Part 21 (1/2)

'I had a brother two years older. He worked for the Treasury Department. He was killed in the line of duty.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Not your fault.'

'Do you always deflect sympathy that way?'

'Usually.'

'So you're the last of your family's line.'

'I suppose so. But it wasn't much of a line in the first place.'

'Just like me. Scoundrels, all of them.'

'Where were your gold mines?'

'The Black Hills. Why?'

'Peterson thinks the army place west of here could be mostly underground. I was wondering if there were old workings they could have used.'

'No mines here. Just prairie topsoil and rock.'

'Were your parents alive when you went off to college?'

'Why?'

'Because if they were, they probably wrote you with all the local news. Maybe rumour and gossip, too. They must have told you something about that place. Maybe not exact enough for your scholarly mind to pa.s.s on as fact, but you must have heard some little thing.'

'Nothing worth repeating.'

'Try me.'

'All I know is that it was built and never used. Apparently because its purpose was too revolting. There was a minor scandal about it.'

'What was its purpose?'

'I don't know. No one spoke of it to me.'

Five minutes to midnight.

Twenty-eight hours to go.

n.o.body came.

A thousand miles away down in Texas two fast cars covered the fifty miles south from Hood in less than forty minutes. Six men in the cars, all warrant officers working for the 110th Special Unit, all currently W3s, all wanting to be W4s, all well aware that this kind of a.s.signment could get them their promotions. They pulled off the main drag south and wheeled through the centre of Georgetown and found the bus depot. It was middle-of-the-night quiet. Cool air, trash, the stink of spilled diesel. Nothing coming in, nothing going out. They parked their cars a block farther on next to p.a.w.n shops and bail bond offices and hustled back the way they had come. They counted the motels. The first was a brick place behind a parking lot that was covered with broken blacktop. The second was right next to it, set end-on to the street, made of red wood, twelve rooms, a sign on a pole advertising free cable and free breakfast and no vacancies.

An office, first door on the left.

A clerk in the office, half awake.

A pa.s.s key, in the desk drawer.

The six W3s split up, three to the rear, three to the front. One of the front guys stood back, ready for anything. The other two entered every room, bold as you like, guns drawn, for close-up in-their-face flashlight examinations of the somnolent forms they found.

All twelve rooms.

Their man wasn't there.

Reacher prowled through Janet Salter's house one more time. By that point he was totally accustomed to its sounds. The creak of the boards, the creak of the stairs, an occluded right-angle joint in a steam pipe that hissed louder than all the others, a window sash that trembled a little in its frame because of the freshening wind. The smell of the air was changing. Tiny eddying draughts were stirring odours out of the rugs and the drapes. They were not unpleasant. Just old. Dyed wool, dusty velvet, mothb.a.l.l.s, beeswax furniture polish, cigar smoke, pipe tobacco. Ancient, deep aromas, like an olfactory portrait of how prosperous frontier families used to live. Reacher sensed them behind the local mineral smell from the new oil on the gun he was carrying with him everywhere.

He came back to the parlour. Janet Salter's gun was still in her pocket. Her hand was still resting on its b.u.t.t. He asked her, 'You still OK?'

She said with great formality, 'I have reached the conclusion that I am privileged.'

'In what way?'

'I'm experiencing the chance to live out my principles. I believe that ordinary citizens must confront wickedness. But I believe in due process, too. I believe in an accused's right to a fair trial and I believe in his right to confront the witnesses against him. But it's so easy to talk the talk, isn't it? Not everyone gets the opportunity to walk the walk. But now I am.'

'You're doing great,' Reacher said.

He eased past her to the window.

Saw the wild bounce of headlight beams on the street.

A car, coming on fast.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

IT WAS P PETERSON, LEADING WHAT LOOKED LIKE MOST OF THE B BOLTON PD. Six cars, seven, eight. Then a ninth. They jammed and slid and crunched to a stop all over the road. Twelve cops spilled out, then thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. They drew their weapons and formed up for an approach driven partly by desperate haste and partly by extreme caution. Because they had no idea what they were going to find. PD. Six cars, seven, eight. Then a ninth. They jammed and slid and crunched to a stop all over the road. Twelve cops spilled out, then thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. They drew their weapons and formed up for an approach driven partly by desperate haste and partly by extreme caution. Because they had no idea what they were going to find.

Either tranquillity, or a double homicide.

Reacher stepped out to the hallway and lined up on the hinge side of the front door. He flung it open and stayed well out of sight. He didn't want to get fired on by mistake. Fifteen nervous cops made for an unpredictable situation.

He called, 'Peterson? This is Reacher. We're all clear.'

No answer.

He tried again. 'Peterson?'

Icy air flooded in. Peterson's voice came with it. 'Reacher?'

Reacher called back, 'All clear in here. Holster your weapons and come on in.'