61 Hours

Nobody spoke.

The guy on Reacher’s right was more than six feet tall and close to four feet wide. Some of the bulk was goose-feather insulation in the black winter parka, but most of it was flesh and bone. The guy on Reacher’s left was a little smaller in both directions, and more active. He was restless, moving from foot to foot, twisting at the waist, rolling his shoulders. Cold, for sure, but not actively shivering. Reacher guessed the twitching was all about chemistry, not temperature.

Nobody spoke.

Reacher said, ‘Guys, either you need to move right along, or one of you needs to loan me a coat.’

The two men turned around, slowly. The big guy on the right had a white slab of a face buried deep in a beard. The beard was rimed with frost. Like a polar explorer, or a mountaineer. The smaller guy on the left had two days of stubble and jumpy eyes. His mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish pecking at the surface. Thin mobile lips, bad teeth.

The big guy on the right asked, ‘Who are you?’

Reacher said, ‘Go home. It’s too cold for foolishness on the street.’

No reply.

Behind the two guys Peterson and Holland did nothing. Their guns were holstered and their holsters were snapped shut. Reacher pla

Reacher said, ‘Coat or float, guys.’

No answer from the two men. Then behind them Chief Holland came to life. He stepped forward one angry pace and said, ‘Get the hell out of my town.’

Then he shoved the smaller guy in the back.

The smaller guy stumbled towards Reacher and then braced against the motion and spun back and started to whirl a fast one-eighty towards Holland with his fist cocking behind him like a pitcher aiming to break the radar gun. Reacher caught the guy by the wrist and held on for a split second and then let go again and the guy staggered through the rest of his turn all unbalanced and uncoordinated and ineffectual and ended with a weak late swing that missed Holland entirely.

But then he turned right back and aimed a second swing straight at Reacher. Which in Reacher’s opinion took the whole i

Easy meat.

Reacher matched the guy’s charge with momentum of his own and smashed his elbow horizontally into the middle of the white space between the guy’s beard and his hairline. Like ru

Reacher put his hands back in his pockets.

Peterson said, ‘Jesus.’

The two guys lay close together, black humps on the moonlit ice, steam rising off them in a cloud. Peterson said nothing more. Holland stalked back to his unmarked car and used the radio and came back a long minute later and said, ‘I just called for two ambulances.’

He was looking straight at Reacher.

Reacher didn’t respond.

Holland asked, ‘You want to explain why I had to call for two ambulances?’

Reacher said, ‘Because I slipped.’

‘What?’

‘On the ice.’

‘That’s your story? You slipped and just kind of blundered into them?’

‘No, I slipped when I was hitting the big guy. It softened the blow. If I hadn’t slipped you wouldn’t be calling for two ambulances. You’d be calling for one ambulance and one coroner’s wagon.’

Holland looked away.

Peterson said, ‘Go wait in the car.’

The lawyer went to bed at a quarter to eleven. His children had preceded him by two hours and his wife was still in the kitchen. He put his shoes on a rack and his tie in a drawer and his suit on a hanger. He tossed his shirt and his socks and his underwear in the laundry hamper. He put on his pyjamas and took a leak and brushed his teeth and climbed under the covers and stared at the ceiling. He could still hear the laugh in his head, from the phone call just before he spun out on the highway. A bark, a yelp, full of excitement. Full of anticipation. Full of glee. Eliminate the witness, he had recited, and the man on the phone had laughed with happiness.

Reacher got back in Peterson’s car and closed the door. His face was numb with cold. He angled the heater vents up and turned the fan to maximum. He waited. Five minutes later the ambulances showed up, with flashing lights pulsing bright red and blue against the snow. They hauled the two guys away. They were still out cold. Concussions, and probably some minor maxillary damage. No big deal. Three days in bed and a cautious week’s convalescence would fix them up good as new. Plus painkillers.

Reacher waited in the car. Thirty feet ahead of him through the clear frigid air he could see Holland and Peterson talking. They were standing close together, half turned away, speaking low. Judging by the way they never glanced back, Reacher guessed they were talking about him.

Chief Holland was asking: ‘Could he be the guy?’

Peterson was saying, ‘If he’s the guy, he just put two of his presumptive allies in the hospital. Which would be strange.’

‘Maybe that was a decoy. Maybe they staged it. Or maybe one of them was about to say something compromising. So he had to shut them up.’

‘He was protecting you, chief.’

‘At first he was.’

‘And then it was self-defence.’

‘How sure are you he’s not the guy?’

‘One hundred per cent. It’s just not feasible. It’s a million-to-one chance he’s here at all.’

‘No way he could have caused the bus to crash right there?’

‘Not without ru

‘OK,’ Holland said. ‘So could the driver be the guy? Did he crash on purpose?’

‘Hell of a risk.’

‘Not necessarily. Let’s say he knows the road because he’s driven it before, summer and winter. He knows where it ices up. So he throws the bus into a deliberate skid.’

‘A car was coming right at him.’

‘So he says now.’

‘But he could have been injured. He could have killed people. He could have ended up in the hospital or in jail for manslaughter, not walking around.’

‘Maybe not. Those modern vehicles have all kinds of electronic systems. Traction control, antilock brakes, stuff like that. All he did was fishtail around a little and drive off the shoulder. No big deal. And then we welcomed him with open arms, like the Good Samaritan.’

Peterson said, ‘I could talk to Reacher tonight. He was a witness on the bus. I could talk to him and get a better picture.’

Holland said, ‘He’s a psychopath. I want him gone.’

‘The roads are closed.’

‘Then I want him locked up.’

‘Really?’ Peterson said. ‘Tell the truth, chief, he strikes me as a smart guy. Think about it. He saved you from a busted nose and he saved me from having to shoot two people. He did us both a big favour with what he did tonight.’

‘Accidentally.’