Lee Child - One Shot

“No, Raskin killed himself. I heard them talking. The Zec made him do it. Because he let you steal his cell phone.”

“Where’s the Zec likely to be?”

“He’s in the living room most of the time. Second floor.”

“Which door?”

“Last on the left.”

“OK, stay here,” Reacher whispered. “I’ll round him up and I’ll be right back.”

“I can’t stay here. You have to get me out.”

He paused. “OK, but you’ve got to be real quiet. And don’t look left or right.”

“Why not?”

“Dead people.”

“I’m glad,” Rosemary said.

Reacher held her arm down the stairs to the third-floor hallway. Then he went ahead alone to the second. All quiet. The last door on the left was still closed. He waved her down. They made the turn together and headed to the first floor. To the front of the house. To the room he had entered through. He helped her over the sill and out the window, to the dirt below. He pointed.

“Follow the driveway to the road,” he said. “Turn right. I’ll tell the others you’re coming. There’s a guy in black with a rifle. He’s one of ours.”

She stood still for a second. Then she bent down and took off her low-heeled shoes and held them in her hands and started running like hell, due west, through the dirt, toward the road. Reacher took out his phone.

“Gunny?” he whispered.

“Here.”

“Rosemary Barr is heading your way.”

“Outstanding.”

“Round up the others and meet her halfway. There’s no more operational night vision. Then stand by. I’ll get back to you.”

“Roger that.”

Reacher put the phone away. Backtracked through the silent house, on his way to find the Zec.

In the end, it came down to waiting. Wait, and good things come to you. And bad things. Reacher crept back to the second floor. The last door on the left was still closed. He ducked into the kitchen. Linsky was on the floor, on his back in a pool of blood. Reacher relit the flame under the kettle. Then he stepped out to the hallway. Walked quietly to the front of the house and leaned on the wall beyond the last door on the left.

And waited.

The kettle boiled after five minutes. The whistle started low and quiet, and then the note and the volume rose to full blast. Within ten seconds the second floor of the house was full of an insane shrieking. Ten seconds after that, the door on Reacher’s right opened. A small man stepped out. Reacher let him take a pace forward and then spun him around and jammed the Smith 60 hard in the base of his throat.

And stared.

The Zec . He was a wide, ancient, twisted, stooped, battered old man. A wraith. Barely human. He was covered in livid scars and patches of discolored skin. His face was lined and drooping and seething with rage and hatred and cruelty. He was unarmed. His ruined hands didn’t seem capable of holding a weapon. Reacher forced him down the hallway. Into the kitchen, backward. To the stove. The noise from the kettle was unbearable. Reacher used his left hand and killed the flame. Then he hauled the Zec back toward the living room. The kettle’s whistle died away, like an air raid siren winding down. The house went quiet again.

“It’s over,” Reacher said. “You lost.”

“It’s never over,” the Zec replied. Hoarse voice, low, guttural.

“Guess again,” Reacher said. He kept the Smith hard against the Zec’s throat. Too low and too close for him to see it. He eased the hammer back. Slowly, carefully. Deliberately. Loudly. Click-click-click-crunch . An unmistakable sound.

“I’m eighty years old,” the Zec said.

“I don’t care if you’re a hundred,” Reacher said. “You’re still going down.”

“Idiot,” the Zec said back. “I meant I’ve survived things worse than you. Since long before you were born.”

“Nobody’s worse than me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re nothing.”

“You think?” Reacher said. “You were alive this morning and you won’t be tomorrow. After eighty years. That makes me something, don’t you think?”

No answer.

“It’s over,” Reacher said. “Believe me. Long and winding road, OK, I understand all of that, but this is the end of it. Had to happen sometime.”

No response.

“You know when my birthday is?” Reacher asked.

“Obviously not.”

“It’s in October. You know what day?”

“Of course not.”

“You’re going to find out the hard way. I’m counting in my head. When I reach my birthday, I’m going to pull the trigger.”

He started counting in his head. First, second . He watched the Zec’s eyes. Fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth . No response. Tenth, eleventh, twelfth .

“What do you want?” the Zec said.

Negotiation time.

“I want to talk,” Reacher said.

“Talk?”

“The twelfth,” Reacher said. “That’s how long you lasted. Then you gave it up. You know why? Because you want to survive. It’s the deepest instinct you’ve got. Obviously. Otherwise how would you have gotten as old as you are? It’s probably a deeper instinct than I could ever understand. A reflex, a habit, roll the dice, stay alive, make the next move, take the next chance. It’s in your DNA. It’s what you are .”

“So?”

“So now we’ve got ourselves a competition. What you are, against what I am.”

“And what are you?”

“I’m the guy who just threw Chenko out a third-floor window. After crushing Vladimir to death with my bare hands. Because I didn’t like what they did to innocent people. So now you’ve got to pit your strong desire to survive against my strong desire to shoot you in the head and piss in the bullet hole.”

No response.

“One shot,” Reacher said. “In the head. Lights out. That’s your choice. Another day, another roll of the dice. Or not. As the case may be.”

He saw calculation in the Zec’s eyes. Assessment, evaluation, speculation.

“I could throw you down the stairs,” he said. “You could crawl over and take a look at Vladimir. I cut his throat afterward. Just for fun. That’s who I am. So don’t think I don’t mean what I say. I’ll do it and I’ll sleep like a baby the rest of my life.”

“What do you want?” the Zec asked again.

“Help with a problem.”

“What problem?”

“There’s an innocent man I need to get out of the prison ward. So I need you to tell the truth to a detective called Emerson. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I need you to finger Chenko for the shooting, and Vladimir for the girl, and whoever it was for Ted Archer. And whatever else you’ve done. The whole nine yards. Including how you and Linsky set it all up.”

A flicker in the Zec’s eyes. “Pointless. I’d get the death penalty.”

“Yes, you would,” Reacher said. “That’s for damn sure. But you’d still be alive tomorrow. And the next day, and the next. The appeals process lasts forever here. Ten years, sometimes. You might get lucky. There might be a mistrial, there might be a jailbreak, you might get a pardon, there might be a revolution, or an earthquake.”

“Unlikely.”

“Very,” Reacher said. “But isn’t that who you are? A guy who will take the tiniest slim fragment of a chance to live another minute, as opposed to no chance at all?”

No response.

“You already answered me once,” Reacher said. “When you quit the birthday game on the twelfth of October. That was pretty fast. There are thirty-one days in October. Law of averages said you’d be OK until the fifteenth or the sixteenth. A gambler would have waited for the twentieth. But you didn’t get past the twelfth. Not because you’re a coward. Nobody could accuse you of that. But because you’re a survivor. That’s who you are. Now what I want is some practical confirmation.”