Lee Child - Nothing to Lose

And the clock started ticking.

One guy would be easy.

Two might be harder.

The second guy had to move, but Reacher couldn’t afford for him to arrive.

No sound, except the idling cruiser and the distant clash of plates inside the restaurant kitchen.

“Pussy,” Reacher called. “A thing like this, you should have been able to handle it on your own.”

The cop’s lips went tight and he shuffled toward the front of the car, tracking with his gun, adjusting his aim. He reached the front bumper and felt for the push bars with his knees. Came on around, getting nearer.

He stepped up out of the gutter onto the sidewalk.

Reacher waited. The cop was now on his right, so Reacher shuffled one step left, to keep the line of fire straight and dangerous and inhibiting. The Glock tracked his move, locked in a steady two-handed grip.

The cop said, “Get in the car.”

The cop took one step forward.

Now he was five feet away, one cast square of concrete sidewalk.

Reacher kept his back against the glass and moved his right heel against the base of the wall.

The cop stepped closer.

Now the Glock’s muzzle was within a foot of Reacher’s throat. The cop was a big guy, with long arms fully extended, and both feet planted apart in a useful combat stance.

Useful if he was prepared to fire.

Which he wasn’t.

Taking a gun from a man ready to use it was not always difficult. Taking one from a man who had already decided not to use it verged on the easy. The cop took his left hand off the gun and braced to grab Reacher by the collar. Reacher slid right, his back hard on the window, washed cotton on clean glass, no friction at all, and moved inside the cop’s aim. He brought his left forearm up and over, fast, one two, and clamped his hand right over the Glock and the cop’s hand together. The cop was a big guy with big hands, but Reacher’s were bigger. He clamped down and squeezed hard and forced the gun down and away in one easy movement. He got it pointing at the ground and increased the squeeze to paralyze the cop’s trigger finger and then he looked him in the eye and smiled briefly and jerked forward off his planted heel and delivered a colossal head butt direct to the bridge of the cop’s nose.

The cop sagged back on rubber legs.

Reacher kept tight hold of the guy’s gun hand and kneed him in the groin. The cop went down more or less vertically but Reacher kept his hand twisted up and back so that the cop’s own weight dislocated his elbow as he fell. The guy screamed and the Glock came free pretty easily after that.

Then it was all about getting ready in a hurry.

Reacher scrambled around the Crown Vic’s hood and hauled the door open. He tossed the Glock inside and slid in the seat and buckled the seat belt and pulled it snug and tight. The seat was still warm from the cop’s body and the car smelled of sweat. Reacher put the transmission in reverse and backed away from the Chevy and spun the wheel and came back level with it, in the wrong lane, facing east, just waiting.

The second cop showed up within thirty seconds, right on cue. Reacher saw the flare of flashing red lights a second before the Crown Vic burst around a distant corner. It fishtailed a little, then accelerated down the narrow street toward the restaurant, hard and fast and smooth.

Reacher let it get through one four-way, and another, and when it was thirty yards away he stamped on the gas and took off straight at it and smashed into it head-on. The two Crown Vics met nose to nose and their rear ends lifted off the ground and sheet metal crumpled and hoods flew open and glass burst and airbags exploded and steam jetted everywhere. Reacher was smashed forward against his seat belt. He had his hands off the wheel and his elbows up to fend off the punch of his airbag. Then the airbag collapsed again and Reacher was tossed back against the headrest. The rear of his car thumped back to earth and bounced once and came to rest at an angle. He pulled the Mossberg pump out of its between-the-seats holster and forced the door open against the crumpled fender and climbed out of the car.

The other guy hadn’t been wearing his seat belt.

He had taken the impact of his airbag full in the face and was lying sideways across the front bench with blood coming out of his nose and his ears. Both cars were wrecked as far back as the windshield pillars. The passenger compartments were basically OK. Full-sized sedans, five-star crash ratings. Reacher was pretty sure both cars were undrivable but he was no kind of an automotive expert and so he made sure by racking the Mossberg twice and firing two booming shots into the rear wheel wells, shredding the tires and ripping up all kinds of other small essential components. Then he tossed the pump back through the first Crown Vic’s window and walked over and climbed into Vaughan’s Chevy and backed away from all the wreckage. The waitress and the nine customers inside the restaurant were all staring out through the windows, mouths wide open in shock. Two of the customers were fumbling for their cell phones.

Reacher smiled. Who are you going to call?

He K-turned the Chevy and made a right and headed north for Main Street and made another right and cruised east at a steady fifty. When he hit the lonely road after the gas station he kicked it up to sixty and kept one eye on the mirror. Nobody came after him. He felt the roughness under his tires but the roar was quieter than before. He was a little deaf from the airbags and the twin Mossberg blasts.

Twelve minutes later he bumped over the expansion joint and cruised into Hope, at exactly three o’clock in the afternoon.

He didn’t know how long Vaughan would sleep. He guessed she had gotten her head on the pillow a little after nine that morning, which was six hours ago. Eight hours’ rest would take her to five o’clock, which was reasonable for an on-deck time of seven in the evening. Or maybe she was already up and about. Some people slept worse in the daytime than the night. Habit, degree of acclimatization, circadian rhythms. He decided to head for the diner. Either she would be there already or he could leave her keys with the cashier.

She was there already.

He pulled to the curb and saw her alone in the booth they had used before. She was dressed in her cop uniform, four hours before her watch. She had an empty plate and a full coffee cup in front of her.

He locked the truck and went in and sat down opposite her. Up close, she looked tired.

“Didn’t sleep?” he asked.

“Is it that obvious?”

“I have a confession to make.”

“You went to Despair. In my truck. I knew you would.”

“I had to.”

“Sure.”

“When was the last time you drove out to the west?”

“I try to stay out of Despair.”

“There’s a military base just inside the line. Fairly new. Why would that be?”

Vaughan said, “There are military bases all over.”

“This was a combat MP unit.”

“They have to put them somewhere.”

“Overseas is where they need to put them. The army is hurting for numbers right now. They can’t afford to waste good units in the back of beyond.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a good unit.”

“It was.”

“So maybe it’s about to ship out.”

“It just shipped back in. It just spent a year under the sun. The guy I spoke to had squint lines like you wouldn’t believe. His gear was worn from the sand.”

“We have sand here.”

“Not like that.”

“So what are you saying?”

The waitress came by and Reacher ordered coffee. Vaughan’s cup was still full. Reacher said, “I’m asking why they pulled a good unit out of the Middle East and sent it here.”