by Lee Child
John didn’t move.
Reacher fired into the ground at John’s feet. The gun boomed and kicked and the sound rolled away across the land, loud and dull, like a quarry explosion. John howled and danced. Not hit, but stung in the shins by fragments of gravel kicked up by the blast. Reacher waited for quiet and pumped the gun, a solid crunch-crunch, probably the most intimidating sound in the world. The husk of the spent cartridge ejected and flew through the air and landed near the car keys and skittered away.
John got down on the ground. First he got on his knees, awkwardly, like he was in church, and then he spread his hands and lowered himself facedown, reluctantly, like a bad-tempered coach had demanded a hundred push-ups. Reacher called over his shoulder, “Doctor? Bring me the duct tape, would you?”
No response from inside the house.
Reacher called, “Don’t worry, doctor. There won’t be any comebacks. Never again. This is the last day. Tomorrow you’ll be living like normal people. These guys will be unemployed, heading back where they came from, looking for new jobs.”
There was a long, tense pause. Then a minute later the doctor came out with the tape. He didn’t look at the two guys. He kept his face averted and his eyes down. Old habits. He gave the roll to Reacher and ducked back inside. Reacher tossed the tape to the guy who had hit him and said, “Make it so your buddy can’t move his arms or legs. Or I will, by some other method, probably including spinal injury.”
The guy caught the roll of tape and got to work. He wrapped John’s wrists with a tight three-layer figure eight, and then he wrapped the waist of the eight in the other direction, around and around. Plastic handcuffs. Reacher had no idea of the tensile strength of duct tape in terms of engineering numbers, but he knew no human could pull it apart lengthways. The guy did the same to John’s ankles, and Reacher said, “Now hog-tie him. Join it all up.”
The guy folded John’s feet up toward his butt and wrapped tape between the wrist restraints and the ankle restraints, four turns, each about a foot long. He squeezed it all tight and stood back. Reacher took out his wrench and held it up. There was a little blood and hair on it, from the previous two guys. He dropped it on the ground behind him. He took out his switchblade. He dropped it on the ground behind him. He took out his Glock pistol. He dropped it on the ground behind him. Then he turned and laid the sawn-off next to it. He shrugged out of his coat and let it fall. It covered all four weapons. He looked at the guy who had hit him and said, “Fair fight. You against me. Second-string Nebraska football against the U.S. Army. Bare knuckles. No rules. If you can get past me, you’re welcome to use anything you can find under my coat.”
The guy looked blank for a second, and then he smiled a little, as if the sun had come out, as if an unbelievable circumstance had unveiled itself right in front of him, as if a hole had opened up in a tight defense, as if suddenly he had a straight shot to the end zone. He came up on his toes, and angled his body, and bunched his right fist up under his chin, and got ready to lead with his left.
Reacher smiled too, just a little. The guy was dancing around like the Marquess of Queensberry. He had no idea. No idea at all. Maybe the last fight he had seen was in a Rocky movie. He was six-seven and three hundred pounds, but he was nothing more than a prize ox, big and dumb and shiny, going up against a gutter rat.
A 250-pound gutter rat.
The guy stepped in and bobbed and weaved for a minute, up on his toes, jiggling around, ducking and diving, wasting time and energy. Reacher stood perfectly still and gazed at him, wide-eyed with peripheral vision, focusing nowhere and everywhere at once, hyperalert, watching the guy’s eyes and his hands and his feet. And soon enough the left jab came in. The obvious first move, for a right-handed man who thought he was in a boxing ring. Any guy’s left jab followed the same basic trajectory as his straight left, but much less forcefully, because it was powered by the arm only, snapping out from the elbow, with no real contribution from the legs or the upper body or the shoulders. No real power. Reacher watched the big pink knuckles getting closer, and then he moved his own left hand, fast, a blur, whipping it in and up and out like a man flailing backhanded at a wasp, and he slapped at the inside of the guy’s wrist, hard enough to alter the line of the incoming jab, hard enough to deflect it away from his face and send it buzzing harmlessly over his moving shoulder.
