17 A Wanted Man

helicopter, a thousand feet up, with a searchlight.
    Second question: what were the odds against two sets of roadblock-worthy and helicopter-worthy and FBI-worthy fugitives being on the loose on the same winter night in the same lonely place? Answer: very long odds indeed. Very unlikely. Coincidences happened, but to be there to witness one was a coincidence in itself, and two simultaneous coincidences was one too many.
    Therefore: the roadblocks had been for King and McQueen.
    Two guys, not one.
    Almost certainly.
    Which made no sense, initially.
    Because: the first roadblock in Nebraska had been looking hard at lone drivers. Which was explicable, in a way. Obviously a lone guy could disguise himself by picking up a second guy, and two guys could disguise themselves by picking up a third guy, and so on, and so on, for ever. An addition method. But subtraction could work too. As in: two guys could disguise themselves by one of them hiding out of sight. And the Nebraska cops had been smart enough to anticipate that manoeuvre. Lone drivers had had their trunks searched, not for drugs or guns or bombs or stolen goods, but for a second guy curled up and hiding.
    But: the Nebraska cops shouldn’t have been looking for two people. They should have been looking for three people. The two perpetrators, plus the carjack victim, a more or less topless roadhouse bartender.
    Which introduced an incongruity.
    As in: King and McQueen clearly believed the APB would be for those three people. Themselves, and Delfuenso. Because they had given Delfuenso a shirt. To alter her appearance. The disguise method. And then they had gone the extra mile. They had given a hitchhiker a ride. Reacher himself, a fourth person. The addition method.
    Four people, not three. A smokescreen. A deception, starting with the bland shirts, and continuing even to the extent of getting Reacher himself into the driver’s seat for the second roadblock. A smokescreen, a deception, and more than anything else a diversion. The busted nose. Any cop would have been distracted by it.
    And there had been no democratic discussion at the cloverleaf, right back at the beginning. That particular conversation had been of a different kind entirely. King and McQueen had twisted around in their seats and told Delfuenso they would hurt her bad if she betrayed them. They had spelled it out:
Keep your mouth shut
. Then they had pressed her:
Are we clear on that? Do you understand?
Reacher had seen her nod, say
yes
, quiet and scared and timid, just before he got in the car.
    And the aspirin episode had not been about concern for a stranger’s health. By that point Alan King had already decided he wanted Reacher driving later. And he had not monitored Delfuenso’s search through her bag out of innocent eagerness or excitement. He had been making sure she didn’t find some way of signalling for help.
    Reality.
    Reacher was no one’s first choice of night-time companion.
    King and McQueen had offered the ride for one reason only.
    They were defending themselves against a three-person APB.
    But the actual APB had been for two people.
    Why?
    Only one possible answer: the FBI had known there were two guys on the run, but they hadn’t known the two guys had jacked a car and taken a hostage.
    In which case: did the FBI know now?
    And therefore: the roadblocks had not been for the carjacking. Not in and of itself. Not if the FBI didn’t even
know
about the carjacking.
    The roadblocks had been for the primary crime.
    Which must therefore have been pretty bad.
    Blood on their clothes
.
    Reacher drove on, eighty miles an hour through the Iowa darkness, breathing slow and steady.
    Goodman and Sorenson walked back to the red Mazda. Sorenson’s FBI crime scene team had moved up from the pumping station and were all over it. They had already found blood and fingerprints, and hairs and fibres. The two men had taken no forensic precautions. That was clear.
    Sorenson said, ‘They were very disorganized.’
    Goodman said, ‘Most criminals are.’
    ‘But these guys are not like most criminals in any other way. This was not a mugging or a robbery gone wrong. They wore suits. The State Department is involved. But they were completely unprepared. They didn’t plan. They’re improvising all the way. They even had to hijack their getaway vehicle, for God’s sake. Why?’
    ‘Maybe they didn’t plan because they didn’t know they needed to plan.’
    ‘You come all the way to Nebraska to