A Wanted Man

THIRTY-TWO

REACHER SPILLED BROCHURES out of the tourist-attraction rack in the lobby until he found one with something approximating a map. It was not an outstanding example of the cartographer’s art. But it was the best the place had to offer. It was basically a hand-drawn rectangle with Kansas City at the bottom left, and St Louis at the bottom right, and Des Moines at the top left, and Cedar Rapids at the top right. In between those four anchoring cities was a lot of white space, with a bunch of little icons describing things Reacher wasn’t interested in.

He was interested in the white space itself, particularly the upper half of it. The Iowa half. Thirtieth out of fifty in population, twenty-sixth out of fifty in land area, but Iowa had a quarter of America’s best-grade topsoil all to itself, and therefore it was at the head of the list when it came to corn and soybeans and hogs and cattle. Which meant spare, sparse habitation, and miles between neighbours, and lonely isolated buildings of uncertain purpose, and a kind of live-and-let-live lack of curiosity about who was doing what, and where and when and how and why they were doing it at all.

The two worst places to search were densely populated cities, and wide open countryside. Reacher had succeeded in those environments many times, but he had failed there too. Also many times.

Behind him the fat man said, ‘Who’s going to pay for the hole in my wall?’

Reacher said, ‘Not me.’

‘Well, someone will have to.’

‘What are you, a socialist? Pay for it yourself. Or fix it yourself. It isn’t brain surgery. Two minutes and a tub of spackle will take care of it.’

‘It’s not right that a person should just burst in here and do a thing like that.’

Reacher said, ‘I’m busy.’

‘Doing what?’

‘I’m thinking.’

‘You’re looking at a blank sheet of paper.’

‘You got a better map?’

‘It wasn’t right.’

‘Shit happens. Get over it.’

‘That bullet could have come through the wall and hit me.’

‘Are you kidding? Look where it is.’

‘But whoever fired it didn’t know I was short. Not in advance. How could they? It was completely reckless. It was totally irresponsible.’

‘You think?’

‘I could have been hurt.’

‘But you weren’t. So don’t worry about it.’

‘I could have been killed.’

‘Look where it is,’ Reacher said again. ‘It would have missed if you were standing on your own shoulders.’

Then the phone rang in the office and the guy ducked back in to answer it. He came straight back out and said, ‘It’s the FBI, for the man with the broken nose. That would be you, I suppose.’

Reacher said, ‘Pretty soon it could be either one of us, if you don’t stop yapping at me.’

He took the map with him to the desk and picked up the receiver. It was the Scandinavian woman again. Originally from Minnesota. Julia Sorenson. She said, ‘You’re still there.’

‘Evidently,’ Reacher said.

‘Why?’

‘I told you why. The roads here are like graph paper. Pointless trying to follow anyone more than two minutes ahead.’

‘Does it matter exactly which route they take? They’re heading basically south. We should assume they have a destination in mind. They’re not going to stay in Iowa.’

Reacher said, ‘I don’t agree.’

‘Why not?’

‘Daylight is coming. Town and county cops will be back on duty by seven or eight in the morning. And those guys must be assuming their plate number is everywhere by now. Plus descriptions, of them and the car. They won’t risk much more. They can’t. So they’ll hole up before dawn. Somewhere right here in Iowa.’

‘They could get into Missouri before the break of day.’

‘But they won’t. They’ll assume the Missouri troopers will be waiting right on the line. Troopers like to do that. Like a welcome and a warning. With the new day’s BOLOs taped right on their dashboards.’

‘They can’t stay in Iowa either,’ Sorenson said. ‘They can’t really stay anywhere. If they assume their plate number is everywhere, they’ll assume we’re calling motel keepers too.’

‘They won’t be using a motel. I think they have a specific place to go. A place of their own. Because their choice of exit off the Interstate was not random. I wouldn’t have taken it. No sane person would have taken it. It was just a no-name back road. But they knew it well. They knew where they were going. They knew the gas station was there, and they knew this motel was here, too. No way of knowing either thing unless they’ve been here before.’

‘You could be right.’

‘Equally I could be wrong.’

‘Which is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Will they hole up all day?’

‘I would.’

‘That’s risky. They’d be sitting ducks.’

‘Sitting ducks, yes. But not really risky. Ninety minutes after peeling out of here they’ll be somewhere inside an empty five-thousand-square-mile box. You planning to go door-to-door, hoping for the best?’

‘How would you do it?’

‘Have you made a decision about my personal situation?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Then you may never know how I would do it.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Just a guy,’ Reacher said.

‘What kind of guy?’

‘Why did you call me back?’

‘To try and find out what kind of guy you are.’

‘And what’s your conclusion so far?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m an innocent passerby. That’s all. That’s the kind of guy I am.’

‘Everyone always says they’re innocent.’

‘And sometimes they’re telling the truth.’

‘Stay right there,’ Sorenson said. ‘I’ll be with you in less than an hour.’

Sorenson drove on, somewhere between ninety and a hundred, one eye on the road ahead, the other on her GPS map. She was getting close to the no-name turn. And she could see the nasal guy’s point. No sane person would have taken it. The landscape ahead looked infinitely dark and infinitely empty. No lights of any kind, no features, no items of interest.

They knew where they were going.

Then her phone rang yet again. It was Perry, her SAC. Stony, her boss. He said, ‘I found out a little more about the victim.’

‘That’s good,’ Sorenson said. ‘The guy the State Department sent out wouldn’t say a word.’

‘Mr Lester? I went over his head. Not that State had much to conceal. Turns out the victim was a trade attaché. A salesman, basically. A dealmaker. That’s all, really. His job was to oil the wheels for American exporters.’

‘Where did he serve?’

‘I wasn’t told. But they let slip he was an Arabic speaker. Draw your own conclusions.’

‘Why was he in Nebraska?’

‘No one knows.’

‘Business or pleasure?’

‘Not business, as far as I can tell. He was on leave between postings.’

‘You know that two counterterrorism guys came up from Kansas City?’

‘Yes, I heard that. Might mean something. Might not. Those guys are always looking for reasons to freak out. They have a big budget to justify.’

Sorenson said nothing.

Perry said, ‘We have a budget to justify too. I hear you made contact with the driver.’

Sorenson said, ‘He claims he was a hitchhiker. He claims they dumped him at gunpoint. I’ll be meeting with him inside an hour.’

‘Good. Arrest him on sight. Homicide, kidnapping, grand theft auto, breaking the speed limit, anything else you can think of. Bring him back here immediately, in handcuffs.’