metallic. Sun is on the windshield. No ID on the occupants.’
365
Reacher looked north again. The road was still empty. He
could see ten miles. It would take ten minutes to cover ten
miles even at a fast cruise. He stood up straight and stretched.
Ducked under the clock shafts and crawled over next to
Neagley. She moved to her right and he wiped his eyes and
stared out south. There was a tiny gold speck on the road, all
alone, maybe five miles away.
‘Not exactly busy,’ she said. ‘Is it?’
She passed him the scope. He refocused it and propped its
weight on a louvre and squinted through it. The telephoto
compression held the truck motionless. It looked like it was
bouncing and swaying on the road but making absolutely no
forward progress at all. It looked dirty and travel-stained. It
had a big chrome front fender all smeared with mud and salt.
The windshield was streaked. The sun’s reflection made it
impossible to see who was riding in it.
‘Why is it still sunny?’ he said. ‘I thought it was going to
snow.’
‘Look to the west,’ Neagley said.
He put the scope down and turned and put the left side of his
face tight against the louvres. Closed his right eye and looked
out sideways with his left. The sky was split in two. In the west
it was almost black with clouds. In the east it was pale blue and
hazy. Giant multiple shafts of sunlight blazed down through
mist where the two weather systems met.
‘Unbelievable,’ he said.
‘Some kind of inversion,’ Neagley said. ‘I hope it stays where
it is or we’ll freeze our asses off up here.’
‘It’s about fifty miles away.’
‘And the wind generally blows in from the west.’
‘Great.’
He picked up the scope again and checked on the golden
truck. It was maybe a mile closer, bucking and swaying on the
dirt. It must have been doing about sixty.
‘What do you think?’ Neagley said.
‘Nice vehicle,’ he said. ‘Awful colour.’
He watched it come on another mile and then handed back
the scope.
‘I should check north,’ he said.
366
He crawled under the clock shaft and made it back to his own
louvre. There was nothing happening in the north. The road
was still empty. He reversed his previous manoeuvre and put
his right cheek against the wood and closed his left eye with his
hand and checked west again. The snow clouds were clamped
down on the mountains. It was like night and day, with an
abrupt transition where the foothills started.
‘It’s a Chevy Tahoe for sure,’ Neagley called. ‘It’s slowing
down.’
‘See the plate?’
‘Not yet. It’s about a mile out now, slowing.’
‘See who’s in it?’
‘I’ve got sun and tinted glass. No ID. Half a mile out now.’
Reacher glanced north. No traffic.
‘Nevada plates, I think,’ Neagley called. ‘Can’t read them.
They’re all covered in mud. It’s right on the edge of town. It’s
going real slow now. Looks like a reconnaissance cruise. It’s
not stopping. Still no ID on the occupants. It’s getting real close
now. I’m looking right down at the roof. Dark tint on the rear
side glass. I’m going to lose them any second. It’s right underneath
us now.’
Reacher stood up tight against the wall and peered down at
the best angle he could get. The way the louvres were set in the
frame gave him a blind spot maybe forty feet deep.
‘Where is it now?’ he called.
‘Don’t know.’
He heard the sound of an engine over the moan of the wind. A big V-8, turning slowly. He stared down and a metallic gold
hood slid into view. Then a roof. Then a rear window. The truck
passed all the way underneath him and rolled through the town
and crossed the bridge at maybe twenty miles an hour. It stayed
slow for a hundred more yards. Then it accelerated. It picked
up speed fast.
‘Scope,’ he called.
Neagley tossed it back to him and he rested it on a louvre and
watched the truck drive away to the north..The rear window
was tinted black and there was an arc where the wiper had