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“My first thought,” Turner said. “I can’t access the local PD to confirm it. Not from the parking lot. Then my second thought was two weeks is a long time to drive around in a stolen truck, even for second-rate professionals. It’s fourth-rate behavior. It’s begging to get caught. What are you eating for breakfast?”

“All kinds of vegetables,” he said. “Mushrooms and beans.”

“You’re eating salad?”

“I think it’s a kind of garnish.”

“On what?”

“Bacon and egg and sausage. Isn’t that enough? Who needs the extra stuff?”

“You’re in Colorado. Embrace the culture.”

“Good coffee, I have to say.”

“Take care,” she said. “Let me know when it’s done.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, and clicked off the call. He embraced the culture and ate all the beans and mushrooms. Plus three more refills of coffee. It was important to stay hydrated. Then the grape jelly, shared between two slices of toast. Plus a slice of apricot pie. Then he was ready to face the day.

—

Reacher paid his check and detoured to the restroom, partly because of the coffee, and partly to use the trash can. He dumped the driver’s wallet, and the driver’s personal phone, and the truck’s registration. He took the driver’s burner and crushed a hole in its screen with his thumbnail. He ran it under the tap until it filled with water, and then he tossed it on top of the rest, followed by a wad of paper towels, so at a glance the can would look normal.

He walked out to the lot and clicked the car key. The truck unlocked with a thump. He climbed in and started it up. He backed out of the bay and swung out of the lot, onto the approach road, up to the two-lane. The small solar field to his left, the big solar field to his right.

He turned right. He took it slow. The road ran through clear air for maybe three hundred yards, and then it speared onward between the panels. The first row to his right jutted down at an angle that put their closest edge about level with the top of the truck’s passenger door. The second row was set subtly higher, and the third higher still, and so on, like a field of sunflowers, all craning tall to catch the light. The panels had thick wires looping from one to the next. They were all bolted to metal frames. The whole gigantic field floated above a golden gravel bed bounded by an endless concrete curb. Like the data centers north of the diner. It was a hell of a sight. It was whole square miles of black glass and looped cable and steel girders.

It was also whole square miles of gravel.

Reacher drove what he guessed to be about a mile, and then part of another. He lifted off the gas and coasted down to walking speed and drifted right and thumped down off the smooth blacktop onto the dirt shoulder. He eased to a stop. The shoulder was about as wide as the truck. The solar field’s concrete curb and the first of the gravel was about a foot beyond the passenger door. The nearest panel looked close enough to touch. Front to back and side to side it was about as big as a king-size mattress. It shimmered with early heat. One of many, many thousands. Many tens of thousands. Reacher was a big man in a big truck, but right then he felt like a tiny insignificant speck in a vast glass landscape.

He shut the engine down. He pulled the key. He climbed out. The clock in his head told him there were about fifty minutes to go. The Colt was in his back right pocket. He put the truck key in the back left. There was no traffic as far as the eye could see, either east or west. No sound, either. The panels were silent.

On his right they sloped down toward the road, glass side visible, just starting to catch the morning sun, as it began to move south of due east. A low, oblique angle. On his left the panels were canted away from the road, seeking the same sun, their frame sides now on show. There was plenty of steel, but it all looked calculated by a computer to be exactly strong enough, and not a penny more. The girders were slender. They offered no real concealment. And the morning sun was still low enough to be lighting them up. Like a Broadway stage. Not so bad in forty-five minutes, the clock in his head told him, because the sun would be further south. Soon it would begin to throw shadows. But the practical part of his brain said somewhat illuminated instead of completely illuminated was not a giant leap forward.

So the right-hand side would be better. Better still in forty-five minutes, the clock in his head told him. The southing sun would also be rising, and hitting the glass all the harder. The dazzling reflection would make anyone glance away. Like the air force. Attack out of the sun. His only practical option. And it would have to be a close-quarters encounter. The Colt had a three-inch barrel. Not a sniper weapon. And the gravel was too noisy for a stealthy approach.

Reacher walked back to the truck. He got in and started the engine to run the air. He waited. Forty minutes to go, the clock in his head told him.

Chapter 8

With ten minutes left Reacher put the lever in drive and U-turned across the two-lane’s blacktop from one shoulder to the other. He parked again, facing the other way, east, back toward Denver. The brothers would see the truck head on as they approached, just sitting there, inert and unexplained. He shut down the motor. He pulled the key. He climbed out. He left the driver’s door about six inches open.

He crossed the road at an angle. Crossed the shoulder. Stepped over the curb and crunched across the gravel. He ducked under the front edge of the first panel. Turned around and checked the view. Pretty good. He shuffled along until he was all lined up on the V of the part-open driver’s door. He got to where he could see inside as far as the dashboard vent and the rim of the steering wheel. The angle of the sun was close to perfect.

A good position.

But a bad distance. More than he had estimated. Not ideal for a pocket gun. He needed to get closer. At some point. At which point and how much closer would depend on the answer to a simple question. Would the brothers exit their vehicle with their weapons drawn and ready? Or not?

He waited.

Five minutes to go, the clock in his head told him.

—

Four minutes later he saw a tiny dot on the eastern horizon. Just a speck, inside a minuscule halo of roiled air and shimmering heat. It sat there, wobbling microscopically, seeming to get bigger by the minute, but no closer, because of a trick of the head-on angle. It was always moving but it was never approaching.

Then it was. It passed through some kind of a threshold where the head-on angle didn’t matter anymore, and suddenly it was a big vehicle traveling fast straight toward him. He could hear it by then, the distant roar of its tires, the faint thrash of a speeding V8 motor. The brothers were nervous, he guessed. At least uncertain. No doubt they had been calling the dumbass driver for updates and getting no reply. Maybe an innocent reason. Maybe solar panels blocked the signal. But maybe not an innocent reason. They didn’t know what was waiting for them up ahead. Never a good feeling.