Echo Burning

again for the first time in four and a quarter years. Alice stood up alongside him.
    “Meet back here directly,” Walker called. “And good luck.”
    Eight minutes later they were in the yellow VW again, heading south toward the Red House for the second time that day.

    The woman took the call. She let the phone ring four times while she got the voice-altering device out of her bag and switched it on. But she didn’t need it. She didn’t need to talkat all. She just listened, because it was a one-sided message, long and complex but basically clear and concise and unambiguous, and the whole thing was repeated twice. When it was over, she hung up the phone and put the electronics back in her bag.
    “It’s tonight,” she said.
    “What is?” the tall man asked.
    “The supplementary job,” she said. “The Pecos thing. Seems like the situation up there is unraveling slightly. They found Eugene’s body.”
    “Already?”
    “Shit,” the dark man said.
    “Yes, shit,” the woman said. “So we move on the supplementary right away, tonight, before things get any worse.”
    “Who’s the target?” the tall man asked.
    “His name is Jack Reacher. Some drifter, ex-military. I’ve got a description. There’s a girl lawyer in the picture, too. She’ll need attention as well.”
    “We do them simultaneous with this baby-sitting gig?”
    The woman shrugged. “Like we always said, we keep the baby-sitting going as long as possible, but we reserve the right to terminate when necessary.”
    The men looked at each other. Ellie watched them from the bed.

15
    Reacher was not good company on the ride south. He didn’t talk at all for the first hour and a half. Evening dark had fallen fast and he kept the VW’s dome light on and studied the maps from the glove compartment. In particular he concentrated on a large-scale topographical sheet that showed the southern part of Echo County. The county boundary was a completely straight line running east to west. At its closest point, it was fifty miles from the Rio Grande. That made no sense to him.
    “I don’t understand why she lied about the diamond,” he said.
    Alice shrugged. She was pushing the little car as fast as it was willing to go.
    “She lied about everything,” she said.
    “The ring was different,” he said.
    “Different how?”
    “A different sort of lie. Like apples are different from oranges.”
    “I don’t follow.”
    “The ring is the only thing I can’t explain to myself.”
    “The only thing?”
    “Everything else is coherent, but the ring is a problem.”
    She drove on, another mile. The power line poles came and went, flashing through the headlight beams for a split second each.
    “You know what’s going on, don’t you?” she said.
    “You ever done computer-aided design?” he asked.
    “No,” she said.
    “Me neither.”
    “So?”
    “Do you know what it is?”
    She shrugged again. “Vaguely, I guess.”
    “They can build a whole house or car or whatever, right there on the computer screen. They can paint it, decorate it, look at it. If it’s a house, they can go in it, walk around. They can rotate it, look at the front, look at the back. If it’s a car, they can see how it looks in daylight and in the dark. They can tilt it up and down, spin it around, examine it from every angle. They can crash it and see how it holds up. It’s like a real thing, except it isn’t. I guess it’s a virtual thing.”
    “So?” she said again.
    “I can see this whole situation in my mind, like a computer design. Inside and out, up and down. From every angle. Except for the ring. The ring screws it up.”
    “You want to explain that?”
    “No point,” he said. “Until I figure it out.”
    “Is Ellie going to be O.K.?”
    “I hope so. That’s why we’re making this trip.”
    “You think the grandmother can help us?”
    He shrugged. “I doubt it.”
    “So how is this trip helping Ellie?”
    He said nothing. Just opened the glove compartment and put the maps back. Took out the Heckler & Koch handgun. Clicked out the magazine and checked the load. Never assume . But it still held its full complement of ten shells. He put the magazine back in and jacked the first round into the chamber. Then he cocked the pistol and locked it. Eased up off the passenger seat and slipped it into his pocket.
    “You think we’re going to need that?” she asked.
    “Sooner or later,” he said. “You got more ammo in your bag?”
    She shook her