Текст книги "A Wanted Man"

Автор книги: Lee Child

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

NINE

REACHER’S EYES WERE closed and his nose wasn’t working, so taste and touch and hearing were taking up the sensory slack. He could taste copper and iron in his mouth, where blood was leaking down the back of his throat. He could feel the rear bench’s mouse-fur upholstery under his right hand fingertips, synthetic and dense and microscopically harsh. His left hand was in his lap, and he could feel the rough cotton of his pants, thick and fibrous and still slick with the manufacturer’s pre-wash treatments. He could hear the loud zing of concrete sections under the tyres, and the hum of the motor, and the whine of its drive belts, and the rush of air against the windshield pillars and the door mirrors. He could hear the give and take of seat springs as he and the others floated small quarter-inches with the ride. He could hear Don McQueen breathing slow and controlled as he concentrated, and Karen Delfuenso a little anxious, and Alan King changing to a shorter, sharper rhythm. The guy was thinking about something. He was coming up to a decision. Reacher heard the scrape of cloth against a wrist. The guy was checking his watch.

Then King turned around, and Reacher opened his eyes.

King said, ‘I really want to get to Chicago before dawn.’

Suits me, Reacher thought. Plenty of morning departures from Chicago. South through Illinois, east through Kentucky, and then Virginia is right there. He said, ‘That should be possible. We’re going fast. It’s wintertime. Dawn will be late.’

King said, ‘Plan was Don drives the first half, and I drive the second half. Now I’m thinking we should split it into thirds. You could drive the middle third.’

‘Not Karen?’ Reacher said.

No response from Delfuenso.

‘Karen doesn’t drive,’ King said.

‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m always happy to help.’

‘Safer that way.’

‘You haven’t seen my driving yet.’

‘It’s an empty road, straight and wide.’

‘OK,’ Reacher said again.

‘We’ll switch next time we stop for gas.’

‘Which will be when?’

‘Soon.’

‘Why?’ Reacher asked. ‘You’ve been driving for three hours but the tank is still three-quarters full. At that rate we could get halfway to New York before we need gas. Maybe more.’

King paused a beat. Blinked. Said, ‘You’re an observant man, Mr Reacher.’

Reacher said, ‘I try to be.’

‘This is my car,’ King said. ‘I think you can trust me to know its quirks and its foibles. The gas gauge is faulty. There’s a malfunction. All the action is in the first little bit. Then it falls off a cliff.’

Reacher said nothing.

King said, ‘Believe me, we’ll have to stop soon.’

The two deputies securing the area behind the cocktail lounge had parked their cruisers at matching angles, pretty far from the red Mazda, as if the car was dangerous in itself. As if it was radioactive, or liable to explode. Goodman nosed his Crown Vic into the implied no-go triangle and stopped twenty feet from the target. Sorenson said, ‘No witnesses came forward here, I assume?’

‘Today isn’t my birthday,’ Goodman said. ‘It’s not all my Christmases rolled into one, either.’

‘Is this lounge abandoned too?’

‘No, but it closes at midnight. It’s a respectable place.’

‘Compared to what?’

‘The other lounges up here.’

‘What time would the red car have gotten here?’

‘Earliest? Not before twenty past midnight. Too late for witnesses.’

‘I’m guessing you never worked in a bar, did you?’ Sorenson asked.

‘No,’ Goodman said. ‘I never did. Why?’

‘Just because the customers go home at midnight, it doesn’t mean the staff does too. You can be sure some poor dumb waitress will have been here for a little while afterwards. Do you know the owner?’

‘Sure.’

‘So call him.’

‘Her,’ Goodman said. ‘Missy Smith. She’s been here for ever. She’s a well-known character. She won’t be pleased if I wake her up.’

Sorenson said, ‘I won’t be pleased if you don’t.’

