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“Not my problem,” Reacher said. He picked up the tall guy’s burner, and the truck key, and a cigarette lighter, and the two wads of folding money, and he put them in various pockets. He picked up the two pistols and carried them to the dirty white crew cab and pitched them in through the part-open door. He went back and piled up the rest of the stuff and carried it down to the big black off-roader, where he threw it in the passenger foot well. He opened the glove compartment and rooted around. Found the registration.
Aurora Stone and Gravel.
He closed the compartment again and stepped away. He left the passenger’s door open, and the driver’s door, both of them wide and inviting.
“Let’s go, guys,” he called. “Medical issues are best dealt with promptly.”
They were crawling and slithering toward their truck, an ungainly one-legged breaststroke across the blacktop, as fast as they could. Reacher guessed when they got there, they would aim to haul themselves up on the ironmongery and somehow get themselves in their seats. Upper body strength. Their only option. The tall guy would drive. His right foot was still OK. The wide guy couldn’t say the same.
Reacher watched it happen. They made it to the truck and pulled themselves up, all arms and shoulders and heavy breathing, one foot scrabbling to help, the other dragging uselessly behind. Eventually they made it into the cab, gasping and unhappy.
“Seat belts on,” Reacher said. “Can’t be too careful.”
“C’mon, man,” the wide guy said. “We got to get going.”
“Do it.”
They clipped their belts. The tall guy said, “I need the key.”
Reacher took it out of his pocket. Held it up. He said, “First I need to tell you three important things.”
They waited.
“The man you stabbed was married. His widow’s name is Julia.”
No response.
“They had a baby girl, eleven months old, named Amanda.”
No response.
“The third thing is when I said I would let you drive yourselves to the hospital, I was kidding.”
He raised the tiny Colt and shot the tall guy through the left temple. The guy stayed upright, because of the seat belt. Reacher stepped left a pace and shot the wide guy in the face. Then he dropped the Colt and the key at the tall guy’s feet and hustled back to the white crew cab. He drove it around the off-roader and parked it again fifty yards east. He left the engine running.
He walked back to the off-roader and stretched up and unclipped a gas can from the roof rack. He unscrewed the cap and emptied the can in the cab, sloshing gas all over the seats, all over the two guys’ legs, all over the dashboard, into the cup holders. He backed away and took out the cigarette lighter and a dollar bill from one of the wads. He lit the bill on fire and tended the flame until it took good hold, and then he ducked back and tossed it into the tall guy’s lap. Then he hustled east to the crew cab, running the first half of the distance, then walking fast, feeling the heat of the blaze on his back.
Chapter 9
The dirty white crew cab had enough gas in the tank to get back to Denver, so that was what Reacher did, on the same roads the old black Tahoe had taken, but in the reverse direction, the two-lane now wandering east, the highway now heading south. He didn’t call Turner on the way. He was a reluctant driver who took it seriously.
He guessed he would be on another airplane sooner rather than later, which implied metal detectors, so he pulled over at a rest area and stripped the two Colts, and then drove around the lot tossing different parts into different trash barrels. Best he could do for public safety. Then he merged back on the highway and followed signs first for Denver, and then for downtown.
He dumped the truck on a random street, key in, doors unlocked. He figured it would be gone in twenty minutes. He followed pedestrian signs to Union Station, where he figured he would find public transportation to the airport. Which he did. The A Line train. A scheduled thirty-seven-minute trip. Regular departures. No need to hurry. He found a cafe in the station hall. He took a corner two-top and ordered coffee and a burger. Then he called Turner.
Who said, “Counterterrorism command just reported a vehicle fire a mile and a half west of Summertown, Colorado. Some damage to an important solar field. Not considered extensive enough for domestic terrorism or industrial sabotage. Probably a genuine accident. I’m watching the local news right now. They’re saying probably two fatalities from the truck, but it’s hard to be sure. There’s not much left.”
“Absolutely not a trace,” Reacher said.
“Where are you now?”
“Downtown Denver.”
“Next move?”
“I just ordered a burger, and then I guess I’ll head to the airport and find a flight to San Francisco.”
“No,” she said.
