Lee Child: First Thrills

The gun said Glock on the side. There was no safety mechanism on it. Anna hooked her finger around the trigger and stepped out to the corridor. “Downstairs,” the boy had said. She found a staircase and went down and kept on going.

By that point they had dragged me to a large ground floor room. A conference hall, maybe, once upon a time. There were thirty-nine people in it. There was a small raised stage with two chairs on it. The boss man was in one of them. They put me in the other. Then they all started discussing something in Portuguese. How to kill me, I presumed. How to maximize their entertainment. Halfway through a door opened in the back of the room. Anna stepped in, swinging a large handgun from side to side in front of her. Reaction was immediate. Thirty-eight men pulled out weapons of their own and pointed them at her.

But the boss man didn’t. Instead he yelled an urgent warning. I didn’t speak his language, but I knew what he was saying. He was saying, Don’t shoot her! We need her alive! She’s valuable to us! The thirty-eight guys lowered their guns and watched as Anna moved through them. She reached the stage. The boss man smiled.

“You’ve got seventeen shells in that gun,” he said. “There are thirty-nine of us here. You can’t shoot us all.”

Anna nodded.

“I know,” she said. Then she turned the gun on herself and pressed it into her chest. “But I can shoot myself.”

After that, it was easy. She made them unlock my cuffs and my chains. I took a gun from the nearest guy and we backed out of the room. And we got away with it. Not by threatening to shoot our pursuers, but by Anna threatening to shoot herself. Five minutes later we were in a taxi. Thirty minutes later we were home.

A day later I quit the bodyguarding business. Because I took it as a sign. A guy who needs to be rescued by his client has no future, except as a phony.

LEE CHILDis the number-one internationally bestselling author of thirteen Reacher thrillers, including the New York Times bestsellers The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, and the number-one bestselling novels Bad Luck and Trouble and Nothing to Lose. His debut, Killing Floor, won both the Anthony and the Barry Awards for Best First Mystery, and The Enemy won both the Barry and the Nero Awards for Best Novel. Child, a native of England and a former television director, lives in New York City, where he is at work on his fourteenth Reacher thriller, 61 Hours.

Chris, I’m pregnant.”

Everything about that dinner is vivid, crystallized in my mind: the smell of garlic-roasted cauliflower on the stove, the honeyed taste of her lips, the toasty softness of her body… such a delicious sensory hash does not fade with time, it grows stronger, more complex, like a Chateau Mouton Rothschild or Italian Caciocavallo Podolico cheese. Delectably unforgettable.

Like murder.

Nine o’clock, Monday night, seems like a million years ago. Mary and I were cooking together for the first time in months. That evening she had planned a surprise, even left work early to pick up provisions at the farmer’s market.

“Tell me,” I teased.

“Get back to work. Chop those onions,” she replied.

“Not even a hint?”

My pleas fell on wooden ears. I would sneak behind her as she worked, pushing myself into her, kissing the back of her neck, slipping my hands under her brown chef’s apron, sucking in the smell of her sweet blonde hair. And she’d bark at me like a mess sergeant: Trim the meat! Fire up the grill! Pour yourself some Chardonnay!

“No wine for love bug?” I asked.

“Uh-uh.”

“Not even a sip?”

That’s when I knew. I rested my chin on her shoulder, grabbed her belly from behind. “Can’t feel anything.”

“You’re in there baking, trust me,” she whispered, then we kissed.

“So much for joining the clergy.”

She laughed. On our first date back in New York I had been wearing black pants, a black turtleneck, and a black sports jacket. She had called me The Priest. Ever since, whenever I wore black like I had that night, she’d joke that I would have made one hot reverend, a priest with benefits, a pope that poked. The clergy jokes were endless, she couldn’t get enough. The curse of a Catholic upbringing.

While she chopped and steamed and grated, I took my wine into the living room, my head spinning. What else could I do? I was going to be a dad. I flipped channels between commercials and the news and the Cowboys Monday night game.

“Damn, I forgot mushrooms for the oysters,” she shouted, her voice muffled under the stove exhaust fan. “Honey, can you go around the corner and get some buttons?”

“What are those?”

“It doesn’t matter. Porcinis, shiitakes… what ever they have.”

“Hey, Peter Radin’s on TV!” I said, sitting up. Ten years ago Peter and I joined the Guardsmen together, a Houston charity that raised money for inner-city youth. While I stayed in software, he moved up in state politics; now he was running for the board of supes. “God, Peter looks great.”

“Are you getting those mushrooms for me?” Mary shouted.

“In a few minutes? I can never tell those damn things apart.”

“That’s OK, I could use the walk. Just keep stirring my soup.”

“Thanks, honey.” Then she left.

Just keep stirring my soup.

The last words I would ever hear my wife say.

It was dead cold that night in Houston. The Prince Market at the corner of King and Jensen glowed yellow like a beacon, drawing the killer out of the shadows. The streets were empty, dark. All clear. His stomach gurgled, but tonight he would feast on vengeance. Tonight, at last, he would kill the Turk.

“I’ve been patient,” he muttered to himself. “Now it’s Puffer time.”

He entered the quaint grocery. All quiet except for the trumpets blaring from the television that hung from the ceiling. Puff was hungry; he hadn’t eaten all day. Part of the plan. When the Turk bastard shot his son in this very store two years ago, his boy had been starving, too. His boy wasn’t some gangbanger, he was just hungry; all he wanted was the ninety bucks in the register and a stupid box of cereal, but the Turk wasted him.

Now it was Puff’s turn to feed.

Puff strolled up to the market, his 250 pounds gliding with grace and purpose. He flashed a yellow crocodile grin at the Turk, but the Turk did not look up. Puff shoved a box of Cap’n Crunch in his jacket, same cereal his son had grabbed that night. For poetry.

Time to say grace. Puff pulled the shank from his back pocket. Holding it tightly to his side, he approached the counter.

“Empty it.” He flashed the switchblade so the Turk could see. The Turk kept a gun back there, probably the same one he used to kill his son, but it was stashed on the other side of the coffee maker, well out of reach. Puff had been watching, paying attention. Revenge demanded sweet, sweet patience. Now he had the Turk cold, at knifepoint. All according to plan.

“Are these buttons or meadows?” a voice behind him asked.

Instinct took over; Puff turned like a panther, blade swinging wildly. The knife slid through the woman’s brown apron and into her chest like turkey meat. She screamed. Puff’s eyes met hers and she staggered into him.

“I’m sorry-Puff didn’t mean to-”