Echo Burning by Lee Child Read online

  “So what do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said, although he was certain that she did.

  “Help you run? I could do that, probably.”

  She said nothing.

  “You picked me out,” he said. “You must have had something in mind.”

  She said nothing. He fell to thinking about the potential target group she had outlined to him. Out-of-work rodeo riders and roughnecks. Men of various talents, but he wasn’t sure if beating a federal manhunt would be among them. So she had chosen well. Or lucked out.

  “You need to move fast,” he said. “Two days, you need to get started right now. We should pick Ellie up and turn the car around and get going. Vegas, maybe, for the first stop.”

  “And do what there?”

  “Pick up some ID,” he said. “Place like Vegas, we could find something, even if it’s only temporary. I’ve got some money. I can get more, if you need it.”

  “I can’t take your money,” she said. “That wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Fair or not, you’re going to need money. You can pay me back later. Then maybe you should go back to L.A. You could start building some new paperwork there.”

  She was quiet again, another mile.

  “No, I can’t run,” she said. “I can’t be a fugitive. I can’t be an illegal. Whatever else I am, I’ve never been an illegal. I’m not going to start being one now. And neither is Ellie. She deserves better than that.”

  “You both deserve better than that,” he said. “But you’ve got to do something.”

  “I’m a citizen,” she said. “Think about what that means to a person like me. I’m not going to give it up. I’m not going to pretend to be somebody else.”

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “You’re my plan,” she said.

  Bull riders, roughnecks, a six-foot-five two-hundred-fifty-pound ex-military cop.

  “You want me to be your bodyguard ?” he asked.

  She made no reply.

  “Carmen, I’m sorry about your situation,” he said. “Believe me, I really am.”

  No response.

  “But I can’t be your bodyguard.”

  No reply.

  “I can’t be,” he said again. “It’s ridiculous. What do you think is going to happen? You think I’m going to be with you twenty-four hours a day? Seven days a week? Making sure he doesn’t hit you?”

  No reply. A huge highway interchange sprawled across the empty landscape, miles away in the haze.

  “It’s ridiculous,” he said again. “I could warn him off, I guess. I could scare him. I could smack him around a little, to back up the message. But what happens when I’m gone? Because sooner or later, I’m going to be gone, Carmen. I’m not going to stay around. I don’t like to stay anywhere. And it’s not just me. Face it, nobody is going to stay around. Not long enough. Not ten years. Or twenty, or thirty or however long it is until he ups and dies of old age.”

  No reply. No effect, either. It wasn’t like what he was saying was a big disappointment to her. She just listened and drove, fast and smooth, and silent, like she was biding her time. The highway cloverleaf grew larger and nearer and she swooped onto it and around it and headed due west, following a big green sign that said: Pecos 75 miles.

  “I don’t want a bodyguard,” she said. “I agree, that would be ridiculous.”

  “So what am I supposed to be for?”

  She settled onto the highway, center lane, driving faster than before. He watched her face. It was completely blank.

  “What am I supposed to be for?” he asked again.

  She hesitated. “I can’t say it.”

  “Say what?”

  She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Swallowed hard, and said nothing. He stared at her. Bull riders, roughnecks, an ex-MP. Clay Allison’s grave, the fancy inscription, the obituary in the Kansas City newspaper.

  “You are crazy,” he said.

  “Am I?” The spots of color came back to her face, the size of quarters, burning red high above her cheekbones.

  “Totally crazy,” he said. “And you can forget about it.”

  “I can’t forget about it.”

  He said nothing.

  “I want him dead, Reacher,” she said. “I really do. It’s my only way out, literally. And he deserves it.”

  “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “I’m not kidding,” she said. “I want him killed.”

  He shook his head. Stared out of the window.

  “Just forget all about it,” he said. “It’s absurd. This isn’t the Wild West anymore.”

  “Isn’t it? Isn’t it still O.K. to kill a man who needs killing?”

