One Shot

Then the Zec smiled, and Chenko walked into the room.

Chenko was covered in mud and his right arm was broken, or his shoulder, or his collarbone, or maybe all three. His wrist was jammed into his shirt like a sling. But there was nothing wrong with his left arm. Nothing at all. Reacher turned around to face him and saw the sawn-off rock-steady in his left hand. He thought, irrelevantly: Where did he get that from? His car? Were the cars parked to the east?

Chenko glanced at Bianca.

“Put the gun down, lady,” he said.

Bianca laid Emerson’s Glock on the floor. No sound as it touched the carpet.

“Thank you,” Chenko said.

Nobody spoke.

“I guess I was out for a little while,” Chenko said. “But I got to tell you, I feel a whole hell of a lot better now.”

“We survive,” the Zec said from across the room. “That’s what we do.”

Reacher didn’t look back at the old man. He looked at Chenko’s gun instead. It had been a Benelli Nova Pump. The stock had been cut off behind the pistol grip. The barrel had been hacked off ahead of the slide. Twelve-gauge. Four-shot magazine. A handsome weapon, butchered.

“Emerson,” the Zec called. “Come over here and untie me.”

Reacher heard Emerson stand up. He didn’t look back at him. Just took a tiny pace forward and sideways, closer to Chenko. He was a foot taller and twice as wide.

“I need a knife here,” Emerson said.

“The soldier’s got a knife,” Chenko said. “I’m damn sure of that, based on what I saw happened to my buddies downstairs.”

Reacher moved a little closer to him. A big guy and a little guy directly face-to-face, separated by about three feet, most of which was occupied by the Benelli. Reacher’s waist was level with Chenko’s chest.

“Knife,” Emerson said.

“Come and get it,” Reacher said.

“Slide it across the floor.”

“No.”

“I’ll shoot,” Chenko said. “Twelve-gauge, in the gut.”

Reacher thought: And then what? A pump-action shotgun ain’t much use to a one-armed man.

“So shoot,” he said.

He felt eyes on him. He knew everyone was looking at him. Staring at him. Silence buzzed in his ears. He was suddenly aware of the smells in the room. Dust in the carpet, worn furniture, fear, tension, damp night air blowing in from the open door downstairs and the busted window upstairs and carrying with it the odor of rich earth and fertilizer and budding new growth.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Shoot.”

Chenko did nothing. Just stood there. Reacher stood there directly in front of him. He knew exactly how the room was laid out. He had arranged it. He pictured it in his mind. Chenko was in the doorway facing the window. Everyone else was facing the other way. Reacher himself right in front of Chenko, face-to-face, close enough to touch. Cash directly behind him all the way in back, behind the sofa, on the windowsill, staring forward. Then the Zec on the sofa, looking the same way. Then Emerson in the middle of the floor, near the Zec, standing up, indecisive, watching. Then Ya

Reacher knew where everyone was, and he knew what they were looking at.

“Shoot,” he said. “Aim at my belt. That’ll work. Go ahead.”

Chenko did nothing. Just stared up at him. Reacher was so close and so big he was all Chenko could see. It was just the two of them, like they were alone in the room.

“I’ll help you out,” Reacher said. “I’ll count to three. Then you pull the trigger.”

Chenko just stood there.

“You understand?” Reacher said.

No reply.

“One,” Reacher said.

No reaction.

“Two,” Reacher said.

Then he stepped out of the way. Just took a long fast sideways shuffle to his right. Cash fired from behind the sofa at the spot where Reacher’s belt had been a split second before, and Chenko’s chest blew apart.

Then Cash put his rifle back on the floor just as silently as he had picked it up.

Two night-shift squad cars came and took the Zec and Emerson away. Then four ambulances arrived for the casualties. Bianca asked Reacher what exactly had happened to the first three. Reacher told her he had absolutely no idea. None at all. He speculated that it might have been some kind of an internal dispute. A falling-out among thieves, maybe? Bianca didn’t push it. Rosemary Barr borrowed Franklin’s cell phone and used it to call area hospitals, looking for a safe berth for her brother. Helen and Alex Rodin sat close together, talking. Gu

“Me too,” Ya

Reacher smiled again, and nodded. Then he went downstairs and stepped out to the front porch and walked a little ways south across the dirt until he could see past the bulk of the house to the eastern sky. Dawn was coming. Black shaded to purple right on the horizon. He turned and watched the last ambulance loading up. Vladimir’s final ride, judging by the size of the shape under the sheet on the gurney. Reacher emptied his pockets and left Emerson’s torn business card, and Helen Rodin’s cocktail napkin, and the motor court’s big brass key, and the Smith 60, and Gu

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LEE CHILD is the author of nine Jack Reacher thrillers, including the New York Times bestsellers Persuader and The Enemy. His debut, Killing Floor, won both the Anthony and the Barry awards for Best First Mystery. Foreign rights in the Jack Reacher series have sold in thirty-nine territories. Child, a native of England and former television writer, lives in New York City, where he is at work on his tenth Jack Reacher thriller, The Hard Way.