by Lee Child
“You’re kidding us, right?” he said. “Petrosian? What is he, crazy?”
The first guy was moving. His arms and legs began a slow-motion effort to right himself. Reacher crunched the bat for a second and then jerked it away from the second guy’s neck and used it to tap the first guy on the top of the head. He had it back in place within a second and a half. The second guy started gagging under the force of the wood on his throat. The first guy was limp on the floor. Not like in the movies. Three blows to the head, nobody keeps on fighting. Instead, they’re sick and dizzy and nauseous for a week. Barely able to stand.
“We’ve got a message for Petrosian,” Reacher said softly.
“What’s the message?” the second guy gasped.
Reacher smiled again.
“You are,” he said.
He went into his pocket for the labels and the glue.
“Now lie real still,” he said.
The guy lay real still. He moved his hand to feel his throat, but that was all. Reacher tore the backing strip off the label and eased a thick worm of glue onto the plastic and pressed the label hard on the guy’s forehead. He ran his finger side to side across it, twice. The label read, Mostro’s has protection already.
“Lie still,” he said again.
He took the bat with him and turned the other guy face upward with a hand in his hair. Used plenty of glue and smoothed the other label into place on his brow. This one read, Don’t start a turf war with us. He checked the pockets and came out with an identical haul. An automatic handgun, a wallet, and a telephone. Plus a key for the Benz. He waited until the guy started moving again. Then he glanced back at the second guy. He was crawling up to his hands and knees, picking at the label on his head.
“It won’t come off,” Reacher called. “Not without taking a bunch of skin with it. Go give our best regards to Mr. Petrosian, and then go to the hospital.”
He turned back. Emptied the tube of glue into the first guy’s palms and crushed them together and counted to ten. Chemical handcuffs. He hauled the guy upright by his collar and held him while he relearned how to stand. Then he tossed the car key to the second guy.
“I guess you’re the designated driver,” he said. “Now beat it.”
The guy just stood there, eyes jerking left and right. Reacher shook his head.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “Or I’ll rip your ears off and make you eat them. And don’t come back here either. Not ever. Or we’ll send somebody a lot worse than me. Right now I’m the best friend you got, OK? You clear on that?”
The guy stared. Then he nodded, cautiously.
“So beat it,” Reacher said.
The guy with the glued hands had a problem moving. He was out of it. The other guy had a problem helping him. There was no free arm to hold. He puzzled over it for a second and then ducked down in front of him and came back up between the glued hands, piggybacking him. He staggered away and paused in the mouth of the alley, silhouetted against the glare of the street. He bent forward and jacked the weight onto his shoulders and turned out of sight.
The handguns were M9 Berettas, military-issue nine-millimeters. Reacher had carried an identical gun for thirteen long years. The serial number on an M9 is etched into the aluminum frame, right underneath where Pietro Beretta is engraved on the slide. The numbers on both guns had been erased. Somebody had used a round-tipped file, rubbing from the muzzle toward the trigger guard. Not a very elegant job of work. Both magazines were full, shiny copper Parabellums. Reacher stripped the guns in the dark and pitched the barrels and the slides and the bullets into the Dumpster outside the kitchen door. Then he laid the frames on the ground and scooped grit into the firing mechanisms and worked the triggers in and out until the grit jammed the mechanisms. Then he pitched them into the Dumpster and smashed the phones with the bats and left the pieces where they lay.
The wallets held cards and licenses and cash. Maybe three hundred bucks in total. He rolled the cash into his pocket and kicked the wallets away into a corner. Then he straightened and turned and walked back to the sidewalk, smiling. Glanced up the street. No sign of the black Mercedes. It was gone. He walked back into the deserted restaurant. The orchestra was blazing away and some tenor was winding up to a heroic high note. The owner was behind the bar, lost in thought. He looked up. The tenor hit the note and the violins and cellos and basses swarmed in behind him. Reacher peeled a ten from the stolen wad and dropped it on the bar.
“For the plate they broke,” he said. “They had a change of heart.”
