‘How will they aim to get away?’
The scope moved an eighth of an inch, to the right.
qey’ll expect roadblocks north and south,’ she said.
‘Local cops. That’s a no-brainer: Their badges might get them
through, but I wouldn’t be counting on it. This is a whole
different situation. There might be confusion, but there won’t
be crowds.’
‘So how?’
‘I know how I’d do it,’ she said. ‘I’d ignore the roads
altogether. I’d take off across the grass, due west. Forty miles
of open country in some big four-wheel-drive, and you hit
the highway. I doubt the Casper PD has got a helicopter. Or the
Highway Patrol. There are only two highways in the whole
state.’
‘Armstrong will come in a helicopter,’ Reacher said. ‘Probably
from some air force base in Nebraska.’
‘But they won’t use his helicopter to chase the bad guys.
357
They’ll be exfiltrating him or taking him to a hospital. I’m sure
that’s some kind of standard protocol.’
‘Highway Patrol would set up north and south on the highway.
They’ll have nearly an hour’s warning.’
Neagley lowered the scope and nodded. ‘I’d anticipate that.
So I’d drive straight across the highway and get back off-road.
West of the highway is ten thousand square miles of nothing
between Casper and the Wind River Reservation, with only one
major road through it. They’d be long gone before somebody
whistled up a helicopter and started the search.’
q’hat’s a bold plan.’
‘I’d go for it,’ Neagley said.
Reacher smiled. ‘I know you would. Question is, will these
guys? I’m wondering if they’ll take one look and turn round and
forget about it.’
‘Doesn’t matter. We’ll take them down while they’re looking.
We don’t need to catch them in the act.’
Reacher climbed back into the driver’s seat.
‘Let’s go to work,’ he said.
The bowl was very shallow. They lost maybe a hundred feet
of elevation in the twenty miles they drove before they reached
the town. The road was hard-packed dirt, smooth as glass,
beautifully scraped and contoured. An annual art, Reacher
guessed, performed anew every year when the winter snows
melted and the spring rains finished. It was the kind of road
Model T Fords rolled down in documentary films. It curved as it
approached the town so that the bridge could cross the river at
an exact right angle.
The bridge seemed to represent the geographic centre of
town. There was a general store that offered postal service and
a breakfast counter. There was a forge set back behind it that
had probably fixed ranch machinery way back in history. There
was a feed supplier’s office and a hardware store. There was a
one-pump gas station with a sign that read: ,Springs Repaired. There were sidewalks made of wood fronting the buildings.
They ran like boat docks, floating on the earth. There was a
quiet leathery man loading groceries into a pick-up bed.
q’hey won’t come here,’ Reacher said. I’his is the most
exposed place I’ve ever seen.’
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Neagley shook her head. I’hey won’t know that until they’ve
seen it for themselves. They might be in and out in ten minutes,
but ten minutes is all we need.’
‘Where are we going to stay?’
She pointed. ‘Over there.’
It was a plain-fronted red cedar building with numerous small
windows and a sign that read: Clean Rooms.
q’errific,’ Reacher said.
‘Drive around,’ Neagley said. ‘Let’s get a feel for the place.’
A letter K has only four options for exploration, and they had
already covered the northern leg on the way in. Reacher backed
up to the bridge and struck out north and east, following the
river. That road led past eight houses, four on each side, and
then narrowed after another half-mile to a poor stony track.
There was a barbed-wire fence lost in the grass on the left, and
another on the right.
‘Ranch land,’ Neagley said.
The ranches themselves were clearly miles away. Fragments
of the road were visible as it rose and fell over gentle contours into the distance. Reacher turned the truck round and headed
back and turned down the short south-east leg. It had more
houses and they were closer together, but it was otherwise