Never Go Back

and then onward towards the state line, into Appalachian country, on the last northern foothills of Shenandoah Mountain, the road rising and twisting towards Georges Peak, the motor straining, the weak yellow headlights jerking from side to side on the sharp turns. Then at midnight they were in West Virginia, still elevated in wild country, rolling through wooded passes towards the Alleghenies in the far distance.
    Then Reacher saw a fire, far ahead in the west, on a wooded hillside a little south of the road. A yellow and orange glow, against the black sky, like a bonfire or a warning beacon. They rolled through a sleeping town called Capon Bridge, and the fire got closer. A mile or more away, but then suddenly less, because the road turned towards it.
    Reacher said, ‘Sir, you could let us out here, if you wouldn’t mind.’
    The old guy said, ‘Here?’
    ‘It’s a good spot.’
    ‘For what?’
    ‘I think it will meet our needs.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘We’d appreciate it very much.’
    The old guy grumbled something, dubious, not understanding at all, but he took his foot off the gas and the truck slowed down. Turner wasn’t understanding, either. She was looking at Reacher like he was crazy. The truck came to a halt, on a random stretch of mountain blacktop, woods to the left, woods to the right, nothing ahead, and nothing behind. Reacher opened his door, and unfolded himself out, and Turner slid out beside him, and they thanked the old man very much and waved him away. Then they stood together in the pitch dark and the dead quiet and the cold night air, and Turner said, ‘You want to tell me exactly why we just got out of a warm truck in the middle of nowhere?’
    Reacher pointed, ahead and to the left, at the fire.
    ‘See that?’ he said. ‘That’s an ATM.’

TWENTY-SEVEN
    THEY WALKED ON , following the curve of the road, west and a little south, getting closer to the fire all the time, until it was level with them, about two hundred yards into the hilly woods. Ten yards later, on the left shoulder, there was the mouth of a stony track. A driveway, of sorts. It ran uphill, between the trees. Turner wrapped Reacher’s shirt tight around her and said, ‘That’s just some kind of random brush fire.’
    ‘Wrong season,’ Reacher said. ‘Wrong place. They don’t get brush fires here.’
    ‘So what is it?’
    ‘Where are we?’
    ‘West Virginia.’
    ‘Correct. Miles from anywhere, in backwoods country. That fire is what we’ve been waiting for. But be quiet as you can. There could be someone up there.’
    ‘Firefighters, probably.’
    ‘That’s one thing there won’t be,’ Reacher said. ‘I can guarantee that.’
    They started up the stony path. It was loose and noisy underfoot. Hard going. Better driven than walked. On both sides the trees crowded in, some of them pines, some of them deciduous and bare. The track snaked right, and then left again, rising all the way, with a final wide curve up ahead, with the fire waiting for them beyond it. They could already feel heat in the air, and they could hear a vague roar, with loud cracks and bangs mixed in.
    ‘Real quiet now,’ Reacher said.
    They rounded the final curve, and found a clearing hacked out of the woods. Dead ahead was a tumbledown old barn-like structure, and to their left was a tumbledown old cabin, both buildings made of wooden boards alternately baked and rotted by a century of weather. To their far right was the fire, raging in and around and above a wide, low rectangular structure with wheels. Yellow and blue and orange flames blazed up and out, and the trees burned and smouldered near them. Thick grey smoke boiled and swirled and eddied, and then caught the up-draught and whipped away into the darkness above.
    ‘What is it?’ Turner asked again, in a whisper.
    ‘Like that old joke,’ Reacher whispered back. ‘How is a fire in a meth lab the same as a redneck divorce?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Someone’s gonna lose a trailer.’
    ‘This is a meth lab?’
    ‘Was,’ Reacher said.
    ‘Hence no firefighters,’ Turner said. ‘Illegal operation. They couldn’t call it in.’
    ‘Firefighters wouldn’t come anyway,’ Reacher said. ‘If they came to every meth lab that caught on fire, they wouldn’t have time for anything else. Meth labs are accidents waiting to happen.’
    ‘Where are the people?’
    ‘Probably just one person. Somewhere around.’
    They moved into the clearing, towards the cabin,