Chapter 24

Dawn came up bright and clear, and a patrolman came by to take breakfast orders, from a diner two blocks down the street. Reacher chose a fried egg sandwich. Ten minutes later it arrived, still hot in greasy aluminum foil. It tasted pretty good. Maybe a little rubbery. Nutritious, anyway. Protein, carbohydrate, grease. All the food groups. He got more coffee from the squad room pot. No one was in there. Day watch was an hour away.

There was a feed from the radio room playing softly through a speaker on someone’s empty desk. Reacher went closer and listened. There were slow blasts of static, like breathing, and call signs and code words and addresses that meant nothing, but he caught the drift. A dispatcher was talking to two separate squad cars. The dispatcher was probably down the hall, and the squad cars seemed to be circling the center of town. One of them seemed to be right behind the Chrysler, and the other seemed to be tracking them both, from a block away. Reacher figured the regular night watch would be just one car. They were spending overtime money.

A voice that could have been Davison’s broke in and said, “Now he’s in the drive-through lane for coffee.”

“That’s good,” the dispatcher said. “It means sooner rather than later he’ll need to take a leak. Maybe you can get a look at him.”

No need, Reacher thought. He would be about five-ten tall, and five-nine wide, in a dark cashmere overcoat and a pink button-down shirt, with greasy black hair slicked back, and aviator shades and a gold chain around his neck. Like central casting. Whatever caught the eye.

Then a new voice said, “The cameras at the highway cloverleaf show a Massachusetts plate heading our way. On a dark blue panel van. A Persian carpet cleaning company out of Boston. If it doesn’t turn off, it’s about ten minutes away.”

“Back burner,” the dispatcher said. “We’re going to get plenty of clutter. We’re going to get FedEx and UPS and all kinds of things.”

The static breathed in and out. Reacher had seen Persian carpets. Mostly in old houses, or rich houses, or old rich houses. He knew they were expensive. He knew they were often treasured heirlooms. Therefore cleaning them was a delicate matter. Experts were no doubt few and far between. So it was immediately plausible that a discerning customer in Laconia would need to send to Boston for a satisfactory service. Pick-up and drop-off included, no doubt, in the same all-in-one delicate and expert price.

All good.

Except.

He topped up his coffee and headed back to Amos’s office. She was at her desk, with her hand on the phone, as if she had just put it down, or couldn’t remember who she wanted to call.

He said, “I heard the radio in the squad room.”

She nodded.

“I got an update,” she said. “The decoy is getting drive-through coffee.”

“And a blue van came off the highway.”

“That too.”

“Got an opinion?”

“It’s a van,” she said. “I can think of a hundred reasons why it’s OK.”

“Ninety-nine,” Reacher said.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“How many Persian carpets have you seen?”

“A few.”

“Where?”

“An old lady we used to visit. In a big old house. We were told to call her an aunt. We weren’t allowed to touch anything.”

“Exactly. An old biddy. A rich old fussbudget. No doubt very organized. Probably she gets her mahogany polished at the same time her rug is out for cleaning. Which happens every time the latest labrador dies. When she also has her great-grandmother’s china washed. What’s the earliest time of day such a grand New Hampshire lady would be prepared to receive tradespeople at her door?”

Amos said nothing.

“The van is too early,” Reacher said. “That’s what’s wrong with it. It’s just after dawn. It’s not making a customer call in Laconia.”

“Want me to have it stopped?”

“I don’t care,” Reacher said. “I’ll survive either way. But if it’s the guy, you could get a nice bust out of it. He’s got to be carrying. Probably a big shotgun, if he seriously expects me to get in the van with him.”

“You’re about the size of a rolled-up rug,” she said. “From a big room. Maybe this is how they move people now. Since the new cars came out, with the smaller trunks.”

Reacher didn’t know if she was kidding or not.

“Up to you,” he said. “Taking a look might put your mind at rest.”

“I would need a SWAT team, if you’re right about the shotgun.”

Reacher didn’t answer. She thought for a moment, and then she picked up the phone. She said to whoever answered, “Keep eyes on the blue van from the carpet cleaner. Let me know where it goes.”

An hour later the work day was fully underway. The new watch was in. The station was bustling and crowded. Reacher kept out of the way. He heard a patchwork of news, some of it from the radio feed, which was still playing softly, and some of it from people calling out updates to each other, desk to desk across busy rooms, and some of it by eavesdropping on hurried corridor conversations. The decoy in the Chrysler was still driving around, ostentatiously legal, taking scrupulous care at every four-way, yielding and deferring to pedestrians and local drivers every chance he got. He had not yet stopped for gas. Or the bathroom. Opinion was divided as to which was the more impressive feat.

But they had lost the blue van. By then they had three squad cars out, one behind the Chrysler, and two patrolling the southern approaches, and the van had been seen once, but not again. Opinion was divided between two competing theories. Either the van had parked in a carefully hidden location, perhaps an alley or a courtyard, which automatically made it suspicious, or else it had driven straight through town and exited to the northwest, perhaps to service an address in a close-by community, which automatically didn’t.

