 1980s. He was a local man. He was a Vietnam veteran. He had refused an offer from the local Selective Service board to classify his farm work as an essential occupation. He had served, and he had come back. A brave man. A patriot. He had been fixing machinery in an outbuilding when Margaret had ridden away, and he had still been fixing it four hours later, when his wife came to tell him that the kid was still out. He had dropped everything and started the search. His statement was full of the same kinds of feelings Dorothy had described over breakfast, the unreality, the hope against hope, the belief that the kid was just out playing somewhere, surely to God, maybe picking flowers, that she had lost track of time, that she would be home soon, right as rain. Even after twenty-five years the typewritten words still reeked of shock and pain and misery.

Arthur Coe was an innocent man, Reacher thought.

He moved on, to a packet marked by hand Margaret Coe Biography. Just a regular manila envelope, quite thin, as would befit an eight-year-old's short life story. The gummed flap had never been licked, but it was stuck down anyway, from dampness in the storage facility. Reacher eased it open. There were sheets of paper inside, plus a photograph in a yellowed glassine jacket. Reacher eased it out. And was surprised.

Margaret Coe was Asian.

Vietnamese, possibly, or Thai, or Cambodian, or Chinese, or Japanese, or Korean. Dorothy wasn't. Arthur probably hadn't been, either. Not a native Nebraskan farm worker. Therefore Margaret was adopted. She had been a sweet little thing. The photograph was dated on the back, in a woman's handwriting, with an added note: Nearly eight! Beautiful as ever! It was a colour picture, probably amateur, but proficient. Better than a snapshot. It had been thought about and composed, and taken with a decent camera. A good likeness, obviously, to have been given to the police. It showed a little Asian girl, standing still, posing, smiling. She was small and slight and slender. She had trust and merriment in her eyes. She was wearing a plaid skirt and a white blouse.

She was a lovely child.

Reacher heard the stoner's voice in his mind, from earlier in the day: I hear that poor ghost screaming, man, screaming and wailing and moaning and crying, right here in the dark.

And at that point Reacher took a break.

Sixty miles north Dorothy Coe took a pork chop from her refrigerator. The chop was part of a pig a friend had slaughtered a mile away, part of a loose cooperative designed to get people through tough times. Dorothy trimmed the fat, and put a little pepper on the meat, and a little mustard, and a little brown sugar. She put the chop in an open dish and put the dish in the oven. She set her table, one place, a knife, a fork, and a plate. She took a glass and filled it with water and put it next to the plate. She folded a square of paper towel for a napkin. Dinner, for one.

Reacher was hungry. He had eaten no lunch. He called the desk and asked for room service and the guy who had booked him in told him there was no room service. He apologized for the lack. Then he went ahead and mentioned the two restaurants named on the billboard Reacher had already seen. The guy promised a really excellent meal could be gotten at either one of them. Maybe he was on a retainer from the Chamber of Commerce.

Reacher put his coat on and headed down the hallway to the lobby. Two more guests were checking in. Both men. They looked Middle Eastern. Iranian, possibly. They were small and rumpled and unshaven and not very clean. One of them glanced at Reacher and Reacher nodded politely and headed for the door. It was dark outside, and cold. Reacher figured he would use the diner for breakfast, and therefore the rib shack for dinner. So he turned right on the back street and hustled.

The doctor walked fast to beat the cold and made it home inside an hour. His wife was waiting for him. She was worried. He had some explaining to do. He started talking and got through the whole story before she spoke a word. At the end he went quiet and she said, 'So it's a gamble, isn't it? Is that what you're saying? Like a horse race. Will Reacher come back before Seth gets home and finds out that you just sat there and watched his car get stolen?'

The doctor said, 'Will Reacher come back at all?'

'I think he will.'

'Why would he?'

'Because the Duncans took that kid. Who else do you think did it?'

'I don't know. I wasn't here. I was in Idaho. I was a kid myself. So were you.'

'Believe me.'

'I do. But I wish you would tell me exactly why I should.'

She said nothing.

The doctor said, 'Maybe Seth won't go home. Maybe he'll spend the night at his father's place.'

'That's possible. People say he often does. But we shouldn't assume.' She started moving around the house, checking the window locks, checking the door locks, front and back. She said, 'We should wedge the doors with furniture.'

'Then they'll come in the window.'

'Tornado glass. It's pretty strong.'

'Those guys weigh three hundred pounds. You saw what they did to my car.'

'We have to do something.'

'They'll burn us out. Or they'll just stand on the step and tell us to open up. Then what are we going to do? Disobey them?'

'We could hold out a day or two. We have food and water.'

'Might be longer than a day or two. Might be for ever. Even if you're right, there's no guarantee Reacher will find the proof. There probably isn't any proof. How can there be? The FBI would have found it at the time.'

'We have to hope.'

Reacher ordered baby back ribs with coleslaw and a cup of coffee. The place was dim and dirty and the walls were covered with old signs and advertisements. Probably all fake. Probably all ordered in bulk from a restaurant supplier, probably all painted in a Taiwanese factory and then scuffed and scratched and battered by the next guy along on the production line. But the ribs turned out to be good. The rub was subtle and the meat was tender. The coleslaw was crisp. The coffee was hot. And the check was tiny. Tip money, any place east of the Mississippi or south of Sacramento.

