He said, ‘They’re bringing in reinforcements.’
McQueen nodded, and said nothing.
Reacher said, ‘How many, do you think?’
‘Could be dozens. Hundreds, even. There’s a network. Everything’s a co-production now.’
Reacher said, ‘OK.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ McQueen said. ‘Thank you for everything you tried to do.’
They shook hands, mute and awkward in the miserable plywood room, McQueen still trailing frayed cords from his wrists, Reacher’s hand bloody from his cut.
The diesel noise started up again. The outer door closing, to allow the inner door to open, the ancient fail-safe circuits still obedient.
McQueen said, ‘I assume they’ll lead them straight here.’
Reacher nodded. ‘So at least let’s not wait for them. Let’s make them work for it.’
‘The third chamber is the place to be. They’ll be a little less willing to shoot in there.’
Reacher nodded again. The flatbed trailers, the giant yellow flasks. The radiation symbols. He said, ‘Don’t stop for me. No matter what. Better that one of us gets out than neither.’
McQueen said, ‘Likewise.’
‘I’ll go first. I’ll go left and through. You go right.’
‘You want the Colt back?’
‘You keep it. It drifts left and down. Remember that.’ Reacher cannibalized his part-gone magazines and put a full load in his Glock. One in the chamber, seventeen in the box. Some of the brass ended up smeared with his blood. Which seemed appropriate. Some old guy once said the meaning of life is that it ends. Which was inescapably true. No one lives for ever. In his head Reacher had always known he would die. Every human does. But in his heart he had never really imagined it. Never imagined the time and the place and the details and the particulars.
He smiled.
He said, ‘On three?’
McQueen nodded.
He said, ‘One.’
The diesels sounded louder. The inner door, opening.
McQueen said, ‘Two.’
Reacher stepped over to the splintered threshold.
McQueen said, ‘Three.’
Reacher burst out at full speed, through the door, through some kind of final mental barrier, into the corridor, ice cold and careless, in his mind already dead like his father and his mother and his brother, bargaining for nothing more at all except the chance to take someone with him, or two of them, or three, and a guy to his left heard the noise and stepped out of a room and Reacher shot him, a triple tap, chest, chest, head, and then he plunged onward, across the narrow space, into a blue-spot room, a guy right in front of him going down the same way, chest, chest, head, and then Reacher was through the ancient door, into another plywood room, which was empty, with gunfire behind him, and out into the centre chamber’s corridor, a shape running towards him from the right, firing, and into the next blue-spot room, with footsteps behind him, and then it was all over, finally and utterly and completely and definitively, because of the taped plastic sheet over the old door ahead of him, and because the Glock jammed and wouldn’t fire any more.
A tired spring in the magazine, maybe, or his blood on the shell casings, already sticky and all fouled up.
The world went very quiet.
He turned around, slowly, and he put his back on the plastic sheet. Two men had guns on him. One pale face, one dark. The odd ethnic mixture. They were shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. The last two survivors from the original headcount. Both for him. Which was OK. It meant McQueen was getting a clear run, at least for the moment.
Their guns were Smith & Wesson 2213s, stainless steel, the exact same thing as McQueen had used in the fat man’s motel lobby. Wadiah’s standard issue, apparently. Maybe a bulk purchase, at a discount price. Three- inch barrels, eight.22 Long Rifle rimfires in the magazines. But not aimed high this time. Not high at all. Aimed right at the centre of his chest.
The white guy smiled.
The Arab smiled.
The white guy closed one eye and sighted down the three-inch barrel.
The Arab closed one eye.
Reacher kept both eyes open.
Their trigger fingers tightened.
No sound anywhere. Reacher willed McQueen to make it.
Their trigger fingers tightened some more.
They tightened all the way.
Then: two shots. Very close and very loud. A ragged little volley. Like a loose double tap. The white guy fell to his knees. Then he pitched forward on his face. The Arab sprawled sideways. His face was all gone, replaced by a gaping exit wound. Shot in the back of the head.
And behind them both, suddenly revealed, still on her feet, a Glock 19 in her hand, was a small slender figure.
Karen Delfuenso.
EIGHTY
DELFUENSO HAD DRIVEN Bale’s Crown Vic all the way inside and parked it in the garage. McQueen was already in the front passenger seat. Delfuenso said it was her that Reacher had seen on the two-lane, driving back and forth, with her bright lights on. At first she had meant it just as moral support, but later she had realized the backlight might be useful. Hence the triple trip. She had seen Reacher’s muzzle flash on the roof. She had buzzed her windows down and heard the shots. When the subsequent long delay became unbearable she had found her way inside.
Reacher said, ‘Thank you.’
She said, ‘You’re welcome.’
She got a first-aid kit out of the trunk. Bureau issue. She said every unmarked car had one. Standard practice. A matter of policy. She cleaned the cut on his hand and bound it up. Then they got in the car. She backed up and turned around and rolled through into the entrance tunnel. Reacher got out again and hit the red button. The inner door started to close, to allow the outer door to open. The ancient fail-safe circuits, still obedient. Then they came out of the tunnel into the sweet night air, and they bumped across the dirt, where the farmer’s grandson had torn out the DoD’s old approach road. They made it back to the two-lane, and turned right, and right again, and they parked sideways across three bays in Lacey’s front lot, exactly where they had started.
Reacher asked her, ‘Do you have an ETA for Quantico?’
She said, ‘There was a delay. They’re still about three hours out.’
‘Would you drive me back to the cloverleaf?’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to get to Virginia.’
‘Quantico will want to talk to you.’
‘I don’t have time for that.’
‘They’ll need to know what you know.’
