Free 61 Hours by Lee Child

hundred now.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘They’re selling methamphetamine. Lots of it. East and west, because of the highway. It’s a big business.’
    ‘So bust them.’
    ‘We’re trying to. It isn’t easy. We have no probable cause for a search out there. Which isn’t normally a problem. A meth lab in a trailer, life expectancy is usually a day or two. They blow up. All you need to do is follow the fire department. All kinds of volatile chemicals. But these guys are very careful. No accidents yet.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘We caught a break. A big-time guy out of Chicago came west to negotiate a bulk purchase. He met with their top boy right here in Bolton. Neutral ground, and civilized. He bought a sample out the back of a pick-up truck in the restaurant parking lot, right where we had dinner.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘We have a witness who saw the whole transaction. The Chicago guy got away, but we grabbed the dope and the money and busted the biker. He’s in the county lock-up right now, awaiting trial.’
    ‘Their top boy? Didn’t that give you probable cause to search his place?’
    ‘His truck is registered in Kentucky. His driver’s licence is from Alabama. He claims that he drove up here. He says he doesn’t live here. We had nothing to link him to. We can’t get a warrant based on the fact that he dresses like some other guys we’ve seen. Judges don’t work that way. They want more.’
    ‘So what’s the plan?’
    ‘We’re going to roll him. We’ll offer him a plea bargain and he’ll give us what we need to clean out the whole mess.’
    ‘Has he agreed?’
    ‘Not yet. He’s waiting us out. Waiting to see if the witness forgets stuff. Or dies.’
    ‘Who’s the witness?’
    ‘A nice old lady, here in town. She’s seventy-plus. Used to be a teacher and a librarian. Perfect credibility.’
    ‘Is she likely to forget stuff or die?’
    ‘Of course she is. That’s how these people do it. They scare the witnesses. Or kill them.’
    ‘Which is why you’re worried about strangers coming to town. You think they’re coming for her.’
    Peterson nodded. Said nothing.
    Reacher took a long pull on his bottle and asked, ‘Why assume it will be a stranger? Couldn’t the bikers come over and take care of it for themselves?’
    Peterson shook his head. ‘We’re all over any biker who shows up in town. As you saw tonight. Everyone watches for them. So it won’t be a biker. It would be self-defeating. Their whole strategy is to deny us probable cause.’
    ‘OK.’
    Peterson said, ‘Someone else is on his way. Has to be. On their behalf. Someone we won’t recognize when he gets here.’

EIGHT
    R EACHER TOOK A THIRD LONG PULL ON HIS BOT TLE AND SAID , ‘I T’S not the bus driver.’
    Peterson asked, ‘How sure are you?’
    ‘How much money are these guys getting for their meth?’
    ‘Two hundred bucks a gram, as far as we know, and we guess they’re moving it in pick-up trucks, which is a whole lot of grams. They could be making millions.’
    ‘In which case they can afford professionals. A professional hit man with a day job as a bus driver is an unlikely combination.’
    Peterson nodded. ‘OK, it’s not the bus driver. Mr Jay Knox is innocent.’
    ‘And you can vouch for all the prison visitors?’
    ‘We watch them. They hit the motels, they get on the shuttle buses to the prison, they come back, they leave the next day. Any change to that pattern, we’d be all over them, too.’
    ‘Where’s the witness?’
    ‘At home. Her name is Janet Salter. She’s a real sweetie. Like astorybook grandma. She lives on a dead-end street, fortunately. We have a car blocking the turn, all day and all night. You saw it.’
    ‘Not enough.’
    ‘We know. We have a second car outside her house and a third parked one street over, watching the back. Plus women officers in the house, the best we’ve got, minimum of four at all times, two awake, two asleep.’
    ‘When is the trial?’
    ‘A month if we’re