Nothing to Lose

They backtracked to the office. The clerk was on her stool behind the counter. Room four’s key was back on its hook. Now only two keys were missing. Reacher’s own, for room twelve, and Maria’s, for room eight.

The clerk slid off her stool and stood with her hands spread on the counter. Attentive, and helpful. Reacher glanced at the phone beside her and asked, “Did Mrs. Rogers get a call?”

The clerk nodded. “Six o’clock last night.”

“Good news?”

“She seemed very happy.”

“What then?”

“She checked out.”

“And went where?”

“She called a cab to take her to Burlington.”

“What’s in Burlington?”

“Mostly the airport bus to Denver.”

Reacher nodded. “Thanks for your help.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“That depends on your point of view.”

Reacher was hungry and he needed more coffee, so he led Vaughan another block north and another block west to the diner. The place was practically empty. Too late for breakfast, too early for lunch. Reacher stood for a second and then slid into the booth that Lucy Anderson had used the night he had met her. Vaughan sat across from him, where Lucy had sat. The waitress delivered ice water and silverware. They ordered coffee, and then Vaughan asked, “What exactly is going on?”

“All those young guys,” Reacher said. “What did they have in common?”

“I don’t know.”

“They were young, and they were guys.”

“And?”

“They were from California.”

“So?”

“And the only white one we saw had a hell of a tan.”

“So?”

Reacher said, “I sat right here with Lucy Anderson. She was cautious and a little wary, but basically we were getting along. She asked to see my wallet, to check I wasn’t an investigator. Then later I said I had been a cop, and she panicked. I put two and two together and figured her husband was a fugitive. The more she thought about it, the more worried she got. She was very hostile the next day.”

“Figures.”

“Then I caught a glimpse of her husband in Despair and went back to check the rooming house where he was staying. It was empty, but it was very clean.”

“Is that important?”

“Crucial,” Reacher said. “Then I saw Lucy again, after her husband had moved on. She said they have lawyers. She talked about people in her position. She sounded like she was part of something organized. I said I could follow her to her husband and she said it wouldn’t do me any good.”

The waitress came over with the coffee. Two mugs, two spoons, a Bunn flask full of a brand-new brew. She poured and walked away and Reacher sniffed the steam and took a sip.

“But I was misremembering all along,” he said. “I didn’t tell Lucy Anderson that I had been a cop. I told her I had been amilitary cop. That’s why she panicked. And that’s why the rooming house was so clean. It was like a barracks ready for inspection. Old habits die hard. The people passing through it were all soldiers. Lucy thought I was tracking them.”

Vaughan said, “Deserters.”

Reacher nodded. “That’s why the Anderson guy had such a great tan. He had been in Iraq. But he didn’t want to go back.”

“Where is he now?”

“Canada,” Reacher said. “That’s why Lucy wasn’t worried about me following her. It wouldn’t do me any good. No jurisdiction. It’s a sovereign nation, and they’re offering asylum up there.”

“The truck,” Vaughan said. “It was from Ontario.”

Reacher nodded. “Like a taxi service. The glow on the camera wasn’t stolen uranium. It was Mrs. Rogers’s husband in a hidden compartment. Body heat, like the driver. The shade of green was the same.”

65

Vaughan sat still and quiet for a long time. The waitress came back and refilled Reacher’s mug twice. Vaughan didn’t touch hers.

She asked, “What was the California connection?”

Reacher said, “Some kind of an anti-war activist group out there must be running an escape line. Maybe local service families are involved. They figured out a system. They sent guys up here with legitimate metal deliveries, and then their Canadian friends took them north over the border. There was a couple at the Despair hotel seven months ago, from California. A buck gets ten they were the organizers, recruiting sympathizers. And the sympathizers policed the whole thing. They busted your truck’s windows. They thought I was getting too nosy, and they were trying to move me on.”

Vaughan pushed her mug out of the way and moved the salt and the pepper and the sugar in front of her. She put them in a neat line. She straightened her index finger and jabbed at the pepper shaker. Moved it out of place. Jabbed at it again, and knocked it over.

“A small subgroup,” she said. “The few left-hand people, working behind Thurman’s back. Helping deserters.”

Reacher said nothing.

Vaughan asked, “Do you know who they are?”

“No idea.”

“I want to find out.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to have them arrested. I want to call the FBI with a list of names.”

“OK.”

“Well, don’t you want to?”

Reacher said, “No, I don’t.”