Ли Чайлд - No Middle Name

He said, ‘Long guns are a poor choice in the woods, Sergeant Cain. You can aim all you want, but there’s always going to be a tree in the way. That’s your first mistake. Let’s hope it’s also your last.’

Cain called back, ‘Are those people with you?’

‘Which people?’

‘The infiltrators.’

‘They were hikers, from Canada. I haven’t seen them since this morning.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Let it go, sergeant. Play it smart. There are no medals in this one. By tomorrow morning it won’t have happened at all.’

‘They might have seen evidence of a covert operation.’

‘They saw what they’re supposed to see.’

Cain said, ‘What does that mean?’

‘Like a magician on stage,’ Reacher said. ‘A big showy flourish with the left hand, attracting all the attention, while the right hand does the real work. There are activists in the world, Sergeant Cain. We can’t wish them away. They’re always looking for something to piss and moan about. So we give them something. A big showy flourish with the left hand. Something to get all agitated about. But not too agitated, because after all who really gives a shit about vicious killers straight out of the Middle Ages? Meanwhile, the right hand does the important stuff undisturbed. Classic misdirection.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I was an MP once. I was your boss’s boss’s boss. And my brother did a spell in Military Intelligence. I met some of his people. Some sly minds there, sergeant. There was an old guy called O’Day. A buck gets ten this scheme is one of his. Think about it. Hundreds of people, a secret website, all kinds of planning and scheming. It’s an energy sink. Like a sponge. It keeps them where we can see them.’

No answer.

‘Let it go, sergeant,’ Reacher said again. ‘Play your part, which is to look sinister next to your Humvees. No one’s going to thank you if you screw up your lines. These things are very carefully orchestrated.’

Then Reacher stepped back and shut up, and let Cain’s career caution do his work for him. After a minute Cain gave the word and all four of them formed up and jogged back the way they had come. Reacher followed five minutes behind them, but he took the precaution of looping the last hundred yards through the brush, and coming out on a parallel street. Two minutes later he was back at the welcome board, waiting for a ride out of town.

Caught out on Christmas day in a freezing snow storm in East Anglia, Reacher seeks shelter in an isolated country house.

IT STARTED ON a freezing Christmas Eve night in New York City, in a bar on Bleecker Street, in the West Village. Jack Reacher walked by, huddled in his coat collar, and he heard the thump of interesting rhythms inside. He pushed through the door into warmth and noise, and found a saxophone player and two sidemen up on a stage about the height of an orange box. But more importantly he found a blonde woman alone at a table for two. She was following the music. Turned out she was from Holland. She was about thirty, and over six feet tall. They talked when the band took a break. She spoke English very well.

She was a cabin attendant for KLM, which was the Royal Dutch Airlines. She said she couldn’t chat for long. In fact she had to leave in twenty minutes exactly. The crew bus was coming by. She was working the night flight to Amsterdam.

They talked some more, and after twenty minutes exactly she asked him to come with her. To Amsterdam. No charge. She had a coupon. Like a staff benefit. It was Christmas Eve. There would be empty seats.

Reacher said yes. He had no particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there. Christmas Day in Amsterdam would be fine. He had his passport in one pocket and his folding toothbrush in another, and his ATM card and a wad of cash in a third. All he needed. As ever, he was ready to go.

They got to the airport and she was called into an emergency pre-flight briefing, and that was about the last he ever saw of her.

The problem was a snowstorm. It was due to roll over the United Kingdom, and then hit the coast of Europe. Including Amsterdam. But not yet. The plane could probably beat it home. But it didn’t. The storm sped up unexpectedly. It blanketed Britain and headed onward, while high over the Atlantic the airplane passed its point of no return. The computers said it was due into Schiphol exactly when the weather front would be at its worst. It would have to divert. It would have to stop short, on a runway already snowed-upon and already cleared. Best offer was a place called Stansted, in England, in the county of Essex. Reacher saw his new friend hustle by in the distance, and another attendant told him the plan. She said his friend was sorry, but she would have to stay with the plane. He was on his own for Christmas.

Reacher was through the Stansted airport before six o’clock in the morning. Christmas Day. It was well before dawn and still dark as night. There was one cab on the rank. The driver wore a turban. Reacher asked him what lay round about. The guy said a town called Harlow in one direction, and a town called Chelmsford in another, and Cambridge about twice as far away to the north.

‘Cambridge,’ Reacher said. He had been there on U.S. Army business. Back in the day. It had a university. And airbases nearby. Which he might need. His KLM coupon was one-way only. England was a fine country, but he couldn’t stay in one place for ever.

‘Roads are very bad, sir,’ the driver said. ‘We won’t make it to Cambridge.’

‘How much snow?’

‘Two feet in places.’

‘You got here this morning,’ Reacher said. ‘Let’s try for Cambridge.’

They set off, and did pretty well for the first twenty miles. All the way to the middle of nowhere. Then their luck ran out. The wind had smoothed the snow over roads and walls, into glittering crusted shapes that bore no relation to what lay beneath.

The driver said, ‘I’m turning back.’

It was still dark. All around was snow. In the far distance was a light. A house, maybe, an upper-floor window, a bulb left on all night. Maybe two miles away. All on its own. A country residence.

Reacher said, ‘You can let me out here.’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘I don’t like to turn back. I prefer to keep moving forward. As a matter of principle.’

‘No cars will come. You’ll be stuck here all day. You’ll freeze to death.’

‘I could walk. There’s a house in the distance. Maybe a stately home. I could knock on the kitchen door. Maybe they have a tradition. I could get Christmas dinner below stairs. A cup of coffee, at least.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’

So eventually the taxi drove away, leaving Reacher all alone in the landscape. He stood in the dark for a moment, and then he set out walking, knee deep through the drifts, some crusty, some powder, which exploded around him as he blundered through. There was a wind blowing, laced with eddies of snow. He found a road surface under his feet, and stuck with it, and saw it was going to lead him to the corner of a high estate wall, built of stone and powdered with snow. The road led along it for about half a mile, to what looked like a pair of fancy iron gates between tall stone pillars topped with carved statues of lions. Or mythical beasts. In the pre-dawn gloom it was hard to tell.

He slogged onward, one plunging stride at a time, and he made it to the gates, which were standing open, knee deep in snow. There was a long driveway ahead, buried in untouched white, running between avenues of bare trees straight to the house. A hundred yards or more. No tracks, no footprints. Reacher was going to be the first visitor of the day.