Nothing to Lose

way?”
    “We can move the truck if we need to. But we don’t need to often. Our processes have gotten very developed. Not much defeats us anymore.”
    “Are you a chemist or a metallurgist or what?”
    Thurman said, “I’m a born-again-Christian American and a businessman. That’s how I would describe myself, in that order of importance. But I hire the best talent I can find, at the executive level. Our research and development is excellent.”
    Reacher nodded and said nothing. Thurman turned the wheel and steered a slow curve and headed back north, close to the east wall. The jaws of a giant crusher were closing on about ten wrecked cars at once. Beyond it a furnace door swung open and men ducked away from the blast of heat. A crucible moved slowly on an overhead track, full of liquid metal, all bubbling and crusting.
    Thurman asked, “Are you born again?”
    Reacher said, “Once was enough for me.”
    “I’m serious.”
    “So am I.”
    “You should think about it.”
    “My father used to say, why be born again, when you can just grow up?”
    “Is he no longer with us?”
    “He died a long time ago.”
    “He’s in the other place, then, with an attitude like that.”
    “He’s in a hole in the ground in Arlington Cemetery.”
    “Another veteran?”
    “A Marine.”
    “Thank you for his service.”
    “Don’t thank me. I had nothing to do with it.”
    Thurman said, “You should think about getting your life in order, you know, before it’s too late. Something might happen. The Book of Revelation says, the time is at hand.”
    “As it has every day since it was written, nearly two thousand years ago. Why would it be true now, when it wasn’t before?”
    “There are signs,” Thurman said. “And the possibility of precipitating events.” He said it primly, and smugly, and with a degree of certainty, as if he had regular access to privileged insider information.
    Reacher said nothing in reply.
    They drove on, past a small group of tired men wrestling with a mountain of tangled steel. Their backs were bent and their shoulders were slumped. Not yet eight o’clock in the morning, Reacher thought. More than ten hours still to go.
    “God watches over them,” Thurman said.
    “You sure?”
    “He tells me so.”
    “Does he watch over you, too?”
    “He knows what I do.”
    “Does he approve?”
    “He tells me so.”
    “Then why is there a lightning rod on your church?”
    Thurman didn’t answer that. He just clamped his mouth shut and his cheeks drooped lower than his jawbone. They arrived at the mouth of the cattle chute leading to the personnel gate. He stopped the truck and jiggled the stick into Park and sat back in his seat.
    “Seen enough?” he asked.
    “More than enough,” Reacher said.
    “Then I’ll bid you goodbye,” Thurman said. “I imagine our paths won’t cross again.” He tucked his elbow in and offered his hand, sideways and awkwardly. Reacher shook it. It felt soft and warm and boneless, like a child’s balloon filled with water. Then Reacher opened his door and slid out and walked through the doglegged chute and back to the acres of parking.
    Every window in Vaughan’s truck was smashed.

39
    Reacher stood for a long moment and ran through his options and then unlocked the truck and swept pebbles of broken glass off the seats and the dash. He raked them out of the driver’s footwell. He didn’t want the brake pedal to jam halfway through its travel. Or the gas pedal. The truck was slow enough already.
    Three miles back to town, twelve to the line, and then five to the center of Hope. A twenty-mile drive, cold and slow and very windy. Like riding a motorcycle without eye protection. Reacher’s face was numb and his eyes were watering by the end of the trip. He parked outside the diner a little before nine o’clock in the morning. Vaughan’s cruiser wasn’t there. She wasn’t inside. The place was three-quarters empty. The breakfast rush was over.
    Reacher took the back booth and ordered coffee and breakfast from the day-shift waitress. The college girl was gone. The woman brought him a mug and filled it from a flask and he asked her, “Did Officer Vaughan stop by this morning?”
    The woman said, “She left about a half-hour ago.”
    “Was she OK?”
    “She seemed quiet.”
    “What about Maria? The girl from San Diego?”
    “She was in before seven.”
    “Did she eat?”
    “Plenty.”
    “What about Lucy? The blonde from LA?”
    “Didn’t see