Reese picked up the radio from the dashboard and said into it, “Nest, start distancing yourself, but keep us in sight the entire time.”
“Roger that,” Nest answered through the radio.
Reese put the radio back on the dashboard, and they drove in silence for a while.
Ten seconds, then twenty, before Dwight finally said, “What the hell was that about? That place was good when I scouted it a month ago. There wasn’t any damn security on the premises back then.”
“A lot of things can change in a month,” Reese said.
“Fucking kids.”
“Uh huh.”
“So what now?”
“These moments are why I put in all those backup plans that you never think are necessary, partner.”
Dwight grunted. “Yeah, yeah. Save the told you so’s for later, will you?”
“Remember you said that,” Reese said. He had taken out his phone — it was a cheap burner, Allie saw — and was punching in some numbers from memory. He waited a moment before speaking into it: “Where are you now?” He listened, then, “Change of plans. Proceed to the second alternate route.”
Dwight snorted when Reese put the phone away. “We’re gonna run out of alternate routes pretty soon.”
“When that happens, we’ll make up new ones.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I couldn’t tell.” Reese turned in his seat to look back at her. “You’re being very quiet back there.”
“I’m just the den mother, remember?” Allie said. “You guys are the brain trust. I’ll leave all the squawking to the two of you.”
“How are the girls?”
“I never got the chance to check up on them.”
“There’ll be other opportunities. We still have a long road ahead of us. A lot of miles.”
“The security guard back there…”
“What about him?”
“You were going to kill him.”
Reese shrugged. “Couldn’t be helped.”
“Like with the state troopers?”
“That, on the other hand, could have been avoided if Vanguard had kept their cool.”
“This is what we get for working with locals,” Dwight said. “Worthless shits.” Then, grinning at her in the rearview mirror, “No offense.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that,” she said.
Dwight chortled, and Reese smiled.
“Tell me something: Is it always this dramatic?” she asked.
“Not at all,” Reese said. “Usually it’s pretty boring. Pick up, drive, and deliver. Today’s been an exception.”
“Must be the company,” Dwight said. “Maybe you’re just bad luck, Alice in Wonderland. Maybe Juliet sent us a dud.”
“I guess you should take it up with her,” Allie said.
“Where is she, by the way?”
“Last I heard, she was in Mexico.”
“Maybe we should give her a call,” Dwight said. Then, looking over at Reese, “What do you think?”
“I think Alice proved herself back at the diner,” Reese said. “And she’s done very well since, under very trying circumstances.”
“Bull chips. She should have shot that old guy in the back of the head, not give him that paper cut in the leg.”
“When did you become so bloodthirsty?”
“Since this job started going off the rails, that’s when.”
“We’re doing fine. A couple of hiccups here and there were bound to catch up to us. The law of averages, partner. You didn’t think it was going to be easy peasy forever, did you?”
“Easy peasy?” Allie said.
Reese glanced back at her and grinned. “What? That’s not something you guys say?”
“It is, but it sounded strange coming from you. You barely have an accent, by the way.”
“I worked hard to get rid of it.”
“Where are you from originally?”
“What is this, the dating game?” Dwight asked.
Reese ignored him, and said to her, “Southeast London. A charming little district called Peckham.”
“I heard it was a real piece of shit,” Dwight said.
“Only to tourists.” Back to her: “But I haven’t been home for some time. That’s one reason for the lack of an accent; the other is that I’ve tried very hard to get rid of it. I’m impressed you noticed. Most people don’t.”
“Don’t let him fool you,” Dwight said. “He can still be a real snobby British motherfucker when he wants to be.”
“Thank you, Dwight.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I figured,” Dwight said.
Eight
“Jesus, Hank, why aren’t you at the hospital?” Jane Mayer said. Her early thirty-something face looked at least ten years older since the last time he saw her a few months ago. It might have just been because he was looking at a pixilated version of Jane on the tablet’s screen, but Hank was sure that wasn’t the only reason.
“I don’t need a hospital,” Hank said, and thought, Kent Whitman already gave me the good stuff, but of course he didn’t say that part out loud.
“Since when did you get a cell phone?” Jane asked.
“I didn’t. I’m just, uh, borrowing someone’s…phone, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“It’s like a tablet or something.”
He looked over at Lucy, sitting on the other side of the bed where Jane couldn’t see her. The sixteen-year-old nodded in affirmation and gave him an almost pitying smile.
Hank smirked back at her before returning to Jane’s furrowed face on the small screen. He wasn’t quite sure how far he should hold the device from his face since it was hard to make out his own features in the even smaller box-within-a-box at the lower right corner. Whose bright idea was it to let the caller see himself while talking?
“Hank Pritchard with a tablet,” Jane said onscreen. “As I live and breathe.”
“I’m not a Luddite, kid. Well, not entirely.”
Jane smiled. “No one’s called me kid in a long time.”
“Yeah, well, ten years from now, or twenty years from now, I’ll still be a lot older than you.”
“Thank God. Now what do you want?”
“This afternoon’s shooting…”
“Jesus, that was bad,” Jane said, and ran her hands over her face. “You heard about that, huh?”
“Hard not to; it’s all over the news.”
“Yeah, I guess it would be. Worse thing to happen to us since, well, you know.”
Hank nodded. Oh, he knew, all right. It was one of the reasons he was sitting in a motel with a sixteen-year-old kid and not on the other side of this phone call.
“What about it?” Jane asked.
“Where are you guys on that?”
“Hank, what are you asking me?”
“I just wanna know what you guys have on the shooters.”
“How did you know there was more than one shooter?”
“You mean there were?”
She nodded before glancing over her shoulder as if she were afraid of being overheard. Jane was sitting in her car in a parking lot, and by the angle of her face he guessed she had her phone resting on the dashboard pointed back at her. He recognized the background, and given the time of day, it wasn’t hard to surmise she was outside the main building. How many times had he parked at that exact spot?
“Two,” Jane said, looking back at the screen.
“What happened?”
“They were stopped for a speeding violation. Nothing major. They pulled over to the side, and while the troopers were getting information on their onboard computer, they were killed. Nine millimeter rounds. There were so many holes in the front windshield that we don’t know how the whole thing didn’t collapse in on itself. Both men were killed on the spot.”
“Suspects?”
“We don’t have any. Right now we’re busy setting up roadblocks, checking vans and even regular sedans, in case they might have switched vehicles.” She shook her head. “But we’re searching blind, Hank. The troopers only had information on a white van but nothing on the drivers before they were killed.”