Ли Чайлд - Blue Moon

A small slender woman and a big ugly man.

Once Reacher had read a paperback book he found on a bus, about how people like to second guess themselves for hours or days, whereas really they know the truth in the blink of an eye. He liked the book because it agreed with him. He had learned to trust his first flash of instinct. Therefore he knew at that point all bets were off. No questions would be asked. We want to know who you are . Not any more. Now they were in the grip of some kind of crazy turmoil and bloodlust. There would be no more bonus points for still able to talk. That offer was way past its best-by date.

So even before the pointing guy’s shout died to an echo Reacher fired three rounds into the mass of distant figures. Three down for sure. Couldn’t miss. The rest scattered like roaches. Reacher ducked back and caught Abby by the elbow and pulled her behind the car. Behind the rear flank. He glanced sideways, out the roll-up door. He recognized the gate, and the scooped-out kerb, and the street. He knew where he was.

The gate was open.

He whispered, ‘Scoot along and get in the passenger door. Then scoot over and drive us out of here. It’s a straight shot. Put your foot down and don’t even look. Keep crouched down in your seat.’

Abby said, ‘What time of day is it?’

‘This doesn’t count. People pay money for this kind of thing.’

‘Where they get spattered with paint, not bullets.’

‘So this is more authentic. They would pay more.’

Abby crouched her way along the flank of the car, and reached up to the handle from below, and slipped her fingers in the bottom seam, and eased the door open, just wide enough to get in, twisting, slithering low, her belly pressed to the seat.

‘The key’s not in,’ she whispered.

One of the distant figures fired a single round. It passed a foot over the trunk lid, two feet over Reacher’s head. The crack of the shot slurred to a boom, as the metal roof vibrated like a giant drum skin.

Abby whispered, ‘They took the key with them. Think about it. They must have opened the trunk remotely.’

‘Fabulous,’ Reacher said. ‘I guess I’ll have to go get it.’

He dropped his cheek to the concrete and looked down the length of the shed from under the car. He saw five guys on the ground. Two from the initial internal dispute, and three from his first three rounds. Two of those were still, and one was moving. But only a little. No great vigour or enthusiasm. He would have nothing much to contribute for a day or two. There were nine guys still vertical, crouched behind whatever cover they had been able to find. Which wasn’t much. There was a pyramid of chemical drums. Preservative, maybe. There were low stacks of lumber, but not many. Inventory was sparse. It was a cover operation. No serious business intent.

Reacher rolled on his back and smacked the magazine out of the H&K and counted the rounds remaining. Two left, plus one in the chamber, for a total of three. Not encouraging. He put the mag back in the gun and rolled on his side and squirmed along the flank of the car until he was back at the trunk. The driver and the passenger lay about five feet away. One eye and three eyes. Their heads lay in pools of blood. The driver was closer, which was good, because he had seemed to be the take-charge guy. The senior figure. He would have the key. In his suit coat pocket, probably. On the left. Because he was right-handed. He would have held his gun in his right and blipped the fob with his left.

Another round came in and smacked the end wall, a foot high. The crack of the shot, the boom of the roof, the metallic echo, then silence again. Then footsteps. Scuffed, hasty, tentative. Someone was moving up. Moving closer. Reacher checked the view again, under the car. The nine live guys were gesturing and waving and pointing. Hand signals. They were coordinating an advance. They were aiming to leapfrog forward, one at a time, two at a time, from one spot to the next. In the lead was a wide guy who looked a little like Gezim Hoxha. Same kind of age, same kind of build. He was tensing up ready, aiming to spin off the chemical drums and make it to a stack of boards wrapped in plastic, maybe fifteen feet further on. The others would fill in behind him. Their likely rate of advance was rapid. They faced no structural impediments.

Time to slow them down.

Only one sure way.

Reacher straightened his arm under the car and aimed very carefully. Like a classic one-handed shooting position, except rotated ninety degrees, because he was lying on his side on the floor. He waited until the guy’s back leg braced for action, and then he fired, leading the target by an inch or two, and the guy stepped right into the bullet. It caught him high in the chest, left side. Which was fine. All kinds of vital stuff in that area. Arteries, nerves, veins. The guy went down and the advance stalled. The back eight hunkered down like turtles. Only one sure way, which was to make an example of the point man, right in front of their eyes.

Two rounds left. Not encouraging.

Reacher squirmed around and rolled over on his front and elbowed-and-toed to where his head was level with the back bumper. The nearest part of the driver was his right foot. Reacher lay flat and stretched out his arm. He was about a yard short. But his plan was made. Better to drag the guy behind the car first, and go through his pockets second. Safer that way. Reacher took a breath and slid out fast and grabbed the driver’s ankle and hauled on it hard. He was back behind cover in a second. The driver’s head left a snail trail of blood on the concrete. Reacher’s brief display of himself triggered a furious volley of four fast rounds from the hunkered-down positions, but they were all late and they all missed.

Reacher stayed in a crouch and dragged the driver another yard. He rolled him over. Then two simultaneous processes unspooled in parallel. Reacher started searching for the car key, and the eight live Albanians started thinking about what he was doing and why he was doing it. And evidently they weren’t dumb. They figured it out pretty fast. About the same time Reacher got his hand in the driver’s left-hand coat pocket, the Albanians started firing at the car. It was a big target. Sixteen feet long, five feet high. They shredded it. First all the driver’s side windows shattered, and rounds punched and clanged through the sheet metal, and then the whole car slumped down on the left as the tyres were shot out, and green oily fluid dripped down underneath. Reacher crawled back to where Abby was half in and half out of the passenger seat. He dragged her out and closed her door and pushed her along to where the front wheel was, behind the engine block, which was the safest spot. Relatively speaking. Under the circumstances. The noise was deafening. Rounds came through the busted far side windows and shattered the near side windows. Pebbles of glass rained down. Rounds clanked and smacked into the bodywork. From closer and closer. They were advancing again.

Reacher had two rounds left.

Not encouraging.

He glanced out the roll-up door. Bright morning sunshine. The gate, open. The street, empty. Maybe thirty yards to the scooped-out kerb. Maybe seventy more to the first corner. Ten seconds for an athlete. At least twenty for him. Maybe more. With eight guys chasing right behind him. Not good. Except maybe less than twenty seconds for Abby. She might be faster. She might be a small target receding into the distance ahead of a much slower and larger target. She might be OK. If she would agree to run on ahead. Which he knew she wouldn’t. There would be an argument. They would miss what would likely be a one-time opportunity. Inevitable. Human nature. Mostly bullshit, but sometimes it rang a bell.