by Diane Capri
“Where’s the doc?” the boy said, in Dean’s voice.
“In the ward,” Berenson replied.
He walked toward the room where Kim was hiding. She tensed, ducked back, flattened herself against the wall.
“Did I hear gunshots?” he asked, as if gunshots were commonplace in his world, which they probably were.
The boy reached the threshold and stepped around Pablo’s legs and extended his hand and brushed against Kim’s bicep twice as he groped around the wall.
He turned his body toward the switch plate when he couldn’t find it by tactile exploration.
Simultaneously saw Kim and flipped the light switch, flooding the room with blinding fluorescent light brighter than an operating theater.
“Seven seconds,” advised Morrie’s voice in her ear, as Kim brought the sap out of her pocket and smoothly applied it to the boy’s temple. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious but not dead.
After he fell, Kim heard Berenson’s boots slam two long strides to the kitchen table where she’d left the Glock, and rush across the room.
Kim moved away from the line of fire.
“Who’s there?” Berenson said, coming ever closer. “Edward?” she called to the boy.
Kim said nothing. She’d exchanged wild gunfire with Berenson before. This time, Kim would place precise shots.
Berenson moved into the open doorway, her gun held firmly in her right hand, outstretched in front of her body.
Kim applied the sap to Berenson’s extended forearm. Hard.
Berenson’s arm made a sickening sound as it bent oddly and jagged bones poked through her skin. Blood spurted and spread, dripping to the floor.
But something inside her skin, muscles or tendons or both, must have remained intact because Berenson’s right hand did not drop the gun.
Only now did Kim see the military grade bayonet switchblade in Berenson’s left hand.
Tinnitus battled Morrie’s relentless voiced countdown in her ear. Berenson’s blood slicked the floor.
But Kim’s total concentration focused on the arcing knife in Berenson’s left hand.
What had Dean said? She’s not the only one with scars.
In one slow, graceful movement, Berenson lowered her bloody right arm. She dropped the gun into the blood-pool underneath. She crouched like a wrestler and lunged as she sliced upward toward Kim’s face.
Kim jumped aside, barely avoiding the vicious blade.
Kim scrambled back, unable to fire.
She didn’t want to screw up their plan.
The compound was lousy with Las Olas members who might still invade the bunkhouse. And the undercover investigation would be ruined. Years and thousands of hours of hard work. She couldn’t screw that up.
Berenson advanced, knife extended, slicing fast.
Kim’s intense focus anticipated each thrust, but barely.
If she could avoid the blade until the right moment—
Morrie said, “Now.”
The first explosion came immediately after Morrie’s last word. The blast felt like a sonic boom in the room next door.
It came just as Kim leapt away from another lunge, but Berenson managed to knock Kim off balance.
She fell to the floor. Landed hard on her back. Slammed her head against the concrete.
Berenson saw her chance and lunged forward.
Kim aimed and pulled the trigger.
Berenson kept coming.
Kim fired again and again and again.
The first explosion was followed by three additional explosions, but Kim barely heard them.
Berenson fell on top of her.
Kim struggled to break free of the woman’s heavy body.
Scrambled and crabbed and escaped, finally, from under the dead weight.
The fifth explosion was much smaller.
Kim stood near Berenson, gun pointed, prepared to finish the job. But the move was unnecessary.
Morrie rushed in from the front entrance, weapon drawn. He saw the seven hostages still comatose in their beds. He bent to check the three bodies on the floor, confirmed two dead, one unconscious.
“Otto? You okay?” he looked up from his crouch by the unconscious Edward to ask.
Kim was shaky. Her stomach was about to give up the dry toast she’d eaten hours before. Temporary gunshot tinnitus in her ears made it difficult to hear his question. But she read his lips, said, “Fine. Thanks.”
Morrie probably knew otherwise, but he was chivalrous enough not to say so. He did make sure she could see his face when he spoke. “Ambulances on the way. They’ll be here in four minutes. Do you want to wait?”
Gaspar burst into the room. “It’s chaos out there. We’ve got to go.”
At least, that’s what Kim thought he said. She could hear the chaos faintly, like loud white noise beyond her range.
Neagley walked in last. She looked down at Berenson and the doctor. Then she looked at Berenson’s unconscious son. She walked over to the beds and looked at each of the hostages. She put her hand on Dixon’s neck, feeling for a pulse as Kim had done. Satisfied, she turned and said, “Morrie, pick her up and bring her with us.”