So Goodman dialled his cell and stumped around near his own car while Sorenson went to take a look at the Mazda. It had North Carolina plates, and a little barcode strip on the rear window, and it looked neat and clean and fresh inside. She called in the plates and the VIN to her Omaha office, and she saw Sheriff Goodman writing on his palm with a ballpoint pen, with his phone trapped up between his ear and his shoulder. She saw him put his pen away and click off his call, and then he said to her, ‘Missy Smith left here at midnight exactly with the last of the customers.’

But there was no triumph in his voice. No told-you-so tone.

‘And?’ Sorenson asked.

‘One of the waitresses stayed behind to clean up. Apparently there’s a rotational system. Every night one of them gets paid until half past midnight.’

‘And that’s her number you got on your hand?’

‘Yes, it is. Her cell phone.’

‘This Mazda is a rental car,’ Sorenson said. ‘Out of state plates, barcode for the return reader, valeted twice a week.’

‘Nearest car rental depot would be the Omaha airport. I could call it in.’

‘I already did. You should call the waitress.’

So Goodman put his left palm in his headlight beam and dialled his cell with his right hand thumb.

TEN

NOT FAR INTO Iowa the Interstate went down to two lanes and got long and lonely. Exits were many miles from each other. Each one was an event in its own right. Each one was preceded by three blue boards, spaced out in sequence hundreds of feet apart, detailing first gas, and then food, and then accommodations, in a style that was half information and half advertisement. Some boards were blank. Some places had food but no gas, or gas but no motel, or an inn but no diner. Reacher knew the grammar. He had travelled most of the Interstate system. Some boards would be deceptive, leading drivers fifteen or twenty miles down dark rural roads to places that would be shut when they got there. Others would be ahead of tight knots of establishments where a driver would be spoiled for choice, Exxon or Texaco or Sunoco, Subway or McDonald’s or Cracker Barrel, Marriott or Red Roof or the Comfort Inn. It was all about lights in the distance. The deceptive exits would be dark, and the promising ones would have a red and yellow glow on the horizon.

They drove on, numb and silent and patient, and eventually Alan King chose a no-name turn not long after Des Moines.

He said, ‘This one will be fine, Don.’

There was a single brand on each of the blue boards ahead of the exit, all different. Reacher recognized none of them specifically, but all of them generically. He knew the grammar. There would be a no-name gas station, and a microwave oven and an urn of stewed coffee in a dismal hut across the street, and a faded mom-and-pop motel a mile down the road. He could see the gas station lights a mile away, blue and white in the night-time mist. A big place, probably, set up for trucks as well as cars.

Don McQueen slowed well ahead of the turn, like a jumbo jet on approach. He checked his mirror and used his signal, even though he must have known there was no one closer than a mile behind him. The asphalt on the ramp was coarse and loud. The ramp led to a two-lane county road, and then the gas station was a hundred feet away to the right, to the south, on the far shoulder, to the east. It was a big place in terms of area, but sketchy in terms of facilities. Six pumps and an air hose and an interior vacuum for regular sized vehicles, and a separate area with truck pumps and puddles of spilled diesel. No canopy. A small pay hut, and a bathroom block standing alone and distant on the edge of the lot. No food.

But sure enough, directly across the street from the gas station was a long low ramshackle barn-shaped building, with Food And Drink All Day All Night hand-painted in white on the slope of its roof, in shaky letters close to six feet high. Beyond the barn was a smaller version of the blue accommodation sign, with a discreet arrow pointing onward into the darkness towards the motel. There was knee-high night mist above the roadway, with the glitter of ice crystals in it.

McQueen drove the hundred feet on the two-lane and turned in at the gas station and eased to a stop, facing the way he had come, with the flank of the car next to a pump. He shut the motor down and dropped his hands off the wheel and sat still in the sudden silence.

Alan King said, ‘Mr Reacher, you go get us all coffee, and we’ll fill the car.’

Reacher said, ‘No, I’ll get the gas. Seems only fair.’

King smiled. ‘Gas, ass, or grass, right? The price of hitchhiking?’

