Lee Child - Make Me

The other two items made a matched pair. Two identical MP5K sub-machineguns. One for Reacher, and one for Chang. Bigger than an average handgun, but not by much. Some revolvers were longer. Pistol grips, matching front grips, fat and bulbous. A futuristic design, much loved by SWAT teams and counterterrorist squads everywhere. Single shot or full auto, and full auto could hit as high as nine hundred rounds a minute. Which was fifteen bullets a second.

Hence the rest of the delivery was ammunition. All nine-millimeter Parabellum, interchangeable between all three weapons, but at that point pre-loaded into four P7 magazines and twenty-four MP5 magazines. More would have been hard to carry.

Reacher took the guns apart and put them back together again, and dry-fired them, sometimes with his little finger, which he felt was more sensitive to mechanical nuance.

All three worked.

Plus a small bag of stuff from a hardware store.

“Everything OK?” Chang asked him.

“Looking good,” he said.

“You OK?”

“Feeling good,” he said.

“Happy with the plan?”

“It’s a great plan,” he said.

“But?”

“Something we used to say in the MPs. Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.”

Westwood checked his watch. A complex thing, made of steel, with many dials. It was five o’clock in the afternoon. He said, “Seven hours left. We should eat. I’m sure the restaurant is open.”

“You go ahead,” Reacher said. “We’ll get room service. We’ll knock on your door when it’s time.”

From the metal walkway on top of the old concrete giant the dawn was vast, and remote, and infinitely slow. The eastern horizon was black as night, and it stayed that way, until at last a person with straining wide-open eyes might call it faintly gray, like the darkest charcoal, which lightened over long slow minutes, and spread, side to side and wafer-thin, and upward, like tentative fingers on some outer layer of the atmosphere, impossibly distant, the stratosphere perhaps, as if light traveled faster there, or got there sooner.

The edge of the world crept into view, at least to the straining wide-open eyes, limned and outlined in gray on gray, infinitely dim, infinitely subtle, hardly there at all, part imagination, and part hope. Then pale gold fingers probed the gray, moving, ethereal, as if deciding. And then spreading, igniting some thin and distant layer one molecule at a time, one lumen, lighting it up slowly, turning it luminous and transparent, the glass of the bowl, not white and cold, but tinted warmer.

The light stayed wan, but reached further, every new minute, until the whole sky was gold, but pale, not enough to see by, too weak to cast the faintest shadow. Then warmer streaks bloomed, and lit the horizon, and finally the sun rose, unstoppable, for a second as red and angry as a sunset, then settling to a hot yellow blaze, half-clearing the horizon, and throwing immediate shadows, at first perfectly horizontal, then merely miles long. The sky washed from pale gold to pale blue, down through all the layers, so the world above looked newly deep as well as infinitely high and infinitely wide. The night dew had settled the dust, and until it dried the air was crystal. The view was pure and clear in every direction.

The Cadillac driver was on the walkway, with the Moynahan who had gotten hit in the head and had his gun taken. The guy was still feeling bad, but there was a schedule to keep. He was wearing an old-style leather football helmet in lieu of a splint. For his cheekbone. The Cadillac driver was facing west, with the new sun weak on the back of his neck. Moynahan was squinting east against the glare, watching the road. He had seen no nighttime traffic. No headlights. Everything else was wheat. Then came the curvature of the earth.

Same in the west. The road, the wheat, the far horizon. No nighttime traffic. No headlights. No excitement. The third morning. Directly below in the plaza early risers were heading for breakfast. Like ants. Trucks were parking, like toys. Doors were slamming. Folks were calling good morning, one to the other. All familiar sounds, but dull and indistinct, because of the vertical distance.

After twenty minutes the sun had pulled clear of the horizon, and was already curving south of east, setting out on its morning journey. Dawn had become day. The sky had gotten brighter, and bluer, and perfectly uniform. There was no cloud. New warmth stirred the air, and the wheat moved and eddied, with a whispered rustle, as if waking up. From the top of Elevator Three to the horizon was fifteen miles. A question of elevation, and geometry, and the flatness of the land. Which meant the guys on the walkway were at the exact center of a thirty-mile circle, floating high above it, the whole visible world laid out at their feet. A golden disk, below a high blue sky, cut in equal halves top to bottom by the railroad line, and side to side by the road. From the walkway both looked narrow and crowded by the wheat. Like thin pencil lines, to the naked eye, scored completely straight with a ruler. The lines met at the railroad crossing, directly below them. The center of the disk. The center of the world.

The Cadillac driver was sitting with his knees up, to steady his binoculars. He was watching the far end of the road, all the way west. If something was coming, he wanted maximum warning. Moynahan had his right hand up, to blot out the sun, and his left hand held his binoculars to his eyes. A little shaky. Not easy, with the helmet. His technique was to scan back and forth, near to far. He wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

Their walkie-talkie hissed at them. Moynahan put his binoculars down and picked it up. He said, “Go ahead.”

The man with the jeans and the hair said, “I need you boys to stay up there until the morning train. Your replacements are late.”

Moynahan looked at the Cadillac driver. Who shrugged. The third morning. Panic had turned to routine.

Moynahan said, “OK.”

He put the walkie-talkie down.

He looked at his watch and said, “Twenty minutes.”

He picked up his binoculars and raised his right palm against the sun.

He said, “I got something here.”

The Cadillac driver took a last look at the empty west and turned around. He put his right hand up for shade. The binoculars shook a little. The eastern horizon was bright. The sun was still low enough to roil the air. Worse, with the telephoto optics. There was a tiny square shape on the road, somehow rocking from side to side, but in place. No apparent forward motion. An optical illusion, because of the binoculars. It was a truck, doing maybe forty-five miles an hour. Mostly white. Coming straight at them.

The Cadillac driver said, “Keep an eye on it. Make sure there’s nothing behind.”

He turned back west and pulled up his knees.

He steadied his binoculars.

He said, “Shit, I got something too.”

Moynahan said, “What is it?”

Best guess, it was a red car. Just a dot, tiny in the distance, with low sun winking in its windshield. Close to fifteen miles away. Same thing as the east, rocking in place, no forward motion. An illusion.

He said, “How’s yours doing?”

“Still coming on.”

“Nothing behind it?”

“Can’t tell. Not yet. It could be a whole convoy.”

“Mine too.”

They watched. Distant vehicles on a dead-straight road, head-on, the image magnified but flattened by the binocular lenses. Roiling air, urgent side-to-side rocking, no forward motion, plumes of dust.

Moynahan picked up the walkie-talkie. He clicked the button and when he got the go-ahead he said, “We’ve got incoming vehicles east and west. Moderate speed. Probable ETA about the same as the morning train.”