17 A Wanted Man

metal, or corrugated tin. Painted black. Blacker than the night itself.
    On his left Delfuenso was slowing too. She was sensing the same thing. And on his right Sorenson was altering course a little. Her line was drifting closer to his. Delfuenso was edging in, too. There was something ahead of them, and instinct was telling them not to face it alone.
    Reacher walked on, staring ahead. Seeing nothing. His vision was as good as anyone else’s. He had never worn eyeglasses. He could read in dim light. And in the black of night the human eye was supposed to be able to see a candle flame a mile away. Maybe more. And initial adaptation to the dark was supposed to happen within four seconds. The iris was supposed to open wide. To the max. And then retinal chemistry was supposed to kick in over the next few minutes. Like turning up a volume knob. But Reacher could see nothing ahead. It was like he was blind. Except that in this case seeing nothing felt like a version of seeing something. There was something there.
    A breeze came up and flapped his pants. The air felt suddenly cold. Ahead on his right Sorenson was waiting for him. And Delfuenso was cutting in towards him. They were abandoning their separation. They were making one big target. Bad tactics. They met up a minute later. They regrouped. All three of them together, way out in the field, like they had been at the beginning, behind Lacey’s loading dock.
    ‘This is weird,’ Sorenson whispered. ‘There’s a big shape out there.’
    ‘What shape?’ Reacher asked. Maybe her eyes were better than his.
    ‘Like a big patch of nothing. Like a hole in the air.’
    ‘That’s what I’m seeing,’ Reacher said. ‘A big patch of nothing.’
    ‘But a low patch of nothing,’ Delfuenso said. The breeze blew again and she shivered. She said, ‘Start high. Look at the sky. Then move down. You can see an edge. Where one kind of nothing changes to another kind of nothing.’
    Reacher looked at the sky. Ahead of them in the north and the west it was padded with thick black cloud. No light at all. Way behind them in the southeast was a patch of thinner grey. Sullen moonlight, through a fissure. Not much. But there was wind up there. The thinner clouds were moving. Maybe the fissure would open wider. Or maybe it would close up altogether.
    He faced front again and started high and moved his gaze down. Looking for Delfuenso’s edge. Looking hard. But not seeing it. There was no other kind of nothing. It was all the same kind of nothing to him.
    He asked, ‘How low?’
    ‘Above the horizon, but not by much.’
    ‘I can’t even see the horizon.’
    ‘I’m not imagining it.’
    ‘I’m sure you’re not. We’ll have to get closer. You up for that?’
    ‘Yes,’ Delfuenso said.
    Sorenson nodded, blonde hair moving in the dark.
    They walked on, staying close. Ten yards. Twenty yards.
    Staring ahead.
    Seeing nothing.
    Thirty yards.
    And then they saw it. Maybe the greater proximity did the trick, or maybe the wind moved the cloud and threw a couple of extra moonbeams down to earth. Or maybe both.
    It wasn’t a farm.

SIXTY-EIGHT
    IT LOOKED LIKE a capsized battleship. Like a hull, upside down and beached. It was black, and hard, and strangely rounded in places. It was long and low. It was deep. It was maybe hundreds of feet from side to side, and hundreds of feet from front to back. It was maybe forty feet tall. It was about the size of the Lacey’s supermarket. But far more substantial. Lacey’s was a cheap and cynical commercial structure. Lacey’s looked like it would blow away in a storm. And plenty of similar establishments had.
    But this thing out in the field looked bombproof. Something about the way it was hunched down in the earth suggested concrete many feet thick. The radiused haunches where walls met roofs suggested immense strength. Its corners were rounded. There were no doors or windows. There seemed to be a waist-high railing all around the edge of the roof. Tubular steel.
    They walked closer. Forty yards later they had a better view. Reacher glanced back. Behind them the wind was nibbling at the fissure in the clouds. The moon was coming out. Which was both good and bad. He wanted a little more light, but not too much more. Too much more could be a problem.
    He faced front again and started to see detail up ahead. The building wasn’t black. Not exclusively. It was also dark brown and dark green. Dull flat non-reflective paint, thickly applied in