17 A Wanted Man

doesn’t sound like a very big deal, but for some reason the SAC is on it, and the CIA and the State Department are sniffing around, and we’ve had a bunch of roadblocks on the Interstate.’
    ‘Then you should know I put a call through to you, but the caller hung up before you answered.’
    ‘Location?’
    ‘Caller ID and the phone company indicate a gas station in the middle of nowhere, south and east of Des Moines, Iowa.’
    ‘Did you get a name?’
    ‘No name, but the caller was male, and in a hurry. He sounded like he was sick with a head cold. Very nasal.’
    ‘Did he say what he wanted?’
    ‘Not specifically. He said he had information, probably for Omaha, Nebraska.’
    ‘Probably?’
    ‘That was the word he used.’
    The guy in Nebraska said, ‘OK, thanks,’ and hung up.
    The dark Iowa road ran dead straight for another eight miles to a featureless T-junction. There was an immense field on the left, and another on the right, and a double-wide field ahead. Hence the mandatory turn. A repeat accommodations sign had an arrow pointing left to the motel. Another eight miles later there was a featureless crossroads with an arrow pointing right. Alan King drove on, threading through the giant chequerboard matrix of Iowa agriculture. Alongside him Don McQueen sat half turned, slumped against his window, awake and watchful. Behind McQueen Karen Delfuenso stared rigidly ahead. She wouldn’t look at Reacher. She seemed disappointed in him.
    Reacher himself sat still and breathed slow, in and out, just waiting.
    The night duty agent in Nebraska wrote the words
male caller, in a hurry, head cold, nasal voice, gas station, S&E of Des Moines, Iowa
on a pad of paper, and then he scrolled through the speed dial list on his telephone console. He stopped on
Sorenson, J. cellular
.
    He thought for a second.
    Then he hit Dial.
    Just in case it was important.
    At that moment Julia Sorenson was talking to Sheriff Goodman about the missing eyewitness. The guy lived with a woman he wasn’t married to, in a rented farm property eleven miles north and west of the crime scene, and there was only one practical route for him to take, and he hadn’t arrived, and neither he nor his truck had been found along the way. He was not in any of Sin City’s bars or lounges, and Goodman’s deputies hadn’t found him in town.
    Then Sorenson’s phone rang, and she excused herself and turned away and took the call. It was the night duty agent back at the field office. She only half listened to his preamble. Law enforcement got lots of aborted calls. Kids, pranksters, drunks, misdials, all part of the territory. But she started to pay serious attention when the guy got to the apparent source of the call. Because of her earlier gloomy and defeated conclusion:
the perpetrators were somewhere east of Des Moines
.
    ‘Say that again?’ she asked.
    The guy said, ‘A pay phone in a gas station in the middle of nowhere, south and east of Des Moines, Iowa.’
    ‘Are we sure of that?’
    ‘Caller ID and the phone company confirmed it.’
    ‘Who made the call?’
    ‘No name, but the emergency operator said the voice was male.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘He was in a hurry and he sounded nasal.’
    ‘Nasal?’
    ‘Like he had a head cold.’
    ‘Is there a recording?’
    ‘Of the original call? I’m sure there is.’
    ‘Have it e-mailed to me. And call that gas station. Check if they have video, and if not, get a narrative and descriptions of everybody and everything.’
    The duty agent said, ‘You need to call the CIA.’
    Sorenson said, ‘Don’t tell me what I need to do.’
    ‘It’s just that they’re calling me all the time. They want updates.’
    ‘Tell them nothing,’ Sorenson said. ‘Not yet.’
    Then she clicked off the call and turned back and looked Goodman in the eye and said, ‘Sorry, chief, but I have to go to Iowa.’

TWENTY-EIGHT
    GOODMAN GOT THE bare bones of the story from Sorenson and said, ‘What about my missing eyewitness?’
    Sorenson said, ‘You can handle that yourself for the rest of the night. But don’t worry. You’re about to get plenty of help. As soon as the office workers get in tomorrow I’ll be replaced and you’ll be knee-deep in agents. You’ll have so many here you can put a couple on traffic duty. You can find out who drops gum on the sidewalk.’
    ‘Your SAC is already involved. And you haven’t been replaced yet.’
    ‘He hasn’t kicked it upstairs yet. Can’t do that, in