“Morrie, don’t,” Kim countermanded, laying a hand on his monstrous forearm. In response to Neagley, she said, “Dixon could die if we screw up. Cooper’s sending medics. They’ll take her to Ft. Lincoln.”
Neagley said, “Morrie, pick her up. Bring her with us.”
Kim urged Neagley to think about the big picture for a change. “They’re expecting seven hostages. If we take her, they’ll come looking. We don’t want that, either. Leave her here with the others.”
Morrie looked from Neagley to Kim and back. He didn’t argue. There was no time.
Neagley said, “You go ahead. I want to just say something to Dixon and Tammy and Angela.”
“They can’t hear you,” Gaspar said.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Neagley replied.
Kim thought a signal of some kind passed between Neagley and Morrie, but she couldn’t read it.
Morrie said, “Come on. She’ll catch up.”
“We can’t be caught here,” Gaspar said to Kim before he followed Morrie outside.
“Neagley,” Kim said. “Gaspar and I are not civilians like you. We’re putting hundreds of our colleagues in jeopardy by being here at all. Anyone finds out we were here, too many questions will be asked.”
“I owe it to my unit,” Neagley said, stubborn to the end. “I need to watch out for their families.”
“Cooper will take good care of them,” Kim said. “You can see them in an hour at Ft. Lincoln.”
“I can’t leave Dixon behind,” Neagley replied. “She’s the only member of my unit left alive.”
“Don’t make us leave you behind, either. Please.”
Neagley’s lips lifted in a thin smile. “You worry too much, Otto. I can take care of myself.”
Kim grimaced, nodded, knowing what Neagley said was true. There was no way to force her. And she’d never leave Dixon and the others behind. She’d find her own way home, of that Kim was certain.
“We’re confirming all seven hostages are loaded into the ambulances,” Kim said. “Then we’re leaving. We’ll wait for you as long as we can.”
“Ten-four.” Neagley grinned.
Kim smiled back.
Neagley offered a fist bump. Kim wanted to give her a hug, but she accepted the only touch Neagley had ever offered.
“You’ll never find Reacher until he wants to be found, you know.”
Kim shrugged. “Then we’ll just have to make him want to be found, won’t we?”
Neagley’s grin widened. “Good luck with that.”
“Take care, Frances,” Kim said. “Until we meet again.”
She stepped outside into Armageddon.
The ranch was indeed in chaos.
Frightened horses had galloped away from the explosions. Now they were scattered everywhere like a frustrated child’s
toy set.
Rescue vehicles of every stripe were on the way or on the premises already.
Consuming fires burned hotter than funeral pyres, igniting smaller explosions each time the heat reached another fuel tank.
The noise of sirens and choppers and screaming horses and screaming people was deafening.
The stench of gasoline fires and billowing black smoke consumed the very oxygen Kim needed to breathe.
Four ambulances had pulled into the long driveway and were headed toward the extra bunkhouse, sirens blaring.
The Boss had kept his word once more.
Kim found herself a bit surprised. Despite the assurances she’d given Neagley, each time the Boss came through seemed like a fluke. But Kim was grateful he’d done it this time.
The first ambulance streaked to a halt in front of the extra bunkhouse. The driver jumped out and called to Kim, “Seven victims?”
Briefly, she considered correcting the count to eight, including Edward. But Neagley had been alone in the ward too long to be sure Edward was still alive.
“Inside,” she called back over the thunderous noise. “Hurry.”
And then she loped away toward the SUV, looking back, counting the seven gurneys as they loaded the ambulances and headed back the way they’d come, sirens blaring, dodging incoming vehicles along the way.
Despite what she’d said to Neagley, Kim wasn’t worried. Just the opposite. Kim felt confidant Neagley was not alone. Reacher was there to help clean up the mess he’d helped create. He was the kind of man who saw things through.
Neagley would finish her business and reach the van within her window of opportunity or she wouldn’t.
Either way, Kim would see them both again. Dixon, too.
For now, there was nothing more she could do here.
Unlike Neagley and Reacher, Kim had only one choice.
She had to go.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Tuesday, November 16
2:15 p.m.
Houston, TX
Hours later, they waited for flights at the Houston airport. Gaspar stretched out into his usual waiting position, ankles crossed, hands folded over his flat abdomen, eyes closed. Kim finished her reports and uploaded them to her own secure server, paying her insurance premium once again. Like all insurance premiums, she hoped she’d never need to collect on the policy. But better to be safe than sorry.
