below. Reacher was craning up, looking ahead through the pilot’s
plexiglass canopy.
“Where are we?” he asked him.
The pilot pointed down at a concrete ribbon below.
That’s US 93,” he said. “Just about to leave Montana and enter Idaho.
Still heading due south.”
Reacher nodded.
“Great,” he said. “Follow 93. It’s the only road goes south, right?
We’ll catch him somewhere between here and Nevada.”
He started worrying near the top of the second hour. Started worrying
badly. Started desperate revisions to his grade-school calculations.
Maybe Stevie was driving faster than fifty. He was a fast driver.
Faster than Bell had been. Maybe he was doing nearer sixty. Where did
that put him? Three hundred and sixty miles out. In which case they
wouldn’t catch him until two hours `;0:+’ fifteen minutes had elapsed. What
if he was doing seventy? Could that Econoline sustain seventy, hour
after hour, with a ton in back? Maybe. Probably. In which case he
was four hundred and twenty miles out. A total of two hours forty
minutes before they overhauled him. That was the envelope. Somewhere
between one hour fifty minutes and two hours forty minutes, somewhere
between Montana and Nevada. A whole fifty minutes of rising panic.
More than a hundred miles of concrete ribbon to watch before he could
know for sure he was wrong and they had to peel off hopelessly
northeast toward Minnesota.
The helicopter was flying nose-down, top speed, straight along US 93.
The seven passengers were craned forward, staring down at the road.
They were over a town called Salmon. The pilot was calling out
information like a tour guide. The giant peak of Mount McGuire, ten
thousand feet, way off to the right. Twin Peaks, ten and a half
thousand feet, up ahead to the right. Borah Peak, highest of all,
twelve and a half thousand feet, way ahead to the left. The aircraft
rose and fell a thousand feet above the terrain. Hurtled along lower
than the surrounding peaks, nose-down to the highway like a
bloodhound.
Time ticked away. Twenty minutes. Thirty. The road was pretty much
empty. It connected Missoula in the north to Twin Falls in Idaho,
three hundred miles to the south. Neither was a booming metropolis and
this was a holiday. Everybody had already gotten where they were
going. There was an occasional automobile and an occasional trucker
working overtime. No white Econoline. There had been two white
vehicles, but they were both pickups. There had been one panel truck,
but it was dark green. That was all. Nothing else. No white truck.
Sometimes the road was empty all the way to the horizon in front of
them. The time was ticking away. Like a bomb. Forty minutes.
Fifty.
“I’m going to call Minneapolis,” Webster said. “We blew it.”
McGrath waited, hoping. He shook his head.
“Not yet,” he said. That’s a desperation move. Mass panic. Can you
imagine the crowds? The evacuation? People are going to get
trampled.”
Webster peered out and down. Stared at the road for a full minute.
Fifty-four minutes into the fifty-minute envelope.
“Get worse than trampled if that damn truck’s already up there,” he
said. “You want to imagine that?”
Time ticked away. Fifty-eight minutes. An hour. The road stayed
empty.
“There’s still time,” Garber said. “San Francisco or Minneapolis,
either one, he’s still got to be a long way short.”
He glanced at Reacher. Doubt and trust visible in his eyes, in
approximately equal measures. More time ticked away. An hour and five
minutes. The road still stayed empty, all the way to the distant
horizon. The speeding helicopter reeled it in, only to reveal a new
horizon, still empty.
“He could be anywhere,” Webster said. “San Francisco’s wrong, maybe
Minneapolis is wrong, too. He could be in Seattle already. Or
anywhere.”
“Not Seattle,” Reacher said.
He stared forward. Stared on and on. Fear and panic had him by the
throat. He checked his watch again and again. An hour and ten
minutes. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. An hour and fifteen
minutes. He stared at the watch and the empty ribbon below. Then he
sat back and went quiet. Chilled with terror. He had hung on as long