Part 31 (1/2)
”You sure?”
”No question. Plus she was too quiet and timid. She wasn't military.”
”So what did she want from the MPs? And why isn't she back yet?”
”Did the old guy actually see her get in?”
”Sure,” Vaughan said. ”He waited, like an old-fas.h.i.+oned gentleman.”
”Therefore a better question would be, if they let her in, what did they want from her?”
Vaughan said, ”Something to do with espionage.”
Reacher shook his head. ”I was wrong about that. They're not worried about espionage. They'd have the plant b.u.t.toned up, east and west, probably with a presence inside, or at least on the gates.”
”So why are they there?”
”They're guarding the truck route. Which means they're worried about theft, of something that would need a truck to haul away. Something heavy, too heavy for a regular car.”
”Something too heavy for a small plane, then.”
Reacher nodded. ”But that plane is involved somehow. This morning I was barging around and therefore they had to shut down the secret operation for a spell, and tonight the plane didn't fly. I didn't hear it, and I found it later, right there in its hangar.”
”You think it only flies when they've been working on the military stuff?”
”I know for sure it didn't when they hadn't been, so maybe the obverse is true, too.”
”Carrying something? In or out?”
”Maybe both. Like trading.”
”Secrets?”
”Maybe.”
”People? Like Lucy Anderson's husband?”
Reacher drained his mug. Shook his head. ”I can't make that work. There's a logic problem with it. Almost mathematical.”
”Try me,” Vaughan said. ”I did four years of college.”
”How long have you got?”
”I'd love to catch whoever dropped the gum wrapper. But I could put that on the back burner, if you like.”
Reacher smiled. ”There are three things going on over there. The military contract, plus something else, plus something else again.”
”OK,” Vaughan said. She moved the saltshaker, the pepper shaker, and the sugar shaker to the center of the table. ”Three things.”
Reacher moved the saltshaker to one side, immediately. ”The military contract is what it is. Nothing controversial. Nothing to worry about, except the possibility that someone might steal something heavy. And that's the MPs' problem. They're straddling the road, they've got six Humvees, they've got thirty miles of empty s.p.a.ce for a running battle, they can stop any truck they need to. No special vigilance required from the townspeople. No reason for the townspeople to get excited at all.”
”But?”
Reacher cupped his hands and put his left around the pepper shaker and his right around the sugar shaker. ”But the townspeopleare excited about something. excited about something.All of them. They of them. Theyare vigilant. Today they all turned out in defense of something.” vigilant. Today they all turned out in defense of something.”
”What something?”
”I have no clue.” He held up the sugar shaker, in his right hand. ”But it's the bigger of the two unknowns. Because everyone is involved in it. Let's call it the right hand, as in the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing.”
”What's the left hand?”
Reacher held up the pepper shaker, in his left hand. ”It's smaller. It involves a subset of the population. A small, special subgroup. Everyone knows about the sugar, mostdon't know about the pepper, a few know about both the sugar know about the pepper, a few know about both the sugarand the pepper.” the pepper.”
”And we don't know about either.”
”But we will.”
”How does this relate to Lucy Anderson's husband not being taken out by plane?”
Reacher held up the sugar shaker. A large gla.s.s item, in his right hand. ”Thurman flies the plane. Thurman is the town boss. Thurman directs the larger unknown. It couldn't happen any other way. And if the Anderson guy had been a part of it, everyone would have been aware. Including the town cops and Judge Gardner. Thurman would have made sure of that. Therefore Lucy Anderson would not have been arrested, and she would not have been thrown out as a vagrant.”
”So Thurman's doing something, and everyone is helping, but a few are also working on something else behind his back?”
Reacher nodded. ”And that something the few are working on behind his back involves these young guys.”
”And the young guys either get through or they don't, depending on who they b.u.mp into first, the many right-hand people or the few left-hand people.”
”Exactly. And there's a new one now. Name of Rogers, just arrested, but I didn't see him.”
”Rogers? I've heard that name before.”
”Where?”
”I don't know.”
”Wherever, he was one of the unlucky ones.”
”The odds will always be against them.”
”Exactly.”
”Which was Ramirez's problem.”
”No, Ramirez didn't b.u.mp into anyone,” Reacher said. ”I checked the records. He was neither arrested nor helped.”
”Why? What made him different?”