No Plan B

Chapter 31

Patience is a virtue, Reacher’s father used to say. If he was right, then the drivers heading away from Winson that afternoon must have been a really despicable bunch.

Hannah’s job had been to block the single lane stretch of road in the construction zone. She had done it well. She had steered hard right onto the shoulder, reversed toward the line of cones, then swung back and forward four times until the truck was pretty much perpendicular. Her positioning was perfect. The truck’s nose was covering three-quarters of the shoulder. She hadn’t left enough space for anyone to squeeze around the rear. And she’d picked the ideal spot. A giant machine for tearing up the pavement was parked on the other side, so there was no future in anyone trying to move the cones.

Hannah had been stationary for two minutes when the next convoy came into view. The pilot led it closer. And closer. And he didn’t slow down. Hannah panicked for a moment. She thought the guy wasn’t going to stop. She had a vision of the vehicles plowing into the side of the truck. One after another. Blow after blow. The truck rolling over. Her getting crushed. Or burned alive. Or both.

The pilot must not have been concentrating. He had driven up and down that stretch of road hundreds of times since the construction project started. He had never come across any kind of obstruction. He had never expected to. So he noticed the truck late. But in time. Just. He threw all his weight on the brake. His wheels locked. His tires slid on the gravel. But he stopped with maybe a yard to spare.

The vehicles behind the pilot all braked, too. None of them collided. A couple honked their horns as if that would help. One driver pulled past the rest and tried to swing around the front of Hannah’s truck. He left the shoulder and started to bump across the rough strip of scrubland at the side of the road. He thought he was home and dry. He flipped Hannah off. Then his wheel hit a rut. His truck shuddered to a stop. It listed down toward one corner. There was only one explanation. Its axle was broken. And given the age and the condition of the vehicle its next stop was most likely going to be the scrap yard.

The driver jumped out and marched up to Hannah’s door. He tugged on the handle. It was locked so he started yelling at the window. Flecks of spittle sprayed all over the glass. Other drivers climbed down and joined him. Ten more of them. That was everyone except the pilot. He stayed in his cab and dialed 911. He figured that was his civic duty. And with that done he felt free to sit back and let the chips fall where they may.

By the time Reacher arrived there were four drivers behind Hannah’s truck. They were trying to shove it out of their way and getting nowhere. There were three drivers on one side, baying and screaming, and four on the other.

“Enough.” Reacher stopped six feet from the rear of the truck. “Be quiet. Get back in your vehicles.”

The guy from the stranded truck said, “No way. This asshole’s blocking the road. My rig’s messed up because of him. He’s got to pay.”

“Really? Because this is my truck. It’s here because I told the driver to block the road. If you have a problem with that, then you have a problem with me.”

Reacher looked at each driver, one at a time. Calmly. Levelly. Right in the eyes. Most of them started to edge away. A couple stayed still. The guy from the stranded truck stepped forward. “You know what? I do have a problem. My vehicle is totaled. If that’s on you then you better put your hand in your pocket.”

The drivers who had been moving all immediately stopped.

Reacher gestured to the stricken truck. It looked like it was trying to bury itself in the ground. “That thing?”

The guy nodded.

“Sorry, pal. I used my last quarter in a payphone, last week. You’re SOL.”

The guy swung at Reacher’s head with a wild right hook. Reacher leaned back and watched the fist sail harmlessly past. The guy’s shoulders twisted around and he wound up horribly off balance. All his weight was on his left leg. Reacher swept it out from under him. The guy pitched forward. He fell almost horizontally. Hit the dirt with his face. Tried to get up. But Reacher put his foot between his shoulder blades, pushed him back down, and held him in place.

Reacher said, “Guys, use your heads. You want to get going. I want to get going. But none of us can go anywhere while you’re hanging around like some lame-ass mob.”

No one spoke. No one moved. For a moment. Then a driver at the back of the crowd turned and slunk away. The guy who had been next to him followed. A couple more began to move. Then another couple until all the drivers were shuffling toward their vehicles, grumbling and muttering and shaking their heads. Reacher leaned down and rolled the guy on the ground over. He grabbed his shirt and hoisted him onto his feet. The guy scowled but stayed silent. Reacher shoved him into the lee of the truck where no one could see what would happen next.

Reacher said, “Is your truck really a write-off?”

The guy scowled. “I think so. I felt the suspension go.”

“How much is it worth?”

“Five grand.”

“How much in US dollars, here on planet Earth?”

“A grand. Maybe.”

Reacher pulled out his roll of cash, peeled off five hundred dollars, and handed it to the guy. “Here’s half. The other half is on you. Consider this a learning experience. Use better judgment in the future. If you had stayed on the road and shown a little patience, your truck would still be running.”

