twenty-minute drive away. The woman screwed up her face, like she knew, like it was on the tip of her tongue. Then like she knew once, but she didn’t know anymore. One of those questions so everyday it couldn’t be answered.
Then something came to her.
“The highway gas is Exxon,” she said. “Up at the rest area.”
Back in the car Bramall looked at his navigation screen. The closest rest area was six miles east of the closest on-ramp. The electronic brain said it was twenty minutes away. Bramall said the pharmaceutical factories were mostly in New Jersey. Trucks would come west. A secret warehouse inside an I-90 rest area would be a very convenient thing to have. It could be stocked and re-stocked at any time of night or day. Equally it could stock and re-stock incoming visitors at any time of night or day.
“But it didn’t,” Reacher said. “Stackley told us they had to wait until midnight. It sounded like the opposite of a warehouse to me. Nothing was stored there for people to show up and get. It was the other way around. People got in line and waited for stuff to show up. Maybe it arrives there at midnight. So I agree, the rest area is the obvious place. But as a meeting point only. As a rendezvous. With a lot of moving parts. One rogue westbound truck comes in, and six or ten guys like Billy and Stackley load up and move out. It must be a real fast hustle. Right in the middle of an I-90 rest area, but under the cover of a shed half full of snowplows. The voicemail said they’ve got it all to themselves. I guess that’s correct. It’s summertime.”
Bramall said, “So after eating dinner at Klinger’s, Stackley drove twenty minutes to the rest area, where he bought gas, and then he rolled a hundred yards around a corner and waited till midnight. All we have to do is figure out which corner. Which won’t be difficult. The rest area is a finite size. We’re looking for a service road leading to the snowplows. How many can there be?”
“Is it always this easy?” Mackenzie said.
“Mr. Bramall makes it look easy,” Reacher said.
Sanderson said nothing. She was infantry. She knew about pointy-heads and their best laid plans.
Bramall started up and headed north on the four-lane, through the nighttime darkness, all the way to the highway ramps, where he made the right to head east toward the rest stop, which the machine told him was just six minutes away.
The machine was correct. Exactly six minutes later Bramall coasted off into a giant central facility. The eastbound and westbound lanes skirted it in mile-wide loops through the prairie. It was like a town all by itself. It had lit-up acres of Exxon gas and diesel, and half a dozen bright neon fast food franchises, and a highway patrol building, and a chain motel, and a highway department office with a weighbridge.
What it didn’t have was snowplows. At least not within easy view. Reacher felt red-hot infantry skepticism coming out from under Sanderson’s hood. Mackenzie looked disappointed. Maybe not so easy after all.
They gave it one more go-round. After which they were confident there were no snowplows stored anywhere within the bounds of the facility. There were no service roads leading to covered garages half full of any kind of winter equipment.
Which raised an obvious question. If not there, then where? There had to be winter equipment stored somewhere. A lot of it. Winter was a serious issue in South Dakota. Mackenzie said maybe so serious they used a whole separate depot for it. She knew the west.
But where was the depot? Who could they ask? It was a weird question. Do you know where the state stores its snowplows? No one would know. Most folk would take it for some kind of a weird political stunt, to make a point, or to expose their ignorance, like asking if they knew their congressperson’s name. The only people who would know the answer were people who were currently somewhere else. Wherever the state stored its snowplows.
Reacher said, “He prepaid his gas at 11:23. Right here, very close to where we’re sitting now. Let’s say it took him two minutes to walk back from the kiosk and get set. Let’s say he started pumping at 11:25. How long does forty bucks last?”
Mackenzie said, “Out here you could fill a big tank.”
“So it took a few minutes. It could have been well after 11:30 before he was back on the road. But he was the new boy there. He didn’t want to screw up. He needed a big margin of error. He must have been going somewhere real close by. Three-minute maximum, literally. He would want to make sure he got there on time. Or early. He would want to be comfortable.”
“What’s three minutes from here?”
“Maybe the separate depot. For the snowplows. A central facility. Access from both sides. On the same land as this, before eastbound and westbound narrow down again. Right next door to here, maybe. It’s a wedge of wasted space otherwise. There could be an inconspicuous little off-ramp, with a sign, saying highway department only. Plenty of trees all around. No one notices a thing like that.”
“Then it could be in either direction. We might have already passed it. There must be wedges of space both sides. We don’t know which way to go now.”
“We didn’t already pass it,” Sanderson said. “There were no inconspicuous little ramps. I notice a thing like that. It means for the moment we’re trapped on this road. But neither can the enemy reinforce an ambush up ahead. So on balance I’m happy. The tail gunner can relax for a second. If you’re right about a separate facility, then it must be east of here. And if Reacher is right about how anxious Stackley was, it must be close by. Close enough to get back on the highway and then get off again immediately. If he’s wrong about how nervous Stackley was, it could be further away. But it’s within fifteen or twenty miles maximum, because even if the guy was cool as ice, he had to get where he was going by midnight latest. And he couldn’t drive a hundred miles an hour to do it. Those guys can’t get away with things like that. They must never stand out. So I would recon to the east. If we don’t find anything, we still have time to come back and think again.”
