17 A Wanted Man

finally now, after the failed and fruitless local search. There were a lot of tracks. More than he would have thought, for four visits. In and out, back and forth, some straight, some curved. In a couple of places the road surface was bad enough that the mud bulged out into puddles six feet wide. Like tar pits. Apparently he had driven through both of them.
    But no one else had.
    He checked again, just to be sure, this time on the move, walking up and down with delicate mincing steps, staying clear of the evidence. Or the lack of it. As far as he could tell there were no tracks other than his own. There were no different marks in front of Delfuenso’s house. Or in front of the neighbour’s. Just his Crown Vic’s familiar and undramatic Michelins. The automotive equivalent of generic aspirin. He knew them well. He was responsible for the department’s budget. He ordered the tyres on-line from a police supply warehouse in Michigan. Low price, no tax, full warranty. They came in on the mail truck and he had them fitted at Phil Abelson’s tyre shop in the next county. Phil had done a deal, a low charge in exchange for a long-term commitment. Phil was a smart guy.
    Goodman got back in his car and moved it off the kerb and parked it again on the hump in the middle of the road, where the blacktop was dry and pristine. He got back out and checked again, unobstructed.
    He was sure.
    No tracks other than his own trusty low-rent Michelins, P225/60R16s, ninety-nine bucks per, plus five for fitting and balancing.
    The neighbour’s kid hadn’t really seen a car because there had been no car.
    Lucy Delfuenso had been abducted on foot.
    But what kind of sense did that make, in the wilds of Nebraska?

FORTY-SIX
    SORENSON CAME OFF the Interstate exactly where Reacher had gotten on about twelve hours previously. He saw the ramp he had used in the dark and the cold. He remembered the helicopter in the air, and the Impala stopping thirty feet from him, and Alan King and Don McQueen twisting in their seats to warn Karen Delfuenso. He remembered Alan King asking where he was headed.
I’m heading east
, he had said.
All the way to Virginia
.
    Not exactly.
    Mission not accomplished.
    Sorenson continued south, into territory Reacher hadn’t seen before, on a county road just as straight as anything in Iowa. But the landscape left and right was subtly different. A little rougher, a little harder. Not as picture-perfect. Twenty miles to the left clouds were rolling in from the east. There was rain in the air below them, gusting and misty and diffuse. The same rain that had fallen in Iowa, on the burned-out Impala, and the fat guy’s motel. It was coming after them slowly but doggedly, like a message, like bad news that couldn’t be ignored.
    Evidently Sorenson had seen the eastbound on-ramp too, and she had drawn the obvious conclusion. She said, ‘That was where they picked you up, right?’
    Reacher nodded. ‘I was there a fraction over an hour and a half. Fifty-six vehicles passed me by. They were the fifty-seventh.’
    ‘Suppose you hadn’t been there? Suppose nobody had? They wouldn’t have gotten a smokescreen.’
    ‘Delfuenso was a smokescreen all by herself.’
    ‘But suppose I had been quicker with that? Suppose it had been a three-person APB all along? Maybe with the plate number as the cherry on top.’
    ‘They had guns,’ Reacher said. ‘They could have fought their way through the roadblocks. Or they could have held a gun to Delfuenso’s head. That might have worked. I don’t suppose either Nebraska or Iowa gives their troopers that kind of training.’
    ‘Big risk.’
    ‘What’s your point?’
    ‘They started out south of the Interstate and they finished up south of the Interstate. They couldn’t guarantee finding a hitchhiker. Not in the middle of winter. And they knew where the roadblocks were going to be, if there were going to be any at all. So why didn’t they go east on country roads, directly? Why choose to risk the highway in the first place?’
    ‘At one point they said they were heading to Chicago.’
    ‘How many people in Chicago?’
    ‘About three million in the city, and about eight in the metro area. Area codes are 312 and 773.’
    ‘Did you believe they were heading for Chicago?’
    ‘Not really. Not on reflection. Too far. Too ambitious for one night’s drive.’
    ‘So why did they take the Interstate?’
    Now the rain clouds were closer. They were moving in like a black wall.