  Then she went quiet, just driving, like she was waiting him out. He stared at the speeding landscape in front of him. They were heading for the distant mountains. The blazing afternoon sun made them red and purple. It changed the color of the air. The Trans-Pecos, she had called them.

  “Please, Reacher,” she said. “Please. At least think about it.”

  He said nothing. Please? Think about it? He was beyond reaction. He dropped his eyes from the mountains and watched the highway. It was busy with traffic. A river of cars and trucks, crawling across the vastness. She was passing them all, one after another. Driving way too fast.

  “I’m not crazy,” she said. “Please. I tried to do this right. I really did. Soon as his lawyer told me about the deal, I saw a lawyer of my own, and then three more, and none of them could do anything for me as fast as a month. All they could do was tell me Ellie traps me exactly where I am. So then I looked for protection. I asked private detectives. They wouldn’t do anything for me. I went to a security firm in Austin and they said yes, they could guard me around the clock, but it would be six men and nearly ten thousand dollars a week. Which is the same thing as saying no. So I tried, Reacher. I tried to do it right. But it’s impossible.”

  He said nothing.

  “So I bought a gun,” she said.

  “Wonderful,” he said.

  “And bullets,” she said. “It took all the cash I had.”

  “You picked the wrong guy,” he said.

  “But why? You’ve killed people before. In the army. You told me that.”

  “This is different.”

  “How?”

  “This would be murder. Cold-blooded murder. It would be an assassination.”

  “No, it would be just the same. Just like the army.”

  He shook his head. “Carmen, it wouldn’t be the same.”

  “Don’t you take an oath or something? To protect people?”

  “It’s not the same,” he said again.

  She passed an eighteen-wheeler bound for the coast, and the Cadillac rocked and shimmied through the superheated turbulent air.

  “Slow down,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I can’t slow down. I want to see Ellie.”

  He touched the dashboard in front of him, steadying himself. The freezing air from the vents blasted against his chest.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to crash. Ellie needs me. If it wasn’t for Ellie, I’d have crashed a long time ago, believe me.”

  But she eased off a little, anyway. The big rig crept back alongside.

  “I know this is a difficult conversation,” she said.

  “You think?”

  “But you have to look at it from my point of view. Please, Reacher. I’ve been through it a million times. I’ve thought it through. I’ve been from A to B to C to D, all the way to Z. Then again, and again. And again. I’ve examined all the options. So this is all logical to me. And this is the only way. I know that. But it’s hard to talk about, because it’s new to you. You haven’t thought about it before. It comes out of the blue. So I sound crazy and cold-blooded to you. I know that. I appreciate that. But I’m not crazy or cold-blooded. It’s just that I’ve had the time to reach the conclusion, and you haven’t. And this is the only concl
usion, I promise you.”

  “Whatever, I’m not killing a guy I never saw before.”

  “He hits me, Reacher,” she said. “He beats me, badly. Punches me, kicks me, hurts me. He enjoys it. He laughs while he does it. I live in fear, all the time.”

  “So go to the cops.”

  “The cop. There’s only one. And he wouldn’t believe me. And even if he did, he wouldn’t do anything about it. They’re all big buddies. You don’t know how it is here.”

  Reacher said nothing.

  “He’s coming home,” she said. “Can you imagine what he’s going to do to me?”

  He said nothing.

  “I’m trapped, Reacher. I’m boxed in, because of Ellie. Do you see that?”

  He said nothing.

  “Why won’t you help me? Is it the money? Is it because I can’t pay you?”

  He said nothing.

  “I’m desperate,” she said. “You’re my only chance. I’m begging you. Why won’t you do it? Is it because I’m Mexican?”

  He said nothing.

  “It’s because I’m just a greaseball, right? A beaner? You’d do it for a white woman? Like your girlfriend? I bet she’s a white woman. Probably a blonde, right?”

  “Yes, she’s a blonde,” he said.

  “Some guy was beating up on her, you’d kill him.”