Bramall looked over his shoulder at Mackenzie.
His employer.
“Want to try it?” he said.
“Yes,” Mackenzie said.
Bramall circled the parking lot, under sodium lights high on poles, looking for the way back to the travel lanes. In the corner of his eye Reacher thought he saw a pale blue car, circling the other way. A domestic product. A Chevrolet, possibly. Nothing fancy. A plain specification.
He looked again.
It was gone.
Bramall found the exit and followed the arrow marked Sioux Falls, which was east. He watched the road ahead, like a good driver should. Sanderson and her sister and Reacher all watched the left shoulder. They watched the narrowing space between the eastbound and the westbound lanes.
It turned out Stackley had been anxious, but not quite as anxious as Reacher thought he should be. It was more than three minutes out. Closer to four and a half. They saw an inconspicuous off-ramp. They saw a small bland sign that said Authorized Personnel Only.
“Don’t take it,” Reacher said. “Not yet. We need to make a better plan.”
Chapter 44
Gloria Nakamura drove every inch of the rest area. Night had fallen, but it was all lit up. She pictured a truck pulling in. Maybe not a semi. Maybe not an eighteen-wheeler. Maybe just a panel van, loaded with smaller orders from mom-and-pop pharmacies and suburban clinics. A Ford Econoline, or some such. Probably painted white. Probably a shiny high-gloss finish, to suggest health and cleanliness and antiseptic pharmaceutical wholesomeness. Probably a bland brand name in a friendly font, pale green like grass, or blue like the sky.
Where would it park?
Nowhere near the state police building, for obvious reasons. Not near the gas pumps, either. Even in the dark. The oil company had cameras, in case of drive-away no-pays. Not near the entrance or the exit either, because the highway department had cameras too, for traffic flow. The truck couldn’t afford to show up on video. Not in South Dakota, when the mothership’s computer had it idle in a factory lot in New Jersey. The
re was a big parking area shared between the restroom block and the fast food franchises. It was lit up bright. But it had cameras too. For liability, she supposed. In case someone got in a fender bender, and blamed it on the burger stand. Probably an insurance requirement.
There was a weighbridge, with a highway department office, all tan brick and metal windows. Closed up and dark. But it was way out in the open. Too exposed. She pictured the panel van, with its rear doors open, feeding a cluster of smaller vehicles. An anxious crowd, waiting. People like Billy, and the new Billy, and all the other guys like Billy, in pick-up trucks and SUVs and old sedans. Loading up, before taking off.
Where would they do that?
Nowhere. The rest area felt wrong.
She circled the parking lot one more time. In the corner of her eye she saw a black SUV, circling the lot the other way. It had blue plates, she thought. Illinois, maybe. She looked again, but it was gone.
Bramall pulled over on the shoulder, in the dark, a mile further on, where the eastbound and the westbound lanes came back together again, either side of a standard grass median. Safe enough. If a trooper came by, they could say they had an engine light, or a worry about a tire. There wasn’t much traffic. Cars blew by, one by one. Then a semi truck, in a howl of noise and wind. The Toyota rocked on its springs.
Reacher said, “How far is the next exit?”
Bramall checked his screen.
“About thirty miles,” he said.
“Waste of gas. Do a U-turn across the median. Rose and I will get out at the depot ramp. You and Mrs. Mackenzie can go park in the rest area and walk back through the trees from the west. You can meet us there. We can take a look around and figure out how we do it.”
“You want me with you?” Sanderson said.
“Why not?”
“I can’t,” she said. “I don’t feel so good.”
“You can fix that.”
“I can’t,” she said again. “I only have one strip left.”
“We’re about to get more.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You have to use your last strip sometime.”
“I want to know I still have it.”
“Shape up, major. I need you with me, and I need you in good condition at midnight. I’ll leave you to work out the timings.”
The car went quiet.
Then Mackenzie said, “Let’s go.”
Bramall waited until he saw no headlights coming either way. He turned the wheel and drove across all three traffic lanes. He bumped down onto the median, which was dished in the middle, like a wide drainage channel. For snowmelt, Reacher figured. The plows had to dump it somewhere. The Toyota drove down one slope and up the other, where it bumped up into the westbound lanes and turned and took off, in the direction it had come from. Now they were heading the same way the truck would be later. Coming west from New Jersey. It was already rolling. It had been rolling for hours. It was somewhere behind them, past Sioux Falls by then, doing the long miles Reacher had done in the huge red truck with the sleeper cab. With the old man at the wheel. My wife would say you feel guilty about something. She reads books. She thinks about things. They were seeing what the truck would see later. Which was nothing much for a mile, and then at the edge of the left-hand headlight beam an unannounced off-ramp, and a sign that said Authorized Personnel Only.
