Reckoning Road: A Get Jack Reacher Short Story Read Free

voice said nothing, and then a new voice came on the line. A male voice.
    He said, “Sir, this is Lt. Daniel Moreno. I’m the night watch CO here in Encino. Which is about forty miles southwest of your position. That phone’s GPS shows us that you’re near Cedar Corner. My nearest ambulance is from there. They’ll be with you shortly. But the nearest sheriff’s deputy is coming from here, and he’s leaving now.”
    I stayed quiet, still wondering why this guy’s phone was registered with Homeland Security. So I asked.
    “Lieutenant, why’s this guy’s phone listed with Homeland Security?”
    Moreno said, “The phone you’re using is registered with the United States Marshals Service.”
    “Marshal?” I asked.
    I reached down and searched the guy’s other jacket pockets and found his wallet, opened it. A US Marshals Service business card identified him as John Martin, retired.
    Chapter 3
    THE CEDAR CORNER PARAMEDICS ARRIVED in about twenty minutes.
    Which was better than I expected but not much. A small town with limited resources that was a good distance away from my location wouldn’t be the best imaginable savior in a rescue situation. However, a couple of paramedics on-call all night with nothing to do might be inclined to respond fast. They probably waited with a combination of coma-inducing boredom and eagerness for action—kind of like the military. So they got the call—and not just from anyone but from the night watch commander at the nearest sheriff’s office—and the subject of the call was more than just an automobile accident. It involved a retired US marshal and a tree and an unknown, middle-of-the-night passerby.
    The paramedics jumped out of the square blue van with medical emblems displayed all over the sides and the back, and they leaped into action like power tools that had been neglected and were eager for jobs.
    They went right to John Martin and lifted his head slightly and checked his pulse and started to talk to him. One looked at his watch while counting Martin’s heartbeat, and the other guy did something else. I wasn’t sure what.
    I looked around. No sheriff’s cruisers coming at us. Not yet.
    I said, “Where are the sheriff’s deputies? I was told they’d come out for this guy.”
    One paramedic ignored me. The other didn’t look back but spoke over his shoulder. He said, “They told us you should wait here for them.”
    I stayed quiet.
    “They told us you should stay and wait,” he repeated.
    I said, “Where are you takin’ him?”
    The paramedic said, “First, we’ll take him to Cedar Corner and let the ER doctor look at him. If he says he’s fine, then we keep him there.”
    “You’ve got an ER in Cedar Corner?”
    “It’s small. Just one floor of a federal building. But as long as this guy doesn’t have major internal bleeding or extensive head injuries that’re critical, then we’ll keep him and care for him there.”
    “Can I ride with you guys into town?”
    The paramedics began lifting the guy onto a stretcher. The one said, “We don’t care what you do.”
    The other finally spoke. He said, “The cop wanted him to stay behind.”
    Then the same guy hushed his voice to a lower octave but not low enough to where I couldn’t hear him, and he said, “He could be dangerous. He could’ve attacked this guy.”
    The first paramedic looked at me and shrugged. He said to me, “Help us put him in the back.”
    I went to the ambulance and held the back doors open wide, preventing them from swinging. I didn’t need to move too far back because my arm span allowed me to hold both doors open through the whole procedure.
    They lifted and rolled the guy and the stretcher onto the floorboards of the ambulance and wheeled him all the way forward. The first paramedic hopped in after Martin and tapped his foot on a mechanism at the base of the back wheels, and I heard a rusty snick which I guessed signaled that the wheels were locked in place, preventing the