by Lee Child
“Not Brett?” Reacher asked.
“No.”
“That’s good.” Reacher shifted his weight, turned the guy’s head, jammed the Glock in his ear, saw the whites of his eyes. “Do you know who I am?”
The guy on the ground said, “I do now.”
“You know the two things you really need to understand?”
“What are they?”
“Whoever you think you are, I’m tougher than you, and I’m more ruthless than you. You have absolutely no idea. I’m worse than your worst nightmare. Do you believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Really believe it? Like you believe in Mom and apple pie?”
“Yes.”
“You know what I did to your buddies?”
“Yes.”
“What did I do?”
“You finished them.”
“Correct. But here’s the thing, John. I’m prepared to work with you, to save your life. We can do this, if we try. But if you step half an inch out of line, I’ll kill you and walk away and I’ll never think about you again and I’ll sleep like a baby the whole rest of my life. We clear on that?”
“Yes.”
“So you want to try?”
“Yes.”
“Are you thinking about some stupid move? Are you quarterbacking it right now? You planning to wait until my attention wanders?”
“No.”
“Good answer, John. Because my attention never wanders. You ever seen someone get shot?”
“No.”
“It’s not like the movies, John. Big chunks of disgusting stuff come flying out. Even a flesh wound, you never really recover. Not a hundred percent. You get infections. You’re weak and hurting, forever.”
“OK.”
“So stand up now.” Reacher got up out of his crouch and moved away, pointing the gun, aiming it two-handed at arm’s length for theatrical effect, tracking the guy’s head, a big pale target. First the guy went fetal for a second, and then he gathered himself and got his hands under him and jacked himself to his knees. Reacher said, “See the yellow car? You’re going to go stand next to the driver’s door.”
The guy said, “OK,” and got to his feet, a little unsteady at first, then firmer, taller, squarer. Reacher said, “Feeling good now, John? Feeling brave? Getting ready? Going to rush over and get me?”
The guy said, “No.”
“Good answer, John. I’ll put a double tap in you before you move the first muscle. Believe me, I’ve done it before. I used to get paid to do it. I’m very good at it. So move over to the yellow car and stand next to the driver’s door.” Reacher tracked him all the way around the Malibu’s hood. The driver’s door was still open. Reacher had left it that way, for the sake of a speedy exit. The guy stood in its angle. Reacher aimed the gun across the roof of the car and opened the passenger door. The two men stood there, one on each side, both doors open like little wings.
Reacher said, “Now get in.”
The guy ducked and bent and slid into the seat. Reacher backed off a step and aimed the gun down inside the car, a low trajectory, straight at the guy’s hips and thighs. He said, “Don’t touch the wheel. Don’t touch the pedals. Don’t put your seat belt on.”
The guy sat still, with his hands in his lap.
Reacher said, “Now close your door.”
The guy closed his door.
Reacher asked, “Feeling heroic yet, John?”
The guy said, “No.”
“Good answer, my friend. We can do this. Just remember, the Chevrolet Malibu is an OK mid-range product, especially for Detroit, but it doesn’t accelerate for shit. Not like a bullet, anyway. This gun of mine is full of nine-millimeter Parabellums. They come out of the barrel doing nine hundred miles an hour. Think a four-cylinder GM motor can outrun that?”
“No.”
“Good, John,” Reacher said. “I’m glad to see all that education didn’t go to waste.”
Then he looked up across the roof of the car, and he saw light in the mist to the south. A high hemispherical glow, trembling a little, bouncing, weakening and strengthening and weakening again. Very white. Almost blue.
A car, coming north toward him, pretty fast.
Chapter 36
The oncoming car was about two miles away. Doing about sixty, Reacher figured. Sixty was about all the road was good for. Two minutes. He said, “Sit tight, John. Stop thinking. This is your time of maximum danger. I’m going to play it very safe. I’ll shoot first and ask questions later. Don’t think I won’t.”
The guy sat still behind the Malibu’s wheel. Reacher watched across the roof of the car. The bubble of light in the south was still moving, still bouncing and trembling and strengthening and weakening, but coherently this time, naturally, in phase. Just one car. Now about a mile away. One minute.
Reacher waited. The glow resolved itself to a fierce source low down above the blacktop, then twin fierce sources spaced feet apart, both of them oval in shape, both of them low to the ground, both of them blue-white and intense. They kept on coming, flickering and floating and jittering ahead of a firm front suspension and fast go-kart steering, at first small because of the distance, and then small because they were small, because they were mounted low down on a small low car, because the car was a Mazda Miata, tiny, red in color, slowing now, coming to a stop, its headlights unbearably bright against the Malibu’s yellow paint.
Then Eleanor Duncan killed her lights and maneuvered around the Malibu’s trunk, half on the road and half on the shoulder, and came to a stop with her elbow on the door and her head turned toward Reacher. She asked, “Did I do it right?”
Reacher said, “You did it perfectly. The headscarf was a great touch.”
“I decided against sunglasses. Too much of a risk at night.”
“Probably.”
“But you took a risk. That’s for sure. You could have gotten creamed here.”
