Lee Child - Worth Dying For

Jacob put down his knife and his fork. He dabbed his lips with his cuff. He folded his hands in front of him. He said, ‘We have to ask ourselves something.’

Jonas was hosting, so he was entitled to the first response.

‘What something?’ he asked.

‘We have to consider whether it might be worth trading a little dignity and self-respect for a useful outcome.’

‘In what way?’

‘We have a provocation and a threat. The provocation comes from the stranger in the motel throwing his weight around in matters that don’t concern him. The threat comes from our friend to the south getting impatient. The first thing must be punished, and the second thing shouldn’t have happened at all. No date should have been guaranteed. But it was, so we have to deal with it, and without judgement either. No doubt Seth was doing what he thought was best for all of us.’

Jonas asked, ‘How do we deal with it?’

‘Let’s think about the other thing first. The stranger from the motel.’

Seth said, ‘I want him hurt bad.’

‘We all do, son. And we tried, didn’t we? Didn’t work out so well.’

‘What, now we’re afraid of him?’

‘We are, a little bit, son. We lost three guys. We’d be stupid not to be at least a little concerned. And we’re not stupid, are we? That’s one thing a Duncan will never be accused of. Hence my question about self-respect.’

‘You want to let him walk?’

‘No, I want to tell our friend to the south that the stranger is the problem. That he’s somehow the reason for the delay. Then we point out to our friend that he’s already got two of his boys up here, and if he wants a bit of giddy-up in the shipment process, then maybe those two boys could be turned against the stranger. That’s a win all around, isn’t it? Three separate ways. First, those two boys are off Seth’s back, as of right now, and second, the stranger gets hurt or killed, and third, some of the sting goes out of our friend’s recent attitude, because he comes to see that the delay isn’t really our fault at all. He comes to see that we’re beleaguered, by outside forces, in ways that he’ll readily understand, because no doubt he’s beleaguered too, from time to time, in similar ways. In other words, we make common cause.’

Silence for a moment.

Then Jasper Duncan said, ‘I like it.’

Jacob said, ‘I like it too. Otherwise I wouldn’t be proposing it. The only downside is a slight blow to our self-respect and dignity, in that it won’t be our own hands on the man who transgressed against us, and we’ll be admitting to our friend to the south that there are problems in this world that we can’t solve all by ourselves.’

‘No shame in that,’ Jonas said. ‘This is a very complicated business.’

Seth asked, ‘You figure his boys are better than our boys?’

‘Of course they are, son,’ Jacob said. ‘As good as our boys are, his are in a different league. There’s no comparison. Which we need to bear in mind. Our friend to the south needs to remain our friend, because he would make a very unpleasant enemy.’

‘But suppose the delay doesn’t go away?’ Jasper asked. ‘Suppose nothing changes? Suppose the stranger gets nailed today and we still can’t deliver for a week? Then our friend to the south knows we were lying to him.’

‘I don’t think the stranger will get nailed in one day,’ Jacob said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because he seems to be a very capable person. All the evidence so far points in that direction. It could take a few days, by which time our truck could well be on its way. And even if it isn’t, we could say that we thought it prudent to keep the merchandise out of the country until the matter was finally resolved. Our friend might believe that. Or, of course, he might not.’

‘It’s a gamble, then.’

‘Indeed it is. But it’s probably the best we can do. Are we in or out?’

‘We should offer assistance,’ Jasper said. ‘And information. We should require compliance from the population.’

Jacob said, ‘Naturally. Our friend would expect nothing less. Instructions will be issued, and sanctions will be advertised.’

‘And our boys should be out there too. Ears and eyes open. We need to feel we made some contribution, at least.’

‘Naturally,’ Jacob said again. ‘So are we in or out?’

No one spoke for a long moment. Then Jasper said, ‘I’m in.’

‘Me too,’ Jonas said.

Jacob Duncan nodded and unfolded his hands.

‘That’s a majority, then,’ he said. ‘Which I’m mighty relieved to have, because I took the liberty of calling our friend to the south two hours ago. Our boys and his are already on the hunt.’

‘I want to be there,’ Seth said. ‘When the stranger gets it.’

REACHER WAS HALF EXPECTING SOMETHING NAILED TOGETHER from sod and rotten boards, like a Dust Bowl photograph, but the woman drove him down a long gravel farm track to a neat two-storey dwelling standing alone in the corner of a spread that might have covered a thousand acres. The woman parked behind the house, next to a line of old tumbledown barns and sheds. Reacher could hear chickens in a coop, and he could smell pigs in a sty. And earth, and air, and weather. The countryside, in all its winter glory. The woman said, ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but how much are you planning to pay me?’

Reacher smiled. ‘Deciding how much food to give me?’

‘Something like that.’

‘My breakfast average west of the Mississippi is about fifteen bucks with tip.’

The woman looked surprised. And satisfied.

‘That’s a lot of money,’ she said. ‘That’s two hours’ wages. That’s like having a nine-day work week.’

‘Not all profit,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m hungry, don’t forget.’

She led him inside through a door to a back hallway. The house was what Seth Duncan’s place might have been before the expensive renovations. Low ceilings overhead, small panes of wavy glass in the windows, uneven floors underfoot, the whole place old and antique and outdated in every possible way, but cleaned and tidied and well maintained for a hundred consecutive years. The kitchen was immaculate. The stove was cold.

‘You didn’t eat yet?’ Reacher asked.

‘I don’t eat,’ the woman said. ‘Not breakfast, at least.’

‘Dieting?’

The woman didn’t answer, and Reacher immediately felt stupid.

‘I’m buying,’ he said. ‘Thirty bucks. Let’s both have some fun.’

‘I don’t want charity.’

‘It isn’t charity. I’m returning a favour, that’s all. You stuck your neck out bringing me here.’

‘I was just trying to be a decent person.’

‘Me too,’ Reacher said. ‘Take it or leave it.’

She said, ‘I’ll take it.’

He said, ‘What’s your name? Most times when I have breakfast with a lady, I know her name at least.’

‘My name is Dorothy.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Dorothy. You married?’

‘I was. Now I’m not.’

‘You know my name?’

‘Your name is Jack Reacher. We’ve all been informed. The word is out.’

‘I told the doctor’s wife.’

‘And she told the Duncans. Don’t blame her for it. It’s automatic. She’s trying to pay down her debt, like all of us.’

‘What does she owe them?’

‘She sided with me, twenty-five years ago.’

Roberto Cassano and Angelo Mancini were driving north in a rented Impala. They were based in a Courtyard Marriott, which was the only hotel in the county seat, which was nothing more than a token grid of streets set in the middle of what felt like a billion square miles of absolutely nothing at all. They had learned to watch their fuel gauge. Nebraska was that kind of place. It paid to fill up at every gas station you saw. The next one could be a million miles away.