Lee Child - Jack Reacher 05 Echo Burning

Echo Burning

People think that writing is a lonely, solitary trade.

They're wrong. It's a team game, and I'm lucky enoughto have charming and talented people on my sideeverywhere I'm published. Accordingly, if you everworked on or sold one of my books, this one isdedicated to you. You're too numerous to mentionindividually, but too important not to mention at all.

There were three watchers, two men and a boy. They

were using telescopes, not field glasses. It was aquestion of distance. They were almost a mile from theirtarget area, because of the terrain. There was no closercover. It was low, undulating country, burned khaki bythe sun, grass and rock and sandy soil alike. Thenearest safe concealment was the broad dip they werein, a bone-dry gulch scraped out a million years ago bya different climate, when there had been rain and fernsand rushing rivers.

The men lay prone in the dust with the early heat ontheir backs, their telescopes at their eyes. The boyscuttled around on his knees, fetching water from thecooler, watching for waking rattlesnakes, loggingcomments in a notebook. They had arrived before firstlight in a dusty pick-up truck, the long way around,across the empty land from the west. They had thrown adirty tarpaulin over the truck and held it down withrocks. They had eased forward to the rim of the dip andsettled in, raising their telescopes as the low morningsun dawned to the east behind the red house almost amile away. This was Friday, their fifth consecutivemorning, and they were low on conversation.

"Time?" one of the men asked. His voice was nasal,the effect of keeping one eye open and the other eyeshut.

The boy checked his watch.

"Six-fifty," he answered.

"Any moment now," the man with the telescope said.

The boy opened his book and prepared to make thesame notes he had made four times before.

"Kitchen light on," the man said.

The boy wrote it down. 6:50, kitchen light on. Thekitchen faced them, looking west away from themorning sun, so it stayed dark even after dawn.

"On her own?" the boy asked.

"Same as always," the second man said, squinting.

Maid prepares breakfast, the boy wrote. Target still inbed. The sun rose, inch by inch. It jacked itself higherinto the sky and pulled the shadows shorter andshorter. The red house had a tall chimney coming out ofthe kitchen wing like the finger on a sundial. Theshadow it made swung and shortened and the heat on

the watchers' shoulders built higher. Seven o'clock inthe morning, and it was already hot. By eight, it wouldbe burning. By nine, it would be fearsome. And theywere there all day, until dark, when they could slip awayunseen.

"Bedroom drapes opening," the second man said.

"She's up and about."

The boy wrote it down. 7:04, bedroom drapes open.

"Now listen," the first man said.

They heard the well pump kick in, faintly from almost amile away. A quiet mechanical click, and then a steadylow drone.

"She's showering," the man said.

The boy wrote it down. 7:06, target starts to shower.

The men rested their eyes. Nothing was going tohappen while she was in the shower. How could it?

They lowered their telescopes and blinked against thebrassy sun in their eyes. The well pump clicked off aftersix minutes. The silence sounded louder than the faintnoise had. The boy wrote: 7:12, target out of shower.

The men raised their telescopes again.

"She's dressing, I guess," the first man said.

The boy giggled. "Can you see her naked?"

The second man was triangulated twenty feet to thesouth. He had the better view of the back of the house,where her bedroom window was.

"You're disgusting," he said. "You know that?"

The boy wrote: 7:15, probably dressing. Then: 7:20,probably downstairs, probably eating breakfast.

"She'll go back up, brush her teeth," he said. The manon the left shifted on his elbows. "For sure," he said.

"Prissy little thing like that." "She's closing her drapesagain," the man on the right said. It was standardpractice in the west of Texas, in the summer, especiallyif your bedroom faced south, like this one did. Unlessyou wanted to sleep the next night in a room hotter thana pizza oven.

"Stand by," the man said. "A buck gets ten she goesout to the barn now." It was a wager that nobody took,because so far four times out of four she had doneexactly that, and watchers are paid to notice patterns.

"Kitchen door's open." The boy wrote: 7:27, kitchendoor opens. "Here she comes."

She came out, dressed in a blue gingham dress thatreached to her knees and left her shoulders bare. Herhair was tied back behind her head. It was still dampfrom the shower.

"What do you call that sort of a dress?" the boy asked.

"Halter," the man on the left said. 7:28, comes out, bluehalter dress, goes to barn, the boy wrote. She walkedacross the yard, short hesitant steps against the unevenruts in the baked earth, maybe seventy yards. Sheheaved the barn door open and disappeared in thegloom inside.

The boy wrote: 7:29, target in barn. "How hot is it?"

the man on the left asked. "Maybe a hundred degrees,"

the boy said. "There'll be a storm soon.

Heat like this, there has to be." "Here comes her ride,"

the man on the right said.

Miles to the south, there was a dust cloud on the road.

A vehicle, making slow and steady progress north.

"She's coming back," the man on the right said. 7'32,target comes out of barn, the boy wrote. "Maid's at thedoor," the man said.

The target stopped at the kitchen door and took herlunch box from the maid.

It was bright blue plastic with a cartoon picture on theside. She paused ror a second. Her skin was pink anddamp from the heat. She leaned down to adjust hersocks and then trotted out to the gate, through the gate,to the shoulder of the road. The school bus slowed andstopped and the door opened with a sound thewatchers heard clearly over the faint rattle of the idlingengine.

The chrome handrails flashed once in the sun. Thediesel exhaust hung and drifted in the hot still air. Thetarget heaved her lunch box onto the step and graspedthe bright rails and clambered up after it. The doorclosed again and the watchers saw her corn-coloredhead bobbing along level with the base of the windows.

Then the engine noise deepened and the gears caughtand the bus moved away with a new cone of dustkicking up behind it. 7:36, target on bus to school, theboy wrote.

The road north was dead straight and he turned hishead and watched the bus all the way until the heat onthe horizon broke it up into a shimmering yellow mirage.

Then he closed his notebook and secured it with arubber band. Back at the red house, the maid stepped