Page 67 of Cold Target

He walked to the coffee station—a single pot on a warmer, half-full, probably hours old. He poured a cup into a Styrofoam container. The coffee was black and bitter and exactly what he needed. He grabbed a bottle of aspirin from a shelf and brought both to the counter.

The woman rang them up without comment. Her eyes flicked to his face—the split eyebrow, the swelling—but she didn't ask.

"Four seventy-five," she said.

Her voice was rough, worn smooth by decades of cigarettes or cold air or both.

Joe pulled out a twenty. "And change for the phone."

She made change slowly, counting it out in quarters and dimes. She pushed the coins across the counter along with his bills.

"Phone works," she said. "Mostly."

"Thanks."

He picked up the coffee and aspirin and turned to go.

"Storm's getting worse," the woman said behind him.

He paused, looked back.

She was watching him. "Roads'll be even worse by morning. You got somewhere to be?"

"Yeah."

She nodded slowly, like that confirmed something. "Good luck, then."

Joe pushed back out into the cold.

He stood by the truck for a moment, opened the aspirin bottle, and dry-swallowed four tablets. Then he drank half the coffee in three long pulls. It burned going down.

He walked to the pay phone.

The metal housing was freezing to the touch. He lifted the handset and heard a dial tone. He fed quarters into the slot and dialed the pager number Ivy had given him. Punched in the pay phone's number. Hung up.

Then he waited.

The wind picked up, driving snow across the empty street. Somewhere in the distance, metal creaked—one of the old headframes, maybe, swaying in the wind.

The phone rang.

He grabbed it on the first ring.

"Reacher."

"Joe," Ivy said. "Where are you?"

"Town called Copper City. It’s a happening place."

"Joe, did you know Simmons is dead?”

“What?”

"A sniper at a hotel in Cadillac, this morning. Professional hit. One in the chest, one in the head."

Joe closed his eyes briefly. Simmons. It must have happened right after he left.Goddamnit,he thought. But how? His mind worked through the logic. Joe knew Kinsman had spies in this part of the country. But that didn’t explain everything. Even his own attack, someone could have overheard his conversation in the bar.

But Simmons?