The guy just looked at the ten and said nothing. Reacher turned again and walked back out to the sidewalk. Across the street, he saw the couple from the restaurant. They were standing on the opposite sidewalk, watching him. The sandy guy with the mustache and the dark woman with the briefcase. They were standing there, muffled up in coats, watching him. He walked to his four-wheel-drive and opened the door. Climbed in and fired it up. Glanced over his shoulder at the traffic stream. They were still watching him. He pulled out into the traffic and gunned the motor. A block away, he used the mirror and saw the dark woman with the briefcase stepping out to the curb, craning her head, watching him go. Then the neon wash closed over her and she was lost to sight.
New York Times bestselling author
LEE CHILD
DIE TRYING
Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher returns in a
gutsy novel of heart-stopping action. . .
When a mysterious woman is kidnapped by a
politically motivated fringe group and taken to their
compound, Jack Reacher must help her escape with
her life—from the inside out.
“Tough, elegant and thoughtful.”
—Robert B. Parker
“Opens with a bang.”—Chicago Tribune
“Engrossing.”—Rocky Mountain News
penguin.com
New York Times
bestselling author
LEE CHILD
RUNNING BLIND
Across the country women are being murdered
by an extraordinarily clever killer who leaves
no trace of evidence, no fatal wounds,
no signs of struggle, and no clues to
an apparent motive.
All the victims have in common is one thing:
they each knew Jack Reacher.
“Riveting . . . paced with taut, evocative prose.”
—Greg Iles, author of Mortal Fear
“Sensational.”
—Tom Savage, author of The Inheritance
penguin.com
New York Times bestselling author
LEE CHILD
WITHOUT FAIL
Skilled, stealthy, and unknown, ex-military cop Jack Reacher is hired to find flaws in the vice president’s security system before a group of assassins does. The assassins have planned well, but they haven’t planned on Jack Reacher.
ECHO BURNING
Jack Reacher is hitchhiking through the heat of West Texas when he’s picked up a good-looking young woman who needs protection. Reacher goes home with her to the lonely ranch where nothing is as it seems and where evil swirls around them like dust in a storm.
KILLING FLOOR
Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is in Margrave, Georgia, for less than a half hour when the cops come, shotguns in hand, to arrest him for murder.
All Jack knows is he didn’t kill anybody.
Not for a long time . . .
penguin.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chap
ter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Teaser chapter
Praise for RUNNING BLIND
“Truly surprising . . . a brain-teasing puzzle that gets put together piece by fascinating piece, and a central character with Robin Hood-like integrity and an engagingly eccentric approach to life.” —Publishers Weekly
"Deeply satisfying . . . plan to stay up long past bedtime and do some serious hyperventilating toward the end.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This fourth Reacher thriller is easily the best. The plot is a masterpiece. ” —Booklist
“With numerous plot twists and turns, Child puts Reacher through his paces brilliantly, arriving at an unusual solution. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal
“Running Blind is a great read.” —St. Petersburg Times
“Reacher is one of the more interesting suspense heroes to come along in a while.” —San Antonio Express-News
“Spectacular . . . muscular, energetic prose and pell-mell pacing.”
—The Seattle Times
“A superior series.” —The Washington Post Book World
Praise for LEE CHILD
"Reacher is a wonderfully epic hero: tough, taciturn, yet vulnerable.” —People
"Great style and careful plotting. The violence is brutal . . . depicted with the kind of detail that builds dread and suspense.”
—The New York Times
“The author pens nightmarish images as casually as an ordinary writer would dot an ‘i’ or cross a ‘t.’ ”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“[Child] must be channeling Dashiell Hammett . . . Reacher handles the maze of clues and the criminal unfortunates with a flair that would make Sam Spade proud.” —Playboy
“Reacher is as tough as he is resourceful.” —The Denver Post
“Child . . . gives us one of the truly memorable tough-guy heroes in recent fiction: Jack Reacher.”
