Never Go Back: (Jack Reacher 18)

On the edge of the clearing the fire was still going strong. Reacher tossed the car key to Turner and climbed in the passenger seat. Turner started the engine, and found the headlight switch, and clipped her belt low and tight.
    And a minute later they were back on the road, heading west in the dead of night, fast, warm, comfortable, and rich.

TWENTY-EIGHT

    TURNER TOOK A mile to get settled in and then she upped her speed and found a perfect rhythm through the curves. The car felt big and low and hard and brutal. It threw long super-white headlight beams far ahead, and trailed loud V8 burble far behind. She said, ‘We should turn off soon. We can’t stay on this road much longer. One of those cars that came through Berryville was FBI, I think. Did you see it?’
    ‘The Crown Vic?’ Reacher said.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So we need to get away from any logical extension of that bus route. Especially because that old guy in the truck could tell them exactly where he let us out. He won’t forget that stop in a hurry.’
    ‘He won’t talk to the cops. He hauled coal in West Virginia.’
    ‘He might talk to the guys in the dented car. They might scare him. Or they might give him money.’
    ‘OK, go south,’ Reacher said. ‘South is always good in the wintertime.’
    She upped the speed a little more, and the tail pipes got louder. It was a fine car, Reacher thought. Maybe the best in the world for American roads. Which was logical, because it was an American car. He smiled suddenly and said, ‘Let’s turn the heater way up and put the top down.’
    Turner said, ‘You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?’
    ‘Why wouldn’t I? It’s like a rock-and-roll song on the radio. A fast car, some money in my pocket, and a little company for once.’
    So Turner put the heater dial all the way in the red, and she slowed to a stop at the side of the road, and they figured out the latches and the switches, and the top folded itself down into a well behind them. The night air flooded in, cold and fresh. They wriggled lower in their seats, and took off again. All the driving sensations were doubled. The speed, the lights, the noise. Reacher smiled and said, ‘This is the life.’
    Turner said, ‘I might get used to it. But I would like a choice.’
    ‘You might get one.’
    ‘How? There’s nothing to work with.’
    ‘Not exactly nothing,’ Reacher said. ‘We have an apparent anomaly, and we have a definite piece of procedural information. Which together might suggest a preliminary conclusion.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘Weeks and Edwards were murdered in Afghanistan, but you weren’t murdered here, and I wasn’t, and Moorcroft wasn’t. And he could have been. A drive-by shooting in southeast D.C. would have been just as plausible as a beating. And I could have been, because who was ever going to notice? And you could have been. A training accident, or carelessness handling your weapon. But they chose not to go down that road. Therefore there’s a kind of timidity on the D.C. end. Which is suggestive, when you combine it with the other thing.’
    ‘Which is what?’
    ‘Would you know how to open a bank account in the Cayman Islands?’
    ‘I could find out.’
    ‘Exactly. You’d search on the computer, and you’d make some calls, and you’d get whatever it was you needed, and you’d get it done. But how long would it take?’
    ‘Maybe a week.’
    ‘But these guys did it in less than a day. In an hour, probably. Your account was open by ten in the morning. Which has to imply an existing relationship. They told the bank what they wanted, and it was done right away, immediately, with no questions asked. Which makes them premium clients, with a lot of money. But we know that anyway, because they were prepared to burn a hundred grand, just to nail you. Which is a big sum of money, but they didn’t care. They went right ahead and dumped it in your account, and there’s no guarantee they’ll ever get it back. It might be impounded as evidence. And even if it isn’t, I don’t see how they can turn around afterwards and say, oh by the way, that hundred grand was ours all along and we want it returned to us.’
    ‘So who are they?’ Turner asked.
    ‘They’re very correct people, running a scam that generates a lot of money, prepared to order all kinds of mayhem eight thousand miles away in Afghanistan, but wanting things clean and tidy on their own doorstep. On first-name terms with offshore