Past Tense

Chapter 23

The first arrival happened well before dawn. A repeat customer. He lived in the far northern part of Maine, in a wooden house in the center of eighty square miles of forest, all of which he owned. As always he drove only by night, in a beat-up old Volvo wagon, not worth a second glance, but just in case it got one, it was also fitted with fake Vermont plates made up with an unissued number. His phone told him where to turn, but of course he remembered the place anyway. From his first visit. How could he forget? He recognized the mouth of the track, and the sketchy blacktop, and the fat rubber wire. Which rang a bell somewhere, to scare up a welcome.

Which this time was offered in the motel office. By Mark only. The others were nowhere to be seen. Watching the security cameras, the new guest assumed. And hoped. Mark offered him room three, and he took it. Mark watched him as he parked the wagon. Watched him as he carried his bags inside. He was wondering which bag held his money, the new guest assumed. He set his stuff down near the closet and stepped outside again, to the predawn darkness. To the soft misty air. He couldn’t contain himself. He crept along the boardwalk, past room four, past five, toward a dead-looking Honda Civic, crouching blackly in the moonlight. He stepped out into the lot at that point and looped around behind it, so he could take in the whole of room ten from a distance. The first look. It was occupied. The e-mail said so. But it was currently blank and quiet. The window blind was down. There was no light inside. No sound. Nothing was happening.

The new guest stood for a minute, and then he walked back to room three.

Reacher took coffee from the squad room pot, and then Amos walked him back to her office. The same as before. The old structure, the new contents. The desk, the chairs, the cabinets, the computer.

She said, “I asked you to play it safe, for my sake.”

He said, “Something woke me up.”

“Is there a law that says therefore automatically you have to get up?”

“Sometimes.”

“They could have been arriving right then.”

“Exactly. I thought I should at least get my pants on. Then I went out to take a look. Nothing doing, except an excellent performance from Patrolman Davison. With which I had no problem. I’m happy to wait here. All good. Except I’m sorry you had to get up early.”

“Yeah, me too,” Amos said. “You also went out for dinner.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Take a guess.”

Because of blood on the street, he thought, or a random traffic stop a block or two later, or both. The guys from the apple farm. Had to be.

But out loud he said, “I don’t know.”

“Carter Carrington told us,” she said. “You walked eight blocks to the same bistro he was in. And eight blocks back. That wasn’t playing it safe.”

“At the time I thought it was, in a roundabout way.”

“You should have called me. I gave you my card. I would have brought pizza to your room.”

“Why did you ask Carrington about me?”

“We didn’t. We needed a legal opinion. Your dinner plans came up in the subsequent conversation.”

“What kind of legal opinion?”

“Who we can detain, before they’ve actually done anything wrong.”

“And what was the answer?”

“These days, practically anybody.”

“Maybe no one is coming,” Reacher said. “The kid was an asshole.”

“No chance whatsoever.”

“OK, but maybe it’s not top of their list. Maybe they have to pick up the dry cleaning first. I’ll be out of here at half past nine. They’ll find me gone.”

“I sincerely hope every part of what you just said is true.”

“Let’s hope some of it is.”

“We got some news,” she said. “Slightly encouraging for us. Not so much for you.”

“What is it?”

“Current thinking has downgraded the risk of drive-by casualties. Now we think they’re somewhat unlikely. Chief Shaw was on the phone with the Boston PD. They think the attempt will not be made here. They think their preferred tactic will be to get you in their car, so they can drive you back to Boston, where they’ll throw you off an apartment building. That’s what they do. Like a signature. Like a press release. Makes a splash, in every way. I would prefer that didn’t happen to you.”

“Are you worried about me?”

“Purely as a professional responsibility.”

“I won’t get in the strange man’s car,” Reacher said. “I think I can pretty much guarantee that.”

Amos didn’t reply.

Her door opened a crack and a head stuck in and said, “Ma’am, we have reports on the radio of a Massachusetts plate incoming from the southwest, on a black Chrysler 300 sedan, which according to Mass DMV seems to be registered to a freight forwarding operation based out of Logan Airport, in Boston.”

“What are the demographics on a black Chrysler 300?”

“Some limo companies, some rentals, but definitely a go-to gangster car.”

“Where is it now?”

“Still south of downtown. With a squad car right behind it.”

“Can he see inside?”

“The windows are tinted.”

“Dark enough to pull him over?”

“Ma’am, we can play this any way you tell us.”

Amos said, “Not yet. Stay with him. Make it obvious. Show the flag.”

The head ducked out and the door closed again.

“So,” Amos said. “Here we go.”

“Not yet,” Reacher said. “Not with this guy.”

“How many more clues do you need?”