‘I’m willing to pay my way.’

‘And I’d let you,’ King said. ‘But I don’t buy the gas. Not for a trip like this. This is company business, so we spend company money. I couldn’t let you subsidize the corporation I work for.’

‘Then at least let me pump it. You shouldn’t have to do all the work.’

‘You’re about to drive three hundred miles. That’s work enough.’

‘It’s cold out there.’

King said, ‘I think you want to see how much gas goes in the car. Am I right? You don’t believe my gauge is busted?’

Reacher said nothing.

King said, ‘I believe it would be minimally courteous to trust a simple factual statement made by the guy who has offered to get you a considerable part of the way to your destination.’

Reacher said nothing.

‘Coffee,’ King said. ‘Two with cream and one spoonful of sugar, plus whatever Karen wants.’

Delfuenso didn’t speak. There was a beat of silence, and King said, ‘Nothing for Karen, then.’

Reacher climbed out of the car and headed across the two-lane.

Sheriff Goodman’s call went straight to voice mail. He said, ‘The waitress’s phone is switched off.’

‘Of course it is,’ Sorenson said. ‘She’s fast asleep. She’s tired after a long evening’s work. Does she have a landline?’

‘The cell was the only number Missy Smith gave me.’

‘So call the Smith woman back and get an address. We’ll have to go bang on her door.’

‘I can’t call Missy Smith again.’

‘I think you can.’ But right then Sorenson’s own cell started ringing. A plain electronic sound. No tune. No download. She answered, and listened, and said, ‘OK,’ and clicked off again.

‘The Mazda was rented at the Denver airport,’ she said. ‘By a lone individual. My people say his DL and his credit card were phony.’

‘Why Denver?’ Goodman asked. ‘If you wanted to come here, wouldn’t you fly into Omaha and rent a car there?’

‘Denver is much bigger and much more anonymous. Their rental traffic must be twenty times Omaha’s.’

Her phone rang again. The same plain electronic sound. She answered and this time Goodman saw her back go straight. She was talking to a superior. Universal body language. She said, ‘Say that again, please?’ Then she listened a little, and then she said, ‘Yes, sir.’

And then she clicked off the call.

She said, ‘Now this thing just got weird.’

Goodman asked, ‘How?’

‘My guys over at your pumping station already transmitted the dead guy’s fingerprints. And they already came back. And along the way they lit up some computer at the State Department.’

‘The State Department? They aren’t your people. That’s foreign affairs. You belong to the Justice Department.’

‘I don’t belong to anyone.’

‘But why the State Department?’

‘We don’t know yet. The dead guy could be one of theirs. Or known to them.’

‘Like a diplomat?’

‘Or someone else’s diplomat.’

‘In Nebraska?’

‘They’re not chained to their desks.’

‘He didn’t look foreign.’

‘He didn’t look like anything. He was covered in blood.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Maximum effort,’ Sorenson said. ‘That’s what they’re asking for. Where are the two guys now?’

‘Now? They could be in a million different places.’

‘So it’s time to gamble. Before I get taken off this thing. Or supervised. One or the other is sure to happen first thing in the morning. That’s what maximum effort means. So suppose the two guys are still on the road?’

‘But which road? There are a million roads.’

‘Suppose they stayed on the Interstate?’

‘Would they?’

‘They’re probably not local. They’re probably running home right now, which could be a big distance.’

‘In which direction?’

‘Either one.’

‘You said they might be travelling separately.’

‘It’s a possibility, but a small one. Statistics show most paired perpetrators stick together after the commission of a serious crime. Human nature. They don’t necessarily trust each other to deal with the aftermath.’

‘Statistics?’

‘We find them to be a useful guide.’

‘OK, if they’re still together, and if they’re still on the Interstate, and if they went west, they must be about a quarter of the way back to Denver by now. And if they went east, they must be well into Iowa.’

‘Speed?’

