'Two hundred grand's worth, right there.'
'A million on the streets of Chicago, after they cut it and retail it.'
'Any idea what the picture means?'
'No. They always put some kind of logo on. This is a brand-conscious market.'
'You got the money in there too, that the Chicago guy paid?'
'Of course.'
'Can I see it?'
'Don't you believe me?'
'I just like looking at stuff like that.'
So Peterson ducked back in and came back out with another evidence bag. Same size. Same kind of form stapled to it. Full of bricks of bills, all banded together.
'OK?' Peterson asked.
'How long would it take you to earn that much?'
'After taxes? I don't want to think about it.'
'Is that really wax paper on the dope?'
'No, it's some kind of cellophane or glassine. It's a little yellowed because it's old stock. But it's proper pharmaceutical quality. This is a very high-end operation.'
'OK.'
'So did you find their lab?'
'No.'
'Did you see the stone building?'
'Only from the outside.'
'Do you know what it is?'
'No, but I know what it isn't.'
Reacher headed for the squad room. For the desk in the back corner. He picked up the phone, dialled nine for a line, and then the number he remembered.
'Yes?'
'Amanda, please.'
A click. A purr. The voice. It sounded tired. A little frustrated. It said, 'I could be in Afghanistan right now. In fact if you don't stop calling me I might just put in for a transfer.'
Reacher said, 'The food might be better. Can't beat a goat's eyeballs in yogurt.'
'You ever been there?'
'No, but I met someone who had.'
'I've got no news for you.'
'I know. You can't see the money hitting the Department of the Army.'
'I tried and failed.'
'You didn't. The money never went to the army.'
'Why not?'
'Garbage in, garbage out.'
'What does that mean?'
'We started with a false assumption. They told me about an army facility. A small stone building with a two-mile road. I just went out there. It's not a road. It's a runway. It's an air force place, not army.'
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE VOICE FROM VIRGINIA SAID, 'WELL, THAT CHANGES THINGS A little.'
Reacher said, 'There's another local rumour about prosthetic faces.'
'Yes, I saw a note about that. There's a file. Apparently the Pentagon got some calls from local folks in South Dakota. County and state government. But it's bullshit. The plastic face places were always nearer the metro areas. Why put one out in the middle of nowhere?'
'Why have them at all? If everyone is burned the same, why would anyone care?'
No reply.
Reacher asked, 'Do you know anyone in the air force?'
'Not for secrets.'
'Might not be a secret. Could be entirely routine. We're back at square one, as far as assumptions are concerned.'
'OK, I'll make some calls. But first I'm going to take a nap.'
'You can sleep when you're dead. This is urgent. The runway is ploughed. Two whole miles. Nobody does that for fun. Therefore someone or something is due to show up. And I saw a fuel tanker. Maybe for the return trip. Maybe someone's planning on some heavy lifting.'
Silence for a beat. 'Anything else?'
He asked, 'Are you married?'
She asked, 'Are you?'
'No.'
'Were you ever?'
'No.'
'Why am I not surprised?'
She hung up.
Five minutes to ten in the morning.
Eighteen hours to go.
Peterson was two desks away, hanging up on a call of his own. He said, 'The DEA is blowing me off. Their guy wasn't interested.'
Reacher asked, 'Why not?'
'He said there's no lab out there.'
'How does he know?'
'They have satellites and thermal imaging. They've reviewed the data and can't see any heat. Therefore as far as they're concerned it's just a real estate deal. Until proved otherwise.'
'The lab is underground.'
'The DEA says not. Their imaging can see into basements. They say there's nothing down there.'
'They're wrong.'
'You didn't see a lab.'
'They have meth, they must have a lab.'
'We don't know that there's anything under the ground at all. Not for sure.'
'We do,' Reacher said. 'Nobody builds a two-mile runway for nothing. That's long enough to land any kind of plane. Any kind of bomber, any kind of transport. And nobody lands bombers or transports next to a building smaller than a house. You were right. The building is a stair head. Which means there's something under it. Probably very big and very deep.'
'But what exactly?'
Reacher pointed at his phone. 'You'll know when I know.'
A half-hour later Peterson got a call to say that the highway had reopened. The weather radar was showing nothing incoming from the west except supercooled air, and all across the state the snowploughs and the salt spreaders had finished their work, and the Highway Patrol had conferred with the Department of Transportation, and traffic was flowing again. Then Jay Knox called to say he had been told the replacement bus was about three hours out. So Peterson lit up the phone tree and set up a two o'clock rendezvous for the passengers in the police station lobby. All twenty of them. The ladies with the broken bones were fit to travel. A two o'clock departure would get the group to Mount Rushmore a little less than two days late. Not bad, all in all, for South Dakota in the winter.
Then he looked at Reacher and asked, 'Are you going with them?'
Reacher said, 'I paid my money.'
'So are you going?'
'I'm a restless man.'
'Yes or no?'
'Depends what happens before two o'clock, I guess.'
What happened before two o'clock was that Janet Salter decided to go out for a walk.
Peterson took the call from one of the women cops in the house. Mrs Salter was going stir crazy. She had cabin fever. She felt cooped up. She was accustomed to taking walks, to the grocery, to the drugstore, to the restaurant, sometimes just for the fun of it. She had already been a prisoner in her own home for close to a week. She was taking her civic responsibilities seriously, but with responsibilities came rights, and stepping out like a free woman was one of them.
'She's crazy,' Reacher said. 'It's freezing cold.'
'She's a native,' Peterson said. 'This is nothing to her.'
'It must be twenty degrees below zero.'
Peterson smiled, like an insider against an outsider. He said, 'The coldest day we ever had was minus fifty-eight. Back in February of 1936. Then less than five months later in July we had the hottest day we ever had, a hundred and twenty exactly.'
'Whatever, she's still crazy.'
'You want to try to talk her out of it?'
Reacher tried. He drove over there with Peterson. Janet Salter was in her kitchen with the two day watch cops. Her percolator was all fired up. Reacher could smell fresh coffee and hot aluminum. She poured him a mug and said, 'The officers tell me you told Mr Peterson that the bikers are preparing to leave.'
Reacher nodded. 'That's how it looked to me.'
'Therefore it should be safe enough to take a little stroll.'
'The guy with the gun is not a biker. Never was.'
'But whoever he is, he won't be waiting outside. You said so yourself, last night. It's too cold.'
'It's also too cold to go for a walk.'
'Nonsense. If we keep up a brisk pace, we'll enjoy it.'
'We?'
'I certainly hope you'll accompany me.'
Five to eleven in the morning.
Seventeen hours to go.
Peterson improvised a plan that looked a lot like the Secret Service taking the president for a walk. He deployed the three stake-out cars to the town's southern, western, and eastern approaches, and told them to stand by to move like a rolling cordon if necessary. He and the two day watch women would be on foot, boxing in Mrs Salter at an appropriate tactical distance. Reacher would walk with her, always keeping himself between her and any passing traffic. A human shield, although Peterson didn't put it that way.