Reacher was worried about the gunshot. The noise it had made. Someone was certain to have heard. The night clerk. Or the other guests, in the south wing. One of them was bound to call 911. Maybe they all would. Maybe they already had. One way or another the police would soon be showing up. And Reacher did not want to be around when they got there. The stealthy approach hadn’t worked. Now whoever was pulling the strings would have an emergency call and a dead body to work with. A perfect excuse to send in a couple more goons, guns blazing, no questions asked.
Winson was not a New York or a Chicago. It wasn’t even a Jackson. Reacher doubted the cops would be on patrol twenty-four/seven. Any presence was likely to be confined to the station house at that time of night. The best case would be one guy. Low down the pecking order. Alone with a pot of stewed coffee and a box of stale donuts. Someone who would have to call for assistance and wait for another officer to arrive before responding. The worst case would be that a pair of old hands were on duty. Trusted guys. Ready to roll at a moment’s notice. Ready to do whatever their boss told them to.
Reacher always planned for the worst. The town wasn’t far away. There would be no traffic. The cops would be local. They would know the road, and they would drive fast. He figured he and Hannah had nine minutes to get clear of the hotel.
Hannah was kneeling down near Harold’s head. She had checked his neck for a pulse after Reacher climbed off him. She hadn’t found one. But she had discovered her legs would no longer work. She was unable to stand up. When the week began she had never seen a dead body. Now she had been up close and personal with two. And this one she felt partially responsible for. Blood was leaking from its crushed chest and oozing toward her knees. She was starting to get mesmerized by it.
Reacher helped Hannah to her feet and guided her back to room 121. He asked her to get her things together. Quickly. And while she packed he went out to the corridor. He took a pillowcase from the bed and filled it with the contents of the Minerva guys’ pockets. Their guns. Phones. Wallets. Keys.
Reacher and Hannah made it down the corridor and into reception. They had six minutes left to get clear. Plenty of time. Then Reacher noticed a pair of bare feet. Someone was on the floor, behind the counter. He detoured to investigate. It was the kid who had checked them in. He was in his pajamas. Alive, but unconscious.
Reacher crossed back to Hannah and they continued to the parking lot. The three rental cars were still lined up on the south side of the porte cochere. The VW bus had moved closer on the north side. Two other vehicles had arrived and were parked next to it. A Dodge Neon and a Ram panel van. The Dodge had lived a hard life. That was clear. It had dents in its front wings, mud sprayed around its wheel arches, a crack running the whole width of its windshield, and a couple of deep gouges in its front fender. The van was dark blue. It was spotless. It had no livery or logo, but it looked like the kind of thing a company would use to ferry stock and supplies between different sites.
They had five minutes left to get clear.
Reacher pointed at the vehicles and said, “See how they’re lined up? One guy came here directly in the van. The others went to the clerk’s house. Roused him. And made him drive back in his VW because there would be no room in the car. Which could help us. Wait here a minute.”
Reacher went back inside and crossed to the counter. He checked the kid’s pajamas. Found a key on a rabbit’s foot fob. He fished a wallet out of the pillowcase. Took out all the cash and slipped it into the kid’s pocket. Then he tore a page out of the ledger, grabbed a pen off the shelf, and wrote: Will return the bus. Don’t report it stolen. More $ to come. Ambrose Burnside.
They had three minutes left.
Reacher hurried outside and tossed the key to Hannah. He said, “The cops will be looking for Sam’s truck. See if you can get the VW to start. Better to use it instead.” Then he looped around to the rear of the van. Its door was unlocked. The walls and floor of the cargo area had been boarded up with plywood to protect the paint. Two gurneys were stacked on each other at the right-hand side. They were folded down and secured with elastic straps. Next to them was a black plastic trash bag. Reacher looked inside. It was full of medics’ uniforms. There was nothing he could use, so Reacher moved on to the front of the vehicle. He went to the passenger side and opened the glove box. There were two pieces of paper inside. The insurance and registration documents. Reacher checked the details. He was hoping for a corporate name he hadn’t seen before. A new thread to pull in whatever illegitimate financial tapestry Angela St. Vrain had been talking to Sam Roth about. But Reacher was out of luck. The papers listed the vehicle’s owner as the Minerva Correctional Corporation, with an address in Delaware. Reacher immediately thought, Tax avoidance, but he couldn’t see a connection to murder.
Two minutes left.
Reacher heard the VW rattle into life. He scanned the rest of the van’s cab. It was clean and empty. Then he stepped back to slam the door and spotted something white peeking out from under the passenger seat. It was the corner of an envelope. It must have slipped off the dashboard while the van was moving and slid back there. Reacher fished it out. It was standard letter size. Thin, like it only had a single piece of paper inside. And it was addressed to Danny Peel. The same name that had been on the envelope in Angela St. Vrain’s purse. The same address. But different handwriting. Reacher was confident about that.