  Yes, I would, he thought.

  “And she ran off to Europe without you. Didn’t want you to go with her. But you’d do it for her, and you won’t do it for me.”

  “It’s not the same,” he said for the third time.

  “I know,” she said. “Because I’m just beaner trash. I’m not worth it.”

  He said nothing.

  “What’s her name?” she asked. “Your girlfriend?”

  “Jodie,” he said.

  “O.K., imagine Jodie over there in Europe. She’s trapped in some bad situation, getting beat up every day by some maniac sadist. She tells you all about it. Bares her soul. Every horrible humiliating detail. What are you going to do?”

  Kill him, he thought.

  She nodded like she could read his mind. “But you won’t do that for me. You’d do it for the gringa, but not for me.”

  He paused a beat with his mouth halfway open. It was true. He would do it for Jodie Garber, but he wouldn’t do it for Carmen Greer. Why not? Because it comes in a rush. You can’t force it. It’s a hot-blooded thing, like a drug in your veins, and you go with it. If it’s not there, you can’t go with it. Simple as that. He’d gone with it before in his life, many times. People mess with him, they get what they get. They mess with Jodie, that’s the same thing as messing with him. Because Jodie was him. Or at least she used to be. In a way that Carmen wasn’t. And never would be. So it just wasn’t there.

  “It’s not about gringas or latinas,” he said quietly.

  She said nothing.

  “Please, Carmen,” he said. “You need to understand that.”

  “So what is it about?”

  “It’s about I know her and I don’t know you.”

  “And that makes a difference?”

  “Of course it does.”

  “Then get to know me,” she said. “We’ve got two days. You’re about to meet my daughter. Get to know us.”

  He said nothing. She drove on. Pecos 55 miles.

  “You were a policeman,” she said. “You should want to help people. Or are you scared? Is that it? Are you a coward?”

  He said nothing.

  “You could do it,” she said. “You’ve done it before. So you know how. You could do it and get clean away. You could dump his body where nobody would find it. Out in the desert. Nobody would ever know. It wouldn’t come back on you, if you were careful. You’d never get caught. You’re smart enough.”

  He said nothing.

  “Are you smart enough? Do you know how? Do you?”

  “Of course I know how,” he said. “But I won’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you why not. Because I’m not an assassin.”

  “But I’m desperate,” she said. “I need you to do this. I’m begging you. I’ll do anything if you’ll help me.”

  He said nothing.

  “What do you want, Reacher? You want sex? We could do that.”

  “Stop the car,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve had enough of this.”

  She jammed her foot down hard on the gas. The car leapt forward. He glanced back at the traffic and leaned over toward her and knocked the transmission into N. The engine unloaded and screamed and the car coasted and slowed. He used his left hand on the wheel and hauled it around against her desperate grip and steered the car to the shoulder. It bounced off the blacktop and the gravel bit against the tires and the speed washed away. He jammed the lever into P and opened his door, all in one movement. The car skidded to a stop with the transmission locked. He slid out and stood up unsteadily. Felt the heat on his body like a blow from a hammer and slammed the door and walked away from her.

  4

  He was sweating heavily twenty yards after getting out of the car. And already regretting his decision. He was in the middle of nowhere, on foot on a major highway, and the slowest vehicles were doing sixty. Nobody was going to want to stop for him. Even if they did want to, give them a little reaction time, give them a little time to check their mirrors, a little braking time, they’d be more than a mile away before they knew it, and then they’d shrug their shoulders and speed up again and keep on going. Dumb place to hitch a ride, they’d think.

  It was worse than dumb. It was suicidal. The sun was fearsome and the temperature was easily a hundred and twelve degrees. The slipstream from the cars was like a hot gale, and the suction from the giant trucks wasn’t far from pulling him off his feet. He had no water. He could barely breathe. There was a constant stream of people five yards away, but he was as alone as if he was stumbling blind through the desert. If a state trooper didn’t come by and arrest him for jaywalking, he could die out there.