‘Close to eighty, probably. Most Highway Patrols don’t get very excited by anything less than that. Not around here. Unless there’s weather. But it’s pretty clear tonight.’

Maximum effort. Gamble. Sorenson thought hard for thirty seconds and then got back on her phone and called up two final Hail Mary roadblocks on the Interstate, both to be in place in less than one hour’s time, the first in the west, a quarter of the way back to Denver plus eighty miles, and the second in the east, well into Iowa plus eighty miles. Both were to be on the lookout for two men, unspecified age, average appearance, no distinguishing marks, possible bloodstained clothing, possible possession of a bladed weapon showing signs of recent use.

ELEVEN

REACHER CAME OUT of the food shack carrying four cups of coffee in a pressed cardboard tray. He fully expected three of them to be wasted. He fully expected the car to be gone. But it wasn’t. It had moved off the pump, but it was waiting for him near the air hose and the interior vacuum, with its lights on and its engine running. Alan King was in the front passenger seat and Karen Delfuenso was behind him. Don McQueen was out of the car, standing near the driver’s door, looking cold and tired. Reacher had been right about his height and build. The guy was about six feet and slender, all arms and legs.

Reacher carried the coffee across the two-lane and gave one of the cream-and-sugars to McQueen. Then he tracked around the hood and gave the other to Alan King. Then he opened Delfuenso’s door and held out the third cup. He said, ‘Black, no sugar.’

Delfuenso hesitated a second, and then she took the cup. She said, ‘Thank you. That’s how I like it. How on earth did you know?’

Thirteen words. Which was eight more than he had heard from her so far, ever since they had met. He thought: Everyone knows thin women in their early forties don’t use cream or sugar. He said, ‘It was just a lucky guess.’

‘Thank you,’ she said again.

He stepped over to the trash barrel next to the vacuum and dumped the cardboard tray. Don McQueen opened the driver’s door for him, like a little ceremony. He slid into the seat and put his coffee in the cup holder. McQueen got in behind him.

Reacher found the lever and racked the seat back for legroom. It hit McQueen in the knees. Reacher looked at Alan King and said, ‘Why don’t you trade places with Mr McQueen? We’ve got the two tallest people one behind the other here.’

King said, ‘I always ride in front.’

‘Always?’

‘Without exception.’

So Reacher shrugged and adjusted the mirror and fastened his seat belt and got himself comfortable. Then he nudged the lever into Drive, and touched the gas, and eased out on to the two-lane, and drove the hundred feet, and took the ramp, and got back on the highway.

More proof they hadn’t been driving three hours.

No one had used the restroom.

Sheriff Goodman clicked off his cell and said, ‘Now Missy Smith has got her phone shut down.’

Sorenson nodded. ‘It’s late. The civilians are asleep. Do you know where she lives?’

No answer from Goodman. Wariness in his silence.

‘Obviously you know where she lives,’ Sorenson said. ‘She’s been here for ever. She’s a well known character. We’ll have to go bang on her door, before we go bang on the waitress’s door.’

Goodman said, ‘We can’t go bang on Missy Smith’s door. Not in the middle of the night.’

Sorenson didn’t answer that. She had taken a small sideways step, leftward from the red Mazda’s driver’s-side flank, and she was looking at an angle through the gap between the cocktail lounge and the cinder block bar. She said, ‘I can see the gas station from here. Across the street.’

Goodman said, ‘So?’

‘Anyone over there could see me.’

‘You thinking about witnesses? We’d be pretty lucky if some long haul trucker was pumping his gas at the exact minute our guys arrived here and took off again. And was gazing in the right direction, and was paying close attention instead of scratching his butt. And anyway, how would we find him?’

‘No, I’m thinking the gas station might have cameras. Maybe wide-angle. Like fisheyes. They might see over here.’

Goodman said nothing.

‘Does the gas station have cameras?’

‘I don’t know,’ Goodman said.

