Ли Чайлд - The Midnight Line

The guy raised the rifle, right hand to left hand to right hand, a clumsy old thing, nearly twelve pounds in weight, nearly four feet long.

His trigger finger detoured ahead of the guard.

It flicked the safety catch forward.

Reacher crashed into the guy nearest him and used the bounce to hurl himself against a tree. Not really diving out of the way of a bullet, for such a thing was surely impossible, but it was easy enough to estimate a bullet’s likely future trajectory comparatively far ahead of time, and then avoid it, not forgetting that Newton’s Laws of Motion said the same bounce that helped him also helped the other guy, but in the opposite direction, towards the gun, action and reaction, which in his case got him killed. The rifle fired and the guy got hit and went down like he had walked into a clothesline. The roar of the shot died away to an immense cracking mountain echo, then a whisper, then nothing. The guy with the rifle stared. Reacher peeled off his tree and smacked him in the head and took his rifle away.

The guy staggered and dropped to his knees.

The third guy was frozen in place.

Reacher said, ‘Check your friend.’

But even from there he could see it was hopeless. The guy had fired high and the round had gone through his buddy’s throat. Just as good as a gut shot, from the point of view of the prevailing theory. Maybe even better. The bullet would fall to earth a hundred yards away. The soft tissue of the neck would be quickly consumed. Damaged vertebrae would be carried away and crushed, for the spinal cord inside. No proof at all.

The guy kneeling down looked up and shook his head. Reacher pointed the rifle at him, and then at where he wanted him to go. Which was next to the guy with the boots, who was struggling to his feet, steadying himself with a palm on the ground, then finally making it.

‘Lead on,’ Reacher said. ‘We’ll go this way after all.’

They stumbled ahead of him, and he followed behind, carrying the rifle one-handed. They offered no resistance. They were completely passive, as if resigned to their fate. Maybe in shock. Maybe an addict thing. Maybe a cowboy thing.

They got back two minutes after Bramall and Mackenzie got back from checking out of the hotel. Rose Sanderson was out on the porch, greeting her sister. Bramall was over by his car, giving them space. The two guys and Reacher came out of the woods right in the middle. And stopped. Centre stage. No need to tell the story. It was all right there. Two guys, not three, both of them sheepish and beaten, driven from behind by Reacher with a rifle.

Rose Sanderson seemed to recognize the rifle. Her head turned. The cuff of her hood traversed like a periscope. She stared at the scene. At the two guys. At the rifle. At Reacher. He knew she was thinking. Like an infantry officer. She was running war games through her head, like a chess computer. Like a West Point graduate.

She found one that fit.

She said, ‘Was it freebies from Stackley?’

He said, ‘Yes.’

‘I guess that’s really bad.’

‘I’m not loving it so far.’

‘What does Stackley have against you?’

‘His boss doesn’t like me.’

‘But you’re not here on business.’

‘I picked things up along the way.’

‘What happened up there?’

‘One KIA,’ he said. ‘Friendly fire. Hasty aim, a moving target, confusion in front of him.’

‘Let them go,’ she said. ‘Keep the rifle. It’s their only remaining weapon.’

The two guys shuffled off down their own path, and the sisters moved to meet Reacher and Bramall at the porch step, where they all sat down to talk. Sanderson had her hood pulled forward again. It was moulded into a narrow vertical aperture. It turned and lined up with Reacher’s face, and she said, ‘I apologize for them.’

‘No need,’ he said. ‘No harm, no foul. Tactical sophistication and superior skill in manoeuvring overcame an initial material deficit.’

‘When did you know?’

‘First sign was we stopped in a clearing and they got a bit weird. But I guess the guy couldn’t pull the trigger. I guess he had never done it before.’

‘I apologize for them,’ she said again. ‘They were my friends.’

‘No need,’ he said again.

‘But I can’t condemn them. You have no idea of the magnitude of what they were offered.’

‘I’m getting an idea. From cause and effect alone. I’m taking it seriously, believe me. I’m not judging it, either. It is what it is. You got to do what you got to do. Right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right now what you got to do is go inside and get a brand new patch, because after that the next thing you got to do is make a choice.’

‘Between what?’

‘You can have a sensible conversation about what comes next.’

‘Or?’

‘I’m moving on without you.’

ROSE SANDERSON WENT inside to get a brand new patch, and as the door closed behind her Bramall’s cell phone rang. He checked the screen and said, ‘It’s Special Agent Noble, from his office in Denver.’

‘Don’t answer,’ Reacher said. ‘He’s going to ask if you found Rose. Either as a pleasantry in passing, or because he wants her for a witness. You can’t tell him where she is. Not now. You’ll feel bad holding out on him.’

‘He might have something for us.’

‘He hasn’t retired yet. He’s all take and no give. Don’t answer.’

Bramall didn’t. The call timed out and voice mail clicked in. Bramall retrieved it immediately. He listened, and he said, ‘He wants to know if we found Rose.’

Behind them the door opened again and Rose stepped out. Small, lithe, graceful. With the hem of her hood leading the way. She sat down on the step.

She turned her hood Reacher’s way.

She said, ‘Obviously it’s your own decision when to move on.’

He said, ‘I’m not looking to save the world. All I wanted was to know the story. Which I do now. Not a happy ending. I don’t want to be here when it turns even worse. I don’t want to be here while you go cold turkey in federal lock-up. With no medical supervision. Not even antiseptic cream. While your sister gets busted as some kind of an accessory, all because the Boy Detective thinks a rich white woman would balance the books on the TV news. While she goes bankrupt, fighting the bullshit charges. While Mr Bramall loses his licence and has to find a third career. I want to be gone before all that happens.’

She said, ‘You make it sound certain to happen.’

‘They have Billy in a cell. And you have a dead cowboy on your land. Someone will find him, like someone found Porterfield. Sheriff Connelly will search your place. Unless the Boy Detective has already gotten here first, thanks to Billy drawing a hand-lettered map. Unless the supply cuts off before either one of them arrives, in which case you’ll be in the ER five times a day with a toothache. One of those things is certain to happen.’

‘How long before the supply cuts off, do you think?’

The thing that mattered most.

‘That’s a circular argument,’ Reacher said. ‘If I move on without you, my first stop will be Rapid City, South Dakota. I need to pay Arthur Scorpio a visit. He lied to me about Porterfield, and he told two separate people to shoot me from behind a tree. He crossed the line. It’s not going to end well for him. He’s going in the tumble dryer. Two days for me to get there, and one day to do it. I would say the supply cuts off about three days from now.’

‘You’re forcing my hand. Either I agree to go now, or you’ll make me go anyway. It’s a unilateral three-day deadline.’

‘It’s an unintended consequence. Look at it from my point of view. Obviously I don’t want to be here when it goes from bad to worse. And obviously when I leave here I have no choice except go straight to Rapid City. What else could I do? The guy is messing with me. What would you do if you were taking rounds from a distant building?’