A Wanted Man (13 page)

“And since about September the twelfth 2001 you’ve had a direct button for the FBI.”

“How did you know that?”

“Just a lucky guess. Hit the button, and hit it now.”

Reacher stared through the gap at the tiny slice of the main door. Nothing happening. Not yet. The sound in his ear changed. Dead air, then a new dial tone.

Then a new voice.

It said, “This is the FBI. What is the nature of your emergency?”

Reacher said, “I have information, probably for your field office in Omaha, Nebraska.”

“What is the nature of your information?”

“Just connect me, now.”

“Sir, what is your name?”

Reacher knew all about nighttime duty officers. He had talked to thousands during his years in the service. They were always either on the way down, and therefore insecure, or on the way up, and therefore ambitious. He knew what worked with them, and he knew what didn’t. He had learned the right psychological approach.

He said, “Connect me now or you’ll lose your job.”

A pause.

Then dead air.

Then a new dial tone.

Then the outer door swept open. Reacher heard the loud swish of its rubber seal and saw part of its bright white frame flash through the limits of the narrow gap. He got a glimpse of a blue shoulder. He heard the fast click of heels on tile.

He hung up the phone.

He stepped forward and grabbed the folded towels with one hand and pushed the lobby door with the other and tossed the towels behind him and came face to face with Don McQueen.

Chapter 27

Reacher and McQueen stepped mutely around each other
, chest to chest, like guys do at restroom doors. McQueen went in and Reacher headed through the store to the coffee station, which was a complex push-button one-cup-at-a-time machine, a yard wide, all chrome and aluminum, brand new, probably Italian. Or French. European, certainly. It seemed to grind a separate batch of beans after each push of the button, and it was so slow that McQueen was out of the men’s room before Reacher was through with the last cup. Which was a good thing, in that McQueen was then more or less obligated to carry two cups back to the car, which meant his hands were full, and armed men with full hands were better than armed men with empty hands, in Reacher’s considered opinion.

Reacher carried the other two cups, black no sugar, one for himself and one for Karen Delfuenso. Alan King was still out of the car. The car was still next to the pump. The readout showed that less than four gallons had gone in the tank.

King said, “I’ll drive from here, Mr. Reacher.”

Reacher said, “Really? I haven’t done my three hundred miles yet.”

“Change of plan. We’re going to head for the motel and hole up for the night.”

“I thought you wanted to get to Chicago.”

“I said our plans have changed. What part of that don’t you understand?”

“Your call,” Reacher said.

“Indeed,” King said. “So I’ll need the car key.”

Four-dimensional planning
. Reacher was on the near side of the car, and King and McQueen were on the far side. Delfuenso was still in her seat. Her door was wide open. Her head was inches away from King’s right hand. It would take part of a second for King and McQueen to drop their cups of coffee. Part of another second for them to get to their guns. Reacher could throw his own cup like a scalding grenade at one head or the other, but not both. He could scramble around the trunk, or over it, but not fast enough.

No chance.

Geometry, and time.

He rested his cup on the Chevy’s roof and fished in his pocket for the key.

He held it out.

Come and get it
.

But King wasn’t the dumbest guy in the world. He said, “Just drop it on the seat. I’ll be right there.”

Don McQueen got in the front. He twisted counterclockwise, like a friendly guy just checking all his pals were going to get properly settled and comfortable. But the position kept his right hand free and clear, close to his right pants pocket, close to the right side of his pants waistband.

King was still near the gas cap, with his own right hand free and clear, still inches from Karen Delfuenso’s head.

Geometry, and time.

Reacher climbed in behind the driver’s seat, and leaned over and dropped the key.

McQueen smiled at him.

King closed Delfuenso’s door for her from the outside, and then he tracked around the trunk and closed Reacher’s door for him. He picked up the key and climbed in and scooted his seat six inches forward. He started the engine and eased back to the road and drove
onward into the darkness, south, away from the Interstate, toward the promised motel.

