Without Fail - Lee Child [167]
“Might be a new model Chevy Tahoe,” she called. “Light gold metallic. Sun is on the windshield. No ID on the occupants.”
Reacher looked north again. The road was still empty. He could see ten miles. It would take ten minutes to cover ten miles even at a fast cruise. He stood up straight and stretched. Ducked under the clock shafts and crawled over next to Neagley. She moved to her right and he wiped his eyes and stared out south. There was a tiny gold speck on the road, all alone, maybe five miles away.
“Not exactly busy,” she said. “Is it?”
She passed him the scope. He refocused it and propped its weight on a louver and squinted through it. The telephoto compression held the truck motionless. It looked like it was bouncing and swaying on the road but making absolutely no forward progress at all. It looked dirty and travel-stained. It had a big chrome front fender all smeared with mud and salt. The windshield was streaked. The sun’s reflection made it impossible to see who was riding in it.
“Why is it still sunny?” he said. “I thought it was going to snow.”
“Look to the west,” Neagley said.
He put the scope down and turned and put the left side of his face tight against the louvers. Closed his right eye and looked out sideways with his left. The sky was split in two. In the west it was almost black with clouds. In the east it was pale blue and hazy. Giant multiple shafts of sunlight blazed down through mist where the two weather systems met.
“Unbelievable,” he said.
“Some kind of inversion,” Neagley said. “I hope it stays where it is or we’ll freeze our asses off up here.”
“It’s about fifty miles away.”
“And the wind generally blows in from the west.”
“Great.”
He picked up the scope again and checked on the golden truck. It was maybe a mile closer, bucking and swaying on the dirt. It must have been doing about sixty.
“What do you think?” Neagley said.
“Nice vehicle,” he said. “Awful color.”
He watched it come on another mile and then handed back the scope.
“I should check north,” he said.
He crawled under the clock shaft and made it back to his own louver. There was nothing happening in the north. The road was still empty. He reversed his previous maneuver and put his right cheek against the wood and closed his left eye with his hand and checked west again. The snow clouds were clamped down on the mountains. It was like night and day, with an abrupt transition where the foothills started.
“It’s a Chevy Tahoe for sure,” Neagley called. “It’s slowing down.”
“See the plate?”
“Not yet. It’s about a mile out now, slowing.”
“See who’s in it?”
“I’ve got sun and tinted glass. No ID. Half a mile out now.” Reacher glanced north. No traffic.
“Nevada plates, I think,” Neagley called. “Can’t read them. They’re all covered in mud. It’s right on the edge of town. It’s going real slow now. Looks like a reconnaissance cruise. It’s not stopping. Still no ID on the occupants. It’s getting real close now. I’m looking right down at the roof. Dark tint on the rear side glass. I’m going to lose them any second. It’s right underneath us now.”
Reacher stood up tight against the wall and peered down at the best angle he could get. The way the louvers were set in the frame gave him a blind spot maybe forty feet deep.
“Where is it now?” he called.
“Don’t know.”
He heard the sound of an engine over the moan of the wind. A big V-8, turning slowly. He stared down and a metallic gold hood slid into view. Then a roof. Then a rear window. The truck passed all the way underneath him and rolled through the town and crossed the bridge at maybe twenty miles an hour. It stayed slow for a hundred more yards. Then it accelerated. It picked up speed fast.
“Scope,” he called.
Neagley tossed it back to him and he rested it on a louver and watched the truck drive away to the north. The rear window was tinted black and there was an arc where the wiper had cleared the salt spray. The rear bumper was chrome.