Bruno Hix was already the world’s greatest living chat-show host, but the extravaganza that was about to go live was destined to cement his status as an all-time legend of broadcasting. It was going to feature the most stars ever interviewed in a single event. It would be the most expensive eight hours of television ever made. It was being filmed in the middle of the Mediterranean, on the deck of his yacht. The audience was already in place. A thousand people divided between less luxurious ships, moored on all four sides. He had a drink in his hand. The cameras were rolling. But his guests hadn’t showed up. And somehow he was naked. His hair was falling out. His skin—
Hix’s phone rang. His eyes snapped open. He was sweating. He threw back the comforter and lay for a moment, trying to control his breathing. Then he answered the call. It was Brockman again.
Hix said, “Talk to me.”
The line was silent for a moment. Then Brockman said, “He’s on the loose again.”
“Who? Reacher?”
“Yes.”
“And the woman?”
“Her too.”
“Harold screwed up?”
“Harold’s dead. Reacher literally crushed him.”
“Harold. Second best again. Maybe we should put that on his gravestone. What about our other guys?”
“They’re hurt. But alive.”
“Where did Reacher go?”
“They don’t know. Moseley’s guys are searching for him.”
“OK. Keep me posted.”
“Bruno? I’ve been thinking. About tomorrow. I hate to say this. You know I’ve been against making any changes, right from the start. But maybe the others were right. With Reacher running around out there, maybe the full ceremony isn’t the smart way to go. Maybe it’s time we switched to Plan B.”
“We don’t have a Plan B. We’ve never needed one.”
“Maybe it’s time to think of one. We can’t postpone because of the court order but the ceremony isn’t important. Getting our guy released on time is all that matters. We could put out a statement. Say he was too traumatized to go through with the publicity.”
“The release is the top priority, for sure. But we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The ceremony is very important. You can’t buy that kind of good press. And you’re forgetting the insurance. That will take care of Reacher. He’ll be miles away at 10:00 a.m. And if he comes back, it’ll be too late for him to do anything.”
“Will it work?”
Hix reached out and took a second cellphone from his nightstand. A cheap, simple one. He checked its battery. He checked it had signal. “Of course it will. We’ll have confirmation soon. Nine o’clock. Nine-fifteen at the latest.”
The VW was less conspicuous than Roth’s truck but it would still stand out in such a small town. People might know it belonged to the kid from the hotel. The police probably would. Reacher bet they’d pulled him over plenty of times. The way the bus stank of weed it was pretty much probable cause on wheels. Plus its reliability was unknown. Reacher didn’t want faulty components or a lack of maintenance to do the cops’ work for them and leave him and Hannah stranded at the side of the road. So they decided to lie low for the remainder of the night. They headed to a place near the foot of the hill outside the town. Reacher remembered seeing a track leading into a thick grove of trees. At the time he’d figured it could be a firebreak, or was created to provide access for forestry equipment. Either way, it would give them good cover until the morning.
Hannah took her hand off the wheel and picked the envelope up from the dashboard for the third time since they left the hotel. “How do you think they got a letter addressed to Danny? Maybe he took it to work, meaning to deal with it, and dropped it? Someone found it and was planning to deliver it to his house?”
Reacher said, “Let’s ask him about it in the morning. What time are we seeing him?”
“Nothing’s set. I couldn’t get hold of him. He’s an early riser so I’ll try again first thing. And if he doesn’t answer we can always just show up and surprise him.”
The VW was fitted out with a bed and a kitchen and a table and a couch. Reacher appreciated the ingenuity that had gone into the design. And the thoroughness. Every tiny space had been used. But there was no getting away from the fact that the space was tiny. Reacher decided it would be better to let Hannah have it to herself so he dug through the cupboards until he found a bunch of old blankets. He took one. Spread it on the ground. And lay down under the stars.
There were two words on Reacher’s mind as he got ready to sleep. Brockman. And lockdown. Brockman was a name he’d heard more than once. The guy from Minerva who had sent out all the thugs. Reacher wanted to find him. Kick down his door in the middle of the night. See how he liked it. And see what he knew about whatever it was that Angela St. Vrain had stumbled across.
The problem was that Brockman might not know anything. If Minerva people started getting attacked in their homes it could trigger panic. And lockdown is the default panic response of people who run prisons. It’s in their DNA. So he would have to be patient. They had two leads to follow. Danny Peel, and the release ceremony. He would see what came of those. If nothing productive was uncovered, then he would go after Brockman. And whoever else was involved, until he got some satisfactory answers.