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Elizabeth Deveraux said nothing more She just climbed into her Caprice and drove away She pulled a wide U-turn in front of ht of her after the first curve I stood still for a longTen h the last of the rural htened in front of me Main Street, in fact as well as na up The stores were opening I sao cars and two pedestrians But that was all Carter Crossing was no kind of a bustling metropolis That was for daht-hand sidewalk and passed the hardware store, and the pharmacy, and the hotel, and the diner, and the empty space next to it Deveraux&039;s car was not parked in the Sheriff&039;s Department lot No police vehicles were There were two civilian pick-up trucks there, both of them old and battered and modest The desk clerk and the dispatcher, presuain about her, I guessed He would have to He had girlfriends Plural He had mouths to feed

I ht the road speared dead straight ahead of me Narrow shoulders, deep ditches The traffic lanes banked up and over the rail crossing and then the shoulders and the ditches resuh the trees

There was a truck parkedBrush-painted in a dark color Two guys in it Staring at rease

My two pals, froht before

I walked on, not fast, not slow, just strolling I got within about twenty yards Close enough for h for theot out of their truck The doors opened as one and they cliether in front of the grille Saht, same build Like cousins They were each about six-two and around two hundred or two hundred and ten pounds They had long knotted ar hands Work boots on their feet

I walked on I stopped ten feet away I could sarettes, rancid sweat, dirty clothes

The guy on ain, soldier boy"

He was the alpha dog Both ti, and both tiuy was some kind of a silent , of course

The guy asked, "Where are you going?"

I didn&039;t answer

The guy said, "You&039;re going to Kelhao?"

He turned and swept his ar the road, and its relentless straightness, and its lack of alternative destinations He turned back and said, "Last night you told us you weren&039;t from Kelham You lied to us"

I said, "Maybe I live on that side of town"

"No," the guy said "If you&039;d tried living on that side of toe&039;d have visited you before"

"For what purpose?"

"To explain the facts of life Different places are for different folks" He carew stronger

I said, "You guys need to take a bath Not necessarily together"

The guy on ?"

I said, "You don&039;t want to know"

"Yes, we do"

"No, you really don&039;t"

"You&039;re not welcome here Not anymore None of you"

"It&039;s a free country," I said

"Not for people like you" Then he paused, and his gaze suddenly shifted and focused into the far distance over my shoulder The oldest trick in the book Except this ti I didn&039;t turn, but I heard a car on the road behind hway tires Not a cop car, because no recognition dawned in the guy&039;s eyes No familiarity It was a car he hadn&039;t seen before A car he couldn&039;t explain

I waited and it swept past us It was going fast It was a black town car Urban Dark s It thumped up the rise, pattered across the tracks, and thuht A ht

An official visitor, heading to Kelhae

Or panic

The guy on et back on the base And then stay there"

I said nothing

"But first you need to tell us what you&039;ve been doing And who you&039;ve been seeing Maybe we should go check she&039;s still alive"

I said, "I&039;uy took a step forward

He said, "Liar"

I took a breath and uy full in the face No warning I just braced my feet and snapped forward fro It was perfectly done Ti, force, impact It was all there in full measure Plus surprise No one expects a head butt Hus with their heads Soes the gaery to thea sawed-off shotgun to a knife fight

The guy went down like an empty suit His brain told his knees it was out of business and he folded up and fell over backward He was unconscious before he hit the floor I could tell by the way the back of his head hit the road No attempt to soften the blow It just smacked doith a thud Maybe he added soiven hi badly It was already starting to swell The hu machine, and it doesn&039;t waste tiuy just stood there The silentatstep toLike a double bluff He was co a fist He went down in the same kind of heap I left him there, on his back, six feet from his buddy I would have taken their truck, to save myself some time and effort, but I couldn&039;t stand the stink in the cab So I walked on, to the railroad track, where I turned left on the ties and headed north

I caht before and traced the wreck&039;s debris field frohter pieces had traveled shorter distances Less y Or lass and the smaller flakes of metal were the first to be found They had stalled and fluttered and fallen to earth and come to rest well before the heavier items, which had barreled onward

It had been a fairly old car The collision had exploded it, like a diagraht There were squares and flakes of rust, from the underbody They were layered and scaly and caked with dirt

An old car, with significant time spent in cold climates where they salt the roads in winter Not a Mississippi native A car that had been hauled froularly, unpredictably

A soldier&039;s car, probably

I walked on and turned and tried to gauge the general vector Debris had sprayed through a fan shape, narrow at first, widening later I pictured a license plate, a s free of its bolts, sailing through the nighttiure out where it ht have landed I couldn&039;t see it anywhere, not inside the fan shape, not on its edges, not beyond its edges Then I reale that had accompanied the train, and I widened ht in a h the roiled air, going high,backward

