Nothing to Lose

“That’s good,” Reacher said. “And you’re going to get a haircut, and every day you’re going to shower, and every time Mrs. Vaughan comes by you’re going to stand up and welcome her warmly and you’re going to personally escort her to her husband’s room, and her husband’s room is going to be clean, and her husband is going to be shaved, and the window is going to be sparkling, and the room is going to be full of sunbeams, and the floor is going to be so shiny Mrs. Vaughan is going to be in serious danger of slipping on it and hurting herself. Are we clear?”

“OK.”

“Are we clear?”

“Yes.”

“Completely?”

“Yes.”

“Crystal?”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes. Sir.”

“You’ve got sixty seconds to get started, or I’ll break your arm.”

The guy made a phone call while still standing and then used a walkie-talkie and fifty seconds later there were three guys in the hallway. Dead on sixty seconds a fourth guy joined them. A minute later they had buckets and mops out of a maintenance closet and a minute after that the buckets were full of water and all five guys were casting about, as if facing an immense and unfamiliar task. Reacher left them to it. He walked back to the car and set off in pursuit of Vaughan.

He caught up with her a mile down the DoD road. She slid in next to him and he drove on, retracing their route, through the pines, through the hills. She said, “Thank you for coming.”

“No problem,” he said.

“You know why I wanted you to?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“You wanted someone to understand why you live like you live and do what you do.”

“And?”

“You wanted someone to understand why it’s OK to do what you’re going to do next.”

“Which is what?”

“Which is entirely up to you. And either way is good with me.”

She said, “I lied to you before.”

He said, “I know.”

“Do you?”

He nodded at the wheel. “You knew about Thurman’s military contract. And the MP base. The Pentagon told you all about them, and the Halfway PD, too. Makes sense that way. I bet it’s right there in your department phone book, in your desk drawer,M for military police.”

“It is.”

“But you didn’t want to talk about it, which means that it’s not just any old military scrap getting recycled there.”

“Isn’t it?”

Reacher shook his head. “It’s combat wrecks from Iraq. Has to be. Hence the New Jersey plates on some of the incoming trucks. From the port facilities there. Why would they bypass Pennsylvania and Indiana for regular scrap? And why would they put regular scrap in closed shipping containers? Because Thurman’s place is a specialist operation. Secret, miles from nowhere.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I understand. You didn’t want to talk about it. You didn’t even want to think about it. That’s why you tried to stop me from ever going there. Get over it, you said. Move on. There’s nothing to see.”

“There are blown-up Humvees there,” she said. “They’re like monuments to me. Like shrines. To the people who died. Or nearly died.”

Then she said, “And to the people who should have died.”

They drove on, across the low slopes of the mountains, back to I-70, back toward the long loop near the Kansas line. Reacher said, “It doesn’t explain Thurman’s taste for secrecy.”

Vaughan said, “Maybe it’s a respect thing with him. Maybe he sees them as shrines, too.”

“Did he ever serve?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did he lose a family member?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Anyone sign up from Despair?”

“Not that I heard.”

“So it’s not likely to be respect. And it doesn’t explain the MPs, either. What’s to steal? A Humvee is a car, basically. Armor is plain steel sheet, when it’s fitted at all. An M60 wouldn’t survive any kind of a blast.”

Vaughan said nothing.

Reacher said, “And it doesn’t explain the airplane.”

Vaughan didn’t answer.

Reacher said, “And nothing explains all these young guys.”

“So you’re going to stick around?”

He nodded at the wheel.

“For a spell,” he said. “Because I think something is about to happen. That crowd impressed me. Would they have that much passion for the beginning of something? Or the middle of something? I don’t think so. I think they were all stirred up because they’re heading for the end of something.”

52

They hit Hope at five in the afternoon. The sun was low. Reacher pulled off First Street and headed down to Third, to the motel. He stopped outside the office. Vaughan looked at him inquiringly and he said, “Something I should have done before.”

They went in together. The nosy clerk was at the counter. Behind her, three keys were missing from their hooks. Reacher’s own, for room twelve, plus Maria’s, room eight, plus one for the woman with the large underwear, room four.

Reacher said, “Tell me about the woman in room four.”

The clerk looked at him and paused a second, like she was gathering her thoughts, like she was under pressure to assemble an accurate capsule biography. Like she was in court, on the witness stand.

“She’s from California,” she said. “She’s been here five days. She paid cash for a week.”

Reacher said, “Anything else?”

“She’s a fuller-figured person.”

“Age?”

“Young. Maybe twenty-five or -six.”

“What’s her name?”