  He turned and saw the Cadillac, still sitting inert on the shoulder. But he kept on walking away from it. He made it about fifty yards and stopped. Turned to face east and stuck out his thumb. But it was hopeless, like he knew it would be. After five minutes, a hundred vehicles, the nearest thing he’d gotten to a response was some trucker blasting his air horn, a huge bass sound roaring past him with a whine of stressed tires and a hurricane of dust and grit. He was choking and burning up.

  He turned again. Saw the Cadillac lurch backward and start up the shoulder toward him. Her steering was imprecise. The rear end was all over the place. It was close to slewing out into the traffic. He started walking back to it. It came on to meet him, fishtailing wildly. He started running. He stopped alongside the car as she braked hard. The suspension bounced. She buzzed the passenger window down.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He didn’t hear it in the noise, but he caught the shape of the words.

  “Get in,” she said.

  His shirt was sticking to his back. He had grit in his eyes. The howl of sound from the road was deafening him.

  “Get in,” she mouthed. “I’m sorry.”

  He got in. It felt exactly the same as the first time. The air roaring, the freezing leather seat. The small cowed woman at the wheel.

  “I apologize,” she said. “I’m sorry. I said stupid things.”

  He slammed the door. There was sudden silence. He put his hand in the chill stream from the vents.

  “I didn’t mean them,” she said.

  “Whatever,” he said back.

  “Really, I didn’t mean them. I’m just so desperate I can’t tell right from wrong anymore. And I’m very sorry for the thing about the sex. It was a crass thing to say.”

  Then her voice went small. “It’s just that some of the guys I’ve picked up, I figured that was what it was going to have to be.”

  “You’d have sex with them so they
’d kill your husband?”

  She nodded. “I told you, I’m trapped and I’m scared and I’m desperate. And I don’t have anything else to offer.”

  He said nothing.

  “And I’ve seen movies where that happens,” she said.

  He nodded back.

  “I’ve seen those movies, too,” he said. “They never get away with it.”

  She paused a long moment.

  “So you’re not going to do it,” she said, like a statement of fact.

  “No, I’m not,” he said.

  She paused again, longer.

  “O.K., I’ll let you out in Pecos,” she said. “You can’t be out there walking. You could die in heat like this.”

  He paused too, much longer than she had. Then he shook his head. Because he had to be somewhere. When you live on the road, you learn pretty quick that any one place is about as good as any other place.

  “No, I’ll come with you,” he said. “I’ll hang out a couple of days. Because I’m sorry about your situation, Carmen. I really am. Just because I won’t walk in and shoot the guy doesn’t mean I don’t want to help you some other way. If I can. And if you still want me to, that is.”

  She paused another beat.

  “Yes, I still want you to,” she said.

  “And I want to meet Ellie. She looks like a great kid, from her picture.”

  “She is a great kid.”

  “But I’m not going to murder her father.”

  She said nothing.

  “Is that completely clear?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “I understand,” she said. “I’m sorry I asked.”

  “It’s not just me, Carmen,” he said. “Nobody would do it. You were fooling yourself. It wasn’t a good plan.”

  She looked small and lost.

  “I thought nobody could refuse,” she said. “If they knew.”

  She turned and watched the traffic coming up behind her. Waited for a gap. Six cars later, she pulled back onto the highway and gunned the motor. Within a minute she was doing eighty again, passing one car after another. The trucker who had used his air horn as he left Reacher in the dust lasted seven whole minutes, before she reeled him in.

  The Crown Victoria made it to the destination the woman had selected within eighty minutes. It was an inch-wide empty brown stain on the map, and it was a forty-mile-wide empty brown stain in reality. One road ran through it, meandering roughly north and east in the lee of distant mountains. Hot, lonely, valueless country. But it had all the features she had predicted. It would serve her purposes. She smiled to herself. She had an instinct for terrain.