In the end I found it still attached to the chroht before The bumper had folded up just left of the plate, and made a point, which had half buried itself in the scrub Like a spear I rocked it loose and pulled it out and turned it over and saw the plate hanging froon plate It featured a drawing of a salmon behind the number Some kind of a wildlife initiative Protect the natural environs were current and up to date I memorized the number and reburied the bent bumper in its hole Then I walked on, to where the bulk of the wreck had burned against the trees

By bright daylight I agreed with Pellegrino The car had been blue, a light powdery shade like a winter sky Maybe it had started life that way, or e But either way I found enough unblemished paint to be sure There was an intact patch inside what had been the glove box There was an overspray stripe under melted plastic trim inside one of the doors Not much else had survived No personal items No paperwork of any kind No discarded material No hairs, no fibers No ropes, no belts, no straps, no knives

I wiped my hands on uys and their truck had gone I guessed the silentI had hit hiuessed he had hauled his buddy into the truck and taken off, slow and shaky No har permanent For him, at least The other one would have a headache, for six months or so

I stood on the spot where they had gone down and saw another black car co toward me fro and wandering a little on the uneven road It had a good wax shine and blackglass It blew past me at speed, thuain, and rushed onward toward Kelham I turned and watched it, and then I turned back and started walking again No particular place to go, except I was hungry by that point, so I headed for Main Street and the diner The place was empty I was the only customer The same waitress was on duty She met me at the hostess station and asked, "Is your name Jack Reacher?"

I said, "Yes, ma&039;am, it is"

She said, "There was a wo for you"

21

The waitress was a typical eyewitness She was co for , she had no reliable recollection She hadn&039;t gotten a name She had formed no impression of the woman&039;s status or profession or her relationship to me She hadn&039;t seen a car or any other mode of transportation All she could reuy in town, very big, very tall, answering to the name Jack Reacher?

I thanked her for the information and she sat me at my usual table I ordered a piece of pie and a cup of coffee and I asked her for coins for the phone She opened the register and gave e for a ten dollar bill She broughtin a moment I walked across the silent room to the phone by the door and split the roll with my thumbnail and dialed Garber&039;s office He answered the phone himself, instantly

I asked, "Have you sent another agent down here?"

"No," he said "Why?"

"There&039;s a wo for me by name"

"Who?"

"I don&039;t knoho She hasn&039;t found me yet"

"Not one offor Kelham Limousines DoD or politicians, probably"

"Is there a difference?"

I asked, "Have you heard anything fro about the Department of Defense or politicians," he said "I heard that Munro is pursuing so medical"

"Medical? Like what?"

"I don&039;t know Is there a medical dimension here?"

"With a potential perpetrator? Not that I&039;ve seen Apart froravel rash question I asked before The victim is covered in it The perp should have soravel rash Apparently there&039;s so track there They run till they drop"

"Even Bravo Coet back?"

"Especially Bravo Coet back There&039;s soe at work there These are seriously hard ot the license plate off the wreck Light blue car, froon" I recited the number from memory, and I heard him write it down

He said, "Call me back in ten minutes Don&039;t speak to a soul before that No one, OK? Not a word"

I ignored the letter of the law by speaking to the waitress I thanked her for er than she needed to She had soht have gotten er she had seen ot the i was the kind of place where private business stayed private Where a small slice of the population didn&039;t want to be found

I told her not to worry By that point I was pretty sure who the mystery woman was A process of eliination to find ar, and creaetable matter It hit the spot I took the full ten minutes to eat it, a little at a tiain and called Garber back

He said, "We traced the car"

I said, "And?"

"And what?"

"Whose is it?"

He said, "I can&039;t tell you that"

"Really?"

"Classified inforo"

"Bravo Coht?"

"I can&039;t tell you that I can&039;t confirm or deny Did you write the number down?"

"No"

"Where&039;s the plate?"

"Where I found it"

"Who have you told?"

"Nobody"

"You sure?"

"Completely"

"OK," Garber said "Here are your orders Firstly, do not, repeat, do not give that number to local law enforcement Not under any circumstances Secondly, return to the wreck and destroy that plate immediately"

22

I obeyed the first part of Garber&039;s order, by not i around to the Sheriff&039;s Depart on the news I disobeyed the second part, by not i back to the debris field I just sat in the diner and drank coffee and thought I wasn&039;t even sure how to destroy a license plate Burning it would conceal the state of origin, but not the nuured I could fold it twice and stao do that I just sat there I figured if I sat in a diner long enough, drinking coffee, my mystery woman would surely find me

Which she did, five minutes later