Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(106)

No sign of a partner.

Reacher moved on. As always he believed in staying flexible, but as always he also had a plan. Which in this case was to stab the guy in the neck with an arrow. Which would be easy enough. Because arm’s length was game over. But flexibility intervened. Up close, even in glimpsed slivers between trees, it was clear the guy was worried in a particular kind of way. An elemental way. Like a billionaire whose plane crashes on an uninhabited island. Or whose car gets in a fender bender in the wrong neighborhood. The food chain. Suddenly not as high as he thought. Maybe ready to make a deal.

Reacher rushed him, and the guy reacted by jerking his bow up, probably nothing more than animal instinct, not a considered decision, which was a shame, because just in case Reacher had to scythe his arrow down, like a knife on a stick, to slash all four of the guy’s left-hand knuckles. The guy howled and dropped the bow, and Reacher stepped real close, their optical tubes colliding, and he kicked the guy behind the knees, so that he fell over on his back, whereupon Reacher flipped the guy’s night vision up with his foot, and then jammed the same foot on the guy’s throat, and forced the tip of the arrow between his lips, and tapped it on his teeth.

“Want to talk?” he whispered.

The guy couldn’t answer in words, because of the arrow jammed against his teeth, or in gestures either, because of the foot jammed against his throat. Instead he kind of nodded with his eyes. Some kind of desperate plea. Some kind of promise.

Reacher withdrew the arrow.

He asked, “Who are you hunting?”

The guy said, “This is not what it seems.”

“How so?”

“I came here to hunt wild boar.”

“And what are you hunting instead?”

“I was deceived.”

“What are you hunting?”

“People,” the guy said. “Not what I came for.”

“How many people?”

“Two.”

“Who are they?”

“Canadians,” the guy said. “A young couple. Their names are Patty Sundstrom and Shorty Fleck. They got stranded here. I was tricked into it. I was told wild boar. They lied to me.”

“Who lied to you?”

“A man named Mark. He owns this place.”

“Mark Reacher?”

“I don’t know his last name.”

“Why didn’t you call the cops?”

“No cell service here. No phones in the room.”

“Why haven’t you run away?”

The guy didn’t answer.

“Why didn’t you stay in your room tonight and refuse to participate?”

No response.

“Why are you nevertheless stalking around in the dark with your bow and arrow?”

No answer.

“Wait,” Reacher said.

He heard a car up ahead. He saw bright jagged shards of amplified light coming through the trees. A big vehicle with its headlights on. He flipped up his tube. The world went dark, all except for the track, thirty feet to his right. It was all lit up, like the inside of a long low tunnel. Twin high beams were punching forward. A Mercedes rolled by. It was shiny black, a big SUV, shaped like a fist. Its tail lights showed red for a moment. Then it was gone.

Reacher dropped his tube back in place. The world went green and highly detailed again. He shifted his foot on the guy’s neck. To make room. For the tip of the arrow. He steadied it against the welt of his shoe, and exerted modest downward pressure. The guy tried to scream, but Reacher trod harder and stopped him.

The guy said, “I didn’t know what I was getting into. I swear. I’m a banker. I’m not like these other guys. I’m a victim too.”

“You’re a banker?”

“I run a hedge fund. These other guys are nothing to do with me.”

“I guess the world has moved on,” Reacher said. “You seem to expect better treatment because you’re a banker. When did that become a thing? I guess I blinked and missed it.”

“I didn’t know they were hunting people.”

“I think you did,” Reacher said. “I think that’s why you came.”

He leaned harder on the arrow, and harder, until it pierced the skin, and drove down through the neck, clipping the spine, and out again the other side, pinning the guy like a dead butterfly against the forest floor. Against a tree root, by the feel of it. Gnarled and hard. But Reacher strained and leaned and pushed until the arrow was solidly rooted, and perfectly upright, like a monument.

Then he moved on through the trees.

—

Mark stopped his Mercedes nose to nose with the tow truck. He had run the numbers. There was a maximum four people technically still unaccounted for. Who were Karel and the Wall Street guy, plus Patty and Shorty themselves. Plus hypothetically a fifth person, if the outside pair had been victims of a third party. Of the big guy, perhaps, come back again. Because he had spotted something. Because he had been unconvinced.

Peter’s fault.

Four people. Or five. All up ahead. Maybe a long way ahead. He needed three short minutes. That was all. Maybe less. He needed to reverse the tow truck out to the road, high speed, into a ditch if necessary, anything to get it out the way, and then he needed to sprint back, and hop in his car, and blast off. To anywhere. North, south, east or west. Three minutes, maybe less. That was all. But, five people, in locations unknown, each location being either more than three minutes away, which wasn’t a problem, or less than, which was.