“Do they ride them all the time, like horseback, or do they get off and approach on foot?”
“I guess I don’t hear them buzzing around all the time, so yeah, I guess they park them and fan out on foot.”
“Which means we won’t hear them coming. Mark was bullshitting.”
“There’s a surprise.”
“We’re in trouble.”
“It’s a big woods. They need to get closer than forty feet. That guy was real far away. He was shit out of luck.”
“We should turn southwest now,” Patty said.
“Why?”
“I think from here it would be the fastest way to the break in the trees.”
“Won’t they guess?”
“We can’t worry about that anymore. There are nine of them. Between them they can guess everything.”
“OK, we should head half a turn to the right.”
“If we’re really heading south right now.”
“I’m pretty sure,” Shorty said. “More or less.”
“I think we got turned around.”
“Not by much.”
Patty said nothing.
Shorty said, “What?”
“I think we’re lost in the woods. Which is full of archers who want to kill us. I think I’m going to die surrounded by trees. Which I guess is fair. I work in a sawmill.”
“You OK?”
“A bit light headed.”
“Hang in there. We’re close enough for government work. Turn half right, keep on going, and we’ll reach the clearing.”
They did all those things. They turned half right, they kept on going, and they reached the clearing. A minute later. But it was the wrong clearing. They were behind the motel again. The same gray acre of grass. A different angle. But only slightly. They were coming out of the woods about twenty yards from where they ran in.
* * *
—
Reacher heard motorcycle engines far in the distance. First a swarm, like a whole bunch together, buzzing faintly, right at the edge of silence, then individual machines about a mile away, some driving by, some slowing down. Not the clumsy bass beat of American machines. The other kind of motorbike noise. High revs, gears and chains, all kinds of cams and valves and other parts howling and thrashing up and down. The quad-bikes, he assumed. There had been nine, neatly parked in three rows of three. In front of the barn. Now they were out and about, revving and squirming their way through the trees.
Hunting, said the back part of his brain.
OK, said the front part. Maybe a protected species. A bear cub, or something. Highly illegal. Maybe that was the victim.
Except a bear cub didn’t drive an import or hide with the blind down.
He stopped in the dark and shuffled off the track. He stood six feet in the trees. Way up ahead he heard a bike. Not moving. Idling in place. Waiting. No headlight. Then it shut down. The silence became total again. Overhead where the canopy was thin there were slivers of steel-gray sky. Moonlight on low cloud.
Reacher moved up through the trees, following the track, six feet from its edge.
* * *
—
Patty sat on the ground, with her back against a tree. She stared across at the motel. The blind side. The back wall. Where they had started.
“You OK?” Shorty said again.
She thought, if they see you early, they might just track you for a spell.
Out loud she said, “Sit down, Shorty. Rest when you can. This could be a long night.”
He sat down. The next tree.
He said, “We’ll get better at it.”
“No, we won’t,” she said. “Not without a compass. It’s impossible. We tried three straight lines and ended up walking a pretzel.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to wake up and find this has all been a horrible dream.”
“Apart from that.”
“I want to go east. I think the track is the only way. Alongside, in the trees. So we don’t get lost. Any other direction is futile. We could wander all night.”
“They know that.”
“They always knew. They knew sooner or later we’d have no alternative but to try the track. Our last resort. We should have known, too. We were stupid. Thirty square miles with six guys was always ridiculous. What kind of game is that? It’s a lottery. But it isn’t thirty square miles. It’s a narrow strip either side of the track. That’s where all the action will be. It’s inevitable. They’re waiting for us there. The only gamble for them is what angle we approach from. And when.”
Shorty was quiet a long moment. Breathing in, breathing out.
Then he said, “I want to try something.”
“What kind of something?”
“First I want to see if it’s possible. I don’t want to look stupid.”