His shoulder was moving because he was already driving hard off his back foot, jerking forward, twisting at the waist, building torque, hurling his right elbow into the gap created by turning the guy counterclockwise an inch, aiming to hit him with the elbow right on the outer edge of his left eye socket, hoping to crack his skull along the line of his temple. No rules. The blow landed with all 250 pounds of moving mass behind it, a solid, jarring impact Reacher felt all the way down to his toes. The guy staggered back. He stayed on his feet. Evidently his skull hadn’t cracked, but he was feeling it. He was feeling it bad, and his mouth was opening, ready to howl, so Reacher shut it again for him with a vicious uppercut under the chin, convulsive, far from elegant, but effective. The guy’s head snapped back in a mist of blood and bounced forward again off his massive deltoids and Reacher tried for his other eye socket with his left elbow, a ferocious in-and-out snap from the waist, and then he put a forearm smash from the right into the guy’s throat, a real home run swing, and then he kneed him in the groin, and danced behind him and kicked him hard in the back of the knees, a sweeping, scything action, so that the guy’s legs folded up under him and he went down heavily on his back on the path.
Six blows, three seconds.
No rules.
Second-string Nebraska football against the U.S. Army.
But the guy was tough. Or afraid. Or both. Either way, he didn’t quit. He started scrabbling around on his back, like a turtle, trying to get up again, making botched snow angels in the gravel, his head snapping left and right. Maybe the decent thing would have been to let him take an eight count, but having your opponent on the floor is gutter rat heaven, the absolute object of the exercise, a precious gift never to be spurned, so Reacher stilled him by kicking him hard in the ear, and then he stamped down hard with his heel in the guy’s face, like an appalled homeowner stomping a cockroach, and the crunch of the guy’s shattering nose was clearly audible over all the generalized panting and grunting and groaning and moaning.
Game over. Eight blows in six seconds, which was grievously slow and laborious by Reacher’s standards, but then, the guy was huge, and he had an athlete’s tone and stamina, and he was accustomed to a certain amount of physical punishment. He had been competitive, just barely. In the ballpark, almost. Not the worst Reacher had ever seen. Four years of college ball was probably equivalent to four days of Ranger training, and plenty of people Reacher had known hadn’t even made day three.
He taped the guy up where he lay, with plastic handcuffs linked to four turns around the guy’s own neck and ankle restraints linked to four turns around John’s neck. Then he stepped back into the hallway and did a better job on the two who had come in first. He slid them around on the shiny parquet and taped them together, back-to-back, like the two from the middle of the night. He stood up and caught his breath.
Then a phone rang, muted and distant.
The phone turned out to be Dorothy Coe’s cell. Its ring was muted and distant because it was with her, behind a closed door, in her room. She came out with it in her hand, and looked between it and the four taped guys on the hallway floor, and then she smiled, as if at a hidden irony, as if normality was intruding on a thoroughly abnormal day. She said, “That was Mr. Vincent at the motel. He wants me to work this morning. He has guests.”
Reacher asked, “Who are they?”
“He didn’t say.”
Reacher thought for a moment, and said, “OK.” He told the doctor to keep a medical eye on all six of the captured football players, and then he went back out to the gravel path and put his coat back on. He reloaded the pockets with his improvised arsen
al, and he found the car keys where they lay on the stones, and then he headed down the driveway to the white SUV parked beyond the fence.
Eldridge Tyler moved, just a little, but enough to keep himself comfortable. He was into his second hour of daylight. He was a patient man. His eye was still on the scope. The scope was still trained on the barn door, six inches left of the judas hole, six inches down. The rifle’s forestock was still bedded securely on the bags of rice. The air was wet and thick, but the sun was bright and the view was good.
But the big man in the brown coat hadn’t come.
Not yet.
And perhaps he never would, if the Duncans had been successful during the night. But Tyler was still fully on the ball, because he was cautious by nature, and he always took his tasks seriously, and maybe the Duncans hadn’t been successful during the night. In which case the big man would show up very soon. Why would he wait? Daylight was all he needed.
