got away. You said I’m not going back, because you knew as soon as you arrived anywhere somebody would realize you weren’t Hobie. They’d find out who you were, and you’d be back in the shit. So you just disappeared. A new life, a new name. A clean slate. You want to deny anything yet?”
Allen tightened his grip on Jodie.
“It’s all bullshit,” he said.
Reacher shook his head. Pain flashed in his eye like a camera.
“No, it’s all true,” he said. “Nash Newman just identified Victor Hobie’s skeleton. It’s lying in a casket in Hawaii with your dog tags around its neck.”
“Bullshit,” Allen said again.
“It was the teeth,” Reacher said. “Mr. and Mrs. Hobie sent their boy to the dentist thirty-five times, to give him perfect teeth. Newman says they’re definitive. He spent an hour with the X rays, programming the computer. Then he recognized the exact same skull when he walked back past the casket. Definitive match.”
Allen said nothing.
“It worked for thirty years,” Reacher said. “Until those two old people finally made enough noise and somebody poked around. And now it’s not going to work any longer, because you’ve got me to answer to.”
Allen sneered. It made the unmarked side of his face as ugly as the burns.
“Why the hell should I answer to you?”
Reacher blinked the blood out of his eye over the unwavering Steyr.
“A lot of reasons,” he said quietly. “I’m a representative. I’m here to represent a lot of people. Like Victor Truman Hobie. He was a hero, but because of you he was written off as a deserter and a murderer. His folks have been in agony, thirty long years. I represent them. And I represent Gunston and Zabrinski, too. They were both MP lieutenants, both twenty-four years old. I was an MP lieutenant when I was twenty-four. They were killed because of what you did wrong. That’s why you’re going to answer to me, Allen. Because I’m them. Scum like you gets people like me killed.”
Allen’s eyes were blank. He shifted Jodie’s weight to keep her directly in front of him. Twisted the hook and jammed the gun in harder. He nodded, just a fractional movement of his head.
“OK, I was Carl Allen,” he said. “I admit it, smart guy. I was Carl Allen, and then that was over. Then I was Victor Hobie. I was Victor Hobie for a real long time, longer than I was ever Carl Allen, but I guess that’s over now, too. So now I’m going to be Jack Reacher.”
“What?”
“That’s what you’ve got,” Allen said. “That’s the deal. That’s your trade. Your name, for this woman’s life.”
“What?” Reacher said again.
“I want your identity,” Allen said. “I want your name.”
Reacher just stared at him.
“You’re a drifter, no family,” Allen said. “Nobody will ever miss you.”
“Then what?”
“Then you die,” Allen said. “We can’t have two people with the same name running around, can we? It’s a fair trade. Your life, for the woman’s life.”
Jodie was staring straight at Reacher, waiting.
“No deal,” Reacher said.
“I’ll shoot her,” Allen said.
Reacher shook his head again. The pain was fearsome. It was building stronger and spreading behind both his eyes.
“You won’t shoot her,” he said. “Think about it, Allen. Think about yourself. You’re a selfish piece of shit. The way you are, you’re always number one. You shoot her, I’ll shoot you. You’re twelve feet away from me. I’m aiming at your head. You pull your trigger, I pull mine. She dies, you die one-hundredth of a second later. You won’t shoot me either, because you start to line up on me, you go down before you’re even halfway there. Think about it. Impasse.”
He stared him down through the pain and the gloom. A classic standoff. But there was a problem. A serious flaw in his analysis. He knew that. It came to him in a cold flash of panic. It came to Allen at the exact same moment. Reacher knew that, too, because he saw it settle in his eyes, complacently.
“You’re miscalculating,” Allen said. “You’re missing something.”
Reacher made no response.
“Right now it’s a stalemate,” Allen said. “And it always will be, as long as I’m standing here and you’re standing there. But how long are you going to be standing there?”
Reacher swallowed against the pain. It was hammering at him.
“I’ll be standing here as long as it takes,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of time. Like you figured, I’m a drifter. I don’t have any pressing appointments to get to.”
Allen smiled.
“Brave words,” he said. “But you’re bleeding from the head. You know that? You’ve got a piece of metal sticking in your head. I can see it from here.”
Jodie nodded desperately, eyes full of terror.
“Check it out, Mr. Curry,” Allen said. “Tell him.”
The guy on the sofa underneath the Steyr crabbed around and knelt up. He kept well away from Reacher’s gun arm and craned his head around to look. Then his face creased in horror.
“It’s a nail,” he said. “A woodworking nail. You’ve got a nail in your head.”
“From the reception desk,” Allen said.
The guy called Curry ducked down again and Reacher knew it was true. As soon as the words were spoken, the pain doubled and quadrupled and exploded. It was a piercing agony centered in his forehead, an inch above his eye. The adrenaline had masked it for a long time. But adrenaline doesn’t last forever. He forced his mind away from it with all the power of his will, but it was still there. Bad pain, razor-sharp and nausea-dull all at the same time, booming and throbbing through his head, sending brilliant lightning strikes into his eyes. The blood had soaked his shirt, all the way down to his waist. He blinked, and saw nothing at all with his left eye. It was full of blood. Blood was running down his neck and left arm and dripping off his fingertips.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Don’t anybody worry about me.”
“Brave words,” Allen said again. “But you’re in pain and you’re losing a lot of blood. You won’t outlast me, Reacher. You think you’re tough, but you’re nothing next to me. I crawled away from that helicopter with no hand. Severed arteries. I was on fire. I survived three weeks in the jungle like that. Then I got myself home free. Then I lived with danger for thirty years. So I’m the tough guy here. I’m the toughest guy in the world. Mentally and physically. You couldn’t outlast me even if you didn’t have a nail in your damn head. So don’t kid yourself, OK?”
Jodie was staring at him. Her hair was golden in the faint diffused light from the window blinds. It was hanging forward over her face, parted by the sweep of her brow. He could see her eyes. Her mouth. The curve of her neck. Her slim strong body, tense against Allen’s arm. The hook, shining against the color of her suit. The pain was hammering in his head. His soaked shirt was cold against his skin. There was blood in his mouth. It tasted metallic, like aluminum. He was feeling the first faint tremors in his shoulder. The Steyr was starting to feel heavy in his hand.
“And I’m motivated,” Allen said. “I’ve worked hard for what I’ve got. I’m going to keep it. I’m a genius and a survivor. You think I’m going to let you take me down? You think you’re the first person who ever tried?”
Reacher swayed against the pain.
“Now let’s up the stakes a little,” Allen called to him.
He forced Jodie upward with all the strength in his arm. Jammed the gun in so hard she bent away from it, folding forward against the arm and sideways against the gun. He hauled her up so he was invisible behind her. Then the hook moved. The arm came up from crushing her waist to crushing her chest. The hook plowed over her breasts. She gasped in pain. The hook moved up until the arm was at a steep angle crushing her body and the hook was resting on the side of her face. Then the elbow turned out and the steel tip dug into the skin of her cheek.
“I could rip her open,” Allen said. “I could tear her face off, and there’s nothing you could do about it except feel worse. Stress makes it worse, right? The pain? You’re starting to feel faint, right? You’re on your way out, Reacher. You’re going down. And when you’re down, the stalemate is over, believe me.”
