Worth Dying For

busted?
Then:
No way
.
    ‘Dude,’ he said again. ‘You’re the man. You’re the guy the Duncans are looking for.’
    Reacher said, ‘Am I?’
    The kid nodded. ‘You’re Jack Reacher. Six-five, two-fifty, brown coat. They want you, man. They want you real bad.’
    ‘Do they?’
    ‘We had Cornhuskers at the house this morning. We’re supposed to keep our eyes peeled. And here you are, man. You snuck right up on me. I guess your eyes were peeled, not mine.Am I right?’ Then he lapsed into a fit of helpless giggles. He was maybe a little higher than Reacher had thought.
    Reacher said, ‘You got a cell phone?’
    ‘Hell yes. I’m going to text my buddies. I’m going to tell them I’ve seen the man, large as life, twice as natural. Hey, maybe I could put you on the line with them. That would be a kick, wouldn’t it? Would you do that? Would you talk to my buds? So they know I’m not shitting them?’
    ‘No,’ Reacher said.
    The kid went instantly serious. ‘Hey, I’m with you, man. You got to lie low. I can dig that. But dude, don’t worry. We’re not going to rat you out. Me and my buds, I mean. We’re on your side. You’re putting it to the Duncans, we’re with you all the way.’
    Reacher said nothing. The kid concentrated hard and lifted his arm high out of the brambles and held out his joint.
    ‘Share?’ he said. ‘That would be a kick too. Smoking with the man.’
    The joint was fat and well rolled, in yellow paper. It was about half gone.
    ‘No, thanks,’ Reacher said.
    ‘Everyone hates them,’ the kid said. ‘The Duncans, I mean. They’ve got this whole county by the balls.’
    ‘Show me a county where someone doesn’t.’
    ‘Dude, I hear you. The system stinks. No argument from me on that score. But the Duncans are worse than usual. They killed a kid. Did you know that? A little girl. Eight years old. They took her and messed her up real bad and killed her.’
    ‘Did they?’
    ‘Hell yes. Definitely.’
    ‘You sure?’
    ‘No question, my friend.’
    ‘It was twenty-five years ago. You’re what, fifteen?’
    ‘It happened.’
    ‘The FBI said different.’
    ‘You believe them?’
    ‘As opposed to who? A stoner who wasn’t even born yet?’
    ‘The FBI didn’t hear what I hear, man.’
    ‘What do you hear?’
    ‘Her ghost, man. Still here, after twenty-five years. Sometimes I sit out here at night and I hear that poor ghost screaming, man, screaming and wailing and moaning and crying, right here in the dark.’

NINETEEN
    O UR SHIP HAS COME IN
. A N OLD , OLD PHRASE , FROM OLD SEA- faring days, full of hope and wonder. An investor could spend all he had, building a ship, fitting it out, hiring a crew, or more than all he had, if he was borrowing. Then the ship would sail into a years-long void, unimaginable distances, unfathomable depths, incalculable dangers. There was no communication with it. No radio, no phone, no telegraph, no mail. No news at all. Then, maybe, just maybe, one chance day the ship would come back, weather-beaten, its sails heaving into view, its hull riding low in the channel waters, loaded with spices from India, or silks from China, or tea, or coffee, or rum, or sugar. Enough profit to repay the costs and the loans in one fell swoop, with enough left over to live generously for a decade. Subsequent voyages were all profit, enough to make a man rich beyond his dreams.
Our ship has come in
.
    Jacob Duncan used that phrase, at eleven-thirty that morning. He was with his brothers, in a small dark room at the back of his house. His son Seth had gone home. Just the three elders were there, stoic, patient, and reflective.
    ‘I got the call from Vancouver,’ Jacob said. ‘Our man in the port. Our ship has come in. The delay was about weather in the Luzon Strait.’
    ‘Where’s that?’ Jasper asked.
    ‘Where the South China Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. But now our goods have arrived. They’re here. Our truck could be rolling tonight. Tomorrow morning, at the very latest.’
    ‘That’s good,’ Jasper said.
    ‘Is it?’
    ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
    ‘You were worried before, in case the stranger got nailed before the delay went away. You said that would prove us liars.’
    ‘True. But now that problem is gone.’
    ‘Is it? Seems to me that problem has merely turned itself inside out. Suppose the truck gets here before the stranger gets nailed? That would prove us liars, too.’
    ‘We could hold the truck up there.’
    ‘We couldn’t.