Tyler took his finger off the trigger, and he flexed his hand, once, twice, and then he put his finger back.
Chapter 53
The white SUV turned out to be a Chevy Tahoe, which seemed to Reacher’s untutored eye the exact same thing as a GMC Yukon. The cabin was the same. All the controls were the same. All the dials were the same. It drove just the same, big and sloppy and inexact, all the way back to the two-lane, where Reacher turned right and headed south. There was mist, but the sun was well up in the east. The day was close to two hours old.
He slowed and coasted and then parked on the shoulder, two hundred yards short of the motel. From the north he could see nothing of it except the rocket sign and the big round lounge. He got out of the truck and walked on the blacktop, slow and quiet. His angle changed with every step. First he saw the burned-out Ford. It was in the main lot, down on its rims, black and skeletal, with two shapes behind the glassless windows, both of them burned as smooth and small as seals. Then he saw the doctor’s Subaru, outside room six, jagged and damaged, but still a living thing in comparison to the Ford.
Then he saw the dark blue Chevrolet.
It was parked beyond the Subaru, outside room seven, or eight, or both, at a careless angle, at the end of four short gouges in the gravel. Frustrated men, tired and angry, jamming to a stop, ready for rest.
Reacher came in off the road and walked to the lounge door, as quietly as he could on the loose stones, past the Ford. It was still warm. The heat of the fire had scorched fantastic whorls into the metal. The lounge door was unlocked. Reacher stepped inside and saw Vincent behind the reception desk. He was in the act of hanging up the telephone. He stopped and stared at Reacher’s duct-tape bandage. He asked, “What the hell happened to you?”
“Just a scratch,” Reacher said. “Who was on the phone?”
“It was the morning call. The same as always. Like clockwork.”
“The phone tree?” Reacher asked.
Vincent nodded.
“And?”
“Nothing to report. Three Cornhusker vehicles were tooling around all night, kind of aimlessly. Now they’ve gone somewhere else. All four Duncans are in Jacob’s house.”
“You have guests here,” Reacher said.
“The Italians,” Vincent said. “I put them in seven and eight.”
“Did they ask about me?”
Vincent nodded. “They asked if you were here. They asked if I had seen you. They’re definitely looking for you.”
“When did they get here?”
“About five this morning.”
Reacher nodded in turn. A wild-goose chase all night long, no success, eventual fatigue, no desire to drive an hour south to the Marriott and an hour back again, hence the local option. They had probably planned to nap for a couple of hours, and then saddle up once more, but they were oversleeping. Human nature.
“They woke me up,” Vincent said. “They were very bad tempered. I don’t think I’m going to get paid.”
“Which one of them shot the guys in the Ford?”
“I can’t tell them apart. One did the shooting, and the other one set fire to the car.”
“And you saw that with your own eyes?”
“Yes.”
“Would you go to court and say so?”
“No, because the Duncans are involved.”
“Would you if the Duncans weren’t involved?”
“I don’t have that much imagination.”
“You told me.”
“Privately.”
“Tell me again.”
“One of them shot the guys and the other one burned their car.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “That’s good enough.”
“For what?”
“Call them,” Reacher said. “One minute from now. In their rooms. Talk in a whisper. Tell them I’m in your lot, right outside your window, looking at the wreck.”
“I can’t be involved in this.”
“This is the last day,” Reacher said. “Tomorrow will be different.”
“Forgive me if I prefer to wait and see.”
“Tomorrow there are going to be three kinds of people here,” Reacher said. “Some dead, some sheepish, and some with a little self-respect. You need to get yourself in that third group.”
Vincent said nothing.
“You know Eleanor Duncan?” Reacher asked.
“She’s OK,” Vincent said. “She was never part of this.”
“She’ll be taking over. She’ll be hauling your stuff tomorrow.”
Vincent said nothing.
