The Midnight Line

Chapter 44

Gloria Nakamura drove every inch of the rest area. Night had fallen, but it was all lit up. She pictured a truck pulling in. Maybe not a semi. Maybe not an eighteen-wheeler. Maybe just a panel van, loaded with smaller orders from mom-and-pop pharmacies and suburban clinics. A Ford Econoline, or some such. Probably painted white. Probably a shiny high-gloss finish, to suggest health and cleanliness and antiseptic pharmaceutical wholesomeness. Probably a bland brand name in a friendly font, pale green like grass, or blue like the sky.

Where would it park?

Nowhere near the state police building, for obvious reasons. Not near the gas pumps, either. Even in the dark. The oil company had cameras, in case of drive-away no-pays. Not near the entrance or the exit either, because the highway department had cameras, too, for traffic flow. The truck couldn’t afford to show up on video. Not in South Dakota, when the mothership’s computer had it idle in a factory lot in New Jersey. There was a big parking area shared between the restroom block and the fast food franchises. It was lit up bright. But it had cameras, too. For liability, she supposed. In case someone got in a fender bender, and blamed it on the burger stand. Probably an insurance requirement.

There was a weighbridge, with a highway department office, all tan brick and metal windows. Closed up and dark. But it was way out in the open. Too exposed. She pictured the panel van, with its rear doors open, feeding a cluster of smaller vehicles. An anxious crowd, waiting. People like Billy, and the new Billy, and all the other guys like Billy, in pick-up trucks and SUVs and old sedans. Loading up, before taking off.

Where would they do that?

Nowhere. The rest area felt wrong.

She circled the parking lot one more time. In the corner of her eye she saw a black SUV, circling the lot the other way. It had blue plates, she thought. Illinois, maybe. She looked again, but it was gone.

Bramall pulled over on the shoulder, in the dark, a mile further on, where the eastbound and the westbound lanes came back together again, either side of a standard grass median. Safe enough. If a trooper came by, they could say they had an engine light, or a worry about a tire. There wasn’t much traffic. Cars blew by, one by one. Then a semi truck, in a howl of noise and wind. The Toyota rocked on its springs.

Reacher said, “How far is the next exit?”

Bramall checked his screen.

“About thirty miles,” he said.

“Waste of gas. Do a U-turn across the median. Rose and I will get out at the depot ramp. You and Mrs. Mackenzie can go park in the rest area and walk back through the trees from the west. You can meet us there. We can take a look around and figure out how we do it.”

“You want me with you?” Sanderson said.

“Why not?”

“I can’t,” she said. “I don’t feel so good.”

“You can fix that.”

“I can’t,” she said again. “I only have one strip left.”

“We’re about to get more.”

“We don’t know that.”

“You have to use your last strip sometime.”

“I want to know I still have it.”

“Shape up, major. I need you with me, and I need you in good condition at midnight. I’ll leave you to work out the timings.”

The car went quiet.

Then Mackenzie said, “Let’s go.”

Bramall waited until he saw no headlights coming either way. He turned the wheel and drove across all three traffic lanes. He bumped down onto the median, which was dished in the middle, like a wide drainage channel. For snowmelt, Reacher figured. The plows had to dump it somewhere. The Toyota drove down one slope and up the other, where it bumped up into the westbound lanes and turned and took off, in the direction it had come from. Now they were heading the same way the truck would be later. Coming west from New Jersey. It was already rolling. It had been rolling for hours. It was somewhere behind them, past Sioux Falls by then, doing the long miles Reacher had done in the huge red truck with the sleeper cab. With the old man at the wheel. My wife would say you feel guilty about something. She reads books. She thinks about things. They were seeing what the truck would see later. Which was nothing much for a mile, and then at the edge of the left-hand headlight beam an unannounced off-ramp, and a sign that said Authorized Personnel Only.

Bramall stopped on the shoulder a hundred yards later. Reacher got out and walked around to Sanderson’s door. She got out. Boots, jeans, silver jacket zipped to the neck. But this time the hem of her hood was folded back. For peripheral vision. For situational awareness. She was ready for action. Her face was exposed from her cheek bones forward. The foil on the right, and the scars on the left. The misshapen mouth. One eyebrow terminated halfway through, for no good reason, except it was sewed to something that wasn’t an eyebrow.

