Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(96)

Hunting, said the back part of his brain.

OK, said the front part. Maybe a protected species. A bear cub, or something. Highly illegal. Maybe that was the victim.

Except a bear cub didn’t drive an import or hide with the blind down.

He stopped in the dark and shuffled off the track. He stood six feet in the trees. Way up ahead he heard a bike. Not moving. Idling in place. Waiting. No headlight. Then it shut down. The silence became total again. Overhead where the canopy was thin there were slivers of steel-gray sky. Moonlight on low cloud.

Reacher moved up through the trees, following the track, six feet from its edge.

—

Patty sat on the ground, with her back against a tree. She stared across at the motel. The blind side. The back wall. Where they had started.

“You OK?” Shorty said again.

She thought, if they see you early, they might just track you for a spell.

Out loud she said, “Sit down, Shorty. Rest when you can. This could be a long night.”

He sat down. The next tree.

He said, “We’ll get better at it.”

“No, we won’t,” she said. “Not without a compass. It’s impossible. We tried three straight lines and ended up walking a pretzel.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to wake up and find this has all been a horrible dream.”

“Apart from that.”

“I want to go east. I think the track is the only way. Alongside, in the trees. So we don’t get lost. Any other direction is futile. We could wander all night.”

“They know that.”

“They always knew. They knew sooner or later we have no alternative but to try the track. Our last resort. We should have known too. We were stupid. Thirty square miles with six guys was always ridiculous. What kind of game is that? It’s a lottery. But it isn’t thirty square miles. It’s a narrow strip either side of the track. That’s where all the action will be. It’s inevitable. They’re waiting for us there. The only gamble for them is what angle we approach from. And when.”

Shorty was quiet a long moment. Breathing in, breathing out.

Then he said, “I want to try something.”

“What kind of something?”

“First I want to see if it’s possible. I don’t want to look stupid.”

She thought, short odds, Shorty.

Out loud she said, “What do we need to do?”

“Follow me,” he said.

—

In the back parlor Steven tracked the GPS chips inside their flashlights. They were beefy transmitters, powered by a parasitic feed from the four brand new D-cell batteries, with long antennas taped inside the aluminum cases. Currently they were moving from the edge of the forest toward the back of the motel. Medium speed. Walking, not running. In a precisely straight line, which was in stark contrast to their previous navigational performance, which had been chaotic. They had been staggering uncertainly south of west from the get-go, in a tight curling line they evidently thought was straight. Their left turn looked good temporarily, but they wandered again, almost in a circle, and then their final turn brought them back to where they had started. On two occasions they had crossed their own tracks, apparently without realizing.

He watched. They made it to the motel’s back wall. Then they retraced their earlier steps exactly. They tracked back around the end of the building. Around room twelve. Into the lot. Past room eleven. Then they stopped, outside room ten.





Chapter 37


Shorty raised the Honda’s hood, and felt around under the battery. The stiff black wire, chopped in half, the cut ends like new pennies. He backed away, and walked through room ten to the bathroom. He grabbed up all the towels, a big messy bundle, and he carried them outside. He dumped them on the gravel, near the Honda’s rear wheel.

“Check the other doors,” he said. “Get more if you can.”

Patty started with eleven. The door was unlatched. She went in. Shorty went back to ten. He picked up the suitcase. Both hands, around the rope. He staggered out with it. He rested it a moment on the boardwalk. He heaved it down the step to the lot, and staggered with it all the way across, short uncertain steps, to the grass on the far side, the meadow before the woods. He blundered through it, his heels sinking in the soft earth, the case swishing against the seed heads. He made it thirty yards, and stopped, and dropped the case, and laid it down flat in the grass.

Then he walked back. Patty had gotten towels out of eleven, seven, and five. Altogether they had four piles. He went back to ten’s bathroom and came out with a jagged shard of tile. Broad at the base, wicked at the tip. He dropped it on the towels, near the Honda’s rear wheel.

He asked, “Which room had the most stuff?”

“Seven,” Patty said. “Lots of clothes. Lots of potions in the bathroom. That guy takes good care of himself.”

Shorty walked down to seven. He ignored the clothes and the potions. Instead he checked the wash bag on the bathroom vanity. It was black leather. He dumped it out in the sink. He found what he wanted, right there. Bottom of the bag, top of the pile. A nail clipper. The usual kind of thing. Metal. A moon-shaped pincer, and a swivel-out file.

He put it in his pocket. He walked back to the Honda. He put the shard of tile aside. He laid the towels neatly one on top of the other, like a thick quilt. He shuffled it into position, flat on the gravel, under the Honda’s rear end. He did the same thing with the towels from five, seven, and eleven, under the Volvo, the Persian carpet van, and the pick-up truck respectively.