Worth Dying For

those who deserved it, and for those who didn’t.
    He waited.
    He couldn’t get his Yukon out, because he had no key for Dorothy Coe’s pick-up truck. It was possibly in her coat, but he wasn’t inclined to go look for it. He was in no hurry. It was wintertime. Full daylight was still an hour away.
    Five hundred miles due north, up in Canada, just above the 49th Parallel, because of the latitude, dawn came a little later. The first of the morning light filtered down through the needles of the towering pine and touched the white van in its summer picnic spot at the end of the rough grassy track. The driver woke in his seat, and blinked, and stretched. He had heard nothing all night long. He had seen nothing. No bears, no coyotes, no red foxes,no moose, no elk, no wolves. No people. He had been warm, because he had a sleeping bag filled with down, but he had been very uncomfortable, because panel vans had small cabs, and he had spent the night folded into a seat that didn’t recline very far. It was always on his mind that the cargo in the back was treated better than he was. It rode more comfortably. But then, it was expensive and hard to get, and he wasn’t. He was a realistic man. He knew how things worked.
    He climbed out and took a leak against the pine’s ancient trunk. Then he ate and drank from his meagre supplies, and he pushed his palms against his aching back, and he stretched again to work out the kinks. The sky was brightening. It was his favourite time for a run to the border. Light enough to see, too early for company. Ideal. He had just twenty miles to go, most of them on an unmapped forest track, to a point a little less than four thousand yards north of the line. The transfer zone, he called it. The end of the road for him, but not for his cargo.
    He climbed back in the cab and started the engine. He let it warm and settle for a minute while he checked the dials and the gauges. Then he selected first gear, and released the parking brake, and turned the wheel, and moved away slowly, at walking speed, lurching and bouncing down the rough grassy track.
    Reacher heard sounds at the end of the hallway. A toilet flushing, a faucet running, a door opening, a door closing. Then the doctor came limping past the dining room, stiff with sleep, mute with morning. He nodded as he passed, and he skirted the football players, and he headed for the kitchen. A minute later Reacher heard the gulp and hiss of the coffee machine. The sun was up enough to show a reflection in the window of the SUV parked beyond the fence. Webs of frost were glinting and glittering in the fields.
    The doctor came in with two mugs of coffee. He was dressed in a sweater over pyjamas. His hair was uncombed. The damage on his face was lost in general redness. He put one mug in front of Reacher and threaded his way around and sat in a chair on the opposite side of the table.
    He said, ‘Good morning.’
    Reacher said nothing.
    The doctor asked, ‘How’s your nose?’
    Reacher said, ‘Terrific.’
    The doctor said, ‘There’s something you never told me.’
    Reacher said, ‘There are many things I never told you.’
    ‘You said twenty-five years ago the detective neglected to search somewhere. You said because of ignorance or confusion.’
    Reacher nodded, and took a sip of his coffee.
    The doctor asked, ‘Is that where you’re going this morning?’
    ‘Yes, it is.’
    ‘Will you find anything there after twenty-five years?’
    ‘Probably not.’
    ‘Then why are you going?’
    ‘Because I don’t believe in ghosts.’
    ‘I don’t follow.’
    ‘I hope you never have to. I hope I’m wrong.’
    ‘Where is this place we’re talking about?’
    ‘Mrs Coe told me that fifty years ago two farms were sold for a development that never happened. The outbuildings from one of them are still there. Way out in a field. A barn, and a smaller shed.’
    The doctor nodded. ‘I know where they are.’
    ‘People plough right up to them.’
    ‘I know,’ the doctor said. ‘I guess they shouldn’t, but why let good land go to waste? The subdivisions were never built, and they’re never going to be. So it’s something for nothing, and God knows these people need it. It’s yield that doesn’t show up on their mortgages.’
    ‘So when Detective Carson came up here twenty-five years ago, what did he see? In the early summer? He saw about a million acres of waist-high corn, and he saw some houses dotted around here and there, and he