The Midnight Line

Chapter 46

The headlights were dim and yellow, which meant it was an old vehicle, and they were at a modest height and a regular width apart, which meant the old vehicle was normal size. Not a giant pick-up truck. Not a huge SUV. It drove up to the building and the wash from its lights on the siding showed it to be a sedan maybe twenty years old. Shaped like a slug. Dull paint, an indeterminate dark color. No hubcaps. A snapped-off antenna.

It backed up and parked neatly, out of the way, and a guy got out. He could have been fifty. Thick around the waist, hair plastered to his scalp with oil. He was wearing blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt with a word on it. A brand name, perhaps. He walked over to the roll-up door, and did something with a key. Then he squatted like a weightlifter and hauled on the bottom lip, and the door came clattering up, getting faster, as if a counterbalance was kicking in.

The guy walked into the garage and a minute later there was a muted repeat of the same noise, as the far door clattered up. Inside on the left were ranks of huge yellow snowplows. On the right was empty space. Someone had chalked diagonal parking bays on the concrete floor. They were numbered one through ten. One was at the far end. Ten was at the near end.

The guy in the sweatshirt walked back to his car. He leaned in and got a clipboard from the passenger seat. It had a pen on a string. Some kind of a list. The guy walked back to the garage and took up station near the entrance.

There will be a guard at the door.

The guy took out a handgun and checked the chamber.

Eleven forty-one in the evening.

Four minutes later there were more headlights on the service road. Higher, wider, and brighter than the guy’s old sedan. It was a Dodge Durango SUV. It drove toward the garage door. It stopped next to the guy. The window came down. Something was said. The guy checked his clipboard, and waved the truck inside. It parked at an angle, in a chalked-out bay.

A minute later a rusted Silverado drove up the road. No better condition than Stackley’s old thing. But no camper shell. It had a flat vinyl cover on the bed. Then an old black four-wheel-drive showed up. Both parked inside.

By five minutes to midnight nine of the ten chalk bays were occupied. Only number five was empty. The guy in the sweatshirt looked relaxed about it. Rules were rules. The other nine guys waiting next to their trucks looked happy about it. More to go around.

The guy in the sweatshirt checked his watch.

His phone rang.

He listened.

He called out, “Two minutes, guys. It’s nearly here.”

Two minutes later a white panel van came charging up the road, going fast, then braking hard. It stopped and waited. It had New Jersey plates. The guy in the sweatshirt gave it a sign, and then he ran inside the building. The van turned and drove along the outside of the garage, all the way, front to back. It turned again, tight and awkward, and nosed in through the rear door. The opposite way from everyone else. It stopped level with the truck in bay number one. The guard ran up inside and met it there. The driver got out.

Which all changed the plan. Afterward Reacher was mad he hadn’t read more into the chalk numbers on the floor. At first he thought they might represent geographical regions, or length of service. Some tradition or perk of the job. Or nothing at all. Maybe they were there just for the fun of it. You chalk some bays, you might as well chalk some numbers. To make it look professional.

But they were a priority order. Some kind of a status ladder. Maybe number one was the guy with the best volume. Like salesman of the week. Like a prize. Part of which was the right to a fast getaway. First served, first out of there. A decent incentive.

There were a dozen different mechanical ways to make that happen. All kinds of maneuvers. But by far the simplest was to bring the panel van in through the rear door.

Reacher was at the front door.

He had foreseen that the guard and the driver from the panel van would be side by side at the start of the process. The plan was, as soon as the driver opened the van, unsuspectingly, voluntarily, without having been beaten or coerced in any way at all, so that everyone’s conscience was entirely clear, then Reacher would fire a nine-millimeter round over their heads, into the booming space beyond, to freeze them, to claim possession of the panel van, whereupon Sanderson would announce her presence from behind, and they would all glance back and see a mysterious figure pointing a handgun, and any spark of early trouble would snuff out right then. Only an expert would spot the Ruger for a .22. Only an expert with X-ray vision would know it was nearly empty. He thought the plan would work. First the guard and the driver, and then the other guys. Two different categories of people. He felt the sequence was important.

He was at the wrong end of the garage.

Everything was turned around.

He was now Sanderson.

She was now him.

With adrenaline, and fight hormones, and fentanyl, or maybe half fentanyl and half withdrawal, and pain and discomfort, and the sweats and the shakes. Right then she would be watching the driver. Waiting for him to open up. A combination or a special key. Or maybe not. Maybe just a regular door. In which case it would all happen faster. The .22 was quiet for a firearm, but still a lot louder than anything else in life. In the echoing space a .22 would do the job just fine.

If she took over.

If she did it.

Nothing yet.

Still nothing. Maybe it was a long combination. Like a computer. All kinds of characters, upper case, lower case. Numbers and symbols.

Nothing.

Then a colossal gunshot explosion, and a brutal bang as a bullet hit a beam overhead.

Everyone froze.

