“One in a million. I’m sure most CIA stories were very boring. I’m damn sure most Marine Corps stories were.”
“Agreed,” Reacher said. “One in a million. But that’s my point. The odds are better than zero. Which is why I want you to check. Call it due diligence on my part. I would be failing in my duty. You’re about to re-open a cold case with no statute of limitations, with a one-in-a-million possibility your main suspect is still alive, living in your jurisdiction, and is related to me. I figured I should clarify things beforehand. In case I need to call him. Hey, pops, get a lawyer, you’re about to be arrested. That kind of thing.”
“That’s crazy,” Amos said again.
“The odds are better than zero,” Reacher said again.
“Wait,” she said again.
He could still hear the paper.
She said, “This is a weird coincidence.”
“What is?”
“Our new software. Mostly it counts who enters and who leaves, using license plate recognition technology. But apparently it’s running a couple extra layers underneath. It’s looking for outstanding warrants, and tickets, and then it’s running a page for general remarks.”
“And?”
“The van we saw this morning was illegal.”
“Which van?”
“The Persian carpet cleaners.”
“Illegal how?”
“It should have been showing dealer plates.”
“Why?”
“Because its current owner is a dealer.”
“Not a carpet cleaner?”
“They went out of business. The van was repossessed.”
* * *
—
Patty and Shorty went back to the bathroom, but gave up on it pretty soon. The smashed tile and the powdered wall board made half of it uninhabitable. They drifted back to the bed again and sat side by side, facing away from the window. They didn’t care if the blind was up or down. They didn’t care who was watching. They whispered to each other, short and quiet, nodding and shrugging and shaking their heads, using hand signals, discussing things as fast and as privately as they could. They had revised their basic assumptions. They had refined their mental model. Some things were clearer. Some things were not. They knew more, but understood less. Clearly the six men who had looked in the window were the opposition team. Their task was to win a game of tag. In thirty square miles of forest. Presumably in the dark. Presumably with three of the assholes out in the woods with them, as referees, or umpires, or marshals, for a total of nine quad-bikes, with the fourth and final asshole stuck in the house, watching the cameras and listening to the microphones and doing whatever the hell else they did in there. That was their current prediction.
Thirty square miles. Six men. In the dark. Yet they were confident of success. They couldn’t afford to fail. The quad-bikes would help. Much faster than running. But still. Thirty square miles was ten thousand football fields. All empty, except a random six, and each of those with just one man.
In the dark.
They didn’t get it.
Then Shorty whispered, “Maybe they have night vision goggles.”
Which sparked a cascade of gloomy thoughts. They could ride around and around, in an endless giant circle, a mile or two out, one by one, like an endless pinwheel, one or other of them passing any given spot every few minutes. Meanwhile Patty and Shorty would be coming in from the side, at a right angle, like crossing a one-way street. They would be slow. They might be visible for five whole minutes, side to side, beginning to end. Would the pinwheel spin slower than that?
Or would they simply be followed from their very first step out the door?
So many questions.
Including the biggest question of all. What kind of tag would it be? Probably not the schoolyard kind. Not a slap on the shoulder. Not a beanbag. Six men. Thirty square miles. Quad-bikes and night vision. Confident of success.
Not good.
Which led to the biggest decision of all. Stick together, or split up? They could go different directions. It would double their chances. More than. If one of them got caught, the other would benefit from the diversion.
One of them might get away.
* * *
—
Reacher sat in the Subaru on the wide gravel shoulder. If the organic jute wasn’t true, then nothing was true. Told you so, said the back part of his brain. The tow truck wasn’t there for an abandoned car. Not the way the story was told. Amos said taxis wouldn’t drive out that far. The abandoned car was invented. It was part of a fantastically elaborate bullshit story. Along with the alleged plumbers