Reacher wondered if the apple farmer had a Persian carpet in his house.

Amos said, “It’s nearly time for you to go.”

He said, “Maybe I’ll walk through a couple of alleys and courtyards.”

“You won’t walk through anywhere. I’m going to drive you. In a marked car. No one would be dumb enough to attack a police vehicle.”

“Are you worried about me?”

“Purely in an operational sense. I want you out of here. Definitively. Once and for all. No delays. Because then my problem is solved. For avoidance of doubt I want to see it happen with my own eyes.”

“Maybe after that you should go stop the decoy and let him know it’s all over. He might be grateful. He must be desperate for a leak by now.”

“Maybe I will.”

“You could tell him which way I went. Tell him I’d like to meet him. And his pal in the van.”

“Let it go,” she said. “This ain’t the MPs anymore.”

“Is that how you feel?”

“Mostly,” she said.

She made a couple of arrangements on the phone, and then she grabbed her bag and led Reacher out to the lot, where she chose a black and white still wet from the car wash. The keys were in it. Reacher rode in the front, cramped by the laptop and the custom compartments. He gave her directions, to the corner before the side street where the inn was. Where he had gotten out, the day before. All the way there he watched the traffic. Didn’t see a blue van. Didn’t see a black Chrysler, either. There was a late rush hour jam at one of the lights. Amos checked her watch. Getting close. She lit up her roof bar and slipped through in the wrong lane.

And there dead ahead was the ancient Subaru. Waiting at the curb. On the right spot. At the right time. Inside was a familiar skinny silhouette. Blue denim, a pencil neck, and a long gray ponytail.

“Is that him?” Amos asked.

“Sure is,” Reacher said.

“Maybe I did something good in a previous life.”

She pulled in behind the Subaru. The silhouette jerked its head. Like it was suddenly staring in the mirror. Then the Subaru took off. Instantly. It disappeared out from in front of them. It howled off the curb and blasted down the street.

Maximum acceleration.

Amos said, “What?”

“Chase him,” Reacher said. “Go, go, go.”

She glanced over her shoulder and stamped on the gas and took off in pursuit.

She said, “What just happened?”

“You scared him,” Reacher said. “Your red lights were still on. Like you were pulling him over.”

“He was stationary.”

“Maybe he thought you were busting him.”

“Why would I? Was he on a hydrant?”

“Maybe he’s got weed in the car. Or secret documents. Or something. Maybe he thinks you’re an agent of deep state oppression. We’re dealing with an old guy with a ponytail here.”

They followed him a hundred yards behind, then eighty, then fifty, then twenty. The Subaru was doing its valiant best, but it was no match for a modern-day police vehicle. With lights and a siren. Then up ahead the Subaru turned right. It was lost to sight for ten or twelve agonizing seconds, but they turned after it, and saw it turning again, at the end of the block.

“He’s heading home,” Reacher said. “Somewhere north and west of here.”

Amos took a shortcut on a block she knew better, and came out right on the Subaru’s bumper. A one way street. Up ahead was a red light, and another small jam. Two lanes of traffic, five cars on the left, and six on the right. The tail end of rush hour. The light went green, but nobody moved. Someone was blocking the box. Not a blue van. Not a black Chrysler. The Subaru braked hard and swerved into the shorter line. Now he was the sixth car on the left, one inch behind the fifth. Amos stopped one inch behind him. On his left was the sidewalk, and on his right was the right-hand queue of vehicles, just as long, just as stopped. He was parked tighter than Paris.

Amos said, “Technically he committed a number of offenses.”

“Let it go,” Reacher said. “And thanks for everything.”

He got out of the car and walked ahead. He tapped on the Subaru’s passenger window. The old guy stared ahead for a long moment, absolutely refusing to look, rigid with principle, but eventually, and reluctantly, he glanced to his right. At which point he looked very surprised. He glanced back at the flashing lights. He was confused. He didn’t understand.

Reacher opened the door and got in the car.

“She gave me a ride,” he said. “That’s all. She didn’t mean to startle you.”

Up ahead the light cycled back to green, and this time the traffic moved. The guy drove forward, with one eye on his mirror. Behind him Amos pulled a wide U turn around the light and headed back the way she had come. Reacher turned in his seat and watched her go.

The old guy said, “Why would a cop give you a ride?”

“Protective custody,” Reacher said. “The folks from the apple farm were in town last night.”

The explanation seemed to settle the guy. He nodded.

“I told you,” he said. “That family doesn’t let things go.”

“Back there,” Reacher said. “You shouldn’t have run. Not a smart tactic. The cops will always get you in the end.”

“Were you a cop?”

“In the army,” Reacher said. “Long ago.”

“I know I shouldn’t have run,” the guy said. “But it’s an old habit.”

He said nothing more. He just drove on. Reacher watched the traffic. No blue van. They made a left and a right. They seemed to be heading north and west. Toward the apple farm itself. And Ryantown. That general area.

