The Midnight Line

Chapter 43

They drove through town, straight south to north in the dark. Reacher recognized some of what he saw. He recognized the street with the chain hotels. He recognized the all-day Chinese restaurant, where Scorpio’s guy had picked him up, in the battered old Lincoln. They kept on going and came out the other side of town on what Bramall’s phone said was the four-lane that led up to Klinger’s diner. And it did, as promised. Klinger’s turned out to be more of a family restaurant, all lit up, floating alone in a vast dark parking lot, somehow both faded and majestic all at once.

They went in, and ate, because it was past dinnertime. Eat when you can, Reacher said. You don’t know when the next chance will come. Sanderson endorsed the theory. For a small guy Bramall was always hungry. Mackenzie said she didn’t really feel like eating, but in the end she ordered a meal. Afterward she said it was good. Reacher agreed.

They asked the waitress if she knew an Exxon station about a twenty-minute drive away. The woman screwed up her face, like she knew, like it was on the tip of her tongue. Then like she knew once, but she didn’t know anymore. One of those questions so everyday it couldn’t be answered.

Then something came to her.

“The highway gas is Exxon,” she said. “Up at the rest area.”

Back in the car Bramall looked at his navigation screen. The closest rest area was six miles east of the closest on-ramp. The electronic brain said it was twenty minutes away. Bramall said the pharmaceutical factories were mostly in New Jersey. Trucks would come west. A secret warehouse inside an I-90 rest area would be a very convenient thing to have. It could be stocked and re-stocked at any time of night or day. Equally it could stock and re-stock incoming visitors at any time of night or day.

“But it didn’t,” Reacher said. “Stackley told us they had to wait until midnight. It sounded like the opposite of a warehouse to me. Nothing was stored there for people to show up and get. It was the other way around. People got in line and waited for stuff to show up. Maybe it arrives there at midnight. So I agree, the rest area is the obvious place. But as a meeting point only. As a rendezvous. With a lot of moving parts. One rogue westbound truck comes in, and six or ten guys like Billy and Stackley load up and move out. It must be a real fast hustle. Right in the middle of an I-90 rest area, but under the cover of a shed half full of snowplows. The voicemail said they’ve got it all to themselves. I guess that’s correct. It’s summertime.”

Bramall said, “So after eating dinner at Klinger’s, Stackley drove twenty minutes to the rest area, where he bought gas, and then he rolled a hundred yards around a corner and waited till midnight. All we have to do is figure out which corner. Which won’t be difficult. The rest area is a finite size. We’re looking for a service road leading to the snowplows. How many can there be?”

“Is it always this easy?” Mackenzie said.

“Mr. Bramall makes it look easy,” Reacher said.

Sanderson said nothing. She was infantry. She knew about pointy-heads and their best laid plans.

Bramall started up and headed north on the four-lane, through the nighttime darkness, all the way to the highway ramps, where he made the right to head east toward the rest stop, which the machine told him was just six minutes away.

The machine was correct. Exactly six minutes later Bramall coasted off into a giant central facility. The eastbound and westbound lanes skirted it in mile-wide loops through the prairie. It was like a town all by itself. It had lit-up acres of Exxon gas and diesel, and half a dozen bright neon fast food franchises, and a highway patrol building, and a chain motel, and a highway department office with a weighbridge.

What it didn’t have was snowplows. At least not within easy view. Reacher felt red-hot infantry skepticism coming out from under Sanderson’s hood. Mackenzie looked disappointed. Maybe not so easy after all.

They gave it one more go-round. After which they were confident there were no snowplows stored anywhere within the bounds of the facility. There were no service roads leading to covered garages half full of any kind of winter equipment.

Which raised an obvious question. If not there, then where? There had to be winter equipment stored somewhere. A lot of it. Winter was a serious issue in South Dakota. Mackenzie said maybe so serious they used a whole separate depot for it. She knew the West.

But where was the depot? Who could they ask? It was a weird question. Do you know where the state stores its snowplows? No one would know. Most folk would take it for some kind of a weird political stunt, to make a point, or to expose their ignorance, like asking if they knew their congressperson’s name. The only people who would know the answer were people who were currently somewhere else. Wherever the state stored its snowplows.

Reacher said, “He prepaid his gas at 11:23. Right here, very close to where we’re sitting now. Let’s say it took him two minutes to walk back from the kiosk and get set. Let’s say he started pumping at 11:25. How long does forty bucks last?”

Mackenzie said, “Out here you could fill a big tank.”

“So it took a few minutes. It could have been well after 11:30 before he was back on the road. But he was the new boy there. He didn’t want to screw up. He needed a big margin of error. He must have been going somewhere real close by. Three-minute maximum, literally. He would want to make sure he got there on time. Or early. He would want to be comfortable.”

“What’s three minutes from here?”

“Maybe the separate depot. For the snowplows. A central facility. Access from both sides. On the same land as this, before eastbound and westbound narrow down again. Right next door to here, maybe. It’s a wedge of wasted space otherwise. There could be an inconspicuous little off-ramp, with a sign, saying highway department only. Plenty of trees all around. No one notices a thing like that.”

“Then it could be in either direction. We might have already passed it. There must be wedges of space both sides. We don’t know which way to go now.”

“We didn’t already pass it,” Sanderson said. “There were no inconspicuous little ramps. I notice a thing like that. It means for the moment we’re trapped on this road. But neither can the enemy reinforce an ambush up ahead. So on balance I’m happy. The tail gunner can relax for a second. If you’re right about a separate facility, then it must be east of here. And if Reacher is right about how anxious Stackley was, it must be close by. Close enough to get back on the highway and then get off again immediately. If he’s wrong about how nervous Stackley was, it could be further away. But it’s within fifteen or twenty miles maximum, because even if the guy was cool as ice, he had to get where he was going by midnight latest. And he couldn’t drive a hundred miles an hour to do it. Those guys can’t get away with things like that. They must never stand out. So I would recon to the east. If we don’t find anything, we still have time to come back and think again.”

Bramall looked over his shoulder at Mackenzie.

His employer.

“Want to try it?” he said.

“Yes,” Mackenzie said.

Bramall circled the parking lot, under sodium lights high on poles, looking for the way back to the travel lanes. In the corner of his eye Reacher thought he saw a pale blue car, circling the other way. A domestic product. A Chevrolet, possibly. Nothing fancy. A plain specification.

He looked again.

It was gone.

Bramall found the exit and followed the arrow marked Sioux Falls, which was east. He watched the road ahead, like a good driver should. Sanderson and her sister and Reacher all watched the left shoulder. They watched the narrowing space between the eastbound and the westbound lanes.

It turned out Stackley had been anxious, but not quite as anxious as Reacher thought he should be. It was more than three minutes out. Closer to four and a half. They saw an inconspicuous off-ramp. They saw a small bland sign that said Authorized Personnel Only.

“Don’t take it,” Reacher said. “Not yet. We need to make a better plan.”