The FBI emergency
response operator had stayed on the line and listened in to the aborted call to Omaha. He had heard the ring tone. He had heard the receiver go down. He was a rookie, hence the routine night duty. But he was a fast-tracked rookie, hence the D.C. assignment and the important post. He was fast-tracked because he was smart.

He was smart enough to follow up.

He called the Omaha field office and spoke to the duty agent. He asked, “Have you guys got something going on there tonight?”

The agent in Nebraska yawned and said, “Kind of. There’s a single-victim knife-crime homicide in the back of beyond miles from anywhere, which doesn’t sound like a very big deal, but for some reason the SAC is on it, and the CIA and the State Department are sniffing around, and we’ve had a bunch of roadblocks on the Interstate.”

“Then you should know I put a call through to you, but the caller hung up before you answered.”

“Location?”

“Caller ID and the phone company indicate a gas station in the middle of nowhere, south and east of Des Moines, Iowa.”

“Did you get a name?”

“No name, but the caller was male, and in a hurry. He sounded like he was sick with a head cold. Very nasal.”

“Did he say what he wanted?”

“Not specifically. He said he had information, probably for Omaha, Nebraska.”

“Probably?”

“That was the word he used.”

The guy in Nebraska said, “OK, thanks,” and hung up.

The dark Iowa road
ran dead straight for another eight miles to a featureless T junction. There was an immense field on the left,
and another on the right, and a double-wide field ahead. Hence the mandatory turn. A repeat accommodations sign had an arrow pointing left to the motel. Another eight miles later there was a featureless crossroads with an arrow pointing right. Alan King drove on, threading through the giant checkerboard matrix of Iowa agriculture. Alongside him Don McQueen sat half turned, slumped against his window, awake and watchful. Behind McQueen Karen Delfuenso stared rigidly ahead. She wouldn’t look at Reacher. She seemed disappointed in him.

Reacher himself sat still and breathed slow, in and out, just waiting.

The night duty agent
in Nebraska wrote the words
male caller, in a hurry, head cold, nasal voice, gas station, S&E of Des Moines, Iowa
on a pad of paper, and then he scrolled through the speed dial list on his telephone console. He stopped on
Sorenson, J, cellular
.

He thought for a second.

Then he hit
Dial
.

Just in case it was important.

At that moment
Julia Sorenson was talking to Sheriff Goodman about the missing eyewitness. The guy lived with a woman he wasn’t married to, in a rented farm property eleven miles north and west of the crime scene, and there was only one practical route for him to take, and he hadn’t arrived, and neither he nor his truck had been found along the way. He was not in any of Sin City’s bars or lounges, and Goodman’s deputies hadn’t found him in town.

Then Sorenson’s phone rang, and she excused herself and turned away and took the call. It was the night duty agent back at the field office. She only half listened to his preamble. Law enforcement got lots of aborted calls. Kids, pranksters, drunks, misdials, all part of the territory. But she started to pay serious attention when the guy got to the apparent source of the call. Because of her earlier gloomy and
defeated conclusion:
The perpetrators were somewhere east of Des Moines
.

“Say that again?” she asked.

The guy said, “A pay phone in a gas station in the middle of nowhere, south and east of Des Moines, Iowa.”

“Are we sure of that?”

“Caller ID and the phone company confirmed it.”

“Who made the call?”

“No name, but the emergency operator said the voice was male.”

“Anything else?”

“He was in a hurry and he sounded nasal.”

“Nasal?”

“Like he had a head cold.”

“Is there a recording?”

“Of the original call? I’m sure there is.”

“Have it e-mailed to me. And call that gas station. Check if they have video, and if not, get a narrative and descriptions of everybody and everything.”

The duty agent said, “You need to call the CIA.”

Sorenson said, “Don’t tell me what I need to do.”

“It’s just that they’re calling me all the time. They want updates.”

“Tell them nothing,” Sorenson said. “Not yet.”

Then she clicked off the call and turned back and looked Goodman in the eye and said, “Sorry, chief, but I have to go to Iowa.”

Chapter 28

Goodman got the bare bones of the story from Sorenson
and said, “What about my missing eyewitness?”

