Winter Territory_A Get Jack Reacher Novel

by Scott Blade

  He scrambled one last time and leaned with his back against a tree. He was directly beneath the chopper. He could see that it didn’t even have a tail number. No way for it to be tracked or identified except that it was unforgettable.

  Reacher measured the distance between the helicopter and the ground in his mind. It was too high. He needed to get the pilot to lower it. That meant breaking the element of surprise. Against a secret military attack chopper, this wasn’t a good idea. So he reevaluated his plan. Then he smiled because two things were in his favor.

  First, the chopper’s side door was still open and second the tree directly behind it had low branches. Instead of lowering the chopper, he would go higher.

  Reacher ducked down and waited until the pilot rotated the chopper to face the other direction, which he was doing every 30 seconds. As soon as the cockpit faced the opposite direction, Reacher scrambled to the tree with the low branches and leapt up as high as he could, which wasn’t much because of the snow. He barely reached the lowest limb, but because of his incredible reach he made it. He smiled and thanked Jack Reacher for the arms. Then he pulled himself up and heaved up onto the branch.

  One of the advantages of being basically a walking ape was that he was naturally skilled at climbing trees. When he was a kid, playing on the monkey bars was as easy as pie. This tree was no exception.

  Reacher climbed. Fast. He reached midway up the tree and saw that the chopper was within throwing distance. He steadied himself and thought of his mother. Snowball fighting. Now grenade throwing.

  Under his breath, he said, “It’s the small things in life.”

  Then he pulled out the grenade and yanked the pin. It clattered against the tree and tumbled toward the ground. He smiled and aimed and threw. The grenade spun as it went through the air. It flew 40 feet, 45. The chopper continued rotating and the grenade bounced perfectly into the open door. The pilot looked out the window. His eyes connected with Reacher’s and then he turned around and saw that the bouncing noise from behind him was a grenade. He never turned back because the grenade exploded. The front windshield erupted into a fury of glass and blood. The metal ripped and expanded. The front door completely blew off the chopper and was flung to the ground. The rotors exploded and swiveled and stopped completely. The chopper twisted and plummeted to the ground below. Around 75 feet. It didn’t explode when it crashed, not like in the movies. It just crashed and the force of the crash crushed the roof inward. The starboard side collapsed and imploded.

  Reacher smiled and thought, One left.

  Chapter 52

  Reacher descended from the tree quickly because Shepard would be coming. He reached the bottom and scrambled to a place where Shepard wouldn’t suspect him to be. He clambered in close and waited.

  Chapter 53

  Alex Shepard was a 20-year veteran for a spy agency, well-trained, and dangerous, but never had he ever thought that he would meet someone who singlehandedly could take out his crew and now a military attack chopper.

  He ran toward the sound as fast as he could and made it to the wreckage within minutes. Perhaps he should’ve approached more cautiously, but Shepard wasn’t thinking about his training, only his anger.

  He stopped with his jaw open and stared at the crumbled steel and bent tail of the chopper. He saw the blood and pieces of glass all over the snow.

  He literally couldn’t grasp how Reacher had done this.

  He just stared at the wreckage and knew that his guys were all dead. He was alone. He took his G36 and started firing blindly into the surrounding trees. The silencer whizzed and purred as bullets sprayed out. He fired in a rage. The bullets spit out and slammed into trees surrounding Reacher’s hiding place. Some flew out into the smoky darkness and drilled themselves into far-off trees.

  Shepard squeezed the trigger until the gun clicked empty. Then he ejected the magazine and began to reload.

  That was when Reacher revealed himself.

  At first, Shepard was relieved because he saw a bulking figure climb out of the helicopter wreckage. He thought maybe his pilot had survived, but then he realized that his pilot wasn’t a hulk. Reacher was.

  Cameron Reacher stood in the wreckage like a machine, like one of those terminators from the movies who walk away from vehicle wreckage, unscathed.

  Reacher pointed a G36 straight at Shepard.

  He said in a calm, but cold voice, “You are done here.”

  Shepard tossed his weapon and lifted his hands up in a universal gesture of surrender.

  Reacher said, “Now the sidearm and the vest.”

  Shepard moved slowly and unsnapped his Kevlar vest and let it slip off. It bounced slightly on the snow. Then he removed his sidearm and ejected the clip and tossed the gun far off into the darkness.

  He grinned and said, “Who the hell are you?”

  Reacher said, “Me? I’m nobody. Just a guy. But not a guy that you should’ve messed with.”

  Silence fell between them.

  Then Shepard asked, “What now? You going to call the cops? You got plenty of evidence.”

  Reacher shook his head and said, “No cops. You’d just get out of that somehow. Evidence or not. No, I have a better idea.”

  Shepard looked blank.

  Reacher said, “You can have a fighting chance.”

  He lowered the gun and tossed it into the wreckage behind him. Then he drew the P99 and ejected the clip. He frowned at the fact that he had never gotten to kill someone with it, but this was a better way. He tossed the gun blindly into the dark.

  Shepard smiled because Reacher had just made a huge mistake because Shepard was an expert in hand-to-hand combat. Reacher was going down, or so he thought.

