Lee Child - Persuader

“Open the door with your left,” he yelled.

I scrabbled blindly with my left hand and pulled the door release. Pushed on the glass with my right. The door swung open. Cold air came in. I felt it around my knees.

“Both hands where I can see them,” he said. He spoke quieter, now the glass wasn’t between us. He brought the left-hand Colt around on me, now the car was out of gear. I looked at the twin muzzles. It was like sitting on the foredeck of a battleship looking up at a pair of naval guns. I put both hands where he could see them.

“Feet out of the car,” he said.

I swiveled on my butt, slowly on the leather. Got my feet out onto the blacktop. I felt like Terry Villanueva outside the college gate, early in the morning of day eleven.

“Stand up,” he said. “Step away from the car.”

I levered myself upright. Stepped away from the car. He pointed both guns directly at my chest. He was four feet away from me.

“Stand very still,” he said.

I stood very still.

“Richard,” he called.

Richard Beck came out of the gatehouse door. He was pale. I saw Elizabeth Beck behind him in the shadows. Her blouse was open at the front. She was clutching it tight around herself. Paulie grinned at me. A sudden, lunatic grin. But the guns didn’t waver. Not even a fraction. They stayed rock steady.

“You came back a little too soon,” he said. “I was about to make him have sex with his mother.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I said. “What the hell is going on?”

“I got a call,” he said. “That’s what’s going on.”

I should have been back an hour and twenty minutes ago.

“Beck called you?”

“Not Beck,” he said. “My boss.”

“Xavier?” I said.

“ Mr. Xavier,” he said.

He stared at me, like a challenge. The guns didn’t move.

“I went shopping,” I said. Stay alive. See what the next minute brings.

“I don’t care what you did.”

“I couldn’t find what I wanted. That’s why I’m late.”

“We expected you to be late.”

“Why?”

“We got new information.”

I said nothing to that.

“Walk backward,” he said. “Through the gate.”

He kept both guns four feet from my chest and walked forward while I walked backward through the gate. He matched me pace for pace. I stopped twenty feet inside, in the middle of the driveway. He stepped to one side and half-turned so he could cover me on his left and Richard and Elizabeth on his right.

“Richard,” he called. “Close the gate.”

He kept the left-hand Colt aimed at me and swung the right-hand Colt toward Richard. Richard saw it coming around at him and stepped up and grabbed the gate and pushed it shut. It clanged into place, loud and metallic.

“Chain it.”

Richard fumbled with the chain. I heard it ringing and rattling against the iron. I heard the Cadillac, idling quietly and obediently forty feet away on the wrong side of the gate. I heard the waves pounding on the shore behind me, slow and regular and distant. I saw Elizabeth Beck in the gatehouse doorway. She was ten feet away from the big machine gun hanging on its chain. It had no safety catch. But Paulie was in the blind spot. The back window couldn’t see him.

“Lock it,” Paulie called.

Richard snapped the padlock shut.

“Now you and your mom go stand behind Reacher.”

They met near the gatehouse door. Walked toward me. Passed right by me. They were both white and trembling. Richard’s hair was blowing. I saw his scar. Elizabeth had her arms crossed tight against her chest. I heard them both stop behind me. Heard their shoes on the blacktop as they shuffled around to face my back. Paulie stepped over to the center of the driveway. He was ten feet away. Both barrels were aimed at my chest, one to the left side, one to the right. Jacketed.44 Magnums would go straight through me and probably straight through Richard and Elizabeth, too. They might make it all the way to the house. Might break a couple of first-floor windows.

“Now Reacher holds his arms out by his sides,” Paulie called.

I held them out, away from my body, stiff and straight, angled down.

“Now Richard takes Reacher’s coat off,” Paulie called. “He pulls it down, from the collar.”

I felt Richard’s hands on my neck. They were cold. They grasped my collar and peeled the coat down. It slid off my shoulders and came down my arms. It pulled past one wrist, then past the other.

“Ball it up,” Paulie called.

I heard Richard balling it up.

“Bring it here,” Paulie called.

Richard came out from behind me carrying the balled coat. He got within five feet of Paulie and stopped.

“Throw it over the gate,” Paulie said. “Real far.”

Richard threw it over the gate. Real far. The arms flapped in the air and it sailed up and then down and I heard the dull padded thump of the Beretta in the pocket landing hard on the Cadillac’s hood.

“Same thing with the jacket,” Paulie said.

My jacket landed next to the coat on the Cadillac’s hood and slid down the shiny paint and ended up on the road in a crumpled heap. I was cold. The wind was blowing and my shirt was thin. I could hear Elizabeth breathing behind me, fast and shallow. Richard was just standing there, five feet from Paulie, waiting for his next instruction.

“Now you and your mom walk fifty paces,” Paulie said to him. “Back toward the house.”

Richard turned and walked back and passed by me again. I heard his mother get in step with him. Heard them walk away together. I turned my head and saw them stop about forty yards back and turn around and face front again. Paulie tracked backward toward the gate, one pace, two, three. He stopped five feet from it. His back was to it. He had me fifteen feet in front of him and I guessed he could see Richard and Elizabeth over my shoulder, maybe a hundred feet farther on in the distance. We were all in a perfect straight line on the driveway, Paulie near the gate and facing the house, Richard and Elizabeth halfway to the house and facing back at him, me in the middle, trying to stay alive to see what the next minute would bring, facing Paulie, looking him square in the eye.

He smiled.

“OK,” he said. “Now watch carefully.”

He stayed facing me the whole time. He maintained eye contact. He crouched down and placed both guns on the blacktop by his feet and then flipped them backward toward the base of the gate. I heard their steel frames scraping on the rough surface. Saw them come to rest a yard behind him. Saw his hands come back, empty. He stood up again and showed me his palms.

“No guns,” he said. “I’m going to beat you to death.”

I could still hear the Cadillac. I could hear its lumpy V-8 whisper and the faint liquid burble from its tailpipes. I could hear drive belts turning slowly under the hood. I could hear the muffler ticking as it adjusted to a new temperature.

“Rules,” Paulie called. “You get past me, you get the guns.”

I said nothing.

“You get to them, you can use them,” he called.

I said nothing. He kept smiling.

“You understand?” he called.

I nodded. Watched his eyes.

“OK,” he said. “I won’t touch the guns unless you run away. You do that, I’ll pick them up and shoot you in the back. That’s fair, right? You got to stand and fight now.”

I said nothing.

“Like a man,” he called.

Still I said nothing. I was cold. No coat, no jacket.

“Like an officer and a gentleman,” he said.

I watched his eyes.

“We clear on the rules?” he said.

I said nothing. The wind was on my back.