The Sentinel (Jack Reacher #25)(60)

‘Sounds plausible,’ Reacher said. ‘But who really knows why anything happens?’

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. That was a mantra Reacher was familiar with. The first two parts he was personally acquainted with. Because of his mother. She was a kid during World War II and grew up in France during the occupation. Food was in short supply. All kinds of essentials were. Clothes. Shoes. Fuel. If something ran out or wore out or was lost or broken or stolen it may never have gotten replaced. Recycling was a different story, though. There hadn’t been much of a role for it at the military bases that Reacher grew up on all around the world. As far as he knew. It may have gone on behind the scenes at West Point during his four years there, but if so he hadn’t been aware of it. He’d had other things on his mind. So his concept of it was very much a product of his imagination. He pictured it as something new and high tech, involving shiny modern plants with advanced equipment and lots of automation. Maybe even robots.

The reality was very different. At least at the facility the town used. It was surrounded by a ten-foot-high fence made of metal strips, divided and sharpened at the top, and draped in razor wire. Very old school. Inside the gate the operation was ingenious rather than advanced. The blacktop gave over to compacted dirt, rising and turning to form a broad, elevated half doughnut before dropping back down towards the exit. Within the semicircle there were six dumpsters, extra large, with no lids. They were arranged end-on, meeting in the centre like the spokes of a wheel. Each one was dedicated to a different material. Giant signs specified which kinds. Paper and cardboard went in the first. Then glass. Ferrous metal. Non-ferrous metal. Plastic. And finally a catch-all for any other kinds of trash that had been brought there by mistake. Reacher assumed the recycling trucks would drive up, swing around to the appropriate dumpster, and unload. The height and width and incline and turn radius had probably been calculated specially. There was only one snag that he could see. There was no place designated for electronic equipment.

Sands stopped the minivan between the third and fourth dumpsters and Reacher climbed out to investigate. He discounted paper and glass and was wondering whether computers could be classed as plastic due to their outer cases, or metal due to their inner workings, when he heard a voice. A man’s. Yelling at him.

‘Hey!’ the guy said. ‘The hell are you doing? You can’t be here. Where’s your permit?’

The guy had emerged from a Portakabin that was hidden from the entrance to the site by the earth mound. It was presumably some kind of an office. Or a place to hide from the sun. He looked to be in his mid-sixties. His face was burned and wrinkled like a walnut. His hands were shrivelled and the veins and tendons stood out like cords under his skin. His hair was thin and grey and tangled and it hung down past his shoulders. Technically he was wearing faded blue coveralls with some kind of corporate logo on the chest, but he was so skinny and the material was so stiff from the laundry it looked like the clothes had swallowed him.

‘Computers,’ Reacher said. ‘Which dumpster would they be in?’

‘Get back in your car,’ the guy said. ‘Leave. Right now. Or I’m calling 911.’

‘It’s no good calling 911. The police department’s phones are down. Haven’t you heard? And there’s no need. We’ll be happy to leave. Just as soon as we pick up something that got sent here by mistake. Something that belongs to us.’

‘If it’s here, it belongs to us. It says so in the contract with the town. You take something, you’re stealing it. Can’t have that.’ The guy ducked back into the cabin and reappeared a moment later holding a shotgun. A Benelli M1 Tactical. A nice weapon. Shipped in all the way from Italy. Capable of holding six 12-gauge cartridges. It looked brand new. ‘That’s why the company gives us these. And trains us how to use them.’

Reacher wasn’t entirely convinced that a recycling company would hand out military-grade weaponry to its employees. And he was certain that this particular employee had not gone through any kind of training. Not in the last thirty years, anyway. Given the state he was in, if the guy pulled the trigger the recoil would knock him on his ass. Break his collarbone, for sure. Maybe his whole shoulder. But if he pulled the trigger from that range, any damage the guy did to himself would be the least of Reacher’s worries. He was conscious of the captured Beretta in his waistband. The old guy’s movements had been pretty slow up to that point. Putting him out of action before he could bring the Benelli to bear would be pretty straightforward. But maybe a little premature at that stage. It was a little early to abandon diplomacy altogether.

Reacher started to move away from the minivan. Very slowly. Just in case negotiations failed.

‘Hold it,’ the guy said. He raised the shotgun to his shoulder. ‘I told you to get in the car. Not move away from it.’

The driver’s door opened and Sands climbed out. She had a black leather wallet in her hand. She held it out in front of her, at shoulder height, like a tiny shield. ‘Federal agents,’ she said. ‘Put the gun down.’

Diplomacy, Reacher thought. Or lying. It could be hard to tell them apart.

The old guy lowered the gun, but he didn’t let go of it.

‘What’s your name?’ Sands said.

The guy hesitated for a moment. ‘You can call me Polk.’

‘OK then, General. Here’s what we’re going to do. First, you’re going to answer a question. The electronic equipment that gets brought here from the town. What happens to it?’