“Tell me.”
“You’d believe me?”
The guy took a moment to think. “OK. Are you wearing a belt?”
Reacher nodded.
“Take it off. Give it to me.”
Reacher didn’t move.
The guy increased the pressure on the gun. It dug deeper into Hannah’s skin. She clenched her teeth but couldn’t hold back a long, low whimper.
Reacher slipped his belt through the loops in his pants and held it out in the gap between the truck’s front seats. The guy kept the gun pressed against Hannah’s skull and stretched out with his left hand. He grabbed the belt, then bit it between his teeth, near the buckle. He fed the free end through. Took up the slack until he had a circle about twelve inches across. Then he pulled the gun away and flipped the belt over Hannah’s head and yanked it tight around her neck and the metal stalks of the seat rest. She didn’t make another sound but her scowl grew even more fearsome.
“Pep?” the guy said to his buddy in the passenger seat. “Can you move?”
Pep nodded. “Think so.”
“Good. Come over here. To my door.”
Pep slid out of the truck and crept around to its rear. He was clutching his left arm to his chest and moving like he had the mother of all hangovers. He made it to the far side. The guy holding the belt slid across. Pep climbed in behind Hannah and slumped back in the seat. He looked like he was about to be sick.
“Sit forward,” the guy holding the belt said. “All the way. Get your ass right on the edge.”
Pep shuffled to the front of the seat. The guy took Pep’s right hand and tied the belt around his wrist so that his palm was flat against the back of the driver’s seat, just below the nape of Hannah’s neck.
The guy patted Pep between the shoulders then slid the rest of the way across to the passenger side, opened the door, and climbed down next to Reacher. He nodded toward Pep and Hannah and said, “Do I need to draw you a diagram?”
Reacher shook his head.
“Good. Now pick up the SIG Pep dropped. Finger and thumb through the trigger guard. Pass it to me.”
Reacher fished the gun out from under the neighboring car and handed it to the guy.
“OK.” The guy tucked the gun into the back of his pants and made sure his shirt was covering it. “Show me where my friends are. And you better make it quick, for the woman’s sake.”
* * *
—
Reacher led the way back toward the main building and as he walked he tried to picture the remote fob on the key ring he had taken after searching the first pair of Minerva guys. He remembered it had four buttons. The lower two were colored. One was red. It looked like it had something to do with the alarm. One was blue. It was for opening the trunk. The others were black. They had little white padlock symbols on them. The symbols were faint. They were worn almost all the way off but Reacher thought the lock on the top left button was shown as closed.
Reacher slid his hand into his pocket and felt for the fob. He found the top right button and pressed it with his thumb. He looked around the lot, hoping to see a parked car’s turn signals flash.
Nothing happened.
The guy walking behind him said, “Hey. What are you doing?”
“Keeping my pants from falling down.”
The guy grunted like he wasn’t convinced.
They kept on walking. Reacher kept on pressing the unlock button. No lights flashed. They were almost at the entrance to the building. Reacher figured the car must be somewhere else in the lot, so he would have to take the guy around the back of the building. Do the job in two stages. He knew for sure the car wasn’t over to the right because that was where the buses parked. So he rolled the dice one last time. Headed toward the left. Pressed the unlock button again. And saw a pair of orange lights give a long, slow blink.
The car the lights belonged to was in the final row, in front of the fence that continued along the perimeter of the site. There was an empty space on both sides. But it was a false alarm. A coincidence. It was the wrong kind of car. A Ford Crown Victoria. Reacher had seen hundreds of them during his time in the army. And hundreds more after he left. Although this one was much cleaner than most he had come across. Its paintwork was immaculate. Dark blue, almost black. Shiny, like it recently had been polished. It had strange wheels. A weird grille at the front. Dark tints on the windows. It seemed more like someone’s personal vehicle than a detective’s car or a cab. So Reacher looked at it more closely. He saw there was a Mercury logo where the blue oval should be. He didn’t understand why, but he had never been much of a car guy. And he didn’t waste time speculating. He just slid his thumb across to the lock button on the fob. He pressed it. The car’s flashers blinked again. Just as lazily. Reacher figured it was unlikely to be a coincidence a second time.