Reacher said, “Did you make the arrangements?”

“They’re expecting us.”

“Thank you.”

“Visiting hours start at ten.”

“Great.”

“The old man’s name is Mr. Mortimer.”

“Good to know,” Reacher said.

They found the main drag out of town, and two miles later turned left, on the road Reacher had seen the day before. The road that led to the place with no water. They followed it west, through woods, past fields. Reacher watched out his window. In the far distance on his right lay Bruce Jones’s acres, with his twelve dogs, and then came the orchards, and Ryantown itself, overgrown and ghostly.

He said, “How much further?”

“Nearly there,” the guy said.

Two miles later on the left Reacher saw a shape. Way far in the distance. Some kind of a new development. Long low buildings, laid out in a virgin field. There were crisp blacktop roads with bright white markings. There were newly planted trees, looking pale and slender and delicate, next to their natural gnarly neighbors. The buildings were bland stucco, with metal windows, and white aluminum rainwater pipes that kinked at the bottom and ran away to spouts a yard into the grass. There was a sign at the main entrance. Something about assisted living.

“This is it,” the old guy said.

The clock in Reacher’s head hit ten exactly.

The third arrival was as stealthy and self contained as the first. The gentleman in question drove himself from a large house in a small town in a rural region of Pennsylvania. Initially he was in a car reported scrapped in western New York four months previously. He had prepared well ahead of time. He believed preparedness was everything. The whole journey had been rehearsed, over and over in his mind. He had looked for snags and problems. He wanted to be ready. He had two overarching aims. He didn’t want to be caught, and he didn’t want to be late.

The plan was about anonymity, of course, and cut outs, and untraceability. Had to be. Stage one was to drive non-stop in the paperless car to a friend’s place in back of a service station off the Mass Pike, just west of Boston. He knew the guy from a different community. A different shared interest. A tight, passionate group of guys. Secret and embattled. Loyal and helpful. They made a point of it. Like a fetish. What a fellow member wanted, a fellow member got. No questions asked.

The friend’s day job was trading commercial vehicles. He bought them at auction, after they came off lease. For resale. They came and went, clean and dirty, used and abused, banged up and not a scratch. On any given day he had a couple dozen around. On that particular day he had three clear favorites. All panel vans, all ordinary, all invisible. No one paid attention to a panel van. A panel van was a hole in the air.

The best example was tidy in appearance and dark blue in color. With gold signwriting. It had come in not long before, as a repo, from a bankrupt carpet cleaner in the city. Once a very upscale operation, by the look of it. Persian rugs. Hence the gold signwriting and the high standard of maintenance. The man from Pennsylvania loaded his stuff in it, and started it up. He set the GPS on his phone. He drove north. The route took him on the highway for a spell, then off near Manchester, New Hampshire, and onward to the back of beyond, through a small town named Laconia.

Where he got scared. Where he nearly quit. He saw two cop cars, clearly eyeballing everyone coming in from the south. Searching. Staring at him. As if they knew all about him ahead of time. As if someone had dropped a dime. He panicked and pulled over in an alley, and stopped in a loading bay behind a store. He checked his e-mail. His secret account, on his secret phone. The webmail page, with the translations in the foreign alphabets.

There was no cancelation message.

No warnings, no alerts.

He took a deep breath. He knew the scene. Any such community had a failsafe. An emergency one-click button, first thing to get to, guaranteed, no matter what else was going down. It would generate an automatic message. Maybe innocuous, to be on the safe side, but to be understood as a code. The children are under the weather today. Something like that.

There was no such message.

He checked again.

No message.

He backed out of the alley and drove on. He was quickly out of town. He didn’t see the police cars again. He relaxed. Straight away he felt better. In fact he felt good. He felt he was earning it. He was facing dangers. He drove through woods and past horse fields and cow fields. On his left a shallow turn led away through apple orchards, but his phone said not to take it. He kept on straight, ten more open miles, and then the woods came back, for another ten. The van rushed along, almost brushing the trees. They met overhead. It was a green and secret world.

Then his phone told him the final turn was fast approaching, in half a mile on the left, a thread-like track curling away an inch into the forest. He took it, and thumped onward over blacktop missing some of its surface. He ran over a wire, that he figured rang a bell somewhere.

Two miles later he came out in a clearing. The motel was dead ahead. There was a Volvo wagon outside of what must have been room three. As anonymous as a panel van. There was a guy in a lawn chair outside of room five. No visible means of transportation. Outside of room ten was a blue Honda Civic. Weird looking plates. Maybe foreign.

He met Mark in the office. For the first time, face to face. They had corresponded, of course. He got room seven. He parked the van. The guy in the lawn chair watched. He put his bags in the room, and then he stepped back out to the light. He nodded to the guy in the lawn chair. But he strolled the other way, through the lot, to room ten. Important. Like a ceremony. His first look. At nothing much, as it turned out. Room ten’s window blind was down. There was silence inside. Nothing was happening.