Reacher said, “But you imply there are honest offers too. You said most, not all.”

“Secanol has gone completely. Nembutal is the last chance. Now the holy grail all by itself. The only legal use for Nembutal in the United States is large-animal euthanasia. Some gets stolen, and some veterinarians are bent. Why not? A lethal dose for a human would be two small bottles. Easy to ship. FedEx would take care of it. Nine hundred bucks, for what gets splashed on the floor when you’re killing a mule. You’ll take that deal.”

He saw houses still lived in, and houses converted to offices, for seed merchants and fertilizer dealers and a large-animal veterinarian.

Reacher said, “Show us exactly where Michael McCann was posting. We want to read what he said.”

Chapter 46

They pulled chairs close to the glass table and crowded around the screen to read. Michael McCann was signed up for two suicide boards. In both cases he posted under the name of Mike. He wrote flatly, laboriously, as if numbed, as if exhausted by his burdens. His spelling was good, and his grammar was formal. Not naturally, Reacher thought, but as if he had been told there was a special way to do it, out in the public domain. Like public speaking. You put on a shirt and tie.

The first board was the hook-up board. Michael was looking for a sympathetic companion. Not that he needed help. Not all of the time. More that he felt he could give it. At least some of the time. In many months he had brief conversations with two candidates, and then seemed to settle on a third, who went by the name of Exit. They began messaging often.

Meanwhile the second board was the how board, which sometimes strayed into other discussions. Michael contributed now and then, with measured words, and never with anger or haste. He defended his right to catch the bus. He showed up in a thread about how to take Nembutal. He was anxious for guidance. In its commercial form its taste was said to be bitter. Best to mask it with juice, or chase it with scotch, which enhanced its efficiency anyway. It was always wise to take an anti-emetic beforehand, like a sea-sickness pill. No one wanted to throw up and be left with a less-than-fatal dose on board. No one wanted to wake up twenty hours later, with it all to do again.

Michael also commented in a thread about the reliability of Nembutal suppliers. He had been ripped off more than once. The market was a jungle. All a con man needed was a good web site. No one could know exactly who he was. A guy in Thailand was supposed to be kosher. And then someone posted that MR had delivered, exactly as promised, genuine stuff that tested right. Another poster backed him up. MR were good people, he said. The real deal. Michael queried: MR? The first guy came back to the board and said: Mother’s Rest.

Then over on the hook-up board, a day later, Michael told Exit he had checked the Mother’s Rest web site, and he thought Exit should look at it too, because there was much to discuss, especially on level five.

No further details.

Reacher said, “What’s level five?”

The guy from Palo Alto said, “Think of the onion. Many layers. Deeper and deeper. The Web itself, and every site on it. The sign-in page is usually level two. Level four is usually the first page of merchandise. Therefore level five is likely to be special merchandise.”

On the board, Exit had replied, and said level five was interesting. But that was late in the sequence, and the discussion went no further. It was overtaken by Michael’s physical move to Oklahoma. To Exit’s place, near Tulsa. His suicide partner. To get ready. Reacher assumed the discussion was continued in person.

He said, “Can we take a look at the Mother’s Rest web site?”

The guy said, “We’d have to find it first.”

“You did OK before. You were six seconds under.”

“I knew where to look. This next one will be measured in minutes. If we’re lucky.”

“How many minutes? What’s the wager?”

“Twenty,” the guy said.

He typed commands and loaded up with search terms and keywords. He hit the go tab, and the clock in Reacher’s head started running. Everyone pushed back from the glass table, and stretched, and got comfortable, and got ready to wait.

Westwood said, “The two hundred deaths could be two hundred Nembutal customers. I’m not sure what to think about it. From a news perspective, I mean. Is it a scandal? It’s legal in Washington and Oregon.”

“Not the same thing,” the guy from Palo Alto said. “You need two doctors to sign off. You need to be about a hundred years old with a terminal disease. These guys wouldn’t qualify. And mostly they’re pissed about it.”

“Then it becomes an ethical debate. Do we respect a person’s choices, plain and simple, or do we feel obliged to judge his reasons?”

“Not his reasons,” Chang said. “That’s too intrusive. But I think we should judge his commitment. There’s a big difference between a short-term panic and a long-term need. Maybe commitment proves reasons. If you hang in there through all the hoops, it must really mean something to you.”

“Then perhaps this current system is a good thing. In its way. Inadvertently. There are plenty of hoops. They’re certainly earning it.”

Reacher said, “But what is Mother’s Rest earning? Two hundred Nembutal shipments at nine hundred bucks a pop is less than two hundred grand. Over the whole life of the project, presumably. Less the wholesale cost and the shipping. That’s a hobby. And you can’t pay guys like Merchenko out of hobby money. Something else is going on there. Has to be. Because … ”

He stopped talking.

Chang said, “Because what?”

“We think the guy was killed there.”

“What guy?”

“At the beginning. With the backhoe.”

“Keever?”

“Yeah, Keever. Why kill Keever over a hobby? There has to be more.”

“Level five could be special merchandise. Could be worth more.”

Reacher glanced at the screen. Still searching. Seven minutes gone. He said, “I’m trying to imagine what could be so special. To be worth Merchenko money.”

The guy from Palo Alto said, “They all have my sympathy.”

Reacher said, “Mine too. I take the point about burning down the building with hibachi grills. But otherwise we should let them do what they want. They didn’t ask to be born. It’s like taking a sweater back to the store.”

Chang said, “Except it shouldn’t be either too easy or too difficult. Which somehow obliges the rest of us to set the bar. Is that fair on any of us?”

Westwood said, “This is exactly what I was afraid of. It’s an ethical debate. I could have written it in my office. On standby for a slow month. There was no need to spend travel money. I’m going to get my butt kicked for this.”

Twelve minutes gone.

They got drinks, not exactly served, but collected from the kitchen. Which was very retro. It looked vaguely like some of the places Reacher could remember as a kid. Family quarters on a dozen bases all around the world, different weather outside the window, same cabinets in the kitchen. Some mothers made a big show of scrubbing them down with disinfectant, immediately on the first morning, but Reacher’s mother was French and believed in acquired immunity. Which had worked, generally. Although his brother had gotten sick once. More likely a restaurant. He was starting to date.

Chang said, “You OK?”

He said, “I’m fine.”

Eighteen minutes gone.

They went back to the den, and the clock ticked on. Nineteen minutes. The guy from Palo Alto said, “We didn’t agree the stakes. For the wager.”

Reacher said, “What did we say the first time?”

“We didn’t.”

Twenty minutes gone.

Reacher said, “We don’t want to outstay our welcome.”

The guy said, “The program will get there. I’m a better geek than they are.”

“What’s the longest search you’ve ever run?”