Part 43 (1/2)
”She's married, you know.”
”I know. Now call her.”
The guy stayed on the line and Reacher heard him get on the radio. A call sign, a code, a request for an immediate response, all repeated once, and then again. Then the sound of dead air. Buzzing, crackling, the heterodyne whine of nighttime interference from high in the ionosphere. Plenty of random noise.
But nothing else.
No reply from Vaughan.
61
Reacher got out of the gas station ahead of the minister in the U-Haul and headed north as fast as the old Suburban would go. The drunk guy slept on next to him. He was leaking alcohol through his pores. Reacher cracked a window. The night air kept him awake and sober and the whistle masked the snoring. Cell coverage died eight miles north of Lamar. Reacher guessed it wouldn't come back until they got close to the I-70 corridor, which was two hours ahead. It was four-thirty in the morning. ETA in Hope, around dawn. A five-hour delay, which was an inconvenience, but maybe not a disaster.
Then the Suburban's engine blew.
Reacher was no kind of an automotive expert. He didn't see it coming. He saw the temperature needle nudge upward a tick, and thought nothing of it. Just stress and strain, he figured, because of the long fast cruise. But the needle didn't stop moving. It went all the way up into the red zone and didn't stop until it was hard against the peg. The motor lost power and a hot wet smell came in through the vents. Then there was a m.u.f.fled thump under the hood and strings of tan emulsion blew out of the ventilation slots in front of the winds.h.i.+eld and spattered all over the gla.s.s. The motor died altogether and the Suburban slowed hard. Reacher steered to the shoulder and coasted to a stop.
Not good,he thought.
The drunk guy slept on.
Reacher got out in the darkness and headed around to the front of the hood. He used the flats of his hands to bounce some glow from the headlight beams back onto the car. He saw steam. And sticky tan sludge leaking from every crevice. Thick, and foamy. A mixture of engine oil and cooling water. Blown head gaskets. Total breakdown. Repairable, but not without hundreds of dollars and a week in the shop.
Not good.
Half a mile south he could see the U-Haul's lights coming his way. He stepped around to the pa.s.senger door and leaned in over the sleeping guy and found a pen and an old service invoice in the glove compartment. He turned the invoice over and wrote:You need to buy a new car. I borrowed your cell phone. Will mail it back. He signed the note: He signed the note:Your hitchhiker. He took the Suburban's registration for the guy's address and folded it into his pocket. Then he ran fifty feet south and stepped into the traffic lane and held his arms high and waited to flag the U-Haul down. It picked him up in its headlights about fifty yards out. Reacher waved his arms above his head. The universal distress signal. The U-Haul's headlights flicked to bright. The truck slowed, like Reacher knew it would. A lonely road, and a disabled vehicle and a stranded driver, both of them at least fleetingly familiar to the Good Samaritan behind the wheel. He took the Suburban's registration for the guy's address and folded it into his pocket. Then he ran fifty feet south and stepped into the traffic lane and held his arms high and waited to flag the U-Haul down. It picked him up in its headlights about fifty yards out. Reacher waved his arms above his head. The universal distress signal. The U-Haul's headlights flicked to bright. The truck slowed, like Reacher knew it would. A lonely road, and a disabled vehicle and a stranded driver, both of them at least fleetingly familiar to the Good Samaritan behind the wheel.
The U-Haul came to rest a yard in front of Reacher, halfway on the shoulder. The window came down and the guy in the dog collar stuck his head out.
”Need help?” he said. Then he smiled, wide and wholesome. ”Dumb question, I guess.”
”I need a ride,” Reacher said. ”The engine blew.”
”Want me to take a look?”
Reacher said, ”No.” He didn't want the minister to see the drunk guy. From a distance he was out of sight on the reclined seat, below the window line. Close up, he was big and obvious. Abandoning a broken-down truck in the middle of nowhere was one thing. Abandoning a comatose pa.s.senger was another. ”No point, believe me. I'll have to send a tow truck. Or set fire to the d.a.m.n thing.”
”I'm headed north to Yuma. You're welcome to join me, for all or part of the way.”
Reacher nodded. Called up the map in his head. The Yuma road crossed the Hope road about two hours ahead. The same road he had come in on originally, with the old guy in the green Grand Marquis. He would need to find a third ride, for the final western leg. His ETA was now about ten in the morning, with luck. He said, ”Thanks. I'll jump out about halfway to Yuma.”
The guy in the dog collar smiled his wholesome smile again and said, ”Hop in.”
The U-Haul was a full-sized pick-up frame overwhelmed by a box body a little longer and wider and a lot taller than a pick-up's load bed. It sagged and wallowed and the extra weight and aerodynamic resistance made it slow. It struggled up close to sixty miles an hour and stayed there. Wouldn't go any faster. Inside it smelled of warm exhaust fumes and hot oil and plastic. But the seat was cloth, as advertised, and reasonably comfortable. Reacher had to fight to stay awake. He wanted to be good company. He didn't want to replicate the drunk guy's manners.
He asked, ”What are you hauling?”
The guy in the collar said, ”Used furniture. Donations. We run a mission in Yuma.”
”We?”
”Our church.”
”What kind of a mission?”
”We help the homeless and the needy.”
”What kind of a church?”
”We're Anglicans, plain vanilla, middle of the road.”
”Do you play the guitar?”
The guy smiled again. ”We try to be inclusive.”
”Where I'm going, there's an End Times Church.”
The minister shook his head. ”An End Times congregation, maybe. It's not a recognized denomination.”
”What do you know about them?”
”Have you read the Book of Revelation?”
Reacher said, ”I've heard of it.”
The minister said, ”Its correct t.i.tle is The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. Most of the original is lost, of course. It was written either in Ancient Hebrew or Aramaic, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Koine Greek, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Latin, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Elizabethan English and printed, with opportunities for error and confusion at every single stage. Now it reads like a bad acid trip. I suspect it always did. Possibly all the translations and all the copying actually improved it.”
”What does it say?”
”Your guess is as good as mine.”
”Are you serious?”
”Some of our homeless people make more sense.”
”What do people think it says?”
”Broadly, the righteous ascend to heaven, the unholy are left on earth and are visited by various colorful plagues and disasters, Christ returns to battle the Antichrist in an Armageddon scenario, and no one winds up very happy.”
”Is that the same as the Rapture?”
”The Rapture is the ascending part. The plagues and the fighting are separate. They come afterward.”
”When is all this supposed to happen?”