Part 26 (1/2)
”d.a.m.n right I do. You got a problem with that?”
”No.”
They sat in the kitchen and drank coffee and water in silence. Vaughan took her free hand out of her lap and laid it on the table, her fingers spread and extended. They were the closest part of her to Reacher. He wondered whether it was a gesture, either conscious or subconscious. An approach, or an appeal for a connection.
No wedding band.
He's not here right now.
He put his own free hand on the table.
She asked, ”How do we know they were fugitives at all? Maybe they were undercover environmental activists, checking on the pollution. Maybe the Anderson guy fooled them and Ramirez didn't.”
”Fooled them how?”
”I don't know. But it worries me, if they're using poisons over there. We share the same water table.”
”Thurman mentioned something called trichloroethylene. It's a metal degreaser. I don't know whether it's dangerous or not.”
”I'm going to check it out.”
”Why would the wife of an environmental activist be scared of cops?”
”I don't know.”
”The Anderson guy wasn't fooling anyone. He was a guest there. They gave him a place to stay and protection. He washelped. ” ”
”But Lucy Anderson wasn't. She was thrown out.”
”Like I said, the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.”
”And Ramirez was killed.”
”Not killed. Left to die.”
”So why help one and shun the other?”
”Why shun him at all? Why not just round him up and dump him at the line, like they did with me and Lucy?”
Vaughan sipped her water.
”Because Ramirez was different in some way,” she said. ”More specifically dangerous to them.”
”Then why not just take him out immediately? Disappear him? The end result would have been the same.”
”I don't understand it.”
”Maybe I'm wrong,” Reacher said. ”Maybe they didn't shun him or keep him out. Maybe they never even knew he was there. Maybe he was sniffing around on the periphery, staying out of sight, trying to find a way in. Desperate enough to keep trying, not good enough to succeed.”
Vaughan took her hand off the table.
”We need to know exactly who he was,” she said. ”We need to talk to Maria.”
”She won't tell us anything.”
”We can try. We'll find her in the diner. Meet me there, later.”
”Later than what?”
”We both need to sleep.”
Reacher said, ”May I ask you a personal question?”
”Go ahead.”
”Is your husband in prison?”
Vaughan paused a beat, and then smiled, a little surprised, a little sad.
”No,” she said. ”He isn't.”
41
Reacher walked back to the motel, alone. Lucy Anderson's door was open. A maid's cart was parked outside. The bed was stripped and all the towels were on the floor. The closet was empty.I think she left town, the waitress had said, in the diner. Reacher watched for a moment and then he moved on. the waitress had said, in the diner. Reacher watched for a moment and then he moved on.Good luck, Lucky, he thought, he thought,whatever the h.e.l.l you're doing and wherever the h.e.l.l you're going. He unlocked his own door and took a long hot shower and climbed into bed. He was asleep within a minute. The coffee didn't fight him at all. He unlocked his own door and took a long hot shower and climbed into bed. He was asleep within a minute. The coffee didn't fight him at all.
He woke up in the middle of the afternoon with the MPs on his mind. The forward operating base. Its location. Its equipment mix. The place came at him like an a.n.a.lysis problem from the cla.s.srooms at Fort Rucker.
What was it for?
Why was it there?
The old County Route 37 wandered east to west through Hope, through Despair, through Halfway, and presumably onward. First he saw it laid out like a ribbon, like a line on a map, and then he pictured it in his head like a rotating three-dimensional diagram, like something on a computer screen, all green webs of origins and layers. Way back in its history it had been a wagon trail. Beaten earth, crushed rock, ruts and weeds. Then it had been minimally upgraded, when Model Ts had rolled out of Dearborn and flooded the country. Then Hope Towns.h.i.+p had upgraded ten miles of it again, for the sake of civic pride. They had done a conscientious job. Maybe foundation reinforcement had been involved. Certainly there had been grading and leveling. Maybe a little straightening. Possibly a little widening. Thick blacktop had been poured and rolled.
Despair Towns.h.i.+p had done none of that. Thurman and his father and his grandfather or whoever had owned the town before had ignored the road. Maybe they had grudgingly dumped tar and pebbles on it every decade or so, but fundamentally it was still the same road it had been back when Henry Ford ruled the world. It was narrow, weak, lumpy, and meandering.
Unfit for heavy traffic.
Except west of the metal plant. There, a thirty-five-mile stretch had been co-opted and rebuilt. Probably from the ground up. Reacher pictured a yard-deep excavation, drainage, a rock foundation, a thick concrete roadbed, rebar, a four-inch asphalt layer rolled smooth and true by heavy equipment. The shoulders were straight and the camber was good. Then after thirty-five miles the new road had been driven through virgin territory to meet the Interstate, and the old Route 37 had wound onward as before, once again in its native state, narrow, weak, and lumpy.
Weak, strong, weak.