A Wanted Man (Jack Reacher #17)(31)
Author: Lee Child

'You're resisting arrest, technically. If I shot you now, it would be righteous.'

'So go ahead. What do you think I want, to live for ever?'

She didn't reply.

He said, 'I'll tell you my name.'

She said, 'I already know your name. You signed the motel register. Your name is Skowron.'

He said, 'You see, that's a convincing alias. You bought right into it. Moose Skowron, hit .309 for the Yankees in 1960, and .375 in the post-season.'

'Your name is not Skowron?'

'Hardly. I couldn't hit Major League pitching. But you should pay attention to 1960. The World Series in particular. The Yankees were coming off their tenth pennant in twelve years, they outscored the Pirates 55 to 27, they outhit them .338 to .256, they hit ten home runs against four, they got two complete-game shutouts from Whitey Ford, and still they lost.'

'What has baseball to do with anything?'

'It's an illustration. It's a metaphor. It always is. I'm saying it's always possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. That's what you would be doing if you took me back to Nebraska.'

Sorenson was quiet for a second, and then she lowered her gun.

Reacher saw the gun go down, slowly but surely, and he thought: It's in the bag. Nearly. Two minutes and twenty seconds of talking. A delay and a frustration for sure, but a lot faster than shouting or yelling or fighting. A lot faster, and also a lot safer. Bad as McQueen's .22 Long Rifles would have been, Sorenson's nine-millimetre Parabellums would be worse. Much worse. He said, 'My name is Reacher. First name Jack. No middle name. I used to be a cop in the army.'

Sorenson asked, 'And what are you now?'

'Unemployed.'

'Where do you live?'

'Nowhere.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means what it says. I move from place to place.'

'Why?'

'Why not?'

'And you really were hitching rides?'

'I really was.'

'Why are you going to Virginia?'

'Personal reasons.'

'Not a good enough answer.'

'It's all I can give you.'

'I need more. I'm way out on a limb here.'

'I'm going to Virginia to find a woman.'

'Any woman?'

'One in particular.'

'Who?'

'I talked to her on the phone. She sounded nice. I thought I should go check her out.'

'You talked to her on the phone? You haven't actually met her?'

'Not yet.'

'You're travelling halfway across the country to spend time with a woman you never met?'

'Why not? I have to be somewhere. And I don't have anywhere else I need to be. So Virginia will be as good as anyplace else.'

'Do you think this woman will want to spend time with you?'

'Probably not. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.'

'She must be a hell of a woman.'

'She has a nice voice. That's all I know so far.'

Another thirty-five seconds. Total elapsed time, two minutes fifty-five. Getting there. Faster than fighting. And safer. He said, 'Anything else you need to know?'

'How did you break your nose?'

'Someone hit me with the blunt end of a shotgun.'

'In Nebraska?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Who can say? Some folks are just naturally aggressive.'

'If you're not who you say you are, I could lose my job. I could go to jail.'

'I know that. But I am who I say I am. And you are who you are. You think Karen Delfuenso is the most important thing here. Not like your boss.'

Sorenson paused.

She nodded.

She said, 'So where do we start?'

Bingo. Three minutes and twenty-one seconds. But then Sorenson's cell phone rang, and it was all over before it had even begun.

THIRTY-SIX

INITIALLY FROM SORENSON'S point of view the ring tone was a nuisance and an interruption. It broke a spell. The big guy was well on the way to giving it all up. Who he was, what he was doing, why he was there. Every interrogation was different. Sometimes it paid to play along. Pretend to believe, pretend to cooperate, pretend to be convinced. Then his guard would drop and the truth would come. Another few minutes might have done it.

She took out her phone. It buzzed warmly against her palm. She knew it wouldn't be Stony. Stony was typing and revising and spell-checking. It would be the night duty agent, in Omaha. With high-priority information. Maybe there was something back from her facial-injury inquiries. Maybe the big guy was wanted in a dozen states. Skowron, or Reacher, or whatever the hell his name really was. In which case the call wouldn't be a nuisance or an interruption at all. It would be a short cut instead.

She answered.

It was the night duty agent. He said, 'The Iowa troopers are reporting another 911. Some farmer called in a vehicle fire on the edge of his land.'

'Where?'

'About five miles south of you.'

'What vehicle?'

'He can't tell. It's some distance away. He's got a big farm. A regular car, he thinks.'

'Who is responding?'

'Nobody. The nearest fire department is fifty miles away. They'll let it burn out. I mean, it's wintertime in Iowa. What could it set fire to?'

She clicked off. She looked at the big guy and said, 'Vehicle fire, five miles south of here.'

The big guy stood up, one fast fluid movement. He crossed the motel's lot and stepped out to the middle of the road. He said, 'I can see it. I saw it before.'

She kept her gun in her hand. She joined him on the blacktop. She saw a light on the horizon. Miles away. A faint orange glow, like a distant bonfire.

He said, 'Not good.'

She said, 'You think it's the Impala?'

'It would be a coincidence if it wasn't.'

'We're screwed if they switched vehicles again.'

He nodded.

'It would be a setback,' he said.

She said, 'Are you telling me the truth?'

'About what?'

'Your name, for instance.'

'Jack-none-Reacher,' he said. 'I'm very pleased to meet you.'

'You got ID?'

'I have an old passport.'

'Under what name?'

'Jack-none-Reacher.'

'Does the photograph look like you?'

'Younger and dumber.'

'Get in the car.'

'Front or back?'

'Front,' she said. 'For now.'

The Crown Vic was transportation, nothing more. Not a mobile office, not a command centre. Reacher got in the front seat and saw no laptop computers, no powerful radios, no array of holstered weapons. Just a phone cradle bolted to the dash, and a single extra mismatched switch. For the strobes, presumably.

Sorenson slid in alongside him and rattled the selector into gear and took off, out from under the porte cochere, counterclockwise back to the road, the same way Alan King had driven, but slower. The car bounced and yawed and settled, and then Sorenson accelerated hard. The road was dead straight. The fire was dead ahead. They were heading straight for it. It looked bright and hot. Reacher remembered a line from an old song: Set the controls for the heart of the sun.

Halfway there it was obvious that gasoline was involved. There was blue in the orange, and a kind of raging fierceness at the centre of the fire. There would be black smoke above it, but the sky was still black in the south, so it didn't show up. In the east there were the first faint streaks of dawn, low down on the horizon. Reacher thought briefly about Chicago, and the Greyhound depot on West Harrison, and the early buses, and then he dismissed them from his mind. Another time, another place. He watched Sorenson drive. She had her foot hard on the gas. Slim muscles in her right thigh were standing out.

She asked, 'How long were you in the army?'

He said, 'Thirteen years.'

'Rank?'

'I was terminal at major.'

'Does your nose hurt?'

'Yes.'

'I'm sorry.'

'You should see the other guy.'

'Were you a good cop in the army?'

'I was good enough.'

'How good was that?'