‘That was my dispatcher,’ he said. ‘The eyewitness is missing. The guy you talked to tonight. He never made it home.’

The short discussion with McQueen had eaten up some time and distance, so Reacher had to take the ramp pretty fast. Then he had to brake pretty hard ahead of a tight curve. For a split second he considered hitting Alan King in the throat. He was fairly well braced in his seat, with his right foot hard on the pedal and his left hand tight on the wheel. King was waking up because of the abrupt turn and the sudden deceleration. Chances were good his neck would be in the right place at the right time.

But McQueen was still a problem, even at twenty miles an hour. Theoretically Reacher could find the lever and jam the seat back into him, and maybe swing an elbow, but the headrest was in the way, and there was collateral damage just waiting to happen, right there next to the guy on the rear bench.

A mother, separated from her child.

Two feet from McQueen, on his right. And the guy was probably right-handed. Most people were.

They have guns.

So Reacher just coasted onward, through the curve, to the turn at the end of the ramp. Repeats of the gas board and the motel board faced him on the far shoulder of a narrow two-lane road. Both had arrows pointing right.

Alan King yawned and said, ‘We’re coming off here?’

Don McQueen said, ‘This is as good a place as any.’

‘For what?’ Reacher said.

‘For gas,’ McQueen said. ‘What else? Turn right. Follow the sign.’

TWENTY-SIX

REACHER TURNED RIGHT and followed the sign. The road was narrow and dark. And dead straight, like a lot of roads in Iowa. The surrounding landscape was invisible, but it felt flat. Dormant winter fields, left and right, as far as the mind could sense. There was nothing up ahead. Just darkness. And then Missouri, presumably, a hundred miles away. Maybe a river first. The Des Moines, Reacher thought. He had studied geography in school. The river called the Des Moines met the mighty Mississippi a couple hundred miles southeast of the city called Des Moines.

He said, ‘This is a complete waste of time, guys. We’re going to drive twenty miles and find a gas station that went out of business before they invented unleaded.’

McQueen said, ‘There was a sign. Has to mean something.’

‘It means there was gas here back when you were in grade school. Thirty cents a gallon. And Luckies at thirty cents a pack.’

‘I’m sure they keep those signs updated.’

‘You’re a very trusting person.’

‘Not really,’ McQueen said.

Reacher drove on. The road surface was pitted and pot-holed and the car bounced and swayed. Not its natural element, as a vehicle. Or Reacher’s, as a driver. Both had been better on the highway.

McQueen asked, ‘How’s your head?’

Reacher said, ‘My head is fine. It’s my nose that’s busted, not my skull.’

‘You need another aspirin?’

‘I already had that discussion with Mr King. While you were asleep.’

King said, ‘He elected to soldier on without. He seems very protective of Karen’s personal supply.’

‘Aspirin is not a prescription drug,’ McQueen said. ‘She could get more at the gas station. Or paracetamol, or ibuprofen.’

‘Or leeches,’ Reacher said. ‘We might find some under a dusty old pile of inner tubes and buggy whips. After we bust the padlock the bank put on thirty years ago.’

‘Just keep going,’ McQueen said. ‘Be patient.’

So Reacher drove on, slowly south on the lumpy road, and two miles later he was proved wrong, and McQueen was proved right. They all saw a faint yellow glow in the night-time mist, way far ahead in the distance, on the horizon, like a beacon, which grew stronger as they approached it, and which finally resolved itself into the fierce neon glare of a brand new Shell station, all crisp white and yellow and orange, sitting like a mirage or a landed UFO on a quarter-acre bite out of a fallow cornfield. It had hi-tech pumps on two gondola islands, and lube bays, and a glassed-in store lit up so bright it must have been visible from outer space.

And it was open for business.

‘You should have trusted me,’ McQueen said.

Reacher slowed the car to a walk and turned in. He chose the pumps farther from the store and nearer the road and eased to a stop. He put the transmission in Park and shut down the motor. He pulled the key, casually, like a reflex, like a rote habit, and dropped it in his pocket.

Alan King saw him do it, but said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘Same system? I get the coffee, you get the gas?’

‘Works for me,’ McQueen said.

So Reacher opened his door and got out. He stood and stretched and arched his back and then looped around the pump islands and headed for the bright lights. He could see a kid on a stool behind the register, watching him, staring at his face. The busted nose. A universal attraction, apparently. The guy wasn’t much more than twenty years old, and he looked sleepy and slow.

Reacher paused before going in, and checked back. Alan King had dipped a credit card and was getting ready to pump the gas. McQueen was still in the rear seat. Delfuenso was still next to him.

Reacher went inside. The kid behind the register looked up and nodded a cautious greeting. Reacher waited until the door sucked shut and said, ‘Got a pay phone?’

The kid blinked and opened his mouth and closed it again, like a goldfish.

‘Not a difficult question,’ Reacher said. ‘A simple yes or no answer will suffice.’

‘Yes,’ the kid said. ‘We have a pay phone.’

‘Where is it?’

‘By the restrooms,’ the kid said.

‘Which are where?’

The kid pointed.

‘In back,’ he said.

Reacher looked the other way, out the window.

Don McQueen’s door was open.

But he was still in the car. Just sitting there, facing forward.

Reacher turned back and saw a door in the rear wall of the store. It had two stick figures on it, one in a skirt and one in pants. He stepped over to it and pulled it open. Behind it was a small lobby, with two more doors, one with the pants figure on it, and the other with the skirt. On the wall between the two was a pay phone, shiny and new, with an acoustic hood over it.

Reacher checked back. King was pumping the gas. McQueen was twisted sideways in his seat. He had both feet out of the car. They were planted on the ground. But that was all. He was stretching his legs. For comfort. He wasn’t moving.

Not yet, anyway.

Reacher checked the ladies’ room. No windows. No alternate exit.

He checked the men’s room. No windows. No alternate exit. He pulled a wad of towels from the dispenser and came back out to the lobby and folded the towels twice and jammed them between the lobby door and its frame, on the hinge side, so that the door held itself open a few inches. A little less than four inches, to be exact. Reacher ducked back and checked the view from the phone. He could see a small sliver of the store. He could see a tiny slice of the main door. Not much, but he would know if it opened.

He hoped.

He lifted the receiver and dialled 911.

More or less instantly a dispatcher asked, ‘What is your current location?’

Reacher said, ‘Give me the FBI.’

‘Sir, what is your current location?’

‘Don’t waste time.’

‘Do you need fire, police, or ambulance?’

‘I need the FBI.’

‘Sir, this is the 911 emergency service.’

‘And since about September the twelfth 2001 you’ve had a direct button for the FBI.’

‘How did you know that?’

‘Just a lucky guess. Hit the button, and hit it now.’