The Affair: A Reacher Novel

side of the wire. It looked like the whole place had been hacked out of the same kind of old forest that lay south of the road, but I guessed the opposite was true. I guessed Kelham had been laid out on open ground fifty years before, and then farmers had stopped plowing short of the fence, so the trees had come afterward. Like new weeds. Not like the old woods to the south. The new trees thinned here and there, but mostly they provided deep cover wherever it was needed. Easy enough for a small force to stay concealed among them, slipping outward into the open belt of scrub when necessary, then slipping back inward and on through the fence for rest or resupply.
    I started walking again. I said, “I’m going to find this quarantine squad that everyone claims doesn’t exist.”
    “Suppose you do?” Deveraux said. “It will be your word against theirs. Your word against the Pentagon’s, basically. You’ll say the squad existed, they’ll say it didn’t. And the Pentagon has the bigger microphone.”
    “They can’t argue with physical evidence. I’ll bring back enough body parts to convince anyone.”
    “I can’t let you do that.”
    “They shouldn’t have shot the kid, Elizabeth. That was way out of line, whoever they are. They opened the wrong door there. That’s for damn sure. What lies on the other side is their problem, not ours.”
    “You don’t even know where they are.”
    “They’re in the woods.”
    “In camouflage with binoculars. How would you even get near them?”
    “They have a blind spot.”
    “Where?”
    “Close to Kelham’s gate. They’re looking for the kind of intruder who already knows he can’t get through the gate. So they’re not looking there. They’re looking farther afield.”
    “The guardhouse watches the gate.”
    “No, the guardhouse watches what approaches the gate. I’m not going to approach the gate. I’m going to find the gap. Too far in the rear of the mobile force, too far in advance of the guardhouse.”
    “They’re shooting people, Reacher.”
    “They’re shooting the people they see. They won’t see me.”
    “I’ll give you a ride back to town.”
    “I’m not going back to town. I want a ride in the other direction. And a firearm.”
    She didn’t answer.
    I said, “I’m prepared to do it without either thing if necessary. Slower and harder, but I’ll get it done.”
    She said, “Get in the car, Reacher.”
    No indication where she planned to take me.
    We got in the car and Deveraux backed it away from Butler’s cruiser and then she took off forward, east, toward Kelham. The right direction, as far as I was concerned. We covered most of the last mile and I said, “Now head off across the grass. To the edge of the woods. Like you just saw something.”
    She said, “Straight at them?”
    “They’re not here. They’re north and west of here. And they wouldn’t shoot at a police vehicle anyway.”
    “You sure about that?”
    “Only one way to find out.”
    She slowed and turned the wheel and thumped down off the road onto hard-packed dirt. The road was in a gap shaped like an hourglass. Two hundred yards north of it Kelham’s new trees ran away from us in a gentle curve, and two hundred yards south of it the old woods ran away from us in a symmetrical pattern. Deveraux headed north and east, at an angle of forty-five degrees relative to the pavement, bucking and bouncing, and then she steered through a wide turn across the dirt and came to a stop with the flank of the car right next to the woods. My door was six feet from the nearest tree.
    I said, “Gun?”
    “Jesus,” she said. “This whole thing is illegal on so many different levels.”
    “But like you told me, it’s their word against mine. If there’s anyone to shoot, they’ll say there wasn’t. The more shooting, the more denying.”
    She took a breath and let it out and pulled the shotgun from its scabbard between our seats. It was an old Winchester Model 12, forty inches long, seven pounds in weight. It was nicked and worn but dewy with oil and polish. It could have been fifty years old, but it seemed well looked after. Even so, I worry about guns I have never fired. Nothing worse than pulling a trigger and having nothing happen. Or missing.
    I asked her, “Does it work?”
    She said, “It works perfectly.”
    “When did you last fire it?”
    “Two weeks ago.”
    “At what?”
    “At a target. I make the whole department requalify every year. And I need to