Not a Drill: A Jack Reacher Short Story (3 page)

“Who did?”

“The cops. State, I think. They strung tape across the entrance.”

“When?”

“In the night.”

“Why?”

“No one knows.”

“They won’t tell us,” Suzanne said. “We’ve been calling all morning. All they’ll say is the trail is closed until further notice.”

Another guy said, “It’s closed at Cripps, too. We started that end last year. I still have the motel number. Same situation. Tape between the trees.”

Reacher said, “It’s a four-day walk, right? There must be a bunch of people still in there. Maybe something happened.”

“Then why won’t they tell us?”

Reacher said nothing. Not his problem. All he wanted was pancakes. And coffee, more urgently. He looked for the waitress, and caught her eye, and found an empty table.

Henry followed him straight to it. “Can they do that?”

Reacher said, “Do what?”

“Close the trail like that.”

“They just did.”

“Is it legal?”

“How would I know?”

“You were a cop.”

“I was a military cop. I wasn’t a park ranger.”

“It’s a public resource.”

“I’m sure there’s a good reason. Maybe someone got eaten by a bear.”

One by one the whole disgruntled group came over and gathered around. Eleven people standing up, Reacher sitting down. The guy who still had the number for the Cripps motel asked, “How do you know that?”

Reacher said, “Know what?”

“That someone got attacked by a bear.”

“I said maybe. Like a joke.”

“Bear attacks aren’t very funny.”

A guy said, “Maybe it’s just a drill.”

“What kind of drill?”

“Like a rehearsal. For a medical emergency, maybe. For the first responders.”

“Then why would they say until further notice? Why wouldn’t they say until lunchtime today, or some such?”

Another guy asked, “Who should we call?”

Suzanne said, “They’re not telling us anything.”

“We could try the governor’s office.”

Another woman said, “Like he’s going to tell us anything, if the others aren’t.”

“It can’t be bears.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Suzanne looked at Reacher and said, “What should we do?”

Reacher said, “Go for a walk someplace else.”

“We can’t. We’re stuck here. Helen’s got the van.”

“She left already?”

“She didn’t want to eat breakfast here.”

“Can’t you call her?”

“No bars.”

“Bars aren’t open yet.”

“I mean no cell phone coverage here. We can’t call her. We tried, from the payphone in the store. She’s off the network somewhere.”

“So go kayaking instead. That’s probably just as much fun.”

Henry said, “I don’t want to go kayaking. I want to walk the trail.”

Eventually the small crowd wandered away again, out through the door to the parking lot, still mumbling and grumbling, and the waitress came by to take Reacher’s order. He ate and drank in silence, and he got the check, and he paid in cash. He asked the waitress, “Does the trail get closed a lot?”

She said, “It never happened before.”

“Did you see who did it?”

She shook her head. “I was asleep.”

“Where’s the nearest state police barracks?”

“The kayak owner says it was soldiers.”

“Does he?”

She nodded. “He says he saw them.”

“In the middle of the night?”

She nodded again. “He lives nearest the arch. They woke him up.”

Reacher put an extra dollar on her tip and walked out to the street. He turned right and took a step in the direction of out of town, but then he stopped and went back and found the hundred-yard side street that led to the trail.

Henry and Suzanne were right there at the arch. Just the two of them. They had their backpacks on. The arch had tape tied across it, three lengths, one knee high, one waist high, and one chest high, all two-inch plastic ribbon, blue and white, twisted on itself in places, saying
Police Line Do Not Cross
.

Henry said, “See?”

Reacher said, “I believed you the first time.”

“So what do you think?”

“I think the trail is closed.”

Henry turned away and stared at the tape, like he could make it dematerialize by willpower alone. Reacher walked back to Main Street, and onward out of town, to the welcome board on the shoulder. Ten minutes, he thought. Maybe less. He figured that morning’s exodus would be brisker than normal.

But the first vehicle he saw was coming, not going. Into town, not out. And it was a military vehicle. A Humvee, to be precise, painted up in black and green camouflage. It roared past, all thrashing gears and whining tires. It took the curve and disappeared.

