Page 10 of Chain Reaction

“Is your new unit really a hundred times bigger than the 110th?”

“What was your max?”

“About ten people, I think.”

“Then exactly a hundred times bigger. My full strength is a thousand people.”

“How well do you know them?”

“Some better than others, all of them a little. None of them well enough to know who could be the bad apple. Not even remotely. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“I guess it was.”

“What would you do now, if you were me?”

“With a thousand people? Not my thing. Ten was bad enough. I would come at it from the other end. That’s my current plan, anyway. The locals out here will tell me who called them with the job, and whoever that turns out to be will tell me who they’re working for ultimately, and whoever that is will tell me who gave them the scoop from inside your department.”

“You think they’ll just tell you?”

“If I ask in a sensitive manner. Like a therapist. I expect by now they’re ready to unburden their consciences.”

“Keep it clean,” she said. “I mean, to the extent you can. There will be a lot of scrutiny afterward.”

“Another good reason to get a clean skin from the outside, unknown, anonymous, and most of all definitely not on your payroll. If something bad happens, I was just some random guy acting alone. Nothing to see here.”

She said, “Do you mind?”

“No,” he said. “Remember what I said. I go where I want. Which also implies the opposite. I don’t go where I don’t want. And I’m here.”

“Understood.”

“Goodnight,” he said. “Sleep tight.”

“You too,” she said. “And thanks.”

—

Ten minutes later the dark emptiness outside changed to ghostly shapes winking silver in the moonlight. Solar panels, huge, both sides of the road, thousands of them, maybe tens of thousands, gleaming, endless, all in straight neat ranks canted upward like stadium seating, all calibrated to some precise point of the compass, all aimed at some exact degree of elevation. The old Tahoe was loping along about fifty miles an hour, maybe more, and even so it took a good long spell before it drove out the other end of the glittering field.

The kid at the wheel said, “It’s still generating right now, technically. A fraction of a watt per panel, depending on the clouds. A full moon on a clear night can generate quite a bit. Enough to power a street of houses, they say. Moonlight is reflected sunlight, after all, so why not?”

“Impressive,” Reacher said.

“And that’s the small field. The main field is west of the motel. You’ll see it in the morning. That one really is impressive.”

—

The two-lane widened immediately after the last of the solar panels fell away behind. A left-turn lane was added in the center, with two white arrows butted head to head. Some kind of a crossroads, with a sense of something in the darkness both left and right. No traffic light. The Tahoe turned left, and the sweep of its high beams showed the motel up ahead, standing alone in a generous lot all its own. It was a long low building, one story, painted barn red like New England, office on the left with a car portico, rooms in a long line to the right, maybe twelve or fourteen. A standard layout, like a thousand others, but it looked straight and true and well maintained. Not the Ritz-Carlton, but a decent place, like the kid had said.

Reacher paid him his two hundred, and added a fifty-dollar tip. He waved him away and headed for the office. Behind the counter was a night clerk, an old guy, awake, reading a paperback book. There was a computer screen and a keyboard, and a closed door in the back wall. An inner office, most likely.

There was a weekly rate on offer, much cheaper than seven single nights, but Reacher never booked more than the minimum. The old guy took his cash and gave him a metal key on a plastic tag. Room ten, he said, past halfway down the row. No one in nine or eleven, he said, so a quiet night was guaranteed. Then he asked, “The solar or the servers?”

“Tourism,” Reacher said.

“There’s not much to see here.”

“Well, maybe not right now,” Reacher said. “In the dark.”