Bramall stopped on the shoulder a hundred yards later. Reacher got out and walked around to Sanderson’s door. She got out. Boots, jeans, silver jacket zipped to the neck. But this time the hem of her hood was folded back. For peripheral vision. For situational awareness. She was ready for action. Her face was exposed from her cheek bones forward. The foil on the right, and the scars on the left. The misshapen mouth. One eyebrow terminated halfway through, for no good reason, except it was sewed to something that wasn’t an eyebrow.
“It’s dark,” she said. “It’s OK.”
Bramall drove away.
They waited on the shoulder. No traffic came by. She was chewing hard. Not gum, he thought. Her last quarter-inch. Or maybe half of it. She could have torn it in two, thumbnail to thumbnail. I’ll leave you to work out the timings. He hoped she knew what she was doing. It wasn’t working like it had before. She wasn’t calm. Maybe the last quarter-inch never was. How could it be? It was like swinging on a trapeze, letting go, flying through the air toward nobody, hoping somebody would get there and catch you before you fell. Maybe the new gold standard for insecurity. An addict with an empty pocket. Suspended above the abyss. Nothing in reserve.
They walked back the hundred yards and stopped level with the sign. Authorized Personnel Only. Nothing coming.
Reacher said, “Ready?”
They ran across the traffic lanes, and around the sign, and into the ramp. Where they stopped and got their breath and looked ahead. They were on a heavy-duty engineered road, good for heavy-duty trucks. It was long enough to disappear into the darkness. There were trees planted both sides, to pretty it up, but it was industrial access, nothing more.
Sanderson said, “Do you have a flashlight?”
Reacher said, “No.”
“I’m sure Mr. Bramall would have lent us one. I’m sure he has several.”
“Do you like him?”
“I think my sister chose well.”
They set off walking through the dark. There was enough moon to get by, helped by occasional spill from distant headlights, which flashed on things like camera strobes, so they could be fixed in time and space, and accounted for. Beginning to end the ramp was half a mile long, and it led to a drive-in, drive-out garage big enough for heavy equipment. They stayed in the trees and scoped it out. There were four roads in total, an on-ramp and an off-ramp each side, like four long legs on a skinny insect, all meeting at the garage, which had a door each end. Both of which were closed. There was no one around. No vehicles. No sound. It was a snowplow shed at the end of summer.
Deserted.
“What time is it?” Sanderson asked.
“Ten o’clock,” Reacher said. “Two hours to go.”
“Is this going to work?”
“It looks right. It’s what the voicemail said. There’s a service road leading to a covered garage.”
“That was then. They might have a different place for tonight.”
“As good as this? I doubt it. This place is solid gold.”
“There’s no sign of life.”
“Not yet. I think that’s the point. They get in and out real fast. It’s a totally hidden location. Who pays attention to these places? Someone drives in here, they’re invisible.”
He turned and looked back. The truck from Jersey would come in from the east, the same way they had walked. Then it would loop around the garage and head back the other direction, for the empty run home. Stackley would have headed west. The other guys like him could have headed either way. It was a secret rendezvous and a hidden highway interchange all in one. Solid gold.
They walked up to where they thought Bramall and Mackenzie would come through the trees, and found them just arriving. They did the tour again.
Mackenzie said, “Obviously I’m not the person to ask how we play this.”
Sanderson said, “Operationally the soundest plan would be ambush the incoming vehicle halfway along the service road. After it leaves the highway but before it gets to the garage. One operation, maximum one round fired, maximum one enemy killed. Focused and efficient.”
“How would we ambush the vehicle?”
“I don’t know if we should.”
“I don’t follow.”
Reacher said, “We don’t know what kind of vehicle it is. But it came out the factory gate, so it’s probably an official pharmaceutical truck. I’m sure the Boy Detective discussed the matter with them. Lots of meetings and memos. The truck is probably locked. Maybe only the driver can open it. A combination or a special key. Your sister doesn’t want to run the risk of having to beat it out of him.”
“Wou
ld you?”
“The guy already took money to deliver to the wrong address. Clearly he’s open to a negotiation. Fair exchange is no robbery.”
“So which?”
Bramall said, “There could be ten or twelve guys picking up here. To get what they got we would have to rob them all, one by one. On their way out of here. Like the ticket booth in a parking lot. Twelve robberies, one after the other. Maybe a minute apart. I don’t think we could do it. We have no choice.”
“Rose?”
“Like I said, the ambush chooses itself. Let’s hope the truck is not locked.”
“There’s a third way,” Reacher said. “The best of both worlds.”
Chapter 45
Nakamura returned to the rest area, because she ran out of options. It was a bad location, but maybe better than anywhere else. She pictured a panel van, shiny white. Where would it park, to conduct its business? As far away as possible, surely. Which meant somewhere on the far edges of the lot. Late in the evening there were many empty rows. Folks liked to park as close as possible to the buildings. Why not? Why give themselves an extra walk?
She cruised by, in her pale blue car. She was right. The western edge of the lot was completely deserted. Row after empty row. The eastern edge had just one lone car. It was parked with its grille tight up against the trees.