“He’s an athlete. And young. Good eyesight, good hand-eye coordination, lots of fast-twitch muscles. I figured I’d have time to jump clear.”
“Even so. He could have wrecked both vehicles. Then what would you have done?”
“Plan B was shoot him and ride back with you.”
She was quiet for a second. Then she said, “Need anything else?”
“No, thanks. Go on home now.”
“This guy will tell Seth, you know. About what I did.”
“He won’t,” Reacher said. “He and I are going to work something out.”
Eleanor Duncan said nothing more. She just put her lights back on and her car in gear and drove away, fast and crisp, the sound of her exhaust ripping the night air behind her. Reacher glanced back twice, once when she was half a mile away and again when she was gone altogether. Then he slid into the Malibu’s passenger seat, alongside the guy called John, and he closed his door. He held the Glock right-handed across his body. He said, “Now you’re going to park this car around the back of this old roadhouse. If the speedo gets above five miles an hour, I’m going to shoot you in the side. Without immediate medical attention you’ll live about twenty minutes. Then you’ll die, in hideous agony. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen. Truth is, John, I’ve made it happen, more than once. We clear?”
“Yes.”
“Say it, John. Say we’re clear.”
“We’re clear.”
“How clear are we?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to say we’re crystal clear.”
“You got it. Crystal.”
“OK, so let’s do it.”
The guy fumbled the lever into gear and turned the wheel and drove a wide circle, painfully slow, bumping up on the far shoulder, coming around to the near shoulder, bumping down onto the beaten earth of the old lot, passing the south gable wall, turning sharply behind the building. Reacher said, “Pull ahead and then back in, between the two bump-outs, like parallel parking. Do they ask for that in the Nebraska test?�
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The guy said, “I passed in Kentucky. In high school.”
“Does that mean you need me to explain it to you?”
“I know how to do it.”
“OK, show me.”
The guy pulled ahead of the second square bump-out and lined up and backed into the shallow U-shaped bay. Reacher said, “All the way, now. I want the back bumper hard against the wood and I want your side of the car hard against the building. I want you to trash your door mirror, John. Totally trash it. Can you do that for me?”
The guy paused and then turned the wheel harder. He did pretty well. He got the rear bumper hard against the bump-out and he trashed his door mirror good, but he left about an inch between his flank of the car and the back of the building. He checked behind him, checked left, and then looked at Reacher like he was expecting praise.
“Close enough,” Reacher said. “Now shut it down.”
The guy killed the lights and turned off the motor.
Reacher said, “Leave the key.”
The guy said, “I can’t get out. I can’t open my door.”
Reacher said, “Crawl out after me.” He opened his own door and slid out and backed off and stood tall and aimed the gun two-handed.
The guy came out after him, hands and knees, huge and awkward, feet-first, ass high up in the air. He got straight and turned around and said, “Want me to close the door?”
Reacher said, “You’re thinking again, aren’t you, John? You’re thinking it’s dark out here, now the lights are off, and maybe I can’t see too well. You’re figuring maybe this would be a good time. But it isn’t. I can see just fine. An owl has got nothing on me in the eyesight department, John. An owl with night-vision goggles sees worse. Believe it, kid. Just hang in there. You can get through this.”
“I’m not thinking anything,” the guy said.
“So close the door.”
The guy closed the door.
“Now step away from the car.”
The guy stepped away. The car was crammed tight in the back southwest quarter of the shallow bay, occupying a fifteen-by-six footprint within the total thirty-by-twelve space. It would be invisible from the road, either north or south, and no one was going to be in the fields to the east until spring plowing. Safe enough.
Reacher said, “Now move to your right.”
“Where?”
“So when I aim the gun at you I’m aiming parallel with the road.”
The guy moved, two steps, three, and then he stopped and turned and faced front, with his back to the forty empty miles between him and the Cell Block bar.
Reacher asked him, “How close is the nearest house?”
He said, “Miles away.”
“Close enough to hear a gunshot in the night?”
“Maybe.”
“What would they think if they did?”
“Varmint. This is farm country.”
Reacher said, “I’d be happier if you heard the gun go off, John. At least once. I’d be happier if you knew what it was like to have a bullet coming your way. It might help you with all that thinking. It might help you reach sensible conclusions.”
“I won’t try anything.”
“Do I have your word on that?”
“Absolutely.”
“So we’re bonded now, John. I’m trusting you. Am I wise to do that?”
“Absolutely.”
“OK, turn around and walk back to your truck.” Reacher kept ten feet behind the guy all the way, around the back corner of the building, along the face of the south gable wall, across the old lot, back to the two-lane. Reacher said, “Now get in the truck the same way you got out of the car.”
The guy closed the driver’s door and tracked around the hood and opened the passenger door. Reacher watched him all the way. The guy climbed into the passenger seat and lifted his feet one at a time into the driver’s footwell, and then he jacked himself up and over the console between the seats, on the heels of his hands, squirming, scraping, ducking his head. Reacher watched him all the way. When he was settled, Reacher climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. He swapped the gun into his left hand for a second and put his seat belt on. Then he swapped the gun back to his right and said, “I’ve got my seat belt on, John, but you’re not going to put yours on, OK? Just in case you’re getting ideas. Just in case you’re thinking about driving into a telephone pole. See the point? You do that, and I’ll be fine, but you’ll be hurt bad, and then I’ll shoot you anyway. We clear on that?”
