One Shot (Page 63)

Bellantonio took a new sheet of memo paper and addressed two questions to Emerson: Is Reacher left-handed? Did he have access to a vehicle?

The Zec spent the morning hours deciding what to do with Raskin. Raskin had failed three separate times. First with the initial tail, then by getting attacked from behind, and finally by letting his cell phone get stolen. The Zec didn’t like failure. He didn’t like it at all. At first he considered just pulling Raskin off the street and restricting him to duty in the video room on the ground floor of the house. But why would he want to depend on a failure to monitor his security?

Then Linsky called. They had been searching fourteen straight hours and had found no sign of the soldier.

"We should go after the lawyer now," Linsky said. "After all, nothing can happen without her. She’s the focal point. She’s the one making the moves here."

"That raises the stakes," the Zec said.

"They’re already pretty high."

"Maybe the soldier’s gone for good."

"Maybe he is," Linsky said. "But what matters is what he left behind. In the lawyer’s head."

"I’ll think about it," the Zec said. "I’ll get back to you."

"Should we keep on looking?"

"Tired?"

Linsky was exhausted and his spine was killing him.

"No," he lied. "I’m not tired."

"So keep on looking," the Zec said. "But send Raskin back to me."

Reacher slowed to fifty where the highway first rose on its stilts. He stayed in the center lane and let the spur that ran behind the library pass by on his right. He kept on north for two more miles and came off at the cloverleaf that met the four-lane with the auto dealers and the parts store. He went east on the county road and then turned north again, on Jeb Oliver’s rural route. After a minute he was deep in the silent countryside. The irrigation booms were turning slowly and the sun was making rainbows in the droplets.

The heartland. Where the secrets are.

He coasted to a stop next to the Olivers’ mailbox. No way was the Mustang going to make it down the driveway. The center hump would have ripped all the parts off the bottom. The suspension, the exhaust system, the axle, the diff, whatever else was down there. Ann Yanni wouldn’t have been pleased at all. So he slid out and left the car where it was, low and crouched and winking blue in the sun. He picked his way down the track, feeling every rock and stone through his thin soles. Jeb Oliver’s red Dodge hadn’t been moved. It was sitting right there, lightly dusted with brown dirt and streaked with dried dew. The old farmhouse was quiet. The barn was closed and locked.

Reacher ignored the front door. He walked around the side of the house to the back porch. Jeb’s mother was right there on her glider. She was dressed the same but this time she had no bottle. Just a manic stare out of eyes as big as saucers. She had one foot hooked up under her and was using the other to scoot the chair about twice as fast as she had before.

"Hello," she said.

"Jeb not back yet?" Reacher said.

She just shook her head. Reacher heard all the sounds he had heard before. The irrigation hiss, the squeak of the glider, the creak of the porch board.

"Got a gun?" he asked.

"I don’t hold with them," she said.

"Got a phone?" he asked.

"Disconnected," she said. "I owe them money. But I don’t need them. Jeb lets me use his cell if I need it."

"Good," Reacher said.

"How the hell is that good? Jeb’s not here."

"That’s exactly what’s good about it. I’m going to break into your barn and I don’t want you calling the cops while I’m doing it. Or shooting me."

"That’s Jeb’s barn. You can’t go in there."

"I don’t see how you can stop me."

He turned his back on her and continued down the track. It curved a little and led directly to the barn’s double doors. The doors, like the barn itself, were built of old planks alternately baked and rotted by a hundred summers and a hundred winters. Reacher touched them with his knuckles and felt a dry hollowness. The lock was brand new. It was a U-shaped bicycle lock like the ones city messengers used. One leg of the U ran through two black steel hasps that were bolted through the planks of the doors. Reacher touched the lock. Shook it. Heavy steel, warm from the sun. It was a pretty solid arrangement. No way of cutting it, no way of breaking it.

But a lock was only as strong as what it was fixed to.

Reacher grabbed the straight end of the lock at the bottom of the U. Pulled on it gently, and then harder. The doors sagged toward him and stopped. He put the flat of his palm against the wood and pushed them back. Held them closed with a straight left arm and yanked on the lock with his right. The bolts gave a little, but not much. Reacher figured that Jeb must have used washers on the back, under the nuts. Maybe big wide ones. They were spreading the load.

He thought: OK, more load.

He held the straight part of the lock with both hands and leaned back like a water-skier. Pulled hard and smashed his heel into the wood under the hasps. His legs were longer than his arms, so he was cramped and the kick didn’t carry much power. But it carried enough. The old wood splintered a little and something gave half an inch. He regrouped and tried it again. Something gave a little more. Then a plank in the left-hand door split completely and two bolts pulled out. Reacher put his left hand flat on the door and got his right-hand fingers hooked in the gap with a backhand grip. He took a breath and counted to three and jerked hard. The last bolt fell out and the whole lock assembly hit the ground and the doors sagged all the way open. Reacher stepped away and folded the doors back flush with the walls and let the sunlight in.

He guessed he was expecting to see a meth lab, maybe with workbenches and beakers and scales and propane burners and piles of new Baggies ready to receive the product. Or else a big stash, ready for onward distribution.

He saw none of that.

Bright light leaked in through long vertical gaps between warped planks. The barn was maybe forty feet by twenty inside. It had a bare earth floor, swept and compacted. It was completely empty except for a well-used pickup truck parked in the exact center of the space.

The truck was a Chevy Silverado, several years old. It was light brown, like fired clay. It was a working vehicle. It had been built down to a plain specification. A base model. Vinyl seats, steel wheels, undramatic tires. The load bed was clean but scratched and dented. It had no license plates. The doors were locked and there was no sign of a key anywhere.

"What’s that?"

Reacher turned and saw Jeb Oliver’s mother behind him. She had her hand tight on the doorjamb, like she was unwilling to cross the threshold.

"It’s a truck," Reacher said.

"I can see that."

"Is it Jeb’s?"

"I never saw it before."

"What did he drive before that big red thing?"

"Not this."

Reacher stepped closer to the truck and peered in through the driver’s-side window. Manual shift. Dirt and grime. High mileage. But no trash. The truck had been someone’s faithful servant, used but not abused.

"I never saw it before," the woman said again.

It looked like it had been there for a long time. It was settled on soft tires. It didn’t smell of oil or gasoline. It was cold, inert, filmed with dust. Reacher got on his knees and checked underneath. Nothing to see. Just a frame, caked with old dirt, clipped by rocks and gravel.

"How long has this thing been in here?" he asked from the floor.