"Yes, sir."
The man stood up. It was the first time he'd moved since they'd entered, and somehow it changed the entire energy of the room. He had the kind of authority that came from years of making decisions that got people killed or kept them alive.
He walked to the window, looked out at the darkness and the distant lights of Arlington.
"Reacher is one of ours. I believe Agent Winthrow is right—he won’t panic. I chose him for a reason. If he's missing, there's a reason. Yes, he could be captured or dead, but my guess is he’s still working and can't make contact.”
He walked back to his desk, placed both hands on it, leaned forward slightly.
"Simmons's death proves someone is scared and they’re trying to stop us. That means we're on the right track."
The man straightened up. Looked at the clock.
"I want Reacher found. I don't care what it takes. Pull every resource we have. Call in every favor. But find him."
"Yes, sir," Winthrow said.
They turned toward the door. Winthrow moved quickly, already pulling out her phone. Marks followed, slower, his face still hard but thoughtful now.
They were almost to the door when the man spoke again. His voice was quiet, but it stopped them both in their tracks.
"Someone find Joe Reacher. Right now."
It wasn't a request. It wasn't even an order, really. It was something more fundamental than that. It was a statement of fact. A declaration of intent. The kind of thing that would happen because he had said it would happen, and the universe would bend itself to make it so.
Winthrow nodded once, sharp and certain. "Yes, sir."
Then they were gone, the door closing behind them with a soft click.
The man stood alone in his office. The lamp still burned. The clock still ticked. Outside, the Potomac flowed invisible in the darkness, and across the water, the lights of Arlington burned cold and distant.
He walked back to his desk. Sat down. Unlocked the drawer and pulled out the file he'd been reading. Opened it to the page he'd marked.
Then he went back to reading, the lamp casting its small pool of light in the darkness.
The clock ticked.
The office was silent except for the turning of pages.
And the man read on, patient and relentless, while the hours burned away toward dawn.
22
The snow began to fall in earnest.
Joe Reacher had been driving for over four hours and what had started as scattered flakes caught in the headlights, had now thickened into a steady curtain that reduced the world to twenty yards of visible road and nothing beyond.
The wipers beat a steady rhythm across the windshield.
The heater blasted dry air that smelled like the engine might be working too hard.
He was deep in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where the roads narrowed and the towns grew sparse and the darkness between settlements stretched for miles. The landscape had changed gradually over the past hour. Signs of human habitation were rare and the forest pressed in close.
The truck's headlights carved a tunnel through the night. Beyond that tunnel, there was nothing. Just trees, snow and darkness.
Joe liked it. It reminded him of places he'd been.
He checked the odometer. Another thirty miles to the next town marked on the gas station map he'd picked up. After that, the roads got even smaller. Logging roads, mostly. Some paved,some not. The kind of roads that didn't show up on regular maps.