“Call the Italians one minute from now,” Reacher said. He stepped back out to the lot and walked on the silver balks of timber, past room one, past room two, past three and four and five and six, and then he looped around behind room seven and room eight, and came out again near room nine. He stood in a narrow gap shaped like an hourglass, the circular bulk of room eight right there in front of him, close enough to touch, room seven one building along, the Chevy and the Subaru and the burned-out Ford trailing away from him, south to north, in a line. He took out the dead Iranian’s Glock and checked the chamber.
All set.
He waited.
He heard the room phones ring, first one, then the other, both of them faint behind walls and closed doors. He pictured men rolling over on beds, struggling awake, sitting up, blinking, checking the time, looking around the unfamiliar spaces, finding the phones on the nightstands, answering them, listening to Vincent’s urgent whispered messages.
He waited.
He knew what was going to happen. Whoever opened up first would wait in the doorway, half in and half out, gun drawn, leaning, craning his neck, watching for his partner to emerge. Then there would be gestures, sign language, and a cautious joint approach.
He waited.
Room eight opened up first. Reacher saw a hand on the jamb, then a pistol pointing almost vertical, then a forearm, then an elbow, then the back of a head. The pistol was a Colt Double Eagle. The forearm and the elbow were covered with a wrinkled shirtsleeve. The head was covered in uncombed black hair.
Reacher backed off a step and waited. He heard room seven’s door open. He sensed more than heard the rustle of starched cotton, the silent debate, the pointing and the tapped chests assigning roles, the raised arms indicating directions, the spread fingers indicating timings. The obvious move would be for the guy from room eight to leapfrog ahead and then duck around behind room six and circle the lounge on the blind side and hit the lot from the north, while the guy from room seven waited a beat and then crept up directly from the south. A no-brainer.
They went for it. Reacher heard the farther guy step out and wait, and the nearer guy step out and walk. Eight paces, Reacher thought, before the latter passed the former. He counted in his head, and on six he stepped out, and on seven he raised the Glock, and on eight he screamed FREEZE FREEZE FREEZE and both men froze, already surrendering, guns held low near their thighs, tired, just woken up, confused and disoriented. Reacher stayed with the full-on experience and scr
eamed DROP YOUR WEAPONS PUT YOUR WEAPONS ON THE GROUND and both men complied instantly, the heavy stainless pieces hitting the gravel in unison. Reacher screamed STEP AWAY STEP AWAY STEP AWAY and both men stepped away, out into the lot, isolated, far from their rooms, far from their car.
Reacher breathed in and looked at them from behind. They were both in pants and shirts and shoes. No jackets, no coats. Reacher said, “Turn around.”
They turned around.
The one on the left said, “You.”
Reacher said, “Finally we meet. How’s your day going so far?”
No answer.
Reacher said, “Now turn out your pants pockets. All the way. Pull the linings right out.”
They obeyed. Quarters and dimes and bright new pennies rained down, and tissues fluttered, and cell phones hit the gravel. Plus a car key, with a bulbous black head and a plastic fob shaped liked a big number one. Reacher said, “Now back away. Keep going until I tell you to stop.”
They walked backward, and Reacher walked forward with them, keeping pace, eight steps, ten, and then Reacher arrived at where their Colts had fallen and said, “OK, stop.” He ducked down and picked up one of the guns. He ejected the magazine and it fell to the ground and he saw it was full. He picked up the other gun. Its magazine was one short.
“Who?” he asked.
The guy on the left said, “The other one.”
“The other what?”
“The Iranians. You got one, we got the other. We’re on the same side here.”
“I don’t think so,” Reacher said. He moved on toward the small pile of pocket junk and picked up the car key. He pressed the button set in the head and he heard the Chevy’s doors unlock. He said, “Get in the back seat.”
The guy on the left asked, “Do you know who we are?”
“Yes,” Reacher said. “You’re two jerks who just got beat.”
“We work for a guy named Rossi, in Las Vegas. He’s connected. He’s the kind of guy you can’t mess with.”
