‘So Idaho or Nevada,’ Neagley said. ‘We better watch for
licence plates.’
q’his is a tourist destination. There are going to be plenty of
out-of-state plates. Like we’ve got Colorado plates.’
‘How will they aim to do it?’
‘Edward Fox,’ Reacher said. Fhey want to survive, and
they’re reasonable with a rifle. Hundred and twenty yards in
Minnesota, ninety in D.C. They’ll aim to get him in the church
doorway, somewhere like that. Maybe out in tlie graveyard.
Drop him right next to somebody else’s headstone.’
Neagley slowed and turned right onto Route 220. It was a
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better road, wider, newer blacktop. It ran with a river wandering
next to it. The sky was lighter in the east. Up ahead was a faint
glow from the city of Casper, twenty miles north. The snow was
still blowing in from the west, slow and lazy.
‘So what’s our plan?’ Neagley asked.
‘We need to see the terrain,’ Reacher said.
He looked sideways out of the window. He had seen nothing
but darkness since leaving Denver.
They stopped on the outer edge of Casper for gas and more
coffee and a bathroom. Then Reacher took a turn at the wheel.
He picked up Route 87 north out of town and drove fast for
thirty miles because Route 87 was also 1-25 again and was wide
and straight. And he drove fast because they were late. Dawn
was in full swing to the east and they were still well short of
Grace. The sky was pink and beautiful and the light came in
brilliant horizontal shafts and lit the mountainsides in the west.
They were meandering through the foothills. On their right, to
the east, the world was basically flat all the way to Chicago and
beyond. On their left, distant in the west, the Rocky Mountains
reared two miles high. The lower slopes were dotted with
stands of pine and the peaks were white with snow and streaked
with grey crags. For miles either side of. the ribbon of road was
high desert, with sagebrush and tan grasses blazing purple in
the early sun.
‘Been here before?’ Neagley asked.
‘No,’ he said.
‘We need to turn,’ she said. ‘Soon, east towards Thunder
Basin.’
He repeated the name in his head, because he liked the
sound of the words. Thunder Basin. Thunder Basin.
He made a shallow right off the highway onto a narrow county
road. It was signposted up to Midwest and Edgerton. The land
fell away to the east. Pines a hundred feet tall threw morning
shadows a hundred yards long. There was endless ragged
grassland interrupted here and there by the remains of old
industrial enterprises. There were square stone foundations a
foot high and tangles of old iron.
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‘Oil,’ Neagley said. ‘And coal mining. All closed down eighty
years ago.’
qqae land looks awful flat,’ Reacher said.
But he knew the flatness was deceptive. The low sun showed
him creases and crevices and small escarpments that were
nothing compared to the mountains on his left but were a long
way from being flat. They were in a transition area, where
the mountains shaded randomly into the high plains. The geological
tumult of a million years ago rippled outward all the way
to Nebraska, frozen in time, leaving enough cover to hide a
walking man in a million different places.
‘We need it to be totally flat,’ Neagley said.
Reacher nodded at the wheel. ‘Except for one little hill
a hundred yards from where Armstrong’s going to be. And
another little hill a hundred yards back from it, where we can
watch from.’
‘It isn’t going to be that easy.’
‘It never is,’ Reacher said.
They drove on, another whole hour. They were heading
north and east into emptiness. The sun rose well clear of the
horizon. The sky was banded pink and purple. Behind them
the Rockies blazed with reflected light. Ahead and to the
right the grasslands ran into the distance like a stormy ocean.
There was no more snow in the air. The big lazy flakes had
disappeared.
q’urn here,’ Neagley said.
‘Here?’ He slowed to a stop and looked at the turn. It was just