Route 9A became 9 and curved gracefully away from the river to run behind Camp Smith. Up in Westchester, it was a fast enough road. Not exactly a
racetrack, because it curved and bounced around too much for sustained high speed, but it was clear and empty, a patchwork of old sections and new stretches carved through the woods. There were housing developments here and there, with high timber fencing and neat painted siding and optimistic names carved into imposing boulders flanking the entrance gates. The Tahoe hustled along, one guy driving and the other with a map across his knees.
They passed Peekskill and started hunting a left turn. They found it and swung head-on towards the river, which they sensed ahead of them, an empty break in the landscape. They entered the township of Garrison, and started hunting the address. Not easy to find. The residential areas were scattered. You could have a Garrison zip code and live way in the back of beyond. That was clear. But they found the right road and made all the correct turns and found the right street. Slowed and cruised through the thinning woods above the river, watching the mailboxes. The road curved and opened out. They cruised on. Then they spotted the right house up ahead and slowed abruptly and pulled in at the kerb.
Reacher got out of the train at Croton, seventy-one minutes after getting in. He ran up the stairs and across and down to the taxi rank. There were four operators lined up, all nose-in to the station entrance, all of them using old-model Caprice wagons with fake wood on the sides. First driver to react was a stout woman who tilted her head up like she was ready to pay attention.
‘You know Garrison?’ Reacher asked her.
‘Garrison?’ she said. ‘That’s a long way, mister, twenty miles.’
‘I know where it is,’ he said.
‘Could be forty bucks.’
‘I’ll give you fifty,’ he said. ‘But I need to be there right now.’
He sat in front, next to her. The car stank like old taxis do, sweet cloying air-freshener and upholstery cleaner. There were a million miles on the clock and it rode like a boat on a swell as the woman hustled through the parking lot and up on to Route 9 and headed north.
‘You got an address for me?’ she asked, watching the road.
Reacher repeated what the assistant in the law firm had told him. The woman nodded and settled to a fast cruise.
‘Overlooks the river,’ she said.
She cruised for a quarter of an hour, passed by Peekskill and then slowed, looking for a particular left. Hauled the huge boat around and headed west. Reacher could feel the river up ahead, a mile-wide trench in the forest. The woman knew where she was going. She went all the way to the river and turned north on a country road. The rail tracks ran parallel between them and the water. No trains on them. The land fell away and Reacher could see West Point ahead and on his left, a mile away across the blue water.
‘Should be along here someplace,’ she said.
It was a narrow country road, domesticated with ranch fencing in rough timber and tamed with mowed shoulders and specimen plantings. There were mailboxes a hundred yards apart and poles that hung cables through the treetops.
‘Whoa,’ the woman said, surprised. ‘I guess this is it.’
The road was already narrow, and now it became just about impassable. There was a long line of cars parked up on the shoulder. Maybe forty automobiles, many of them black or dark blue. All neat late-model sedans or big sport-utilities. The woman eased the taxi into the driveway. The line of parked cars stretched nose-to-tail all the way to the house. Another ten or twelve cars were parked together on the apron in front of the garage. Two of them were plain Detroit sedans, in flat green. Army vehicles. Reacher could spot Defense Department issue a mile away.
‘OK?’ the woman asked him.
‘I guess,’ he said, cautiously.
He peeled a fifty off his roll and handed it to her. Got out and stood in the driveway, unsure. He heard the taxi whine away in reverse. He walked back up to the road. Looked at the long line of cars. Looked at the mailbox. There was a name spelled out in little aluminium letters along the top of it. The name was Garber. A name he knew as well as his own.