An old car, with significant time spent in cold climates where they salt the roads in winter. Not a Mississippi native. A car that had been hauled from pillar to post, six months here, six months there, regularly, unpredictably.
A soldier's car, probably.
I walked on and turned and tried to gauge the general vector. Debris had sprayed through a fan shape, narrow at first, widening later. I pictured a license plate, a small rectangle of thin featherweight alloy, bursting free of its bolts, sailing through the nighttime air, stalling, falling, maybe end over end. I tried to figure out where it might have landed. I couldn't see it anywhere, not inside the fan shape, not on its edges, not beyond its edges. Then I remembered the howling gale that had accompanied the train, and I widened my area of search. I pictured the plate caught in a miniature tornado, whipping and spiraling through the roiled air, going high, maybe even going backward.
In the end I found it still attached to the chrome bumper I had seen the night before. The bumper had folded up just left of the plate, and made a point, which had half buried itself in the scrub. Like a spear. I rocked it loose and pulled it out and turned it over and saw the plate hanging from a single black bolt.
It was an Oregon plate. It featured a drawing of a salmon behind the number. Some kind of a wildlife initiative. Protect the natural environment. The tags were current and up to date. I memorized the number and reburied the bent bumper in its hole. Then I walked on, to where the bulk of the wreck had burned against the trees.
By bright daylight I agreed with Pellegrino. The car had been blue, a light powdery shade like a winter sky. Maybe it had started life that way, or maybe it had faded a little with age. But either way I found enough unblemished paint to be sure. There was an intact patch inside what had been the glove box. There was an overspray stripe under melted plastic trim inside one of the doors. Not much else had survived. No personal items. No paperwork of any kind. No discarded material. No hairs, no fibers. No ropes, no belts, no straps, no knives.
I wiped my hands on my pants and walked back the way I had come. The two guys and their truck had gone. I guessed the silent mastermind had woken up first. The beta dog. I had hit him less hard. I guessed he had hauled his buddy into the truck and taken off, slow and shaky. No harm done. No major harm, anyway. Nothing permanent. For him, at least. The other one would have a headache, for six months or so.
I stood on the spot where they had gone down and saw another black car coming toward me from the west. Another town car, fast and purposeful, wallowing and wandering a little on the uneven road. It had a good wax shine and black window glass. It blew past me at speed, thumped up, pattered over the rail line, thumped down again, and rushed onward toward Kelham. I turned and watched it, and then I turned back and started walking again. No particular place to go, except I was hungry by that point, so I headed for Main Street and the diner. The place was empty. I was the only customer. The same waitress was on duty. She met me at the hostess station and asked, "Is your name Jack Reacher?"
I said, "Yes, ma'am, it is."
She said, "There was a woman in here an hour ago, looking for you."
21
The waitress was a typical eyewitness. She was completely unable to describe the woman who had been looking for me. Tall, short, heavy, slender, old, young, she had no reliable recollection. She hadn't gotten a name. She had formed no impression of the woman's status or profession or her relationship to me. She hadn't seen a car or any other mode of transportation. All she could remember was a smile and the question. Was there a new guy in town, very big, very tall, answering to the name Jack Reacher?
I thanked her for the information and she sat me at my usual table. I ordered a piece of pie and a cup of coffee and I asked her for coins for the phone. She opened the register and gave me a wrapped roll of quarters in exchange for a ten dollar bill. She brought my coffee and told me my pie would be right along in a moment. I walked across the silent room to the phone by the door and split the roll with my thumbnail and dialed Garber's office. He answered the phone himself, instantly.
I asked, "Have you sent another agent down here?"
"No," he said. "Why?"
"There's a woman asking for me by name."
"Who?"
"I don't know who. She hasn't found me yet."
"Not one of mine," Garber said.
"And I saw two cars heading for Kelham. Limousines. DoD or politicians, probably."
"Is there a difference?"
I asked, "Have you heard anything from Kelham?"
"Nothing about the Department of Defense or politicians," he said. "I heard that Munro is pursuing something medical."
"Medical? Like what?"
"I don't know. Is there a medical dimension here?"
"With a potential perpetrator? Not that I've seen. Apart from the gravel rash question I asked before. The victim is covered in it. The perp should have some too."
"They've all got gravel rash. Apparently there's some crazy running track there. They run till they drop."
"Even Bravo Company right after they get back?"
"Especially Bravo Company right after they get back. There's some serious self-image at work there. These are seriously hard men. Or so they like to think."
"I got the license plate off the wreck. Light blue car, from Oregon." I recited the number from memory, and I heard him write it down.
He said, "Call me back in ten minutes. Don't speak to a soul before that. No one, OK? Not a word."
I ignored the letter of the law by speaking to the waitress. I thanked her for my pie and coffee. She hung around a beat longer than she needed to. She had something on her mind. Turned out she was worried she might have gotten me in trouble by telling a stranger she had seen me. She was prepared to feel guilty about it. I got the impression Carter Crossing was the kind of place where private business stayed private. Where a small slice of the population didn't want to be found.
I told her not to worry. By that point I was pretty sure who the mystery woman was. A process of elimination. Who else had the information and the imagination to find me?
The pie was good. Blueberries, pastry, sugar, and cream. Nothing healthy. No vegetable matter. It hit the spot. I took the full ten minutes to eat it, a little at a time. I finished my coffee. Then I walked over to the phone again and called Garber back.
He said, "We traced the car."
I said, "And?"
"And what?"
"Whose is it?"
He said, "I can't tell you that."
"Really?"
"Classified information, as of five minutes ago."
"Bravo Company, right?"
"I can't tell you that. I can't confirm or deny. Did you write the number down?"
"No."
"Where's the plate?"
"Where I found it."
"Who have you told?"
"Nobody."
"You sure?"
"Completely."
"OK," Garber said. "Here are your orders. Firstly, do not, repeat, do not give that number to local law enforcement. Not under any circumstances. Secondly, return to the wreck and destroy that plate immediately."
22
I obeyed the first part of Garber's order, by not immediately rushing around to the Sheriff's Department and passing on the news. I disobeyed the second part, by not immediately rushing back to the debris field. I just sat in the diner and drank coffee and thought. I wasn't even sure how to destroy a license plate. Burning it would conceal the state of origin, but not the number itself, which was embossed. In the end I figured I could fold it twice and stamp it flat and bury it.