Lee Child - Bad Luck and Trouble

He stepped out to the sidewalk and checked the street. It was clear. Some activity, but nothing significant. Some cars, but none to worry about. He stepped back into the lot and waited for Neagley to complete her own half-circuit on the other side. She checked the sidewalk and checked the street and stepped back and checked the office. Nothing. She shook her head and they headed for O’Donnell’s room, by different routes, still fifteen feet apart, just in case.

O’Donnell’s lock was broken.

Or more accurately, O’Donnell’s lock was OK, but the door jamb was broken. The wood was splintered. Someone had used a wrecking bar or a tire iron to lever the door open. Reacher slid the Glock out of his pocket and waited on the hinge side of the door and Neagley joined him on the handle side. She nodded and he slammed the door open with his foot and she dropped to her knees and spun into the doorway with her gun out in front. Another old default arrangement. Whoever was on the hinge side opened the door, whoever was on the handle side entered low to minimize the target. Generally anyone hiding in a room with a gun would then aim high, at where he expected center mass to be.

But there was nobody hiding in the room.

It was completely empty. But it was completely trashed. Searched, and wrecked. All the New Age paperwork was gone, the reject Glock 17s were gone, the spare ammunition was gone, the AMT Hardballers were gone, Saropian’s Daewoo DP-51 was gone, the Maglites were gone. O’Donnell’s clothes were strewn all around. His thousand-dollar suit had been torn off the closet hanger and trampled. His bathroom stuff was all over the place.

Dixon’s room was the same. Empty, but trashed.

And Neagley’s.

And Reacher’s own. His folding toothbrush was on the floor, stepped on and crushed.

“Bastards,” he said.

They gave the whole place one more go-round, the motel itself, and then a one-block radius outside. Nobody there. Neagley said, “They’re all waiting for us in Highland Park.”

Reacher nodded. Between them they had two Glocks and sixty-eight rounds. Plus their recent purchases in the Prelude’s trunk.

Two against seven or more.

No time.

No element of surprise.

A fortified position with no way in.

A hopeless situation.

“We’re good to go,” Reacher said.

Waiting for dark was always a long and tedious process. Sometimes the earth seemed to spin fast, and sometimes it seemed to spin slow. This was slow. They were parked in a quiet street three blocks from New Age’s factory, opposite sides of the street, Neagley’s Civic facing west, Reacher’s Prelude facing east. They both had a view of the place. Things had changed behind the fence. The assembly workers’ cars were gone from the lot. In their place were six blue Chrysler 300Cs. Clearly, operations had been abandoned for the day. The decks had been cleared for the coming battle. Beyond the cars they could see the helicopter in the distance, a quarter-mile away. It was nothing more than a small white shape, but they figured they would be able to tell if it started up. And if it started up, all bets were off.

Reacher had both his phones set to vibrate. Neagley buzzed him twice, to pass the time. She was actually close enough to roll down her window and yell, but he guessed she didn’t want to attract attention.

The first time, she asked, “Have you been sleeping with Karla?”

“When?” Reacher said, buying time.

“On this trip.”

“Twice,” Reacher said. “That’s all.”

“I’m glad.”

“Thank you.”

“You both always wanted to.”

The second time she called was fifteen minutes later.

“You made a will?” she asked.

“No point,” Reacher said. “Now they broke my toothbrush, I don’t own anything.”

“How does that feel?”

“Bad. I liked that toothbrush. It’s been with me a long time.”

“No, I mean the rest of it.”

“It feels OK. I don’t see that Karla or Dave are really any happier than me.”

“Right now they’re not, for sure.”

“They know we’re coming.”

“All of us going down together will really cheer them up.”

“Better than going down alone,” Reacher said.

A big white semi labored west on I- 70 in Colorado, heading for the state of Utah. It was less than half-full, a little over sixteen tons in a rig designed for a forty-ton payload. So it was running light, but it was running slow, because of the mountains. It would stay slow until the turn south on I-15. Then it would run a little easier, all the way down to California. Its driver had budgeted an average fifty miles an hour for the whole trip. Eighteen hours maximum, door-to-door. He wasn’t going to take a rest period. How could he? He was a man on a mission, with no time for frivolities.

Azhari Mahmoud checked his map for the third time. He figured he needed three hours. Or maybe more. He had to cross just about the whole of Los Angeles, south to north. He wasn’t expecting it to be easy. The U-Haul was slow and a pig to drive, and he was sure that the traffic was going to be awful. He decided to give himself four hours. If he arrived early, he could wait. No harm in that. He set his alarm and lay down on the bed and tried to will himself to sleep.

Reacher stared straight ahead at the eastern horizon, trying to judge the light. The tint on the windshield didn’t help. It was overly optimistic, optically. It made the sky look darker than it really was. He buzzed his window down and leaned out. In reality, not good. There was still at least an hour of daylight left. Then maybe an hour of dusk. Then full dark. He buzzed the window up and settled back and rested. Forced his heartbeat down and slowed his breathing and relaxed.

He stayed relaxed until Allen Lamaison called him.

Lamaison called Reacher on his Radio Shack pay-as-you-go, not on Saropian’s cell from Vegas. The caller ID showed he was using Karla Dixon’s phone at his end. Openly provocative. There was a lot of smug satisfaction in his voice.

“Reacher?” he said. “We need to talk.”

“So talk,” Reacher said.

“You’re useless.”

“You think?”

“You’ve lost every round so far.”

“Except Saropian.”

“True,” Lamaison said. “And I’m very unhappy about that.”

“But you better get used to it. Because you’re going to lose another six, and then you and I are going to go around and around.”

“No,” Lamaison said. “That’s not going to happen. We’re going to make a deal.”

“Dream on.”

“The terms are excellent. Want to hear them?”

“You better be quick. I’m downtown right now. I’ve got an appointment with the FBI. I’m going to tell them all about Little Wing.”

“Tell them what?” Lamaison said. “There’s nothing to tell. We had some defective units that were destroyed. It says so, in black and white, on Pentagon-approved paperwork.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Anyway, you’re nowhere near the FBI,” Lamaison said. “You’re working out how to rescue your friends.”

“You think?”

“You wouldn’t trust their safety to the FBI.”

“You’re confusing me with someone who gives a shit.”

“You wouldn’t be here at all if you didn’t give a shit. Tony Swan and Calvin Franz and Manuel Orozco and Jorge Sanchez told us all about it. Before they died. Apparently we’re not supposed to mess with the special investigators.”

“That was just a slogan. It was old then, and it’s really old now.”

“They still put a lot of stock in it. So do Ms. Dixon and Mr. O’Donnell. Their faith in you is quite touching. So let’s talk about our deal. You can save your friends a world of hurt.”