Read Online One Shot by Lee Child - Free Book Online

out of circulation,' Franklin said.
    He was two hours away, in the back of a bus out of Indianapolis. The trip had been slow, but pleasant enough. He had spent Saturday night in New Orleans, in a motel near the bus depot. He had spent Sunday night in Indianapolis. So he had slept and fed himself and showered. But mostly he had rocked and swayed and dozed on buses, watching the passing scenes, observing the chaos of America, and surfing along on the memory of the Norwegian. His life was like that. It was a mosaic of fragments. Details and contexts would fade and be inaccurately recalled, but the feelings and the experiences would weave over time into a tapestry equally full of good times and bad. He didn't know yet exactly where the Norwegian would fall. At that point he thought of her as a missed opportunity. But she would have sailed away soon anyway. Or he would have.
    CNN's intervention had shortened things, but maybe only by a fraction.
    The bus was doing 55 on Route 37, heading south. It stopped in Bloomington.
    Six people got out. One of them left the Indianapolis paper behind. Reacher picked it up and checked the sports. The Yankees were still ahead in the East.
    Then he flipped to the front and checked the news. He saw the headline: Sniper Suspect Hurt in Jail Attack. He read the first three paragraphs: Brain injury.
    Coma. Uncertain prognosis. The journalist seemed torn between condemning the Indiana Board of Corrections for its lawless prisons and applauding Barr's attackers for doing their civic duty.
    This might complicate things, Reacher thought.
    The later paragraphs carried a reprise of the original crime story, plus updated background, plus new facts.
    Reacher read them all. Barr's sister had moved out of his house some months before the incident. The journalist seemed to think that was either a cause or an effect of Barr's evident instability.
    Or both.
    The bus moved out of Bloomington. Reacher folded the paper and propped his head against the window and watched the road. It was a black ribbon, wet with recent rain, and it unspooled beside him with the centre line flashing by like an urgent Morse Code message.
    Reacher wasn't sure what it was saying to him.
    He couldn't read it.
    The bus pulled into a covered depot and Reacher came out into the daylight and found himself five blocks west of where a raised highway curled round behind an old stone building. Indiana limestone, he guessed. The real thing. It would be a bank, he thought, or a courthouse, or maybe a library. There was a black glass tower beyond it. The air was OK. It was colder than Miami but he was still far enough south for winter to feel safely distant. He wasn't going to have to refresh his wardrobe because of weather. He was in white chino pants and a bright yellow canvas shirt. Both were three days old. He figured he would get another day out of them. Then he would buy replacements, cheap. He had brown boat shoes on his feet. No socks. He felt he was dressed for the boardwalk and thought he must look a little out of place in the city.
    He checked his watch. Nine twenty in the morning. He stood on the sidewalk in the diesel fumes and stretched and looked around. The city was one of those heartland places that are neither large nor small, neither new nor old. It wasn't booming and it wasn't decrepit. There was probably some history.
    Probably some corn and soybean trading. Maybe tobacco. Maybe livestock. There was probably a river, or a railhead. Maybe some manufacturing. There was a small downtown area. He could see it ahead of him, east of where he stood.
    Taller structures, some stone, some brick, some billboards. He figured the black glass tower would be the flagship building. No reason to build it anyplace else than the heart of downtown.
    He walked towards it. There was a lot of construction under way. Repairs, renewals, holes in the road, gravel piles, fresh concrete, heavy trucks moving slowly. He crossed in front of one and hit a side