Up ahead she stepped out and said, “Stay where you are.”

Like he would have.

Behind them he stepped out and said, “Nobody move.”

Like she would have.

They glanced his way. He had the Smith aimed low, at their waists. He had learned that angle worried people. Some kind of an old animal instinct.

Up ahead she shook her head. They were turned around. The next lines were his.

He used his MP voice.

He said, “Remove all cell phones and firearms from pockets, holsters, and other places of concealment. Place them on the floor at your feet. Do not get cute with me. In a moment I will search you. If I find a further firearm I will shoot you through the back of the knee with it. If I find a cell phone I will shoot you through the back of the knee with my own firearm. These are promises as solemn as government debt. Please take a moment to think about it. We’re not cops or federal agents. This is purely private business. For you, just a temporary nuisance. So weigh it up. You can walk the rest of your life, or you can use a wheelchair. Figure out what works best for you.”

Eleven guys, eleven phones, twelve guns. The guard had a small .38 on his ankle. Mackenzie stepped out to collect them. She was pointing the empty Springfield. She looked like an afternoon movie. The beautiful queen of the underworld. They all stared. Reacher told them to kick their guns and their phones toward her. She picked them all up, one by one, and she put them in a bag she found in the panel van. It had a cheerful logo, in greens and blues, like the grass and the sky.

Reacher and Sanderson herded all eleven guys into bay number five. A tight fit. Like on the stairs, getting out of the ball game. Trapped between two slab-sided trucks. Reacher and Sanderson stood off at forty-five-degree angles, face on, guns leveled. Not operationally necessary. Either one of them would have been effective. But two had a calming effect. It kept unwise thoughts to a minimum. And therefore casualties. It was a humanitarian deployment of resources. The modern army.

At first he thought it was working. The eleven guys were unusually subdued. They were stunned, quiet, defeated, somehow shaken. Somehow demoralized.

Somehow sickened.

Then he realized.

Sanderson’s hood was still peeled back.

Behind them in the corner of his eye he saw Bramall reverse the Toyota through the same door the van had used, and maneuver it backward straight in line with the panel van, the tailgate close to the van’s rear doors. He saw Mackenzie start shoveling boxes across, from one vehicle to the other. White and crisp and shiny. Lots of them. Bramall lent a hand. They worked hard together. Box after box. Space became an issue. He saw them tossing bags out of the trunk, over into the back seat.

He stepped back a pace and looked left and right along the row of vehicles. He liked the look of the Dodge Durango best. It was a regular shape. It looked like it would have familiar controls.

He pointed at it.

He said, “Whose is that?”

Some guy shuffled.

Reacher said, “Are the keys in it?”

The guy nodded.

“Gas?”

The guy nodded.

“Good to go here,” Bramall called out, from behind.

“OK,” Reacher said. “We know what we’re doing. By the numbers now. One, two, three, and out of here.”

Step one was Mackenzie visiting every vehicle except the Durango, including the guard’s old car outside, and adding all the keys to her bag. Most of the cars were old enough to hot-wire, but the pharmaceutical van was a brand new Mercedes, with a chip in the key. It was going nowhere. Which was good. The Boy Detective needed to see it, sitting there stranded, inert, caught out and shamefaced. It explained everything, all by itself. It was the master clue.

Step two was Mackenzie and Bramall getting in the Toyota and driving away.

Which they did.

Step three was Reacher coming close and central, with the Smith aimed two-handed, low, at their waists, or lower, and then Sanderson backing off, step by cautious step, toward the Durango, feeling one-handed behind her for the handle, getting in, starting up. She backed out of the angled slot, and then couldn’t go forward because of the panel van in the way, so she reversed all the way out through the front door.

And was gone.

Reacher waited. On his own. Eleven guys penned up. He felt them stir. A flicker of anger. At themselves, at first. Eleven to one. Ridiculous. What were they, pussies? Which was a bad kind of thing to think. They were going to make trouble for themselves. He had seen it before. Sooner or later he would have to shoot one of them in the leg. To get their attention. It would be their own fault.

Behind him in the corner of his eye he saw Sanderson back the Durango in through the same door the panel van had used. Now she was on the right side of it, and facing in the right direction. Ten yards from him. He heard the transmission clunk. From reverse back to drive. Engine idling. Foot on the brake. Ready to go.

He backed away, raising his aim a little as he went, but not much, randomly scouting side to side, to the guy on the left, to the guy on the right. Then back to center mass, getting further away, step by backward step, hearing the Durango’s passenger door squeal open behind him, no doubt Sanderson leaning across inside. He got there and backed into the seat, still with the Smith held level, but the guys had given up. No weapons, no phones, no transportation. They were already thinking ahead, about how to get the hell out before the hammer came down.

“Go,” Reacher said.

Sanderson hit the gas, and she jinked the wheel twice, first right, then left, and she met the start of the westbound ramp doing about sixty miles an hour.