Page 57 of No Plan B

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Jed Starmer couldfinally see the appeal of riding a bike. He had never had the chance to do it very much in the past. He’d never owned one of his own. His foster parents would never have allowed it. So one day, a few months back, he badgered a friend into teaching him how to ride one. The experience had not been much fun. Jed found that steering in a straight line was next to impossible. He wobbled all over the place. Hit every crack in the pavement. Every pothole. Bumped into a parked car. Fell off four times. Hurt his knee. And his elbow. And his chin. The other kids on the street all laughed at him. He was relieved when it was time to return the bike and limp his way back home. But that afternoon in Jackson, on the messenger’s bike, everything was different. At first he only had one thing on his mind. Getting away from the officers who were closing in on him. He didn’t worry about staying on two wheels or hurting himself or whether he looked ridiculous. He just raced down the sidewalk, bounced down off the curb, and swooped and dodged between the cars and trucks that were grinding their way through the choked city streets. He kept going for ten minutes. Fifteen. Then something dawned on him. He was free and clear.

Jed pulled over to the side of the street. He needed to find somewhere to leave the bike where it would be safe. Then, if he could just recall the name of the messenger service he had seen on the guy’s bag when they collided, he could find a phone number. He could call and tell someone where the owner would find the bike.

Jed had never intended to keep the bike for long. But he had notanticipated how useful it would be. Or how fun. And he did still have another problem. He had to get to Winson. He couldn’t take the bus. He didn’t have enough money for a cab. And he couldn’t risk standing around in plain sight, trying to hitch a ride. The bike was the obvious answer.

Jed’s notes were lost. They had been in his backpack. But he figured he had about fifty miles to go. Sixty at the most. The bike was fast. Easy to pedal. It would only take, what, a couple of hours? Maybe three? He could call the messenger service when he arrived in the town. The guy would have to travel a little farther to retrieve his bike, but that was too bad. He shouldn’t have been such an asshole. Really, he was lucky it was Jed he had encountered. Anyone else would have kept the bike. Or sold it. Jed had no doubt about that. Not after having his backpack stolen. And all his money.

Chapter30

Hannah pulled the truck overonto the shoulder when the GPS in her phone said they were half a mile from the start of the construction zone. Reacher opened the passenger door and climbed out. Hannah had the pack of emergency flares on her lap, ready to go. She grabbed her purse from the backseat and took out her gun. The little SIG Reacher had first seen outside Gerrardsville when they began their journey together. She tucked it into a gap at the side of the driver’s seat, then felt Reacher watching her.

Hannah turned and looked at him. “Any other assholes try anything, I’ll be ready. No one’s going to sneak up on me. Not again.”

Reacher said, “You had much practice with that?”

“Hell, yes. Been shooting my whole life. It was the one thing about me my daddy didn’t hate.”

“You didn’t get along?”

“We did. When I was a little kid.”

“Your mom?”

“Died when I was eight.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Not your fault. No one’s fault. Guess it’s no one’s fault my daddy was a bigoted asshole, either, but hey. You play the hand you’re dealt. And he did teach me to shoot, which is how I got close to Sam. He worked at the prison. I worked with the parolees. In our free time we’d hang out at the range. So not all bad in the end.”

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It would normallytake Reacher no more than five minutes to cover half a mile on foot. That afternoon he agreed with Hannah to give it twenty. The road was lined with trees but it wasn’t clear on her phone’s screen how dense they were. The only certainty was that the land beyond them was flat and open. There was no other cover so Reacher wanted to be able to move slowly and smoothly. To stop where necessary. And he wanted to be in position in plenty of time.

Reacher covered the ground in fifteen minutes. The dirt was damp in places and patches of ankle-high grass and weeds made the cuffs of his pants wet and soggy. A rich musty smell rose up wherever he disturbed the surface. The trees were scattered and patchy and more than a dozen times he had to pause to make sure he wouldn’t be seen by passing vehicles. There were individual ones heading west, toward Winson, spread out at random intervals. And little convoys, packed close together, heading east.

Reacher stayed behind the tree line until he was level with the spot where the road got cut down to one lane. He found a shallow depression, maybe left by a dried-up stream, maybe by an abandoned irrigation system. He lay down in it, pressed himself into the ground, and settled in to watch. Twelve cars were waiting behind a line that had been painted on the blacktop near a sign warning drivers not to proceed unless they were escorted by the pilot vehicle. A guy was making his way along the shoulder, heading toward the end of therow. He was wearing jeans, a gray T-shirt, and black boots. He was carrying a clipboard and he had a yellow safety helmet on his head. He leaned down and looked into each vehicle he passed, checking any passengers. Another guy, of similar height but with a white helmet, was keeping pace on the other side of the vehicles, checking their drivers. The props weren’t fooling anyone, Reacher thought. These guys were obviously the next Minerva crew. The only question was whether they were just being thorough or if they hadn’t been told about Roth’s truck. Reacher smiled to himself. Maybe they did know about it. But if they didn’t, they soon would.

The area between Reacher and the road had been flattened and a square section of grass had been replaced with gravel. It was covered with tire tracks. There were multiple sets. They partially overlapped and all of them entered the space at almost the same spot. The top right-hand corner, from Reacher’s perspective. They followed the same loop around, near the edge, and led back out onto the pavement to Reacher’s left, still all together. An SUV was parked in the center of the rough circle the tracks formed, perpendicular to the road, with its rear facing Reacher. A Ford Explorer. It was burgundy with gold pinstripes and chunky tires with white letters on the sidewalls. It looked old, but shiny and well cared for.

At the far side of the road, on the shoulder, there was a port-a-potty with faded blue and white plastic walls. Next to it there was a gray metal box the size of a shipping container. Reacher figured it would be an equipment store. Next to that there was a dump trailer. It was loaded pretty full with tree branches and a net was strung over the top to stop its contents from falling or getting blown out. The name, number, and web address of the hire company were stenciled on the side.

There was only one thing missing from the scene. Constructionworkers. There was no sign of any activity at all behind the long line of traffic cones.

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Reacher heard thedrone of engines approaching from his right and thirty seconds later the pilot vehicle appeared. A line of cars was following in its wake like ducklings trailing their mother. The pilot turned onto the gravel square. It looped around the Explorer, adding another set of tire tracks, and came to a stop at the side of the road. The cars it had been escorting swung back into their own lane and continued heading east. The pilot pulled out. It was facing west now. It paused, then set off and the waiting cars began to follow.

The guys with the jeans and T-shirts walked back and stopped by the line on the pavement. They waited, but no more cars appeared from the east. Reacher saw them exchange glances, shrug, and cross to the Explorer. They tossed their helmets and clipboards onto the backseat and climbed in the front. They had been at the site for a long time. They felt they deserved a break.

They weren’t going to get one.

Reacher heard another engine approaching. A big diesel, coming from his left. The guys in the Explorer picked it up twenty seconds later. They climbed out. Opened the back doors. Started to reach for their props. Then they saw what kind of vehicle was making the sound. A red pickup truck. It had black glass and lots of chrome. It slowed, then stopped in front of the warning sign. The guys checked its license plate. Then they started moving toward it. They fanned out, one on each side, and paused when they were ten feet away. Each of them had pulled a gun from his waistband.

Reacher got to his feet and started to creep forward.

The guy on the driver’s side of the truck yelled, “All right. Goodjob getting this far. But your luck’s run out. This is the end of the line. Get out, slowly, hands where I can see them.”

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