Nothing to Lose

second-oldest page was identical. As was the third. The fourth fell into the following calendar year.
    Vaughan said, “Fifteen thousand gallons in the first year. Is that a lot?”
    “I don’t know,” Reacher said. “We’ll have to let the state lab be the judge.”
    The second year of orders came out the same. Fifteen thousand gallons. Then the third year jumped way up, to five separate orders for a total of twenty-five thousand gallons. A refill every seventy-some days. An increase in consumption of close to sixty-seven percent.
    Vaughan said, “The start of major combat operations. The first wrecks.”
    The fourth year held steady at twenty-five thousand gallons.
    The fifth year matched it exactly.
    “David’s year,” Vaughan said. “His Humvee was rinsed with some of those gallons. What was left of it.”
    The sixth year she looked at jumped again. Total of six orders. Total of thirty thousand gallons. Iraq, getting worse. A twenty percent increase. And the current year looked set to exceed even that. There were already six orders in, and the year still had a whole quarter to run. Then Vaughan paused and looked at the six pages again, one by one, side by side, and she said, “No, one of these is different.”
    Reacher asked, “Different how?”
    “One of the orders isn’t for trichloroethylene. And it isn’t in gallons. It’s in tons, for something called trinitrotoluene. Thurman bought twenty tons of it.”
    “When?”
    “Three months ago. Maybe they misfiled it.”
    “From Kearny?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then it isn’t misfiled.”
    “Maybe it’s another kind of degreaser.”
    “It isn’t.”
    “You heard of it?”
    “Everyone has heard of it. It was invented in 1863 in Germany, for use as a yellow dye.”
    “I never heard of it,” Vaughan said. “I don’t like yellow.”
    “A few years later they realized it decomposes in an exothermic manner.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It explodes.”
    Vaughan said nothing.
    “Trichloroethylene is called TCE,” Reacher said. “Trinitrotoluene is called TNT.”
    “I’ve heard of that. ”
    “Everyone has heard of it.”
    “Thurman bought twenty tons of dynamite? Why?”
    “Dynamite is different. It’s nitroglycerine soaked into wood pulp and molded into cylinders wrapped in paper. TNT is a specific chemical compound. A yellow solid. Much more stable. Therefore much more useful.”
    “OK, but why did he buy it?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe he busts things up with it. It melts easily, and pours. That’s how they get it into shell casings and bombs and shaped charges. Maybe he uses it like a liquid and forces it between seams he can’t cut. He was boasting to me about his advanced techniques.”
    “I never heard any explosions.”
    “You wouldn’t. You’re twenty miles from the plant. And maybe they’re small and controlled.”
    “Is it a solvent, when it’s liquid?”
    “I’m not sure. It’s a reagent, that’s all I know. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. Some complicated formula, lots of sixes and threes and twos.”
    Vaughan riffled back through the pages she had already examined.
    “Whatever, he never bought any before,” she said. “It’s something new.”
    Reacher glanced ahead through the windshield. Saw the tan box truck heading back toward them. It was less than a mile away. He took the red bubble light off the dash and held it in his hand.
    “Stand by,” he said. “We’re going to stop that truck.”
    “We can’t,” Vaughan said. “We don’t have jurisdiction here.”
    “The driver doesn’t know that. He’s Canadian.”

57
    Vaughan was a cop from a small quiet town, but she handled the traffic stop beautifully. She started the car when the truck was still a quarter-mile away and put it in gear. Then she waited for the truck to pass and pulled out of the old road onto the new and settled in its wake. She hung back a hundred yards, to be clearly visible in its mirrors. Reacher opened his window and clamped the bubble light on the roof. Vaughan hit a switch and the light started flashing. She hit another switch and her siren quacked twice.
    Nothing happened for ten long seconds.
    Vaughan smiled.
    “Here it comes,” she said. “The Who, me? moment.”
    The truck started to slow. The driver lifted off and the cab pitched down a degree as weight and momentum settled on the front axle. Vaughan moved up fifty yards and drifted left to the crown of the road. The truck put its turn signal on. It