Ли Чайлд: The Christmas Scorpion

She said, “Stay where you are.”

He didn’t. He turned around. Saw she wasn’t talking to him. She was keeping Jackson out of the helicopter. She was standing inside the door, leaning over the sprawling minister, pointing a gun. A Sig Sauer P226, Reacher noted, automatically. Nine millimeter, fifteen rounds in the magazine, plus probably one in the chamber, total sixteen, against maximum seven opponents, not good odds at all. On the other hand a 226 weighed twenty-seven ounces, which was a heavy weapon for a woman north of sixty. She might get tired. He stared at her. Ness said the Christmas Scorpion got in and out of places like a ghost. No one ever saw him. Because he was a she. The physical characteristic would be a physical mark, he thought. Like a tattoo. Maybe the arachnid itself on a holly leaf. Maybe with a berry. On her neck. Hence all the stupid business with the scarf. They can hear what you say, the pilot had warned. He had used the name. Every time he looked at her she must have thought he could see right through her.

She had her target at her feet. Delivered there personally, by Reacher himself, like a gift or a tribute.

Except the story didn’t work.

He felt Ness arrive behind him. She stepped up and stood shoulder to shoulder. Behind her came the aide and the driver. The air was full of snowflakes and the whop-whop of the rotor blades.

Ness whispered, “We brought her exactly where she wanted to be. She’s a genius.”

“Like Lionel Messi,” Reacher said. “I saw him on the television. The whole world expected the far post, Messi scored at the near post. Except something is wrong. It doesn’t work. Who made this threat?”

“The usual people.”

“Exactly,” Reacher said.

The old woman yelled, “Take a step back.”

Nobody moved.

The woman pointed her gun straight down, at the minister’s head. Jackson stepped back. Behind him Reacher stepped back. Ness stayed with him. Behind them the aide and the driver stepped back.

The old man stepped up next to his wife. They stood together, framed in the doorway. He took out a gun of his own. Same make, same model. Like official issue. He aimed it center-mass at the small crowd below him. His wife put her gun away. One was enough. She untied the knot in her scarf and unwound it from her neck, one turn, two. She had a small round tattoo in the pit of her throat, the size of a casino chip, of a Christmas wreath complete with leaves and bows and candles, all surrounding the black silhouette of a scorpion. She wagged her head from side to side, and rubbed the skin on the back of her neck, as if she was relieved to get the scarf off. As if it had been itchy.

She said, “The threat against the minister here has one very interesting aspect.”

No one spoke.

“OK, I’ll tell you,” she said. “It could have been carried out at any time. Means, motive, and opportunity have been in place for many months. So why wait?”

“The meeting,” Ness whispered to Reacher.

“Two for the price of one,” the old lady said. “Your minister, spelled with a c, and our secretary, spelled with an s. Two very senior figures in a very senior alliance. The resulting chaos could be fatal, especially given the times we live in, which are so bad they drove the dead guys to have a secret meeting on Christmas Eve in the first place. The fallout would be completely unpredictable. All in all it was seen as something worth waiting for. Until the two senior figures were in the same place at the same time.”

Which they weren’t yet, Reacher thought.

The woman said, “Obviously it’s absurd to think the Scorpion could be a woman. The people who pay the bills wouldn’t deal with a woman. They would doubt a woman would get the kind of access she would need, and by and large they would be right. Obviously the Scorpion is a man.”

She put her hand in her pocket and came out with a worn leather wallet. She flipped it open. There was a gold shield on one side, and a photo ID on the other.

“FBI,” she said. “My husband here isn’t really my husband. He’s my partner. Counterterrorism. We’re looking after our guy, just the same as you’re looking after your guy.”

She dug her thumbnail in the pit of her throat and peeled off the tattoo. It was printed on clingy transparent plastic.

She said, “For a long time all we knew was a year ago he had this exact design put on his chest. I promised myself I would wear this thing every day until we caught him. Call me sentimental, I guess. Or superstitious.”

Means, motive, and opportunity, Reacher thought. Why wait?

The old lady said, “For a long time that was all we knew, but now we know more. Who could realistically expect to penetrate Fort Irwin during a lockdown? Who can come and go like a ghost, without attracting a second glance? Who gets access to all the right places?”

Reacher was ready. Jackson turned and ran, which was stupid, in thick snow, with a gun at his back, and a guy as big as Reacher in his way. In the process of taking him down his T-shirt got torn, thereby exposing a tattoo on his chest identical to the FBI lady’s plastic replica. After that things went smoothly. The law ran its course. Everyone got medals, except Reacher, but he got Christmas dinner in the officers’ mess, with the fire blazing, and that was enough.

PHOTO: © AXEL DUPEUX

LEE CHILD is the author of twenty-two New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher thrillers, with thirteen having reached the #1 position, and the #1 bestselling complete Jack Reacher story collection, No Middle Name . All of his novels have been optioned for major motion pictures – including Jack Reacher (based on One Shot ) and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back . Foreign rights to the Reacher series have sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Child lives in New York City.

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