Jed Starmer finally admitted that he’d been right the first time. Riding a bike was a total pain in the ass.

It was a pain in the ass. The calves. The thighs. The back. The shoulders. The neck. In pretty much every part of his body. Jed had never been so uncomfortable in his entire life. All he could think was, People do this for fun? What the hell is wrong with them?

Everything had been fine while Jed was in the city of Jackson. The streets were level. There was plenty of traffic so the vehicles had to move slowly. The drivers seemed used to bikes weaving around them. And Jed had to pay attention to finding his way. He remembered that there was only one road to Winson. He didn’t have a map so he had to watch out extra carefully for signs. Twice he thought he was lost. But he kept on going and pretty soon the buildings grew smaller and farther apart. The trees became taller and closer together. The fields stretched out beyond them. Jed raised his head and looked around. He thought his new surroundings were nice.

At first.

More things changed than the view as Jed rode deeper into the countryside. There were fewer vehicles, but the ones that were around drove much faster. They passed closer to him. He nearly got knocked off the bike half a dozen times. The nervousness from his first lesson came flooding back. And he kept coming to uphill stretches of road. It felt like massive weights were attached to his wheels. Every push on the pedals was a hundred times harder than on the flat. The sun was dipping low but the air was still hot. Jed was sweating. He was thirsty. He was hungry. He hadn’t eaten for more than twelve hours. His head was feeling light. His legs were soft and rubbery. He was praying for a nice long downward slope. For a few minutes when gravity could do the work. When he could rest. When he could pick up a little speed and the wind would rush by and cool his body.

Jed slogged his way around another bend. Looked up. And found himself at the foot of the tallest mountain he had ever seen.

The road into Winson was long and straight and lined with trees. The soft afternoon sunshine filtered through the leaves and cast a web of dappled shadows all along the faded blacktop. It was the kind of image Reacher had seen in Sunday newspaper articles about places parents should take their kids for picnics on school vacations. It looked idyllic. There was nothing to indicate that a town lay ahead.

Or a prison.

Or the people who had murdered Angela St. Vrain and Sam Roth.

A couple of miles beyond the sign announcing the town boundary, the trees thinned and buildings began to appear. Mainly houses. Mainly single story ones, spread apart from one another but standing near to the street. Most of them had wooden sides with dirty white paint that was peeling in handfuls. Plenty had roofs that looked like they were one decent storm away from getting blown completely off.

“I read about this place last night in the hotel before I went to sleep,” Hannah said. “It has a crazy history. Originally it was a Native American settlement. The French drove them out in, like, 1720. The British took the place from the French. The Spanish moved in when the British quit after the Revolutionary War. They were supposed to be on our side but they didn’t want to hand the town over so we took it from them. It thrived while all the trade was centered on the river. There are rumors of a second town, like a shadow, at the bottom of the cliff. Stories of caves and liquor and whores and stolen gold and smuggled jewels. Even if any of that was true, it’s all gone now. Blown up, or flooded. Then the river trade faded and the railroads and industry took over. Paper mills, mainly, because of all the trees that grow here. Now the industry’s gone, too. Which is why there are so many old houses, I guess. And why so many of them are about to fall down.”

Hannah drove in silence for a while and as they came closer to the town they saw the standard of maintenance improved. The size of the homes increased. They grew closer together. The balance shifted to mainly two-story properties. Most were still white, but their paint was fresh and bright. Some were blue. Some were yellow. Many had shutters. Most had porches running their full width. Some had verandas with solid columns and ornate wooden railings. The sidewalks that passed them were wide, and there were tall, mature trees forming a border with the road.

In the town itself wood construction gave way to brick. There were still plenty of balconies and verandas but with spindly supports and ornate iron railings painted gloss black. It felt like a small-scale copy of New Orleans, Reacher thought. The roofs were mainly flat. The windows were larger, some were square, some had curved tops. There were lots of alleyways. There was parking down both sides of all the streets. Half the spaces were empty. Reacher saw a couple of cafés. A few bars. A small church, built of brick with clumsy stained glass. It looked like it had recently been rebuilt, but on a budget. There was a range of businesses. A pawnshop with guns and guitars hanging two deep in the window. An insurance agent. A tire bay. A handful of small bed-and-breakfasts. A fishmonger. A cellphone store. A body shop.

Hannah and Reacher drove around for half an hour. They started at Main Street and quartered the blocks on either side until they had a good sense of the place. Finally they stopped outside a coffee shop. Hannah went in and grabbed two large cups to go. She climbed back into the truck, handed a cup to Reacher, and said, “Hotel?”

Reacher shook his head. “Prison first. Then food. Then the hotel.”