Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(83)

It was a perfect roadblock.

He turned again and looked ahead and waited. Four minutes later Steven showed up in his black SUV. The Mercedes. He looked out the window at the truck. To the left of it, to the right of it, below it, above it. As if he was judging it. As if there was a whole lot of choice exactly how to position it. Karel loaded his bags. Steven backed up to a hole in the trees and turned the car around. They drove on.

Karel said, “Happy so far?”

Steven said, “Shorty smashed up the bathroom.”

“A small price to pay.”

“Mark wants a favor. We screwed up with their window blind. Now we got tension between the guys who saw them already and the guys who didn’t. Their heads would explode if they knew you had actually talked to them. Or been in the same room as them. Or touched them, or something.”

“I didn’t touch them,” Karel said. “And I wasn’t in the same room. I stayed outside. I talked to them, sure.”

“Mark wants you to act like you didn’t. He wants you to balance it out, three and three. He thinks that will keep the situation under control.”

“Got it,” Karel said.

They drove out through the meadow. Peter was in the office. Karel got room two. OK with him. The room didn’t matter. He put his bags inside. He said hi to the other guys. They were all gathering. They stumped around and swapped stories. Karel made out he had never been there before. He told them he was Russian, just for the fun of it. He asked all the right wide-eyed questions about Patty and Shorty, as if he had never seen them before. He found himself secretly agreeing with some of the answers. Then the two guys who hadn’t seen them yet got a little disgruntled all over again, which Karel quelled simply by siding with them. The natural three-and-three balance calmed things down. Maybe Mark was right.

Then Peter stuck his head out the office door, and called down the row to say everyone was invited to walk over to the house, for a cup of coffee, and an introductory briefing, and a look at the video highlights from the last three days. So they all wandered over, just strolling, feeling good. Starting to believe. The party was complete. All six of them were present. They were sealed off from the world. It was real. It was happening. It wasn’t a scam. Deep down they all thought it would be. But it wasn’t. It was true and it was hours away. First sheer relief welled and bloomed, like a tide, and then buzzing excitement took over, a little breathless, a little gulped, to be resisted, to be controlled, because nothing was certain yet, because disappointment was always possible, because chickens should not be counted.

But they were starting to believe.





Chapter 31


Burke and Reacher drove back on the same road, west toward Ryantown. Reacher watched the bars on Burke’s old phone. When they dropped from three to two he asked Burke to pull over on the shoulder, so he could call Amos again, before service ran out completely. He dialed, and she answered, on the third ring.

She said, “Where are you now?”

“Don’t worry,” Reacher said. “I’m still out of town.”

“We can’t find Carrington.”

“Where have you looked?”

“His home, his office, the coffee shop he likes, the lunch places he goes.”

“Did he tell his office he would be out?”

“Not a word.”

“Does he have a cell phone?”

“He’s not answering.”

“Try the city records department,” Reacher said. “Ask for Elizabeth Castle.”

“Why?”

“She’s his new girlfriend. Maybe he’s hanging out over there.”

He heard her call across the room, Elizabeth Castle, city records.

He asked, “Any sign of the guy from Boston?”

She said, “We’ve been running every plate we’ve seen, in and out of town. We have automatic software now. Nothing yet.”

“Want me to come back to help?”

“No,” she said.

“I could walk around and flush the guy out.”

“No,” she said again.

He heard someone shouting a message.

She said, “Elizabeth Castle is not at work either.”

“I need to come back to town.”

“No,” she said, for the third time.

“Last chance,” he said. “I’m about to head north to a motel. I’m going to lose cell service.”

“Do not come back to town.”

“OK,” he said. “But in exchange I need you to do something for me.”

“Like what?”

“I need you to look at ancient history on your computer again.”

“I already have plenty to do today.”

“It only takes a minute. You have a really good system there.”

“Are you flattering me?”

“Did you design the system?”

“No.”

“Then no, I’m not. All I’m saying is it won’t take much time. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked. I know you’re extremely busy.”

“Now you’re respecting me to death. What would I be looking for?”

“Check the files after that thing with my father, seventy-five years ago. The next twenty-four months, until September 1945.”