Never Go Back

‘He’s got our plate number, surely.’

‘He might not see the plate. We’re nose to tail here.’

The cars in front were heading for the gutter. Turner followed after them, steering left-handed, using her right hand on her jacket, tearing open the placket, hauling down the zipper. She leaned forward and shrugged out of the left shoulder, and then the right. She got her left arm out, and she got her right arm out. Reacher hauled the jacket from behind her and tossed it in the rear footwell. She had been wearing a T-shirt under the jacket, olive green, short-sleeved. Probably an extra small, Reacher thought, which fit her very well, except it was a little short. It barely met the waistband of her pants. Reacher saw an inch of skin, smooth and firm and tan.

He looked back again. Now the cop was two places behind, still coming, still flashing red and blue, still whooping and cackling and whining.

He said, ‘Would you have come out to dinner with me, if you’d been in the office yesterday? Or tonight, if Moorcroft had gotten you out?’

She said, with her eyes on the mirror, ‘You need to know that now?’

They were yards short of 17th Street. Up ahead on the right the Washington Monument was lit up in the gloom.

The cop car came right alongside.

And stayed there.

TWENTY-TWO

IT STAYED THERE because the car one place ahead hadn’t moved all the way over, and because in the next lane there was a wide pick-up truck with exaggerated bulges over twin rear wheels. The cop had no room to get through. He was a white man with a fat neck. Reacher saw him glance across at Turner, fleeting and completely incurious, and then away again, and then down at his dashboard controls, where evidently his siren switches were located, because right then the note changed to a continuous cackling blast, manic and never ending, and unbelievably loud.

But evidently there was something else down between the seats, and evidently it was a lot more interesting than siren switches. Because the guy’s head stayed down. He was staring at something, hard. A laptop screen, Reacher thought. Or some other kind of a modern communications device. He had seen such things before. He had been in civilian cop cars, from time to time. Some of them had slim grey panels, on swanneck stems, full of instant real-time notes and bulletins and warnings.

He said, ‘We got trouble.’

Turner said, ‘What kind?’

‘I think this guy is on his way to Union Station, too. Or the bus depot. To look for us. I think he’s got notes and pictures. Pictures would be easy to get, right? From the army? I think he’s got them right in front of him, right now. See how he’s making a big point of not looking at us?’

Turner glanced to her left. The cop was still staring down. His right arm was moving. Maybe he was fumbling for his microphone. Up ahead the traffic moved a little. The car in front got out the way. The pick-up with the wide arches slid over six inches. The cop had room to get through.

But he didn’t look up. And his car didn’t move.

The siren blasted on. The guy started talking. No way to make out what he was saying. Then he shut up and listened. He was being asked a question. Possibly some stilted radio protocol that meant: Are you sure? Because right then the guy turned face-on and ducked his head a little for a good view out his passenger window. He stared at Turner for a second, and then he flicked onward to Reacher.

His lips moved.

A single syllable, brief, inaudible, but definitely a voiced palatal glide morphing into a voiceless alveolar fricative. Therefore almost certainly: Yes.

Then he unclipped his seatbelt and his right hand moved towards his hip.

Reacher said, ‘Abandon ship.’

He opened his door hard and part rolled and part fell out to the kerb. Turner scrambled after him, away from the cop, over the console, over his seat. The car rolled forward and nestled gently against the car in front, like a kiss. Turner came out, all arms and legs, awkward in her loose boots. Reacher hauled her upright by the hand and they hustled together across the width of the sidewalk and on to the Mall. Bare trees and evening gloom closed around them. Behind them there was nothing to hear except the cackling blast of the siren. They looped around towards the near end of the Reflecting Pool. Turner was in her T-shirt, nothing more, and the air was cold. Reacher took off his jacket and handed it to her.

He said, ‘Put this on. Then we’ll split up. Safer that way. Meet me in fifteen minutes at the Vietnam Wall. If I don’t arrive, keep on running.’

She said, ‘Likewise if I don’t,’ and then she went one way and he went the other.