61 Hours

hurling stuff from their cupped hands in long arcs, like farm labourers feeding chaff to chickens. Salt, presumably. Or grit, or sand, or some other kind of de-icing chemical. Or all of the above. They were clearing the whole camp. They wanted the whole place immaculate. As good as the road.
    The huts were raw lumber, bleached and faded a little, but not much. Not brand new, but not old either. On the left behind the first row of huts Reacher saw the roof of the old stone building. Itwas tall and peaked and made of slate. It was covered with a foot of snow. It had twin ornate chimneys. The huts themselves were roofed with tarpaper. They had stove pipe vents. There were power lines running from gable to gable. There were concrete paths running from door to door. All were swept clear of snow. What had not been removed completely was piled neatly left and right. In front of the huts was a long line of shapes under black tarpaulins, side by side, like dominoes. Motorcycles, presumably. Big ones. Maybe thirty of them. Harleys, probably, laid up for winter.
    Reacher slowed and came to a stop fifty yards out. People had stopped working and were staring at his car. Gloved hands were stacked on shovel handles. Chins were resting on the hands. The salt throwers had paused. One after the other the pick-up trucks came to rest. Their idling exhaust was carried away on the wind.
    Reacher took his foot off the brake and inched forward. Nobody moved. Reacher kept on coming, ten yards, then twenty. He stopped again. He was close enough. He didn’t switch off. The Crown Vic’s dash was showing the outside temperature at twelve degrees below zero. If he switched the engine off he might never get it started again. He had read a book set above the Arctic Circle where you had to thaw the engine block with blowlamps.
    He jammed his watch cap down on his ears and pulled his hood up. Zipped his coat to his chin. Put his gloves on, left and then right.
    He climbed out of the car.
    Twenty yards ahead the crowd had gotten larger. Men, women, and children. Maybe a hundred people in total. As advertised. They were all shapeless and hidden in coats and hats and mufflers. Their breath was condensing around their heads, an unbroken cloud that hung motionless and then rose and whipped away in the wind. The cold was stunning. It was getting worse. It seemed to attack from the inside out. Reacher was shivering after five seconds of exposure. His face was numb after ten. He walked ten paces and stopped. Olive green pants, a tan coat, anobvious police car behind him, South Dakota plates. Not even remotely convincing.
    Twenty yards ahead a guy threaded through the crowd. Sidestepping, shuffling, leading with his left shoulder, then his right. Black coat, hat, gloves. His body language was like every interrupted workman in the world. Irritated, but curious. He swiped his padded forearm across his brow and paused and thought and moved forward again. He stepped out of the ranks and stopped a yard in front of the crowd.
    Reacher said, ‘Who the hell are you?’
    The guy said, ‘Piss off.’
    Reacher stepped forward. One pace, two, three.
    ‘You’re not very polite,’ he said.
    ‘Show me where it says I have to be.’
    ‘Well, you’re walking around on my property.’
    ‘How so?’
    ‘I’m from the army. I’m here to check on our real estate. A two-year maintenance inspection. Your tax dollars at work.’
    ‘That’s a joke.’
    Reacher said, ‘Whatever, I need to take a look around.’
    ‘I told you to piss off.’
    ‘I know. But what are the odds I’m going to take you seriously?’
    ‘You can’t fight a hundred people.’
    ‘I won’t need to. Looks like two-thirds of you are women and children. That leaves maybe thirty guys. Or forty, say. But half of them look too fat to move. They pitch in, they’re going to get all kinds of coronaries. The others, maybe half of them are pussies. They’ll run away. That leaves maybe eight or ten guys, max. And one of me is worth eight or ten of you, easy.’
    No answer.
    ‘Plus, I’m from the army. You mess with me, the next guy you see will be driving a tank.’
    Silence for a beat. Just the scouring howl of the wind, and the rattle of ice particles against wood. The guy in front looked at Reacher, at his clothes, at his car, and came to some kind of a decision. He asked, ‘What do you need to see?’
    Reacher said, ‘The stone building.’
    ‘That’s not ours.’
    ‘None of this is