  Shepard smiled and charged Reacher. But Reacher had never said that he intended to fight fair. So he cheated without hesitation. His mother had never taught him to fight fair. She had trained him to win.

  As soon as Shepard was within reaching distance, Reacher pulled the Ka-bar out from behind his back, jerked his left arm all the way back, and with all of his strength he hacked it forward and sidestepped to the right.

  The blade buried halfway into Shepard’s face. It sliced straight through his skin and lodged itself into his skull. The knife went into the opposite direction from his other scar and now he was left with an X marked across his face. It would’ve left a very interesting scar indeed, if he had lived, but he didn’t. Reacher had hacked it so hard into his skull that the edge of the blade had sliced into part of his brain. He was brain-dead first and then he fell to the snow and twisted and jerked. Reacher watched as Shepard twitched until he was dead.

  Reacher didn’t spit on his body. No need. Besides he was done here.

  Chapter 54

  Reacher stayed in Tower Junction the next night. He rented a motel room and slept most of the morning away. He woke up to a message from the desk clerk. It had simply said: Terry’s Diner.

  Reacher got dressed and left his room with no intention of ever seeing it again.

  He walked from the motel and turned one corner and then another until he reached Main Street. He walked until he came to 113 Main Street. It was Terry’s Diner. In the parking lot, he saw Amita’s police cruiser. He entered the diner and saw Aubree, the waitress from the other day. He looked around the room and saw Amita sitting in the corner booth with Mike Jacobs. They held hands and embraced like old lovers.

  Reacher walked over to them and said hello.

  He sat with his back to the door, a practice that he normally didn’t do, but he saw no harm in it. After all, life is about embracing change.

  Amita said, “Hi.”

  “Hello,” Reacher said. “I see that you two are doing well.”

  Jacobs smiled and said, “Thanks to you.”

  Amita smiled at Reacher and said, “Are you hungry? Order something. It’s on us.”

  Reacher lied, “I’m good.”

  He didn’t want to stay and impose.

  Amita said, “We haven
’t decided what to do about this situation. What do you think?”

  Reacher said, “Do nothing. You never heard of Alex Shepard or Mike Jacobs for that matter; whenever they come. Or better yet, move the bodies out there around the chopper and toss a grenade into it. Then call the state police and tell them that the townspeople heard a chopper crash in the woods during the snowstorm.”

  Amita asked, “Will they buy that?”

  Reacher smiled and said, “The CIA will cover it up and make that story the truth. They aren’t going to want any attention on Shepard and his enterprise.”

  Then Reacher looked at Jacobs and said, “But you have to leave. Go somewhere. Change your name. They won’t look for you. Hell, they’d probably even help you remain hidden just to bury the truth.”

  Amita looked at Jacobs and then she said, “I don’t want to lose him again.”

  Reacher said, “Give it a month or two, then join him. You wanted to leave the reservation anyway. Your words.”

  Silence came over them and Amita and Jacobs smiled at each other like this decision was already made for them. Now they’d plan the life they actually wanted together.

  Amita looked at Reacher and asked, “Where will you go?”

  Reacher smiled and said, “Wherever.”

  Then he stood up, tall. No goodbye. No last look. He just turned and walked out of the diner.

  He walked onto the street and shivered a little when a cold breeze swept across his face. Then walked over to the next street and stopped at a crosswalk. He looked up and down the street, both directions, east and west. To the east there was a highway cloverleaf, perfect place to catch a ride. Then he glanced west and saw just on the far corner that there was a group of buses huddled together. A Greyhound bus station. Another perfect choice to move on.

  He asked himself which way to go? Then he thought, What would Jack Reacher do? He didn’t know. Not really. So he turned left and walked on.

  About the Author

  I grew up in Mississippi, where Lee Child’s The Affair, one of my favorite books, is based. If you haven’t read it or any of his other books, I envy you because you get to start from the beginning and experience all 6 feet 5 inches and 250 pounds of Jack Reacher’s adventures for the first time.

  Here are some of my favorite Jack Reacher books: Persuader, Echo Burning, The Affair, Nothing to Lose, and Worth Dying For. But they are all great!

  If you enjoyed this Cameron Reacher adventure than please go check out my website: www.scottblade.com and sign up so we can be friends. I personal email my readers and will keep you updated on new books or if I’m around your area and of course I will email you my take on Lee Child’s next book.

  Coming in July

  Foreign & Domestic

  A Get Jack Reacher Novel

  Cameron Reacher walks the highways of American. Alone. Searching for Jack Reacher—his father. Finally, he has gotten a break.

  A Secret Service agent who was friends with Joe Reacher in a past life invites Cameron out to D.C. to talk about his uncle. Cameron meets the agent in a cafe outside of the District. A quant location. A good cup of coffee. A small Secret Service protection detail. And a young, beautiful protectee that Reacher doesn’t recognize.

  What should’ve been a simple meeting turns into an international conspiracy when armed, masked men storm the cafe and abduct Reacher and the girl at gunpoint. Soon after, Cameron Reacher comes face-to-face with a group of elite mercenaries led by a deadly enemy from Jack Reacher’s past.

  But what this enemy didn’t expect was that he abducted the wrong Reacher.