bright in the light and then whipped backward as they drove.
They were big flakes, dry and powdery, not many of them. The
road was narrow. It wandered left and right. The surface was
lumpy. All around it in the darkness was a vastness so large it
sucked the noise of the car away into nothing. They were
driving in a bright tunnel of silence, leaping ahead from one
lonely snowflake to the next.
‘I guess Casper will have a police department,’ Reacher said.
Neagley nodded at the wheel. ‘Could be a hundred strong.
Casper is nearly as big as Cheyenne. Nearly as big as Bismarck,
actually.’
351
‘And they’ll be responsible for Grace,’ Reacher said.
‘Alongside the State troopers, I guess.’
‘So any other cops we find there are our guys.’
‘You’re still certain they’re cops?’
He nodded. ‘It’s the only way everything makes sense.
The initial contact with Nendick and Andretti in the cop bars,
the familiarity with the NCIC, the access to the government
weapons. Plus the way they slip in and out everywhere. Crowds,
confusion, a gold shield gets you anywhere. And if Armstrong’s
right and their dad was a cop, that’s a pretty good predictor. It’s
a family trade, like the military.’
‘My dad wasn’t in the military.’
‘But mine was, so there’s fifty per cent right away. Better than
most other professions. And you know what the clincher is?’
‘What?’
‘Something we should have figured long ago. But we
just skated right on by. We missed it, totally. The two dead
Armstrongs. How the hell do you just find two white guys with
fair hair and blue eyes and the right dates of birth and the right
faces and above all the right first and last names? That’s a very
tall order. But these guys did it. And there’s only one practical
way of doing it, which is the national DMV database. Driving
licence information, names, addresses, dates of birth, photographs.
It’s all right there, everything you need. And nobody
can get into it, except cops, who can dial it right up.’
Neagley was silent for a moment.
‘OK, they are cops,’ she said.
q’hey sure are. And we’re brain dead for not spotting it on
Tuesday.’
‘But cops would have heard of Armstrong long ago, wouldn’t
they?’
‘Why would they? Cops know about their own little world,
that’s all, same as anybody else. If you worked in some rural
police department in Maine or Florida or outside San Diego you
might know the New York Giants’ quarterback or the Chicago
White Sox centre fielder but there’s no reason why you would
have heard of North Dakota’s junior senator. Unless you were a
politics junkie, and most people aren’t.’
Neagley drove on. Way to the right, far to the east, a narrow
352
band of sky was a fraction lighter than it had been. It had
turned the colour of dark charcoal against the blackness
beyond it. The snow was no heavier, no lighter. The big lazy
flakes drifted in from the mountains, floating level, sometimes
rising.
‘So which is it?’ she asked. ‘Maine or Florida or San Diego?
We need to know, because if they’re flying in they won’t be
armed with anything they can’t pick up here.’
‘California is a possibility,’ Reacher said. ‘Oregon isn’t. They
wouldn’t have revealed their specific identity to Armstrong if
they still lived in Oregon. Nevada is a possibility. Or Utah or
Idaho. Anywhere else is too far.’
‘For what?’
I’o be on a reasonable radius from Sacramento. How long
does a stolen cooler of ice last?’
Neagley said nothing.
‘Nevada or Utah or Idaho,’ Reacher said. q’hat’s my guess.
Not California. I think they wanted a state line between them
and the place they went for the thumb. Feels better, psychologically.
I think they’re a long day’s drive from Sacramento.
Which means they’re probably a long day’s drive from here,
too, in the other direction. So I think they’ll be coming in by
road, armed to the teeth.’
‘When?’
q’oday, if they’ve got any sense.’
q’he bat was mailed in Utah,’ Neagley said.
Reacher nodded. ‘OK, so scratch Utah. I don’t think they
wanted to mail anything in their home state.’