Four guys in it, hard men, all in the new Army Combat Uniform.

Reacher waited. A minute later a car came driving out of town, but it was full.
Two in the front, two in the back. No room for a hitchhiker, especially one as large as Reacher. He recognized people he had seen in the diner, disconsolate and complaining, boots on and ready, backpacks piled in the corner, no place to go.

He waited.

Next up was another Humvee, heading in, not out. Roaring engine, thrashing drive train, howling tires, four guys wearing ACUs. Reacher watched it around the corner and even at a distance he heard it slow, and change gear, and speed up again. A right hand turn, he thought, and he would have bet the few bucks in his pocket it was heading for the wooden arch.

He stared after it, thinking.

Then another car came driving out of town. A sedan. Two people. An empty back seat. The driver was the guy who still had the number for the motel in Cripps. He slowed and stopped and the woman next to him buzzed her window down. She asked, “Where are you headed?”

Reacher said nothing.

She said, “We’re going back to Boston.”

Which would have been great. Three hours from New York. Multiple routes. Lots of traffic. But Reacher said, “I’m sorry, but I changed my mind. I’m going to stay here.”

The woman shrugged and the car took off without him.

He walked back to the cabin rental office and rang the bell. His cabin was still available. He paid for another night, and got the same key in return. Then he headed for the arch, a hundred yards along the side street, and when he got there he found the two Humvees and their eight occupants. The Humvees were parked side by side, noses out, blocking the whole width of the road. Their occupants already had their boots on the ground. They were all armed with M16s. They were setting up an exclusion zone. Reacher knew the signs. Two squads, four hours on, four hours off. Military police, for sure. Reacher knew those signs, too. Not the National Guard, either. Regular U.S. Army. Not a drill. No one was going to get past them.

There was no sign of Henry or Suzanne.

Reacher said, “Sergeant?”

One of the grunts turned around. Chevrons on the tab in the center of his chest. Twenty years younger than Reacher, at least. A whole different generation. The military police has no secret handshake. No magic word. And no real inclination to shoot the breeze with some ancient geezer, no matter who he might claim to have been, one day long ago, way back when.

The sergeant said, “Sir, you need to step back ten yards.”

Reacher said, “That would be a hell of a long step, wouldn’t it?”

Two PFCs were hauling sawhorses out of a Humvee. A-shaped ends, and planks to fit between, marked
No Entry
.

Reacher said, “I’m guessing your orders are to keep people out of the woods. Which is fine with me. Knock yourselves out. But close observation of the terrain will reveal the woods start where the woods start, not a Humvee’s length plus ten yards down the street.”

The sergeant said, “Who are you?”

“I’m a guy who once read the Constitution.”

“This whole place is woods.”

“So I noticed.”

“So back off now.”

“Unit?”

“345th MP.”

“Name?”

“Cain. Spelled
C, A, I, N
, with no
E
.”

“You got a brother?”

“Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

Reacher nodded. He said, “Carry on the good work, sergeant,” and he turned and walked away.

He went back to the cabin rental office, and rang the bell again. The old guy stepped up, creakily, and Reacher asked him, “Are my friends still here? The people I came in with? Henry something and Suzanne something?”

“They checked out early this morning.”

“They didn’t come back again?”

“They’re gone, mister.”

Reacher nodded, and headed for his hut, where he spent the next four hours on the back deck, sitting in one lawn chair, his feet up on the other, watching the sky. It was another beautiful day, and he saw nothing except bright blue emptiness, and wispy contrails arching way overhead, eight miles up.

In the early afternoon he headed to the diner for a late lunch. He was the only customer. The town felt deserted. No trail, no business. The waitress didn’t look happy. Not just about the lack of revenue. She was on the wall phone, listening to someone, concern on her face. A tale of woe, clearly. She hung up after a long minute and walked over to Reacher’s table.

She said, “They’re sending search parties south from Cripps. For the walkers. They’re grabbing them and hustling them out. Real fast.”