back at the flashing lights. He was confused. He didn’t understand.
Reacher opened the door and got in the car.
“She gave me a ride,” he said. “That’s all. She didn’t mean to startle you.”
Up ahead the light cycled back to green, and this time the traffic moved. The guy drove forward, with one eye on his mirror. Behind him Amos pulled a wide U turn around the light and headed back the way she had come. Reacher turned in his seat and watched her go.
The old guy said, “Why would a cop give you a ride?”
“Protective custody,” Reacher said. “The folks from the apple farm were in town last night.”
The explanation seemed to settle the guy. He nodded.
“I told you,” he said. “That family doesn’t let things go.”
“Back there,” Reacher said. “You shouldn’t have run. Not a smart tactic. The cops will always get you in the end.”
“Were you a cop?”
“In the army,” Reacher said. “Long ago.”
“I know I shouldn’t have run,” the guy said. “But it’s an old habit.”
He said nothing more. He just drove on. Reacher watched the traffic. No blue van. They made a left and a right. They seemed to be heading north and west. Toward the apple farm itself. And Ryantown. That general area.
Reacher said, “Did you make the arrangements?”
“They’re expecting us.”
“Thank you.”
“Visiting hours start at ten.”
“Great.”
“The old man’s name is Mr. Mortimer.”
“Good to know,” Reacher said.
They found the main drag out of town, and two miles later turned left, on the road Reacher had seen the day before. The road that led to the place with no water. They followed it west, through woods, past fields. Reacher watched out his window. In the far distance on his right lay Bruce Jones’s acres, with his twelve dogs, and then came the orchards, and Ryantown itself, overgrown and ghostly.
He said, “How much further?”
“Nearly there,” the guy said.
Two miles later on the left Reacher saw a shape. Way far in the distance. Some kind of a new development. Long low buildings, laid out in a virgin field. There were crisp blacktop roads with bright white markings. There were newly planted trees, looking pale and slender and delicate, next to their natural gnarly neighbors. The buildings were bland stucco, with metal windows, and white aluminum rainwater pipes that kinked at the bottom and ran away to spouts a yard into the grass. There was a sign at the main entrance. Something about assisted living.
“This is it,” the old guy said.
The clock in Reacher’s head hit ten exactly.
* * *
—
The third arrival was as stealthy and self contained as the first. The gentleman in question drove himself from a large house in a small town in a rural region of Pennsylvania. Initially he was in a car reported scrapped in western New York four months previously. He had prepared well ahead of time. He believed preparedness was everything. The whole journey had been rehearsed, over and over in his mind. He had looked for snags and problems. He wanted to be ready. He had two overarching aims. He didn’t want to be caught, and he didn’t want to be late.
The plan was about anonymity, of course, and cut outs, and untraceability. Had to be. Stage one was to drive non-stop in the paperless car to a friend’s place in back of a service station off the Mass Pike, just west of Boston. He knew the guy from a different community. A different shared interest. A tight, passionate group of guys. Secret and embattled. Loyal and helpful. They made a point of it. Like a fetish. What a fellow member wanted, a fellow member got. No questions asked.
The friend’s day job was trading commercial vehicles. He bought them at auction, after they came off lease. For resale. They came and went, clean and dirty, used and abused, banged up and not a scratch. On any given day he had a couple dozen around. On that particular day he had three clear favorites. All panel vans, all ordinary, all invisible. No one paid attention to a panel van. A panel van was a hole in the air.
The best example was tidy in appearance and dark blue in color. With gold signwriting. It had come in not long before, as a repo, from a bankrupt carpet cleaner in the city. Once a very upscale operation, by the look of it. Persian rugs. Hence the gold signwriting and the high standard of maintenance. The man from Pennsylvania loaded his stuff in