“It’s dark,” she said. “It’s OK.”

Bramall drove away.

They waited on the shoulder. No traffic came by. She was chewing hard. Not gum, he thought. Her last quarter-inch. Or maybe half of it. She could have torn it in two, thumbnail to thumbnail. I’ll leave you to work out the timings. He hoped she knew what she was doing. It wasn’t working like it had before. She wasn’t calm. Maybe the last quarter-inch never was. How could it be? It was like swinging on a trapeze, letting go, flying through the air toward nobody, hoping somebody would get there and catch you before you fell. Maybe the new gold standard for insecurity. An addict with an empty pocket. Suspended above the abyss. Nothing in reserve.

They walked back the hundred yards and stopped level with the sign. Authorized Personnel Only. Nothing coming.

Reacher said, “Ready?”

They ran across the traffic lanes, and around the sign, and into the ramp. Where they stopped and got their breath and looked ahead. They were on a heavy-duty engineered road, good for heavy-duty trucks. It was long enough to disappear into the darkness. There were trees planted both sides, to pretty it up, but it was industrial access, nothing more.

Sanderson said, “Do you have a flashlight?”

Reacher said, “No.”

“I’m sure Mr. Bramall would have lent us one. I’m sure he has several.”

“Do you like him?”

“I think my sister chose well.”

They set off walking through the dark. There was enough moon to get by, helped by occasional spill from distant headlights, which flashed on things like camera strobes, so they could be fixed in time and space, and accounted for. Beginning to end the ramp was half a mile long, and it led to a drive-in, drive-out garage big enough for heavy equipment. They stayed in the trees and scoped it out. There were four roads in total, an on-ramp and an off-ramp each side, like four long legs on a skinny insect, all meeting at the garage, which had a door each end. Both of which were closed. There was no one around. No vehicles. No sound. It was a snowplow shed at the end of summer.

Deserted.

“What time is it?” Sanderson asked.

“Ten o’clock,” Reacher said. “Two hours to go.”

“Is this going to work?”

“It looks right. It’s what the voicemail said. There’s a service road leading to a covered garage.”

“That was then. They might have a different place for tonight.”

“As good as this? I doubt it. This place is solid gold.”

“There’s no sign of life.”

“Not yet. I think that’s the point. They get in and out real fast. It’s a totally hidden location. Who pays attention to these places? Someone drives in here, they’re invisible.”

He turned and looked back. The truck from Jersey would come in from the east, the same way they had walked. Then it would loop around the garage and head back the other direction, for the empty run home. Stackley would have headed west. The other guys like him could have headed either way. It was a secret rendezvous and a hidden highway interchange all in one. Solid gold.

They walked up to where they thought Bramall and Mackenzie would come through the trees, and found them just arriving. They did the tour again.

Mackenzie said, “Obviously I’m not the person to ask how we play this.”

Sanderson said, “Operationally the soundest plan would be ambush the incoming vehicle halfway along the service road. After it leaves the highway but before it gets to the garage. One operation, maximum one round fired, maximum one enemy killed. Focused and efficient.”

“How would we ambush the vehicle?”

“I don’t know if we should.”

“I don’t follow.”

Reacher said, “We don’t know what kind of vehicle it is. But it came out the factory gate, so it’s probably an official pharmaceutical truck. I’m sure the Boy Detective discussed the matter with them. Lots of meetings and memos. The truck is probably locked. Maybe only the driver can open it. A combination or a special key. Your sister doesn’t want to run the risk of having to beat it out of him.”

“Would you?”

“The guy already took money to deliver to the wrong address. Clearly he’s open to a negotiation. Fair exchange is no robbery.”

“So which?”

Bramall said, “There could be ten or twelve guys picking up here. To get what they got we would have to rob them all, one by one. On their way out of here. Like the ticket booth in a parking lot. Twelve robberies, one after the other. Maybe a minute apart. I don’t think we could do it. We have no choice.”

“Rose?”

“Like I said, the ambush chooses itself. Let’s hope the truck is not locked.”

“There’s a third way,” Reacher said. “The best of both worlds.”