Nothing to Lose

The fieldstone wall had been easy to climb, but the metal wall was going to be impossible. It was a sheer eight-foot-high vertical plane, topped with a continuous horizontal cylinder six feet in diameter. Like a toilet roll balanced on a thick hardcover book. It was a design derived from prison research. Reacher knew the theory. He had been professionally interested in prisons, back in the day. Stone walls or brick walls or wire fences could be climbed, however high they were. Broken glass set in the tops could be padded or cushioned. Rolls of barbed wire could be crushed or cut. But six-foot cylinders were unbeatable. Compared to the length of an arm or the span of a hand, their surfaces were slick and flat and offered no grip at all. Getting over one was like trying to crawl across a ceiling.

So he drove on, through the empty acres of parking, hoping against hope that the personnel gate would be open, and if it wasn’t, that one of the deputy’s keys would unlock it. But it wasn’t open, and none of the keys fit. Because it didn’t have a keyhole. It had a gray metal box instead, set into the wall well to the right, where the gate’s arc of travel wouldn’t obscure it. The box was the kind of thing that normally held an outdoor electrical outlet. It opened against a spring closure. Inside was a ten-digit keypad. A combination lock. One through nine, plus zero, laid out like a telephone. A possible 3,628,800 variants. It would take seven months to try them all. A fast typist might do it in six.

Reacher drove on, tracking the north wall in the Tahoes’ established ruts, hoping against hope that the vehicle gate would be open. He was slightly optimistic. The Tahoes had left in a hurry, and the ambulance. And people in a hurry didn’t always clean up after themselves.

The vehicle gate was open.

It was built like a double door. Each half cantilevered outward and then swung through a hundred degrees on a wheeled track. And both halves were standing wide open. Together they made a mouth, a chute, a funnel, a V-shaped invitation leading directly to an empty forty-foot gap in the wall, and to the darkness beyond.

Reacher parked the deputy’s truck nose-out, right across the wheeled track, blocking the gate’s travel, and he took the keys with him. He figured maybe the gate was motorized, or on a time switch. And come what may, he wanted to keep it open. He didn’t want it to close with him on the wrong side. Climbing out would be as impossible as climbing in.

He walked a hundred feet into the plant. Felt the familiar terrain underfoot, heavy and sticky with grease and oil, crunchy with shards of metal. He stood still, and sensed giant shapes ahead. The crushers, and the furnaces, and the cranes. He glanced right, and half-saw the line of offices and storage tanks. Beyond them, nearly a mile away and invisible in the night, the secret compound. He took half a step in its direction.

Then the lights came on.

There was an audiblewhoomp as electricity surged through cables thicker than wrists and in a split second the whole place lit up blue and brighter than day. A shattering sensation. Physical in its intensity. Reacher screwed his eyes shut and clamped his arms over his head and tried hard not to fall to his knees.

46

Reacher opened his eyes in a desperate hooded squint and saw Thurman walking toward him. He turned and saw the plant foreman heading in from a different direction. He turned again and saw the giant with the three-foot wrench blocking his path to the gate.

He stood still and waited, blinking, squinting, the muscles around his eyes hurting from clamping so hard. Thurman stopped ten feet away from him and then walked on and came close and took up a position alongside him, nearly shoulder to shoulder, as if they were two old buddies standing together, surveying a happy scene.

Thurman said, “I thought our paths were not going to cross again.”

Reacher said, “I can’t be responsible for what you think.”

“Did you set our police station on fire?”

“You’ve got a human wall all around the town. How could I have gotten through?”

“Why are you here again?”

Reacher paused a beat. Said, “I’m thinking about leaving the state.” Which was permanently true. Then he said, “Before I go, I thought I’d drop by the infirmary and pay my respects to my former opponents. Tell them no hard feelings.”

Thurman said, “I think the hard feelings are all on the other side.”

“Then they can tell me no hard feelings. Clearing the air is always good for a person’s mental well-being.”

“I can’t permit a visit to the infirmary. Not at this hour.”

“You can’t prevent one.”

“I’m asking you to leave the premises.”

“And I’m denying your request.”

“There’s only one patient here at the moment. The others are all home now, on bed rest.”

“Which one is here?”

“Underwood.”

“Which one is Underwood?”

“The senior deputy. You left him in a sorry state.”

“He was sick already.”

“You need to leave now.”