The guy said, “Yes.”
“Say it, John.”
“I’m clear on that.”
“How clear?”
“Crystal.”
“And we’re bonded, right? I have your word, don’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you live?”
“At the Duncan Transportation depot.”
“Where is that?”
“From here? About thirty miles, give or take, north and then west.”
“OK, John,” Reacher said. “Take me there.”
Chapter 37
Mahmeini’s man was in his room at the Courtyard Marriott. He was on the phone with Mahmeini himself. The conversation had not started well. Mahmeini had been reluctant to accept that Sepehr had lit out. It was inconceivable to him. It was like being told the guy had grown a third arm. Just not humanly possible.
Mahmeini’s man said, “He definitely wasn’t in the bar.”
“By the time you got there.”
“He was never there. It was a most unpleasant place. I didn’t like it at all. They looked at me like I was dirt. Like I was a terrorist. I doubt if they would even have served me. Asghar wouldn’t have lasted five minutes without getting in a fight. And there was no sign of trouble. There was no blood on the floor. Which there would have been. Asghar is armed, and he’s fast, and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”
Mahmeini said, “Then he went somewhere else.”
“I checked all over town. Which didn’t take long. The sidewalks roll up when it gets dark. There’s nowhere to hide. He isn’t here.”
“Women?”
“Are you kidding me? Here?”
“Did you try his phone again?”
“Over and over.”
There was a long, long pause. Mahmeini, in his Las Vegas office, processing data, changing gears, improvising. He said, “OK, let’s move on. This business is important. It has to be taken care of tomorrow. So you’ll have to manage on your own. You can do that. You’re good enough.”
“But I don’t have a car.”
“Get a ride from Safir’s boys.”
“I thought of that. But the dynamic would be weird. I wouldn’t be in charge. I would be a passenger, literally. And how would I explain why I let Asghar take off somewhere and leave me high and dry? We can’t afford to look like idiots here. Or weak. Not in front of these people.”
“So get another car. Tell the others you told Asghar to go on ahead, or somewhere else entirely, for some other purpose.”
“Get another car? From where?”
Mahmeini said, “Rent one.”
“Boss, this isn’t Vegas. They don’t even have room service here. The nearest Hertz is back at the airport. I’m sure it’s closed until the morning. And I can’t get there anyway.”
Another long, long pause. Mahmeini, recalibrating, re-evaluating, reassessing, planning on the fly. He asked, “Did the others see the first car you were in?”
His guy said, “No. I’m sure they didn’t. We all arrived separately, at different times.”
Mahmeini said, “OK. You’re right about the dynamic. We need to be visibly in charge. And we need to keep the others off balance. So here’s what you’re going to do. Find a suitable car, within the hour. Steal one, if you have to. Then call the others, in their rooms. I don’t care what time it is. Midnight, one o’clock, whatever. Tell them we’ve decided to start the pa
rty early. Tell them you’re leaving for the north immediately. Give them five minutes, or you’re going without them. They’ll be in disarray, packing up and running down to the parking lot. You’ll be waiting in your new car. But they won’t know it’s new. And they won’t even notice that Asghar isn’t with you. Not in the dark. Not in all the confusion. Then drive fast. Like a bat out of hell. Be the first one up there. When the others get there, tell them you turned Asghar loose, on foot, behind the lines. That will worry them. It will keep them even more off balance. They’ll be looking over their shoulders all the time. That’s it. That’s what you’re going to do. That’s pretty much a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, wouldn’t you say?”
Mahmeini’s man put his coat on and carried his bag down to the lobby. The desk guy had gone off duty. Presumably there was an all-purpose night porter holed up in a back room somewhere, but Mahmeini’s man didn’t see any sign of him. He just walked out, bag in hand, looking for a car to steal. Which in many ways was a backward step and an affront to his dignity. Guys in his position had left car theft behind a long time ago. But needs must. And he still remembered how. There would be no technical difficulty. He would perform with his usual precision. The difficulty would come from being forced to work with such a meager pool of potential targets.
He had two requirements. First, he needed a vehicle with a degree of prestige. Not necessarily much, but at least some. He couldn’t be seen in a rusted and listing pick-up truck, for instance. That would not be remotely appropriate or plausible for a Mahmeini operative, especially one tasked to impress the Duncans. Image was by no means everything, but it greased the skids. Perception was reality, at least half the time.
Second, he needed a car that wasn’t brand-new. Late-model cars had too much security built in. Computers, micro-chips in the keys, matching micro-chips in the keyholes. Nothing was unbeatable, of course, but a quick-and-dirty street job had its practical limits. Newer cars were best tackled with tow trucks or flat-beds, and then patient hours hidden away with ethernet cables and laptop computers. Lone men in the dark needed something easier.