Sorenson said, “You can handle that yourself for the rest of the night. But don’t worry. You’re about to get plenty of help. As soon as the office workers get in tomorrow I’ll be replaced and you’ll be knee-deep in agents. You’ll have so many here you can put a couple on traffic duty. You can find out who drops gum on the sidewalk.”

“Your SAC is already involved. And you haven’t been replaced yet.”

“He hasn’t kicked it upstairs yet. Can’t do that, in the middle of the night. But he will. And he’ll cover his ass. Right now I bet he’s writing a report, which will be in every e-mail in-box everywhere by the time the sun comes up, and the last paragraph will be a recommendation to pull me out and bring in the heavy hitters from D.C. You can take that to the bank.”

“Doesn’t he trust you?”

“He trusts me just fine. But this thing looks toxic. He won’t want it anywhere near his own office. He prefers to look good.”

“So why are you going to Iowa?”

“Because right now it’s still my case.”

“You really think it’s them?”

“The location is right. It’s about where they’d be by now.”

“That’s just a wild-ass guess.”

“Who else would call Omaha from east of Des Moines?”

“Why would they call at all? And from a traceable pay phone?”

“A secret conscience attack, maybe. By the driver, possibly. They tell me the voice was nasal. Which could be a busted nose, not the flu. And maybe a pay phone was all he could find.”

“But he hung up.”

Sorenson nodded. “He changed his mind. That can happen.”

Goodman said, “What about Karen Delfuenso’s daughter?”

“You’ll have to tell her. You’d have to anyway. This is your county, and she’s your people.”

“When should I tell her?”

“When she wakes up.”

“That’s going to be tough.”

“It always is.”

“Those guys will be long gone by the time you get to southeastern Iowa. It’s a long way away.”

“I can drive faster than they did. No more roadblocks, and I don’t have to worry about tickets.”

“Even so.”

“Whatever, it’s better than staying here, doing nothing,” Sorenson said.

Sorenson checked in
with Dawson and Mitchell and told them what she was going to do. She didn’t offer them a ride. She expected them to follow in their own car. She thought big-deal counterterrorism agents would relish the chase. But they said they were going to stay put, right there in the wilds of Nebraska. Near the point of vulnerability. They said there was nothing to worry about in Iowa. No disrespect to that fine state, they said. But it wasn’t a prime terrorist target.

Sorenson said, “They could have a base camp there. Like a hideout.”

Mitchell said, “Are you serious?”

“Not really.”

Dawson nodded. “We’ll call St. Louis. Technically southeastern Iowa is their responsibility. They’ll get involved if they need to.”

Sorenson didn’t speak to Lester L. Lester, Jr., of the State Department. She just ignored him completely. She got a ride with Goodman back to the old pumping station, and she got back in her car, and she followed her GPS back to the Interstate, seventy miles an hour all the way, with her lights flashing and her cell phone charging.

A deceptive exit
, Reacher thought again. Dark rural roads, and places that were shut when you got there. He had been wrong about the gas station, but in and of itself that didn’t make the motel any more likely to exist. Fifty-fifty was a reasonable outcome, where truth in advertising was concerned. He had seen plenty of abandoned motels on his travels. America was full of them. They were like little time capsules, forever frozen in an earlier era, sometimes plain, sometimes adventurous in their design, always testament to the long sad decline in their owners’ energies and ambitions, always evidence of the way public taste had moved on. A week in a cabin near a buggy lake was no longer enough. Now it was cruises and Vegas and the Virgin Islands. Reacher had seen travel agents’ windows. He knew where vacationers went. He knew where they didn’t go. He saw no reason why a motel in the wilds of Iowa would have done any business in the last thirty years.

Which was a pity, because a stop for the night would have opened up a whole new world of possibilities.

King had turned left and right, left and right, endlessly south and east through the checkerboard darkness, a total of more than thirty miles since leaving the Shell station. At each turn a copy of the accommodations board had tempted them onward, the bland little arrows looking both firm and tentative, both promising and hopeless. McQueen didn’t look worried. He was awake and vigilant, and he seemed confident. He trusted the signs.