Vaughan said, “Why?”

“Because this has to be face-to-face. And the whole deal here is that you’re permanent and I’m not. You’re a cop from the next town, with a lot of years ahead of you. You can’t go trespassing and breaking and entering all over the neighborhood.”

“I already have.”

“But nobody knew. Which made it OK. This time it won’t be OK.”

“You’re shutting me out?”

“Wait on the road. Any hassle, take off for home. I’ll make my own way back.”

He left the ladder and the wrecking bar and the flashlight where they were, in the car. But he took the captured switchblades with him. He put one in each pocket, just in case.

Then he hiked the fifty yards through the scrub and climbed the fieldstone wall.

58

It was still too light to make any sense out of hiding. Reacher just leaned against the barn’s board wall, near the front corner, outside, on the blind side, away from the house. He could smell the plane. Cold metal, oil, unburned hydrocarbons from the tanks. The clock in his head showed one minute before seven in the evening.

He heard footsteps at one minute past.

Long strides, a heavy tread. The big guy from the plant, hustling. Lights came on in the barn. A bright rectangle of glare spilled forward, shadowed with wings and propeller blades.

Then nothing, for two minutes.

Then more footsteps. Slower. A shorter stride. An older man with good shoes, overweight, battling stiffness and limping with joint pain.

Reacher took a breath and stepped around the corner of the barn, into the light.

The big guy from the plant was standing behind the Piper’s wing, just waiting, like some kind of a servant or a butler. Thurman was on the path leading from the house. He was dressed in his wool suit. He was wearing a white shirt and a blue tie.

He was carrying a small cardboard carton.

The carton was about the size of a six-pack of beer. There was no writing on it. The top flaps were folded shut, one under the other. It wasn’t heavy. Thurman was carrying it two-handed, out in front of his body, reverentially, but without strain. He stopped dead on the path but didn’t speak. Reacher watched him try to find something to say, and then watched him give up. So he filled the silence himself. He said, “Good evening, folks.”

Thurman said, “You told me you were leaving.”

“I changed my mind.”

“You’re trespassing.”

“Probably.”

“You need to leave now.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“I meant it before, and I mean it now.”

“I’ll leave when I’ve seen what’s in that box.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m curious about what part of Uncle Sam’s property you’re smuggling out of here every night.”

The big guy from the plant squeezed around the tip of the Piper’s wing and stepped out of the barn and put himself between Reacher and Thurman, closer to Thurman than Reacher. Two against one, explicitly. Thurman looked beyond the big guy’s shoulder directly at Reacher and said, “You’re intruding.” Which struck Reacher as an odd choice of word.Interfering, trespassing, butting in, he would have expected.

“Intruding on what?” he asked.

The big guy asked his boss, “You want me to throw him out?”

Reacher saw Thurman thinking about his answer. There was debate in his face, some kind of a long-range calculus that went far beyond the possible positive or negative outcome of a two-minute brawl in front of an airplane hangar. Like the old guy was playing a long game, and thinking eight moves ahead.

Reacher said, “What’s in the box?”

The big guy said, “Shall I get rid of him?”

Thurman said, “No, let him stay.”

Reacher said, “What’s in the box?”

Thurman said, “Not Uncle Sam’s property. God’s property.”

“God brings you metal?”

“Not metal.”

Thurman stood still for a second. Then he stepped around his underling, still carrying the box two-handed out in front of him, like a wise man bearing a gift. He knelt and laid it at Reacher’s feet, and then stood up and backed away again. Reacher looked down. Theoretically the box might be booby-trapped, or he might get hit on the head while he crouched down next to it. But he felt either thing was unlikely. The instructors at Rucker had said:be skeptical, but not too skeptical. Too much skepticism led to paranoia and paralysis.

Reacher knelt next to the box.

Unlaced the criss-crossed flaps.

Raised them.

The box held crumpled newspaper, with a small plastic jar nested in it. The jar was a standard medical item, sterile, almost clear, with a screw lid. A sample jar, for urine or other bodily fluids. Reacher had seen many of them.

The jar was a quarter full with black powder.

The powder was coarser than talc, finer than salt.

Reacher asked, “What is it?”

Thurman said, “Ash.”

“From where?”

“Come with me and find out.”

“Come with you?”

“Fly with me tonight. I have nothing to hide. And I’m a patient man. I don’t mind proving my innocence, over and over and over again, if I have to.”

The big guy helped Thurman up onto the wing and watched as he folded himself in through the small door. Then he passed the box up. Thurman took it and laid it on a rear seat. The big guy stood back and let Reacher climb up by himself. Reacher ducked low and led with his legs and made it into the co-pilot’s seat. He slammed the door and squirmed around until he was as comfortable as he was ever going to get, and then he buckled his harness. Beside him Thurman buckled his and hit a bunch of switches. Dials lit up and pumps whirred and the whole airframe tensed and hummed. Then Thurman hit the starter button and the exhaust coughed and the propeller blade jerked around a quarter of the way and then the engine caught with a roar and the prop spun up and the cabin filled with loud noise and furious vibration. The plane lurched forward, uncertain, earthbound, darting slightly left and right. It waddled forward out of the hangar. Dust blew up all over the place. The plane moved on, down the taxiway, the prop turning fast, the wheels turning slow. Reacher watched Thurman’s hands. He was operating the controls the same way an old guy drives a car, leaning back in his seat, casual, familiar, automatic, using the kind of short abbreviated movements born of long habit.

The taxiway led through two clumsy turns to the north end of the runway. The lights were on. Thurman got centered on the graded strip and hit the power and the vibration leached forward out of the cabin into the engine and the wheels started thumping faster below. Reacher turned and saw the cardboard carton slide backward on the seat and nestle against the back cushion. He glanced ahead and saw lit dirt below and rushing darkness above. Then the plane went light and the nose lifted. The plane clawed its way into the night sky and climbed and turned and Reacher looked down and saw first the runway lights go off and then the hangar lights. Without them, there was little to see. The wall around the metal plant was faintly visible, a huge white rectangle in the gloaming.

The plane climbed hard for a minute and then leveled off and Reacher was dumped forward in his seat against his harness straps. He looked over at the dash and saw the altimeter reading two thousand feet. Airspeed was a little over a hundred and twenty. The compass reading was southeast. Fuel was more than half-full. Trim was good. The artificial horizon was level. There were plenty of green lights, and no reds.

Thurman saw him checking and asked, “Are you afraid of flying, Mr. Reacher?”

Reacher said, “No.”

The engine was loud and the vibration was setting up a lot of buzzes and rattles. Wind was howling around the screens and whistling in through cracks. Altogether the little Piper reminded Reacher of the kind of old cars people used as taxis at suburban railroad stations. Sagging, worn out, clunky, but capable of making it through the ride. Maybe.