Reacher paid and left and walked back to the hotel. Two guys were in the lot, hauling bags out of the trunk of a red Ford Taurus. More guests. The Marriott was experiencing a regular wintertime bonanza. The Taurus was new and plain. Probably a rental. The guys were big. Arabs of some kind. Syrians, maybe, or Lebanese. Reacher was familiar with that part of the world. The two guys looked at him as he passed and he nodded politely and walked on. A minute later he was back in his room, with faded and brittle paper in his hands.

That night the Duncans ate lamb, in Jonas Duncan's kitchen. Jonas fancied himself a hell of a cook. And in truth he wasn't too bad. His roast usually came in on the right side of OK, and he served it with potatoes and vegetables and a lot of gravy, which helped. And a lot of liquor, which helped even more. All four Duncans ate and drank together, two facing two across the table, and then they cleaned up together, and then Jasper looked at his brother Jacob and said, 'We still have six boys capable of walking and talking. We need to decide how to deploy them tonight.'

Jacob said, 'Reacher won't come back tonight.'

'Can we guarantee that?'

'We can't really guarantee anything at all, except that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west.'

'Therefore it's better to err on the side of caution.'

'OK,' Jacob said. 'Put one to the south and tell the other five to get some rest.'

Jasper got on the phone and issued the instructions. Then he hung up and the room went quiet and Seth Duncan looked at his father and said, 'Drive me home?'

His father said, 'No, stay a little longer, son. We have things to talk about. Our shipment could be here this time tomorrow. Which means we have preparations to make.'

Cassano and Mancini got back from the diner and went straight to Cassano's room. Cassano called the desk and asked if any pairs of guests had just checked in. He was told yes, two pairs had just arrived, separately, one after the other. Cassano asked to be connected with their rooms. He spoke first to Mahmeini's men, and then to Safir's, and he set up an immediate rendezvous in his own room. He figured he could establish some dominance by keeping the others off balance, by denying them any kind of thinking time, and by bringing them to his own turf, not that he would want anyone to think that a shitty flophouse room in Nebraska was his kind of place. But he knew psychology, and he knew no one gets the upper hand without working on the details.

The Iranians arrived first. Mahmeini's men. Only one of them spoke, which Cassano thought was OK, given that he spoke for Rossi, and Mancini didn't. No names were exchanged. Again, OK. It was that kind of business. The Iranians were not physically impressive. They were small and ragged and rumpled, and they seemed quiet and furtive and secretive. And strange. Cassano opened the minibar door and told them to help themselves. Whatever they wanted. But neither man took a thing.

The Lebanese arrived five minutes later. Safir's men. Arabs, for sure, but they were big, and they looked plenty tough. Again, only one of them spoke, and he gave no names. Cassano indicated that they should sit on the bed, but they didn't. They leaned on the wall instead. They were trying for menace, Cassano figured. And nearly succeeding. A little psychology of their own. Cassano let the room go quiet and he looked at them all for a minute, one after the other, four men he had only just met, and who would soon be trying to kill him.

He said, 'It's a fairly simple job. Sixty miles north of here there's a corner of the county with forty farms. There's a guy running around causing trouble. Truth is, it's not really very important, but our supplier is taking it personally. Business is on hold until the guy goes down.'

Mahmeini's man said, 'We know all that. Next?'

'OK,' Cassano said. 'Next is we all move up there and work together and take care of the problem.'

'Starting when?'

'Let's say tomorrow morning, first light.'

'Have you seen the guy?'

'Not yet.'

'Got a name?'

'Reacher.'

'What kind of name is that?'

'It's an American name. What's yours?'

'My name doesn't matter. Got a description?'

'Big guy, blue eyes, white, six-five, two-fifty, brown coat.'

Mahmeini's man said, 'That's worthless. This is America. This is farm country. It's full of settlers and peasants. They all look like that. I mean, we just saw a guy exactly like that.'

Safir's guy said, 'He's right. We saw one too. We're going to need a much better description.'

Cassano said, 'We don't have one. But it will be easier when we get up there. He stands out, apparently. And the local population is prepared to help us. They've been told to phone in with sightings. And there's no cover up there.'

Mahmeini's man said, 'So where is he hiding out?'

'We don't know. There's a motel, but he's not in it. Maybe he's sleeping rough.'

'In this weather? Is that likely?'

'There are sheds and barns. I'm sure we'll find him.'

'And then what?'

'We put him down.'

'Risky.'

'I know. He's tough. So far he's taken out four of the local people.'

Mahmeini's man said, 'I don't care how tough he thinks he is. And I don't care how many local people he's taken out either. Because I'm sure they're all idiots up there. I mean it's risky because this isn't the Wild West any more. Do we have a safe exit strategy?'

Cassano said, 'They tell me he's a kind of hobo. So nobody is going to miss him. There's not going to be an investigation. There aren't even any cops up there.'

'That helps.'

'And it's farm country. Like you said. There must be backhoes all over the place. We'll bury him. Alive, preferably, the way our supplier is talking.'