61 Hours

half-million there. To some extent Plato was tolerant of mistakes, but not of disloyalty.
    Hence the guy, chained to the post by the ankle.
    Winter weather a hundred miles from Mexico City was not fiercely hot. There were no biting insects in the air or in the ground, and the snakes were asleep, and the small night mammals were generally timid. So the guy would die of either thirst or starvation, depending on the rains.
    Unless he chose not to.
    There was a hatchet within easy reach. The blade was keen, and the guy’s shin bone was right there. He hadn’t used it yet. But Plato thought he would. It was usually about fifty-fifty. Proof of that proposition was all over the area, some widows, equal numbers of broken men hopping around on crutches.

    In the South Dakota squad room the clock ticked around to five to four in the afternoon. Thirty-six hours to go. Peterson said, ‘Five to four here is five to five in the East. Close of business. Time to call your old unit back. We still need that information.’
    Reacher wandered over to the desk in the corner of the squad room. He sat down. Didn’t dial the phone. Close of business in Virginia was five o’clock, not five to. Precision was important. It had mattered to him, and he had no doubt it mattered to his current successor.
    Peterson asked, ‘What did you think of Mrs Salter?’
    ‘She’s probably very well read.’
    ‘As a witness?’
    ‘Excellent.’
    ‘Is she holding up?’
    ‘She’s scared.’
    ‘Can’t blame her.’
    ‘What about raw material supply to the lab? For that matter, what about intercepting the finished product as they ship it out?’
    ‘We’re trying. But to guarantee anything we’d have to be on that road all day and all night and all week.’
    ‘With the right people, too,’ Reacher said. ‘Some of your guys look asleep at the switch. But whatever, you need to tell Mrs Salter you’re doing everything you can. Right now she feels all the weight is on her shoulders.’
    ‘We told her nothing is obligatory.’
    ‘Some people see obligation in their own way.’ Reacher picked up the phone. Hit nine for a line. Dialled the number he remembered and waited for the start of the recording.
If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time
. He hit 110. The same male voice answered. The captain, from the South. The same one-word greeting.
    ‘Yes?’
    Reacher said, ‘Amanda, please.’
    There was a click and a purr and a second of dial tone and the voice came on. Warm, husky, breathy, intimate. It said, ‘You’re a pain in the ass.’
    Reacher said, ‘Am I?’
    ‘As if I don’t have enough to do.’
    ‘What’s the problem?’
    ‘Your place five miles west of Bolton isn’t exactly front and centre in the records. There’s nothing listed in the establishments register.’
    ‘There wouldn’t be. It’s abandoned. Maybe never even used in the first place.’
    ‘Was it sold?’
    ‘I don’t know. Maybe just yielded back. It’s on what the cops here call public land.’
    ‘I went back fifty years in the title register and found no transfers.’
    ‘So maybe it’s still ours.’
    ‘In which case it would be costing us something. Biannual inspections and a little maintenance at the least. But there’s no expenditure record.’
    ‘There has got to be something. Not even the army builds places and then forgets all about them.’
    ‘Is it fenced?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’m five miles away. Why?’
    ‘Because not even the army builds places and then forgets all about them. Therefore the absence of records could mean it’s on a different list. It could have been a secret installation.’
    Reacher said, ‘They all were.’
    ‘Some more than others.’
    ‘The old folks here remember a security cordon.’
    ‘There was always a security cordon.’
    ‘How secret could it be? They put construction workers on the site.’
    ‘Secret then, abandoned now. Maybe because it was very weird. Which could be important to you. But if you really want to know, I’m going to have to do some digging.’
    ‘Can you?’
    ‘It’ll cost you.’
    ‘Cost me what?’
    Warm, husky, breathy, intimate. ‘I want to know the story behind the dent in the desk.’
    ‘You don’t have time. You’ve got enough to do.’
    ‘Right now I’m just hanging out, waiting on a call.’
    ‘Something interesting?’
    ‘It’s pretty good.’
    ‘Tell me about it.’
    ‘That’s not the deal. This is about you telling me.’
    ‘I