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We went out through the kitchen, single file, and we used the diner&039;s rear door, because that was the fastest route back to their Hueant led the way I was sandwiched between the two specialists One of the, and the other had hold of the front of ht air felt sharp, neither warround was jaht, all of them men, all of them in uniform, all of theh se halo behind the head of a saint, or an overspill croatching a prize fight Most had bottles of beer in their hands, probably purchased elsewhere and carried back within sight of thethe attention, and I guessed his son was pretending not to

The Huular rides Which it was Parked next to it at a respectful interval was a plain sedan painted flat green Reed Riley&039;s borrowed staff car, I assumed, second into the lot and put next to the truck for the sake of the tough-guy ieant slowed a step and the rest of us bunched up behind hiht toward the truck, not fast, not slow No one paid us any attention We were just four dark figures, and everyone else was facing in the other direction

The Hueant opened the left rear door and the specialists crowded behind et in The interior seant waited until the specialists were on board, one of theer seat, the other across the wide transmission tunnel next to me in the back, both of them turned watchfully toward me, and then he climbed into the driver&039;s seat and hit the button and started the engine It idled for a second with a hamot ready to hts on He put the transear He rolled forward, the ride luue, the speed low He headed north across the rough ground, toward the Kelham road, past the ranks of parked cars, past the back of the Sheriff&039;s Depart He checked his lanced left, and he prepared to turn right thirty yards ahead

I asked, "What are you guys trained for?"

He said, "Man-portable shoulder-launch surface-to-air defense"

"Not police work?"

"No"

"I could tell," I said "You didn&039;t search me You should have"

I caht hand I reached forward and bunched his collar in h to choke hiainst his seat I jaht shoulder, directly above his ar the seat fraainst an i anywhere He wasn&039;t even going to breathe, unless I let him

I said, "Let&039;s all sit still and stay cals, because of where I had the gun His ear or his neck would not have worked They would not have believed I was prepared to shoot the guy dead Not one soldier against another, however desperate I was supposed to be But a non-fatal wound through the soft flesh just to the right of his shoulder blade was plausible And terrible It would have ended his career It would have ended his life as he knew it, with nothing ahead of hi pain and disability checks and left-handed household utensils

I let out half an inch of his collar but kept hiainst the seat back

I said, "Turn left"

He turned left, onto the east - west road

I said, "Drive on"

He drove on, into the die-straight tunnel through the trees, away from Kelham, toward Memphis

I said, "Faster"

He sped up, and pretty soon the big truck was rattling and straining close to sixty miles an hour And at that point we entered the realm of si, and that road was about fortytraffic on it were low I figured a thirty-minute, thirty-oing," I said

The guy kept on going

Thirty minutes later ere at so and maybe ten miles short of the minor road that led up toward Meh Let&039;s stop here"

I kept on hauling his collar one way and I kept on pushing the other ith the gun and the guy stepped off the gas and coasted and braked to a stop He put the transmission in Park and took his hands off the wheel and sat there like he kneas co next, which maybe he did, and uy next to me and said, "Take your boots off"

And at that point they all kneas co, but I waited it out until the guy next to ed and bent to his task

I said, "Now your socks"

The guy peeled them off and balled theood soldier should

I said, "Now your jacket"

He took his jacket off

I said, "Now your pants"

There was another long, long pause, but then the guy hitched his butt up off the seat and slid his pants down over his hips I looked at the guy in the front passenger seat and said, "Saht to it, and then I eant out I wasn&039;t about to let the guy fold forward and away from me Not at that point When they were done I turned back to the guy next to et out of the truck and walk forward twenty paces"

His sergeant said, "You better hope we never ain, Reacher"

"No, I hope we do," I said "Because after suitable reflection I&039; you in any way at all Which I could have, you hopeless amateur"

No reply

"Get out of the truck," I said again

And aon the road inbut T-shirts and boxers They were thirty miles from where they wanted to be, which under the best of conditions was a seven- or eight-hour walk, and going barefoot on a rural road was no one&039;s definition of the best of conditions And even if by so traffic, they stood no chance of hitching a ride No chance at all No one in his rightbare-legged h to the driver&039;s seat and reversed a hundred yards and then turned around and headed back the e had coine noise and the sour smell of boots and socks for coured if the reduced payload let the Humvee hit sixty-five ain at three minutes past ten

85

In the event the big GM diesel gave me a little better than sixty-five miles an hour, and two minutes short of ten o&039;clock I pulled up and hid the truck in the last of the trees and walked the rest of the way A man on foot can be a lot stealthier than a four-ton military vehicle, and safety is always the best policy

But there was nothing to hide froht in the diner&039;sand my borrowed Buick and Deveraux&039;s Caprice parked nose to tail in front of it I guessed Deveraux was keeping half an eye on the situation but not worrying too uaranteed a quiet and untypical night

I stayed on the Kelham road and skipped Main Street itself and looped around behind it on a wide and cautious radius I kept myself concealed behind the last row of parked cars and walked down level with Brannan&039;s bar The crowd at the door was still there I could see uys clustered in the sa crowd inside the bar itself, so at the tables further into the rooroup Ibetween parked cars and pick-up trucks, with the hubbub ahead ofa little louder with each step But not much louder The noise was a lot lower in level and a lot more polite and restrained than it would have been on any other night Best behavior

I crossed an open lane between the first row of cars and the second and eased onward between a twenty-year-old Cadillac and a beat-up GMC Jiht next to me said, "Hello, Reacher"

I turned and saw Munro leaning against the far side of the Jimmy, neatly in the shadow, nearly invisible, relaxed and patient and vigilant

"Hello, Munro," I said "It&039;s good to see you Although I have to say I didn&039;t expect to"

He said, "Likewise"

"Did Stan Lowrey call you?"

He nodded "But a little too late"

"Three guys?"

He nodded again "Mortarmen from the 75th"

"Where are they now?"

"Tied up with telephone wire, gagged with their own T-shirts, locked in my rooainst three, no warning, taken by surprise, but a satisfactory result nonetheless I was impressed Munro was nobody&039;s fool That was clear

He asked, "Who did you get?"

"An anti-aircraft crew"

"Where are they?"

"Walking back from halfway to Memphis with no shoes and no pants"

He smiled, white teeth in the dark

He said, "I hope I never get posted to Benning"

I asked, "Is Riley in the bar?"

"First to arrive, with his dad They&039;re holding court big time Tab must be three hundred bucks by now"

"Curfew still in place?"

He nodded "But it&039;s going to be a last-minute rush You kno it is The ood, and no one ant to be the first to leave"

"OK," I said "Your job is to make sure Riley is the last to leave I need him to be the very last car out of here And not by a second or two, either By a minute at least Do whatever it takes toon it"

With anyone else I one ahead and sketched out a few alternative ways to acco a tire to asking for the old guy&039;s autograph, but by then I was beginning to realize Munro didn&039;t need help He would think of all the sas I could, and maybe a few more besides

He said, "Understood"

"And then your job is to go sit on Elizabeth Deveraux I need her to be under your eye throughout In the diner, or wherever Again, whatever it takes"

"Understood," he said again "She&039;s in the diner right now, as it happens"