Page 49 of No Plan B

“You know, I’d love to. But I’m slammed with other stuff. There’s all kinds of craziness going on right now. So sadly I’ll just have to go ahead and pass on that very tempting offer.”

—

The next thingReacher did was check whether the first guy he had hit was still alive.

The guy was. He had a pulse. It was fast and faint, but it was there. Reacher didn’t care either way on an emotional level. It was purely a practical matter. He needed to know if he had trash to dispose of, or an opponent to keep off the field.

Reacher collected the unconscious guys’ Berettas. He found their phones, smashed them against the ground with his heel, and threw the remains over the fence. Then he and Hannah searched the guys’ pockets. They didn’t yield any surprises. They each had a wallet with a single ATM card, a driver’s license, and a Minerva Correctional ID. One had $40 in twenties. The other had $60. Reacher kept the cash. He still had new clothes to pay for. He also took a car key. It had a Mercury logo on its chunky plastic body and a remote fob on its ring.

Next Reacher pulled off the guys’ boots. He tossed them over the fence. He removed the guys’ jeans and T-shirts. He tossed them over the fence, too. Then he peeled off the guys’ socks. They were thick. Heavy duty. The kind people wore for hiking and other kinds of vigorous sport. They were slightly damp. Reacher tried to ignore that and tested one for strength. He pulled it to see if it would stretch. Or snap. It gave a little, but it didn’t break. He figured they would slow the guys down if nothing else, so he used the socks to secure their ankles and tie their wrists behind their backs. Then he dragged the guys across to the base of the wall for maximum concealment. Hewas ready to leave them there when a different thought crossed his mind.

He said, “Hannah? Come with me for a minute?”

—

Reacher led theway to the parking area at the side of the building. One of the buses had departed, leaving ten others in a tidy row. There were still no passengers in sight. No drivers. No other passersby. Reacher asked Hannah to keep a lookout then he tried the handles on the nearest bus’s luggage compartment hatches. There were three on each side, low down, beneath the windows. All of them were locked. He tried the next bus. All of its hatches were locked, too. It was the same thing with the third bus. But the fourth bus was older. It had come all the way from British Columbia, Canada, according to its license plates. The first of its hatches was not secured. It pivoted out and up with no effort at all. Reacher left it open. He hurried back to the space behind the building. Picked up the first unconscious guy. Swung him onto his shoulder. Carried him to the bus. Posted him through the hatch and into the cargo hold. He fetched the second guy. Dumped him in the hold next to his buddy. Then he closed the hatch. He pressed his knee against it. Pulled the handle out. And twisted it back and forth until the mechanism failed and it came off in his hand. He did the same to the other five hatch handles. Threw them over the fence. And led the way back to the entrance to the building.

—

Reacher went intothe bathroom to wash his hands. Then he moved on to the store. There was a basic selection of work clothes in the section that catered to truck drivers so he picked out the one pair of pants that looked long enough, a T-shirt, some underwear, andbecause he’d been to Mississippi before, a light rain jacket. He found a road atlas of the state. Grabbed two large cups of coffee. Paid for everything with the money he’d taken from the Minerva guys. Then he went outside and caught up with Hannah at the truck.

Hannah was happy to take her drink but she was surprised when Reacher climbed into the passenger seat and set a paper map down on the center console between them.

She said, “Why did you waste your money on that? My phone will give us directions. Anywhere we want to go. Right to the front door.”

“This isn’t for directions.” Reacher opened the atlas to the page that showed the truck stop. It was near the western border of the state—the river—and roughly halfway between the Gulf to the south and Tennessee to the north. Jackson was to the east, roughly a third of the way to Alabama. Winson was to the southwest, nestling in a deep oxbow on the edge of the riverbank. “That Minerva guy said that ten people had been sent to watch for me. He said they’re deployed in pairs, so that means there are five ambush sites. We know two of them. Where we are now, and the Greyhound station in Jackson. We need to figure out where the other three could be.”

“OK. Well, clearly they anticipated we’d be coming in on I-20. But they couldn’t have been sure we’d hit the truck stop. Not unless they knew about your strange wardrobe arrangement. Without that we would have kept going, then turned south here. Onto US 61.” Hannah pointed at a line on the map. “Somewhere farther along there would be the next logical place to try and catch us.”

“No. They would try at the intersection. They can’t know you’re taking me the whole way to Winson. They’ll assume that if I’m on the road I either stole a car or I’m hitching rides. If I stole a car, that’s where I’d turn. If someone had picked me up farther west and was continuing to Jackson or Meridian, or even Tuscaloosa orBirmingham, that’s where they would let me out. So it’s where I’d hang around, looking for my next pickup.”

“Makes sense.” Hannah took a pen from her purse and circled the spot where US 61 crossed I-20. “That’s potential ambush site number three. Now, if we’d taken the more central route from Colorado through Kansas and Missouri, we’d have wound up coming down I-55 into Jackson. Then we’d have come west again. And there’s only one route into Winson, wherever you’re coming from. They’ll put their backstop somewhere on that road.”

Reacher picked up the map, studied it closely for a moment, then set it back down and pointed to a spot near the town boundary. “There. Look at the contours. It only rises a hundred feet but it’s the steepest hill for about a hundred miles. Enough to slow down any trucks, and the rest of the traffic along with them. Slow-moving vehicles are easier to see into. And they’re easier to stop.”

Hannah circled the place Reacher had indicated. “Number four, done. Where’s five going to be?”

“Jackson.”

“You think? Would they put another team there? They already have the Greyhound station covered.”

“Right. But what if I came in by train? Or got a ride there? How would I get the rest of the way to Winson? There’s bound to be a shuttle, or a local bus service. Probably owned by Minerva. Just like they probably own the hotels near the prison.”

“They can do that?”

“Of course. Why only profit off the prisoners when you can make money from their visitors, too?”

“You’re so cynical.” Hannah stopped with the pen poised above the map. “But I guess you’re right. So where in Jackson would this bus be?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not going to Jackson. It’s too far out of my way. I’ll just take care of the intersection and the hilltop for now.”

“Take care of?Don’t you meanavoid?”

Reacher shook his head. “Basic tactics. If you have the opportunity to degrade the enemy’s capability, you take it.”

“Oh. We’re going todegradetheircapability? Awesome. I’m up for that. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

“Find a hotel. For tonight.”

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