‘It might,’ Sorenson said. ‘Some of those big trucks take a hundred gallons. And times are hard right now. Drivers might be tempted to take off before paying. Oil companies wouldn’t like that. They might take defensive measures.’

‘We should go find out.’

‘We will,’ Sorenson said. ‘And then we’ll go bang on Missy Smith’s door. Don’t think we won’t. The old gal can sleep a little more, but not for ever.’

Reacher was an adequate driver, but nothing more than that. Physically his body worked only two ways: either extremely slow or extremely fast. Most of the time he rumbled along with typical big-man languor, often appearing quiet and lazy, sometimes appearing positively comatose. Then if necessary he could explode into furious action, for as long as it took, a blur of hands and feet, and then he would lapse back into torpor. He had no middle setting, and a middle setting was what good driving needed. Action and reaction had to be prompt but controlled, alert but measured, rapid but considered, and it was hard for Reacher to identify that kind of middle ground. Typically he found himself either twitching at a danger two hundred yards ahead, or ignoring it completely, on the grounds that it might go away by itself. He had never killed or injured anyone with a car, except deliberately, but he was a realistic man and didn’t kid himself: his driving was much worse than average.

But as promised the Interstate was straight and wide, back up to three lanes again by that point, and the big soft Chevrolet held its line very well. Night-time traffic was very light and neither action nor reaction was much called for. In fact the biggest challenge was to stay awake, but Reacher was good at that. He could grind along at some basic level of consciousness more or less for ever. He kept both hands on the wheel, ten and two, and he checked his mirrors regularly every twenty or so seconds, first the passenger door, then the windshield mirror, then the driver’s door, then the windshield again. Behind his right shoulder Karen Delfuenso sat awake but silent, tense and anxious, and next to her Reacher could hear Don McQueen breathing slow, not quite asleep but not quite awake either. Alan King was awake in the passenger seat, looking mute and morose and a little preoccupied. His head was half turned, so he could see the road ahead and Reacher together, and the speedometer too, Reacher thought.

So Reacher drove on, at an approximately legal speed, with the crystal pendant on the key tapping him on the knee from time to time, as the car rocked and swayed.

It turned out that the gas station had four cameras, all of them monochrome, none of them colour. They fed a hard disk recorder located on a shelf in the booth behind the register, right next to the cigarettes. The four separate feeds were displayed in real time on a quad-split LCD screen to the left of the cash drawer.

Three of the cameras were of no interest to Sorenson. The first and the second were mounted low down at the vehicle entrance and exit, to capture plate numbers. They were zoomed in too tight to show any background. The third camera was mounted in the ceiling of the cashier’s booth itself, high up behind the guy’s right shoulder, to make sure he wasn’t ripping the place off. Standard practice, in a cash business. Trust but verify.

But the fourth camera was better. Marginally. It was a black glass hemisphere mounted high on a bracket halfway up the sign pole. It was dialled back to a wide-angle view of the whole property. For insurance purposes, the cashier said. If two semi-trucks backed up and got their trailers tangled, it was useful to know which one had moved first. If someone stole gas or diesel, it was useful to show the court a composite narrative, the plate number entering, the guy pumping, the guy driving away, the plate number leaving.

The field of view from the fourth camera was wide enough to show the county two-lane heading north and south, and the gravel patch beyond its far shoulder in front of the cinder block bar, and the cinder block bar itself, and part of Missy Smith’s cocktail lounge, and the gap between those two buildings. The way the fishbowl distortion tilted the picture made it look like the camera was peering more or less horizontally into the gap. Bright pools of light were visible on the live feed, right at the edge of the shot, from the deputies’ parked vehicles.

Picture quality was not great. The night-time world was shown in shades of grey. Lights from passing cars bled and smeared and fluoresced and lagged their sources’ lateral movement.

But it was better than nothing.

Maximum effort. Gamble.

‘OK,’ Sorenson said. ‘Show me how to rewind this thing.’