Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(85)

He said, “I’m going to go take a look at what they got up there.”

“How?” Burke said.

“I’m going to walk.”

“Your map showed this track is more than two miles long.”

“I need a place to sleep. Also I’m curious.”

“About what?”

“I think the guy who got in the fight about the permit was a kid named Reacher.”

“How do you know?”

“It was in the police computer. A squad car had to go calm things down. A year and a half ago.”

“Are you related?”

“I don’t know. Maybe as much as I am to the professor from the university.”

“Do you want company?”

“We could be walking two miles back again, if we don’t get lucky.”

“That’s OK,” Burke said. “I guess now I’m curious too.”

They set out together. By geographic map-making standards the land was dead flat, which made walking easy, but up close and personal the track was uneven and pitted, which made it hard. Every step was an inch and a half higher or lower than the one before, which meant any step could become a stumble. At one early point they passed through a grassy ring, where no trees were growing. It was maybe sixty feet wide. It seemed to curve away, in both directions, as if it ran in a circle all the way around. As if it defined an inner part of forest. A woods within a woods. It was like a giant crop circle, but carved out of sixty-foot maple trees, not stalks of corn. All the way across they felt the warmth of the sun. Then the cold green shadow claimed them again. They had crossed the boundary. Now they were in the inner forest. They were in the woods within the woods. They were walking toward its center.

Two miles would have taken Reacher thirty minutes, but they took Burke forty-five. They came out of the trees together, and they saw the track run on ahead, through a couple of grassy acres, to what looked like a dirt parking lot in front of what was indisputably a motel. It had an office at the left-hand end, and a station wagon and a panel van and a compact car and a pick-up truck, all parked at intervals outside the rooms.

They set out walking toward it.

—

They were instantly detected. Two separate ways. Robert had copied a facial recognition algorithm from a photo chip and coded it into the close-up camera. As soon as the algorithm detected a face among the trees it rang a bell and flashed a light, like a distant early warning. Like radar. Persons approaching. But by chance Steven was watching the right screen anyway, as part of a disciplined rotation through the points of the compass. The movement caught his eye. He saw two men step out of the shadows and into the sunshine.

He said, “Mark, look at this.”

Mark looked.

And said, “Who the hell are they?”

Robert zoomed the camera all the way. The image trembled with distance, and wavered with haze. Two guys were walking toward the lens. Head on. Seemingly making no progress, because of the extreme telephoto. One guy was small and old. Slightly built, and slow. Denim jacket, gray hair. The other guy was huge. As wide as a door. Hair sticking up all over. A face like the side of a house.

He looked rough.

Mark said, “Shit.”

Steven said, “You told us he wouldn’t come here. You said he was a different branch of the family. You said he wouldn’t be interested.”

Mark didn’t answer.

Then Peter buzzed through from the office. His voice came out of the intercom speaker. He said, “But actually it turns out the guy was interested enough to walk two whole miles past the roadblock. Good call, bro.”

Again Mark didn’t answer.

He was quiet a long moment more.

Then he said, “Keep everyone inside the house. Give them all another cup of coffee. Show them another video. Keep the doors closed. Make sure no one leaves.”





Chapter 32


Burke and Reacher stepped off the last of the blacktop onto the dirt of the motel lot. By then they had a pretty good close-up view of what was waiting ahead. Reacher heard Amos’s voice in his mind, talking about LSD in her coffee. Now he knew what she meant. Because up close the panel van parked second in line from the motel office turned out to be blue. A dark, dignified shade. Enhanced and explained by curls of gold writing. Persian carpets. Expert cleaning. A Boston address. A Massachusetts license plate.

The biggest déjà vu in history.

Except not exactly, because he hadn’t actually seen the van before. He had only heard about it on the radio. It had been caught by the cameras, coming off the highway, too early for a residential customer. Whereas he had actually seen the tow truck before. That was for damn sure. Two separate times. That really was déjà vu all over again. He had squeezed past a truck he had seen twice before, and then the very next vehicle he came upon was a van he had heard about on a police dispatcher’s broadcast. He slowed half a step, automatically, thinking. Burke got a step in front of him, and walked on ahead, slow but unflagging.

Beyond him Reacher saw that the station wagon parked first in line was a Volvo, with a Vermont plate on the back. The small compact was blue, probably an import, with a plate he didn’t know. The pick-up truck was a workhorse. It was the kind of thing a carpenter would use, to get boards in the back. It was dirty white. It had what he thought was an Illinois plate. Hard to be sure, given the distance. It was last in line. It was outside of what would be room eleven. The Volvo was outside of three, and the carpet van outside of seven. The small blue import was outside of ten. Ten’s window blind was down, and five’s lawn chair had been used. It had been scooted out of line.