Read Online The Reckoning by Jeff Long - Free Book Online Page B

from the well, then it was a possible proof of identity, perhaps their only one. She’d learned that the forensic labs wanted teeth, preferably an entire mandible, to match to dental charts. In addition, DNA testing could work, though only if a maternal relative had stepped forward over the past thirty years to offer blood. Without the benefit of primary, organic identifiers, the agencies had to rely on circumstantial evidence: a wedding band, a class ring, an engraved pocketknife. Or a dog tag.
    â€œIt’s a message,” the gypsy said. Deep gone, that face. Lost in the arms of Asia, thought Molly.
    â€œExcellent,” said Kleat. “What’s it say?”
    â€œQuit your pissing around.”
    Kleat, the searcher, flushed. “That’s the message?”
    â€œI’m still waiting,” the boy spoke.
    â€œWhat it says,” said Duncan, washing the tag in his water and wiping the embossed letters, “is Samuels, Jefferson S. There’s a birth date. His blood type. Protestant. And a serial number.”
    Molly knew everything about the pilot RE-1 had been searching for, from the date of his shoot down to the root canal in his left molar. And his name had not been Jefferson Samuels.
    â€œNothing,” Kleat said to the man. “You have nothing.”
    The man dropped two more clots on the white tablecloth, two more tags.
    Duncan cracked them open like eggs, black dirt all over the white tablecloth. He read the second tag, and the third. “Sanchez, Thomas A. Bellwether, Edward P.”
    â€œWho the hell are you?” Kleat demanded.
    Molly tried, more gently. She pointed at his arm, at the tattoo like a ghost beneath the dust. “Is that your name? Lucas Yale?”
    â€œLuke,” he said.
    Molly looked at Duncan and Kleat, and the name meant nothing to them. It defeated her, the uselessness of the name. She had nothing more to ask.
    â€œWhere did you find these?” Kleat said.
    Luke looked at Molly for the first time. “I come to show you. Let’s go.”
    â€œJust tell us,” said Kleat.
    â€œIt’s not so easy,” the boy said. The red sky bulged behind him, a great final burst of coloration. Night was falling.
    â€œYou’re playing a dangerous game,” Kleat said, “kidnapping the dead.”
    In fact, the practice was as common as despair in this fertile green country. Peasants trafficked in human bones all the time, trying to prize money from the Americans even when the bones weren’t American.
    â€œHow much do you want?” said Molly.
    The stranger smiled at her suddenly, and he was missing significant teeth on the right side, upper and lower. What teeth still remained lay green in there. Duncan was right, the boy must have been eating grass and weeds, rifling the land. But then Molly saw that it was moss, actual moss, growing between his teeth, like something out of a movie. The tropics had taken root in this young ancient. It showed in the leather of his face. It peeked from his mouth.
    â€œNo charge,” he said, “not for you-all.”
    â€œShow us on a map,” said Duncan. He took a map from his briefcase. He suspected the stranger even more than Kleat did, and that put Molly on alert. His instincts were telling him something.
    â€œNever mind that,” Luke said. “It’s off the map.”
    â€œCome on, this is the twenty-first century. There’s no such thing as off the map. They have satellites.”
    â€œWell, if it was on a map, they wouldn’t have ended where they are,” said Luke.
    â€œHow far away is this place?” Molly asked, trying to cut through the mystery. The key was to get your source talking.
    â€œIt’s a ride. We need to leave.”
    â€œA ride. Does that mean an hour? A day? Two days?”
    â€œOne night’s ride. Tonight.”
    It sank in.
    â€œYou’re joking,” Kleat said. “Leave tonight? We’ve been on the