61 Hours

villa relayed Plato’s instructions, slowly and precisely. No room for misunderstanding. No room for error. He waited forconfirmation and then he hung up. He didn’t call Plato back. No point. Plato didn’t understand the concept of confirmation. For Plato, obedience followed command the same way night followed day. It was inevitable. The only way it wouldn’t happen was if the world had stopped spinning on its axis.

SIX
    P ETERSON HAD HIS DASHBOARD RADIO TURNED UP HIGH AND Reacher picked out four separate voices from four separate cars. All of them were prowling the western suburbs and none of them had seen the reported intruders. Peterson aimed his own car down the streets they hadn’t checked yet. He turned right, turned left, nosed into dead ends, backed out again, moved on. There was a moon low in the sky and Reacher saw neat suburban developments, small houses in straight rows, warm lights behind windows, all the sidewalks and driveways and yards rendered blue and flat and uniform by the thick blanket of snow. Roofs were piled high with white. Some streets had been visited by the ploughs and had high banks of snow in the gutters. Some were still covered with an undisturbed fresh layer, deep but not as deep as the yards and the driveways. Clearly this current fall was the second or the third in a week or so. Roads were covered and cleared, covered and cleared, in an endless winter rhythm.
    Reacher asked, ‘How many intruders?’
    Peterson said, ‘Two reported.’
    ‘In a vehicle?’
    ‘On foot.’
    ‘Doing what?’
    ‘Just walking around.’
    ‘So stick to the ploughed streets. Nobody walks around in six inches of snow for the fun of it.’
    Peterson slowed for a second and thought about it. Then he turned without a word and picked up a ploughed trail and retraced it. The plough had zigzagged through main drags and cross streets. The snow had been sheared thin and low and white. The excess was piled high to the sides, still soft and clean.
    They found the intruders four minutes later.
    There were two of them, shoulder to shoulder in a close standoff with a third man. The third man was Chief Holland. His car was parked twenty feet away. It was an unmarked Crown Vic. Either navy blue or black. It was hard to say, in the moonlight. Police specification, with antennas on the trunk lid and concealed emergency lights peeping up out of the rear parcel shelf. The driver’s door was open and the engine was running. Twin puddles of black vapour had condensed and pooled in the thin snow beneath the twin exhausts. Holland had gotten out and stepped ahead and confronted the two guys head on. That was clear.
    The two guys were tall and heavyset and unkempt. White males, in black Frye boots, black jeans, black denim shirts, black leather vests, fingerless black gloves, black leather bandannas. Each had an unzipped black parka thrown over everything else. They looked exactly like the dead guy in the crime scene photographs.
    Peterson braked and stopped and stood off and idled thirty feet back. His headlights illuminated the scene. The standoff looked like it wasn’t going well for Holland. He looked nervous. The two guys didn’t. They had Holland crowded back with a snow bank behind him. They were in his space, leaning forward. Holland looked beaten. Helpless.
    Reacher saw why.
    The holster on Holland’s belt was unsnapped and empty, but there was no gun in his hand. He was glancing down and to his left.
    He had dropped his pistol in the snow bank.
    Or had it knocked from his hand.
    Either way, not good.
    Reacher asked, ‘Who are they?’
    Peterson said, ‘Undesirables.’
    ‘So undesirable that the chief of police joins the hunt?’
    ‘You see what I see.’
    ‘What do you want to do?’
    ‘It’s tricky. They’re probably armed.’
    ‘So are you.’
    ‘I can’t make Chief Holland look like an idiot.’
    Reacher said, ‘Not his fault. Cold hands.’
    ‘He just got out of his car.’
    ‘Not recently. That car has been idling in place for ten minutes. Look at the puddles under the exhaust pipes.’
    Peterson didn’t reply. And didn’t move.
    Reacher asked again, ‘Who are they?’
    ‘What’s it to you?’
    ‘Just curious. They’re scaring you.’
    ‘You think?’
    ‘If they weren’t they’d be cuffed in the back of this car by now.’
    ‘They’re bikers.’
    ‘I don’t see any bikes.’
    ‘It’s winter,’ Peterson said. ‘They use pick-up trucks in winter.’
    ‘That’s illegal