“That’s my point,” Reacher said. “It’s a big black sedan with tinted windows. It’s a shiny object. It’s immediately traceable back to Boston. It’s owned by a freight forwarding company at a major international airport. It might as well carry a neon sign. It’s a decoy. They want you to follow it. It’s going to drive around all day at exactly twenty-nine miles an hour. It’s going to signal every turn, and you can bet your ass its tail lights are in working order. Meanwhile the real guy is in an electrician’s van. Or a plumber. Or flowers. Or whatever. We have to assume a certain amount of common sense. The real guy is going to slip into town some time today and no one is going to notice. But hopefully after half past nine in the morning. Because that would make sense anyway. By then you’ll have been on a war footing more than six hours. You’ll be getting tired. He’ll know that. He’ll wait. I’ll be long gone.”

“We’re basing a lot on your friend from yesterday actually showing up again.”

“I guess we are.”

“Will he?”

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised either way. He was that kind of guy.”

“On time?”

“Same answer.”

“What if he doesn’t show up? You’ll be here all day. That’s the exact scenario I promised Shaw I wouldn’t let happen.”

Reacher nodded.

“I don’t want to put you on the spot,” he said. “I apologize if I already have. I’ll give my guy thirty minutes. That’s all. If he doesn’t show by ten o’clock, you can drive me to the city limit yourself. Does that work?”

“And then what?”

“Then Shaw is happy. I’ll be outside the jurisdiction.”

“It’s a line on the map. You could be followed. Electricians go from job to job. Also plumbers and flower delivery.”

“But at least the county will be stuck with the paperwork, not the city.”

“Your risk, I guess.”

“No, the electrician’s risk. He’s going to be the paperwork, not me. What choice do I have? I can’t send him home to Boston with a pat on the back and a candy bar. Not under these circumstances. That would give the wrong impression entirely.”

“They’ll send a replacement. They’ll send two.”

“That will be the county’s problem, not yours.”

“You shouldn’t stick around.”

“I don’t want to,” Reacher said. “Believe me. I like to keep moving. But on the other hand I don’t like to be chased away. Especially not by people who plan to throw me off a building. Which strikes me as ambitious. They seem awful sure of themselves. Like I’m just a detail.”

“Don’t let ego get in the way of a good decision.”

“You just trashed every general in our nation’s history.”

“You weren’t a general. Don’t make the same mistake.”

“I won’t,” Reacher said. “I doubt if I’ll get the chance. I doubt if our paths will ever cross. I’ll be gone in a day. Two days max. The kid will heal up. All will be forgotten by the holidays. Life will move on. Hopefully I’ll be somewhere warm.”

Amos didn’t answer.

Her door opened again, the same crack, and the same head stuck in, and said, “The black Chrysler is now cruising downtown, with no apparent destination in mind, so far obeying all traffic laws, and the squad car is still behind it.”

The head withdrew and the door closed.

“Decoy,” Reacher said.

“When will the real guy get here?”

He didn’t answer.

The second arrival had many more moving parts than the first. It was a whole big production. Peter drove his Mercedes SUV to a small airfield near Manchester. Not even executive aviation. More of a hobby field. No tower, no log, no reporting requirements at all. He parked inside the fence, level with the end of the runway. He waited, with his window down.

Five minutes later he heard the distant clatter of a propeller plane. In the far distance he saw winks of light in the pale dawn sky. A twin engine Cessna, that kind of thing, hopping and jumping, weightless on the wind. It came in low, and landed, and slowed immediately to a fussy, bustling land-bound scurry, like a nervous bird, roaring with noise. Peter flashed his lights, and it rolled on toward him.

It was an air taxi, out of Syracuse, New York, booked by a shell corporation owned by a nest of ten others, on behalf of a passenger who had an Illinois driver’s license in the name of Hogan. He had arrived in Syracuse moments earlier in a charter Gulfstream out of Houston, Texas, booked by a different shell corporation owned by a different nest of ten others, on behalf of a passenger with a California license in the name of Hourihane. Neither license was real, and no one knew where he had come in from, prior to the wheels-up in Houston.

He climbed down from the plane and Peter helped him put his stuff in the Mercedes. Three soft bags and two hard cases. The money was in one of the soft bags, Peter assumed. The contribution. A physical weight, even in hundreds.

The plane shuddered around in place, a deafening half circle, and then it blared away down the runway and into the air. Peter drove the other way, out the gate, left and right along the back roads. The new arrival sat beside him, in the front passenger seat. He looked excited. He was sweating a little. He wanted to say something. Peter could tell. But he didn’t. Not at first. He didn’t speak at all. He stared ahead through the windshield and rocked in his seat, small movements, sometimes back and forth, sometimes side to side.

But eventually he had to know.

He had to ask.

He said, “What are they like?”

“They’re perfect,” Peter said.