Running Blind (The Visitor)

said.
    He opened her pocketbook and took out her phone and flipped it open. Closed his eyes and tried to recall sitting in Jodie’s kitchen, dialing the number. Tried to remember the precious sequence of digits. He entered them slowly. Hopefully. He pressed send. Heard ring tone for a long moment. Then the call was answered. A deep voice, slightly out of breath.
    “Colonel John Trent,” it said.
    “Trent, this is Reacher. You still love me?”
    “What?”
    “I need a ride, two people, Andrews to Portland, Oregon.”
    “Like when?”
    “Like right now, immediately.”
    “You’re kidding, right?”
    “No, we’re on our way there. We’re a half hour out.”
    Silence for a second.
    “Andrews to Portland, Oregon, right?” Trent said.
    “Right.”
    “How fast do you need to get there?”
    “Fastest you got.”
    Silence again.
    “OK,” Trent said.
    Then the line went dead. Reacher folded the phone.
    “So is he doing it?” Harper asked.
    Reacher nodded.
    “He owes me,” he said. “So let’s go.”
    She let in the clutch and drove out of the lot, into the approach road. The tiny car rode hard over the speed bumps. She passed by the FBI guard and accelerated into the curve and blasted through the first Marine checkpoint. Reacher saw heads turning in the corner of his eye, startled faces under green helmets.
    “So what is it?” she asked again.
    “Truth, and lies,” he said. “And means, motive, opportunity. The holy trinity of law enforcement. Three out of three is the real deal, right?”
    “I can’t even get one out of three,” she said. “What’s the key?”
    They cleared the second Marine checkpoint, traveling fast. More swiveling helmeted heads watched them go.
    “Bits and pieces,” he said. “We know everything we need to know. Some of it, we’ve known for days. But we screwed up everywhere, Harper. Big mistakes and wrong assumptions.”
    She made the blind left, north onto 95. Traffic was heavy. They were in the far outer echoes of D.C.’s morning rush hour. She changed lanes and was balked by the cars ahead and braked hard.
    “Shit,” he said.
    “Don’t worry,” she said. “Scimeca’s guarded out there. They all are.”
    “Not well enough. Not until we get there. This is a cool, cool customer.”
    She nodded and dodged left and right, looking for the fastest lane. They were all slow. Her speed dropped from forty to thirty. Then all the way down to twenty.
    YOU USE YOUR field glasses and you watch his first bathroom break. He’s been in the car an hour, swilling the coffee he brought with him. Now he needs to unload it. The driver’s door opens and he pivots in his seat and puts his big feet down on the ground and hauls himself out. He’s stiff from sitting. He stretches, steadying himself with a hand on the roof of the car. He closes the door and walks around the hood, into the driveway. Up the path. You see him step up onto the porch. You see his hand move to the bell push. You see him step back and wait.
    You don’t see her at the door. The angle is wrong. But he nods and smiles at something and steps inside. You keep the field glasses focused and three or four minutes later he’s back on the porch, moving away, looking over his shoulder, talking. Then he turns ahead and walks back down the path. Down the driveway. Around the hood of his car. He gets back in. The suspension eases downward on his side and his door closes. He sinks down in his seat. His head turns. He watches.
    SHE FLICKED THE tiny car right and put it on the shoulder. Eased the speed up to thirty, thirty-five, and hauled past the stalled traffic on the inside. The shoulder was rough and littered with gravel and debris. On their left, the tires on the stationary eighteen-wheelers were taller than the car.
    “What mistakes?” she said. “What wrong assumptions? ”
    “Very, very ironic ones, in the circumstances,” he said. “But it’s not entirely our fault. I think we swallowed a few big lies, too.”
    “What lies?”
    “Big, beautiful, breathtaking lies,” he said. “So big and so obvious, nobody even saw them for what they were.”
    SHE BREATHED HARD and tried to relax again after the cop went back out. He was in and out, in and out, all day long. It ruined her concentration. To play this thing properly, you needed to be in some kind of trance. And the damn silly cop kept on interrupting it.
    She sat down and played it through again, a dozen times, fifteen, twenty, all the way from the