And he would go one step further. He would add a fifteenth item to the list. He was a little dismayed that it had not already been proposed. But then, he was Plato, and they weren’t.
He would break the chain, for safety’s sake.
He would have the lawyer silenced, too.
FIVE
PETERSON LED REACHER OUT INTO THE FREEZING NIGHT AND asked if he was hungry. Reacher said yes, he was starving. So Peterson drove to a chain restaurant next to a gas station on the main route out to the highway. His car was a standard police specification Ford Crown Victoria, with winter tyres on the front and chains on the back. Inside it smelled of heat and rubber and hamburger grease and warm circuit boards. Outside it had nearly stopped snowing.
‘Getting too cold to snow,’ Peterson said. Which seemed to be true. The night sky had partially cleared and a vast frigid bowl of arctic air had clamped down. It struck through Reacher’s inadequate clothing and set him shivering again on the short walk through the restaurant lot.
He said, ‘I thought there was supposed to be a big storm coming.’
Peterson said, ‘There are two big storms coming. This is what happens. They’re pushing cold air ahead of them.’
‘How long before they get here?’
‘Soon enough.’
‘And then it’s going to warm up?’
‘Just a little. Enough to let it snow.’
‘Good. I’ll take snow over cold.’
Peterson said, ‘You think this is cold?’
‘It ain’t warm.’
‘This is nothing.’
‘I know,’ Reacher said. ‘I spent a winter in Korea. Colder than this.’