Nothing to Lose

They lay in the rucked sheets and Vaughan explored Reacher’s scars. She had small hands. The bullet hole in his chest was too big for the tip of her little finger. Her ring finger fitted it better. Every woman he had been naked with was fascinated by it, except the woman he had gotten it for. She had preferred to forget. The rain started after an hour. It was heavy. It drummed on the hotel’s roof and sheeted against the window. A cozy feeling, in Reacher’s opinion. He liked being inside, in bed, listening to rain. After an hour Vaughan got up and went to shower. Reacher stayed in bed and leafed through the Bible that the Gideons had left in the nightstand.

Vaughan came back and asked, “Why does it matter?”

“Why does what matter?”

“That Thurman is stockpiling depleted uranium?”

Reacher said, “I don’t like the combination. He’s got twenty tons of radioactive waste and twenty tons of TNT. He’s an End Times enthusiast. I spoke to a minister last night. He said that End Times people can’t wait to get things started. Thurman himself said there might be precipitating events on the way. He said it kind of smugly, like he secretly knew it was true. And the whole town seems to be waiting for something to happen.”

“Thurman can’t start the Armaggedon. It’ll happen when it happens.”

“These people are fanatics. They seem to think they can nudge things along. They’re trying to breed red cows in Israel.”

“How would that help?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“Cows aren’t dangerous.”

“Another requirement seems to be a major war in the Middle East.”

“We’ve already got one.”

“Not major enough.”

“How could it be worse?”

“Lots of ways.”

“Personally I don’t see any.”

“Suppose another country joined in?”

“They’d be crazy to.”

“Suppose someone fired the first shot for them?”

“How would they?”

Reacher said, “Suppose a dirty bomb went off in Manhattan or D.C. or Chicago. What would we do?”

“According to you, we’d evacuate the city.”

“And then?”

“We’d investigate.”

Reacher nodded. “We’d have people in hazmat suits crawling all over the wreckage. What would they find?”

“Evidence.”

“For sure. They’d identify the materials involved. Suppose they found TNT and depleted uranium?”

“They’d make a list of possible sources.”

“Correct. Everyone in the world can buy TNT, but DU is rarer. It’s a byproduct of an enrichment process that occurs in maybe twenty places.”

“Nuclear powers.”

“Exactly.”

“A list of twenty suspects wouldn’t help.”

“Exactly,” Reacher said again. “And the intended victim isn’t going to stand up and take responsibility, because the intended victim didn’t know anything about anything in the first place. But suppose we were nudged in the preferred direction?”

“How?”

“Remember Oklahoma City? The Federal Building? That was a big explosion, but they knew it was a Ryder truck. Within hours. They’re great at putting tiny fragments together.”

“But presumably one uranium fragment is like another.”

“But suppose you were a state-sponsored terrorist from overseas. You’d want maximum bang for the buck. So if you didn’t have quite enough uranium when you were building your bomb, you might use other stuff to pack it out.”

“What other stuff?”

“Maybe pieces of wrecked cars,” Reacher said.

Vaughan said nothing.

Reacher said, “Suppose the guys in the hazmat suits found fragments of Peugeots and Toyotas sold only in certain markets. Suppose they found fragments of Iranian license plates.”

Vaughan was quiet for a moment, working it out. “Iran is working with uranium. They’re boasting about it.”

“There you go,” Reacher said. “What would happen next?”

“We’d make certain assumptions.”

“And?”

“We’d attack Iran.”

“And after that?”

“Iran would attack Israel, Israel would retaliate, everyone would be fighting.”

“Precipitating events,” Reacher said.

“That’s insane.”

“These are people that believe red cows signal the end of the world.”

“These are people who care enough to make sure ash gets a proper burial.”

“Exactly. Because by anyone’s standards that’s a meaningless gesture. Maybe it’s just camouflage. To make sure no one looks at them too closely.”

“We have no evidence.”

“We have an End Times nutcase with technical expertise and twenty tons of TNT and twenty tons of DU and four Iranian cars and a limitless supply of shipping containers, some of which were last seen in the Middle East.”

Vaughan said, “You think it’s possible?”

“Anything is possible.”

“But no judge in America would sign off on a search warrant. Not with what we’ve got. It’s not even circumstantial. It’s just a crazy theory.”

Reacher said, “I’m not looking for a search warrant. I’m waiting for dark.”

Darkness came two hours later. With it came doubts from Vaughan. She said, “If you’re really serious about this, you should call the State Police. Or the FBI.”

Reacher said, “I would have to give my name. I don’t like to do that.”

“Then talk to that MP lieutenant. He already knows your name. And it’s his bag after all.”

“He’s looking at medals and a promotion. He won’t want to rock the boat.”

It was still raining. A steady, hard downpour.