“What do you think happened to the rest of that $65 million?” Gaspar asked from behind closed eyelids.
“I’m guessing you were right.”
“What? You’re giving me credit for something?”
“We don’t know whether there ever was $65 million, really. But when Dixon recovers, she’s going to have some questions to answer. She’s the one who converted the funds and disbursed them, according to O’Donnell.”
“The Boss could have it,” Gaspar suggested after another couple of silent moments. “We know he’s got Swiss bank accounts. O’Donnell said some of the money was in Switzerland.”
“We’ll probably never know,” Kim replied, although she’d considered the possibility thoroughly in her secure reports. “Neagley’s convinced the Boss is her enemy.”
“Which means he’s Reacher’s enemy, too.”
“Probably.”
“That money could be more than sixty-five million good reasons, with the miracle of compound interest and all.” He grinned again, but ruefully this time.
“Pure speculation.” Kim changed the subject. “We learned a few things we can put into The Reacher File, though.”
“Such as?”
She shrugged. “He’s a good tactician. He inspires intense loyalty as well as intense hatred. From both sexes.”
Gaspar added, “He’s broke. Homeless. Uncommunicative.”
“He’s no Superman,” she said.
One of Gaspar’s eyebrows jumped up. “Based on what?”
“He didn’t bother to help Neagley keep her only brother alive, did he?” Kim knew the judgment was harsh, but for all the loyalty his unit lavished on Reacher, in the end, he’d failed them all.
In Kim’s view, Neagley was the superhero. Neagley had more heart and more courage than any of them would have ever needed. Maybe the SPTF should be recruiting her for whatever secret job the Boss had in mind.
Kim wondered whether Reacher’s unit had known all that about Neagley all along. Did Reacher know it? Then? Or now?
Gaspar stretched his shoulders by rolling them around a bit, extending his neck, too. “At least it doesn’t look like Reacher left Neagley or Dixon with any extra progeny.”
When she closed the laptop and slipped it into its case, Gaspar grinned and, mocking her question to him at the end of their first Reacher assignment, said, “Now what? Back to Detroit, complete your rotation, request a transfer, become Director, finish your thirty and collect your pension?”
She laughed, but repaid him in kind. “What is going on with Maria? Is she okay? Is the baby all right? You’re worried, I’m worried, Chico. That’s how it works.”
Gaspar’s grin faded, but only for an instant. “For a while there, I thought you and Neagley might have been separated at birth or something. But she’d never ask me anything the least bit personal.” He opened his eyes and raised his eyebrow. “You’re not so tough after all, are you Susie Wong?”
Her spine straightened. She felt her face heat up. Her tone was hard. “That’s not a theory you want to test, Chico. Trust me.”
The announcer called his flight. Gaspar rose, stretched his bad leg, straightened his jacket, pulled up the handle on his rolling suitcase. “Do you think Reacher was there? At Black Star this morning?”
She’d thought about this particular question while she finished her reports. In the moment, she’d been convinced that was why Neagley stayed behind. Maybe Neagley was a little in love with him, like the other women they’d met from Reacher’s past. Who knew?
Kim shrugged. “Dunno. I thought I smelled him a couple of times.”
“Smelled him? Literally?”
“Yes.”
“How could you possibly know what he smells like, for God’s sake?”
She shrugged again. “It’s not so much that I recognized his scent. But I noticed a scent that was different from the others. Several times. In different places. And each time, there was physical evidence that someone had been there, too.”
“Now who’s acting crazy?”
The announcer called his flight again and simultaneously she felt the Boss’s cell phone vibrating in her pocket. By now, she wasn’t surprised that his timing was always perfect.
She held up one finger to stop Gaspar’s departure, fished the phone out and clicked the connection open. “Yes.”
He said, “Just sent you both an encrypted file. You should have it in another few seconds. Download it now on the secure channel while you can.”
“My mother expects me home for Thanksgiving,” she said, even as she unzipped her case and rebooted her laptop.
“Thanksgiving is nine days away,” he replied. “And you’ve got no vacation time.”
“Gaspar’s wife is pregnant, you know. Baby due any minute.”
The silence lasted barely a nanosecond.
“Your flight leaves in ten minutes. Plane tickets are waiting at the United Counter. Call me when you get there,” he said before severing the call.
THE END
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