A Wanted Man (Jack Reacher #17)(41)
Author: Lee Child

He asked, 'Where exactly is your place?'

Sorenson pointed beyond the next light, diagonally, west and a little north.

'Right there,' she said. 'That's it.'

Two hundred yards away Reacher saw the back of a sprawling white building, pretty new, four or five storeys high. Behind it and to the right and left of it were wide grassy areas. Beyond it was a gigantic parking lot for the next enterprise in line. Everything was flat and empty. There was nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.

'Keep going,' he said. 'This is no good.'

Sorenson had already slowed the car. She said, 'You told me a block away.'

'These aren't blocks. These are football fields.'

She rolled through the light. Directly behind the white building Reacher saw a small parking lot with staff vehicles and unmarked cars in neat lines. But there was a navy blue Crown Vic all alone some yards from them, waiting at an angle, and a black panel van next to it. There were four men stumping around in the space between the two, hunched in coats, sipping coffee, shooting the shit, just waiting.

For him, presumably.

He asked, 'Do you know them?'

'Two of them,' Sorenson said. 'They're the counterterrorism guys that came up from Kansas City last night. Their names are Dawson and Mitchell.'

'And the other two?'

'Never saw them before.'

'Keep going.'

'Couldn't you at least talk to them?'

'Not a good idea.'

'They can't really do anything to you.'

'Have you read the Patriot Act?'

'No,' Sorenson said.

'Has your boss?'

'I doubt it.'

'Therefore they can do whatever the hell they want to me. Because who's going to tell them otherwise?'

Sorenson slowed some more.

Reacher said, 'Don't turn in, Julia. Keep on going.'

'I gave them an ETA. Pretty soon they're going to come out and start looking for me.'

'Call them and tell them you're broken down on the shoulder somewhere. Tell them you got a flat tyre. Tell them we're still in Iowa. Or tell them we took a wrong turn and went to Wisconsin by mistake.'

'They'll track my cell. Maybe they already are.'

'Keep on going,' Reacher said.

Sorenson accelerated gently. They passed the side of the white building. It was about a hundred yards away. It had a wide looping driveway in front of it. Its facade was modern and impressive. There was a lot of plate glass. There was no obvious activity going on. All was quiet. Reacher turned his head and watched as the building fell away behind them.

'Thank you,' he said.

'Where do you want to go now?' Sorenson asked.

'A mile away will do it.'

'And then what?'

'Then we say goodbye.'

But they didn't get a mile away, and they didn't say goodbye. Because Sorenson's phone rang in its cradle and she answered and Reacher heard a man's voice, urgent and loud and panicked. It said, 'Ms Sorenson? This is Sheriff Victor Goodman. Karen Delfuenso's daughter is gone. She was taken away by some men.'

FORTY-FIVE

SORENSON HIT THE brakes and hauled on the wheel and U-turned immediately and headed back towards the highway, fast, past the FBI building again, past its front, past its side, past its rear lot, and onward, the same way they had come minutes before. The voice on the phone told the whole long story. County Sheriff Victor Goodman, Reacher gathered, about eighty miles away. The local guy. The first responder, the night before. He sounded like a competent man, but tired and stressed and way out of his depth. He said, 'I told the kid her mom was missing first thing this morning. I figured it was best to break it gently. You know, the first step, and then the second step. I told the neighbour she should keep both kids home from school today. I asked her to stay home with them. But she didn't. She was worried about her job. She left them there alone. Which she thought would be OK. But it wasn't OK. I dropped by again to touch base and only the neighbour's kid was there. All by herself. She said some men came and took Delfuenso's kid away.'

Sorenson asked, 'When?'

Goodman said, 'This is a ten-year-old girl we're talking about here. She's pretty vague. Best guess is about an hour ago.'

'How many men?'

'She doesn't really know.'

'One? Two? A dozen?'

'More than one. She said men, not a man.'

'Descriptions?'

'Just men.'

'Black? White? Young? Old?'

'White, I'm sure, or she'd have said. This is Nebraska, after all. No idea about age. All adults look old to a ten-year-old.'

'Clothing?'

'She doesn't remember.'

'Vehicle?'

'She can't describe it. I'm not certain she even saw a vehicle. She claims she did, and she's calling it a car, but it could have been anything. A pick-up, or an SUV.'

'Colour?'

'She can't recall. If she saw it at all, that is. She might have just assumed it. She's probably never seen a pedestrian in her life. Not out there.'

'Does she remember what was said?'

'She wasn't really paying attention. The doorbell rang, and Lucy Delfuenso went to answer it. The neighbour's kid says she saw men at the door, and she heard some talking, but basically she stayed in the back room. She was busy playing with something. She was really into it. About five minutes later she realized Lucy hadn't come back from the door.'

'Why would Delfuenso's kid answer the door in someone else's house?'

'It doesn't feel like that to them. It's like both of them treat both places like home. They're in and out all the time.'

'Have you searched the area? Including Delfuenso's own house?'

'I've got everyone on it. No sign of Lucy anywhere.'

'Did you canvass the other neighbour? That grey-haired guy?'

'He wasn't there. He leaves for work at six in the morning. The fourth house didn't see anything either.'

'Did you call the state troopers?'

'Sure, but I have nothing to give them.'

'Missing kids get an instant response, right?'

'But what can they do? It's a small department. And it's a big state. They can't stop everyone everywhere.'

'OK, we'll figure it out,' Sorenson said. 'I'm on my way. But in the meantime you should keep on looking.'

'Of course I will. But they could be sixty miles away by now.'

Sorenson didn't answer that. She just clicked off the call and howled around the on-ramp and headed west close to a hundred miles an hour.

Ten high-speed minutes later Reacher gave Sorenson her Glock back and asked, 'Is your boss going to ignore a missing kid too?'

Sorenson put the gun back on her hip and said, 'My boss is an ambitious guy. He dreams of bigger things. He wants to be an Assistant Director one day. Therefore he'll do whatever the Hoover Building tells him to do, right or wrong. Some SACs are like that. And the Hoover Building will do whatever the CIA tells it to do. Or the State Department, or Homeland Security, or the West Wing, or whoever the hell is calling the shots here.'

'That's crazy.'

'That's modern law enforcement. Get used to it.'

'How much freedom of action are you going to get?'

'None at all, as soon as they figure out where I am.'

'So don't answer your phone.'

'I'm not going to. Not the first couple of times, anyway.'

'And after that?'

'They'll leave voice messages. They'll send texts and e-mails. I can't go rogue. I can't disobey direct orders.'

Reacher said nothing.

Sorenson said, 'Well, would you? Did you?'

'Sometimes,' Reacher said.

'And now you're a homeless unemployed veteran with no stable relationships.'

'Exactly. These things are never easy. But you can make a start. You can get something done before they shut you down.'

'How?'

'Motive,' Reacher said. 'That's what you need to think about. Who the hell snatches a dead woman's kid? And why? Especially a kid who knows nothing at all about what happened to her mom?'