Nothing to Lose

The second of the outgoing semis appeared on the horizon. Then the third. Before the fourth showed up another incoming truck blew by. A container truck. A blue China Lines container on it. Heavy, by the way the tires stressed and whined.

New Jersey plates.

Vaughan said, “Combat wrecks.”

Reacher nodded and said nothing. The truck disappeared in the morning haze and the fourth outgoing load passed it. Then the dust settled and the world went quiet again. Vaughan arched her back and stretched, perfectly straight from her heels to her shoulders.

“I feel good,” she said.

“You deserve to.”

“I needed you to know about David.”

“You don’t have to explain,” Reacher said. He was turned in his seat, watching the western horizon a mile away. He could see a small shape, wobbling in the haze. A truck, far away. Small, because of the distance. Square, and rigid. A box truck, tan-colored.

He said, “Pay attention now.”

The truck took a minute to cover the mile and then it roared past. Two axles, plain, boxy. Tan paint. No logo on it. No writing of any kind.

It had Canadian plates, from Ontario.

“Prediction,” Reacher said. “We’re going to see that truck heading out again within about ninety minutes.”

“Why wouldn’t we? It’ll unload and go home.”

“Unload what?”

“Whatever is in it.”

“Which would be what?”

“Scrap metal.”

“From where?”

“Ontario’s biggest city is Toronto,” Vaughan said. “So from Toronto, according to the law of averages.”

Reacher nodded. “Route 401 in Canada, I-94 around Detroit, I-75 out of Toledo, I-70 all the way over here. That’s a long distance.”

“Relatively.”

“Especially considering that Canada probably has steel mills all its own. I know for sure they’re thick on the ground around Detroit and all over Indiana, which is practically next door. So why haul ass all the way out here?”

“Because Thurman’s place is a specialist operation. You said so yourself.”

“Canada’s army is three men and a dog. They probably keep their stuff forever.”

Vaughan said, “Combat wrecks.”

Reacher said, “Canada isn’t fighting in Iraq. Canadians had more sense.”

“So what was in that truck?”

“My guess is nothing at all.”

Plenty more trucks passed by in both directions, but they were all uninteresting. Semi trailers from Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Washington State, and California, loaded with crushed cars and bales of crushed steel and rusted industrial hulks that might once have been boilers or locomotives or parts of ships. Reacher looked at them as they passed and then looked away. He kept his focus on the eastern horizon and the clock in his head. Vaughan got out and brought the captured file from under the mat in the trunk. She took the papers out of the cardboard cradle and turned them over and squared them on her knee. Licked her thumb and started with the oldest page first. It was dated a little less than seven years previously. It was a purchase order for five thousand gallons of trichloroethylene, to be delivered prepaid by Kearny Chemical to Thurman Metals. The second-oldest page was identical. As was the third. The fourth fell into the following calendar year.

Vaughan said, “Fifteen thousand gallons in the first year. Is that a lot?”

“I don’t know,” Reacher said. “We’ll have to let the state lab be the judge.”

The second year of orders came out the same. Fifteen thousand gallons. Then the third year jumped way up, to five separate orders for a total of twenty-five thousand gallons. A refill every seventy-some days. An increase in consumption of close to sixty-seven percent.

Vaughan said, “The start of major combat operations. The first wrecks.”

The fourth year held steady at twenty-five thousand gallons.

The fifth year matched it exactly.

“David’s year,” Vaughan said. “His Humvee was rinsed with some of those gallons. What was left of it.”

The sixth year she looked at jumped again. Total of six orders. Total of thirty thousand gallons. Iraq, getting worse. A twenty percent increase. And the current year looked set to exceed even that. There were already six orders in, and the year still had a whole quarter to run. Then Vaughan paused and looked at the six pages again, one by one, side by side, and she said, “No, one of these is different.”

Reacher asked, “Different how?”

“One of the orders isn’t for trichloroethylene. And it isn’t in gallons. It’s in tons, for something called trinitrotoluene. Thurman bought twenty tons of it.”

“When?”

“Three months ago. Maybe they misfiled it.”

“From Kearny?”

“Yes.”

“Then it isn’t misfiled.”

“Maybe it’s another kind of degreaser.”

“It isn’t.”

“You heard of it?”

“Everyone has heard of it. It was invented in 1863 in Germany, for use as a yellow dye.”

“I never heard of it,” Vaughan said. “I don’t like yellow.”

“A few years later they realized it decomposes in an exothermic manner.”

“What does that mean?”

“It explodes.”

Vaughan said nothing.

“Trichloroethylene is called TCE,” Reacher said. “Trinitrotoluene is called TNT.”

“I’ve heard ofthat. ”

“Everyone has heard of it.”

“Thurman bought twenty tons of dynamite? Why?”