—Jeffery Deaver, author of The Bone Collector
“I love the larger-than-life hero Jack Reacher. I grew up a fan of John Wayne’s and Clint Eastwood’s movies, and it’s great to see a man of their stature back in business.” —Nevada Barr
“Jack Reacher has presence and dimension—a man you definitely want on your side. Child has a sure touch and a strong voice. Definitely a talent to watch.” —Lynn Hightower
Praise for Lee Child’s JACK REACHER NOVELS
KILLING FLOOR
A People Magazine “Page-Turner”
An Anthony Award winner
“It’ll blow you away.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
“From its jolting opening scene to its fiery final confrontation, Killing Floor is irresistible.” —People
DIE TRYING
“Tough, elegant, and thoughtful.” —Robert B. Parker
“A riveting thriller. It’s a winner.” —Greg Iles
TRIPWIRE
“Grabs hold with the first page . . . This is pulse-pounding suspense.” —Arizona Daily Star
“Gives new meaning to what a page-turner should be.”
—Michael Connelly
WITHOUT FAIL
“If Without Fail doesn’t hook you on Lee Child, I give up.”
—The New York Times
“Child’s plot is ingenious, his characters are first-rate, and his writing is fine indeed. This is a superior series.”
—The Washington Post Book World
ECHO BURNING
“Child is a vigorous storyteller, gradually building the suspense to almost unbearable levels.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“As sweltering as the El Paso sun. Bottom line: jalapeño-hot suspense.” —People
Titles by Lee Child
WITHOUT FAIL
ECHO BURNING
RUNNING BLIND
TRIPWIRE
DIE TRYING
KILLING FLOOR
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Previously published in the United Kingdom under the title The Visitor.
RUNNING BLIND
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Copyright © 2000 by Lee Child.
All rights reserved.
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For Edith and Norman,
after twenty-six years of good times
1
PEOPLE SAY THAT knowledge is power. The more knowledge, the more power. Suppose you knew the winning numbers for the lottery? All of them? Not guessed them, not dreamed them, but really knew them? What would you do? You would run to the store. You would mark those numbers on the play card. And you would win.
Same for the stock market. Suppose you really knew what was going to go way up? You’re not talking about a hunch or a gut feeling. You’re not talking about a trend or a percentage game or a whisper or a tip. You’re talking about knowledge. Real, hard knowledge. Suppose you had it? What would you do? You would call your broker. You would buy. Then later you’d sell, and you’d be rich.
Same for basketball, same for the horses, whatever. Football, hockey, next year’s World Series, any kind of sports at all, if you could predict the future, you’d be home free. No question. Same for the Oscars, same for the Nobel prize, same for the first snowfall of winter. Same for anything.
Same for killing people.
Suppose you wanted to kill people. You would need to know ahea
d of time how to do it. That part is not too difficult. There are many ways. Some of them are better than others. Most of them have drawbacks. So you use what knowledge you’ve got, and you invent a new way. You think, and you think, and you think, and you come up with the perfect method.
You pay a lot of attention to the setup. Because the perfect method is not an easy method, and careful preparation is very important. But that stuff is meat and potatoes to you. You have no problem with careful preparation. No problem at all. How could you, with your intelligence? After all your training?
You know the big problems will come afterward. How do you make sure you get away with it? You use your knowledge. You know more than most people about how the cops work. You’ve seen them on duty, many times, sometimes close-up. You know what they look for. So you don’t leave anything for them to find. You go through it all in your head, very precisely and very exactly and very carefully. Just as carefully as you would mark the play card you knew for sure was going to win you a fortune.
People say that knowledge is power. The more knowledge, the more power. Which makes you just about the most powerful person on earth. When it comes to killing people. And then getting away with it.
LIFE IS FULL of decisions and judgments and guesses, and it gets to the point where you’re so accustomed to making them you keep right on making them even when you don’t strictly need to. You get into a what if thing, and you start speculating about what you would do if some problem was yours instead of somebody else’s. It gets to be a habit. It was a habit Jack Reacher had in spades. Which was why he was sitting alone at a restaurant table and gazing at the backs of two guys twenty feet away and wondering if it would be enough just to warn them off or if he would have to go the extra mile and break their arms.