‘We have to hope for the best. So you should get your deputies to check the area behind the lounge, too. Very carefully. She could be unconscious in the shadows somewhere.’

‘By now she’d be halfway frozen to death.’

‘So you should do it quickly.’

So Goodman got on the radio, and Sorenson got on her cell, to check in with the distant troopers in two separate states. They were both negative on a pair of men travelling together, with average appearance and no distinguishing marks, and they were negative on bloodstained clothing, and they were negative on bladed weapons. Sorenson did the math in her head. The two guys were almost certainly already through. Time and space said so. But she asked the troopers to stay in place for another hour. The two guys could have had a flat tyre. Or some other kind of unexpected delay. She didn’t want to have the roadblocks dismantled only for the guys to roll through the vacated space five minutes later.

Then she clicked off her call and Goodman told her his dispatcher hadn’t heard a thing, and that all his deputies were searching hard, behind the Sin City lounge and all over town.

EIGHTEEN

REACHER DROVE ON, with Alan King fast asleep next to him and Don McQueen fast asleep behind him. Karen Delfuenso was still awake, still upright and tense. Reacher could feel her gaze on his face in the mirror. He glanced up and made eye contact. She was staring at him. Staring hard, as if mutely willing him to understand something.

Understand what? Then numbers came back to him, this time specifically thirteen, and two, and three, and one, and nine. Delfuenso had blinked out those numbers, in five separate sequences, between emphatic shakes of her head.

Why?

Communication of some kind?

A simple alphabetical code? The thirteenth letter of the alphabet was M. The second was B. The third was C. The first was A. The ninth was I.

MBCAI.

Not a word. Not a Roman numeral. A corporation? An organization? An acronym, like SNAFU or FUBAR?

Reacher looked way ahead into the darkness and fixed the upcoming mile in his mind, all four dimensions, and then he met Delfuenso’s eyes in the mirror again and silently mouthed the letters, all lips and teeth and tongue and exaggerated enunciation: ‘M, B, C, A, I?’

Delfuenso glared back at him, eyes bright, half ecstatic that he was trying, half furious that he wasn’t getting it, like a thirsty woman who sees an offered drink snatched away.

She shook her head. No. She jerked her chin once to the left, and then once to the right. She stared hard at him, eyes wide, as if to say, ‘See?’

Reacher didn’t see. Not immediately. Except to grasp that maybe the jerk to the left signified one thing, and the jerk to the right signified another thing. Two different categories. Perhaps the blinks preceded by the jerks to the left were letters, and the blinks preceded by the jerks to the right were numbers. Or vice versa.

M-2-C-A-9?

13-B-3-1-I?

Then Alan King stirred and woke up and moved in his seat, and Reacher saw Delfuenso turn her face away and stare out her window.

King looked at Reacher and asked, ‘You OK?’

Reacher nodded but said nothing.

King said, ‘You need another aspirin?’

Reacher shook his head, no.

King said, ‘Karen, give this guy another aspirin.’

No answer from Delfuenso.

King said, ‘Karen?’

Reacher said, ‘I don’t need another aspirin.’

‘You look like you do. Karen, give him a couple.’

‘Maybe Karen needs her aspirins for herself.’

‘She can share.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘But you look zoned out.’

‘I’m just concentrating on the road ahead.’

‘No, you look like you’re thinking about something.’

‘I’m always thinking about something.’

‘Like what?’

‘Right now, a challenge,’ Reacher said.

‘What kind?’

‘Can you talk coherently and at normal speed for a whole minute?’

‘What?’

‘You heard.’

King paused.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course I can.’

‘Can you talk coherently and at normal speed for a whole minute without using a word that contains the letter A?’

‘That would be tougher,’ King said. ‘Impossible, probably. Lots of words contain the letter A.’

Reacher nodded. ‘You just used three of them. Total of eighteen since you woke up ten seconds ago.’

‘So it’s a stupid challenge.’

‘No, it’s an easy challenge,’ Reacher said.

‘How?’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ Reacher said. ‘Go back to sleep.’

‘No, tell me now.’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ Reacher said again. ‘Think of it as something to look forward to.’

So King shrugged and then stared into space for a minute, distracted, maybe a little disgruntled, maybe even a little angry, but then he turned away and closed his eyes again.

Reacher drove on, and started thinking about the twin roadblocks they had passed through. Eight cars and eight officers in each location, with flashlights and plenty of time for close scrutiny. He imagined himself a wanted man of average appearance, travelling alone, suddenly at risk and vulnerable, perhaps anticipating those roadblocks up ahead. What could such a man do to prepare?

He could disguise one or other of those fatal tells, that’s what he could do.

He could alter his average appearance, with make-up or putty or wigs or fake piercings or fake tattoos or fake scars.

But that would not be easy, without skills and practice. And that would not be easy at short notice, either.

So he would have to address the other tell.

He would have to make himself no longer alone.

Which would be easy to do, even without skills or practice. Which would be easy to do even at short notice.

He could pick up a hitchhiker.

NINETEEN

SORENSON CALLED IN Delfuenso’s name and address, and less than a minute later she knew that Delfuenso’s car was a four-year-old Chevrolet Impala, dark blue in colour, and she knew its plate number. She passed on that information to the roadblock crews. Both said the plate number was not on their scribbled lists of cars carrying two men. Both said they would check their dashboard video to confirm. Both said that process could take some time.

So Sheriff Goodman drove Sorenson back to the cocktail lounge, where the search for a dead or unconscious woman had turned up negative results. The deputies had traced ever-widening circles from the lounge’s back door and had found nothing of interest. They had checked the shadows, the abandoned doorways, the weedy fence lines, the trash bins, and all the puddles and all the potholes.

Goodman said, ‘She could be further afield. She could have gotten up, and wandered off, and collapsed again. That kind of thing can happen, with bangs on the head.’

One of the deputies said, ‘Or they could have bundled her into the car and then rolled her out later. In the middle of nowhere. Safer for them that way. So she could be anywhere. She could be fifty miles away.’

Sorenson said, ‘Say that again.’

‘She could be fifty miles away.’

‘No, the first part.’

‘They could have bundled her into the car.’

Her plate number was not on their scribbled lists of cars carrying two men.

Sorenson said, ‘You know what? I think they did. And I think she’s still in the car. I think she’s a hostage. And a smokescreen. Three people. Not two. They’ve been getting a free pass all the way.’