Tripwire

“You won’t shoot her,” he said. “Think about it, Allen. Think about yourself. You’re a selfish piece of shit. The way you are, you’re always number one. You shoot her, I’ll shoot you. You’re twelve feet away from me. I’m aiming at your head. You pull your trigger, I pull mine. She dies, you die one-hundredth of a second later. You won’t shoot me either, because you start to line up on me, you go down before you’re even halfway there. Think about it. Impasse.”

He stared him down through the pain and the gloom. A classic standoff. But there was a problem. A serious flaw in his analysis. He knew that. It came to him in a cold flash of panic. It came to Allen at the exact same moment. Reacher knew that, too, because he saw it settle in his eyes, complacently.

“You’re miscalculating,” Allen said. “You’re missing something.”

Reacher made no response.

“Right now it’s a stalemate,” Allen said. “And it always will be, as long as I’m standing here and you’re standing there. But how long are you going to be standing there?”

Reacher swallowed against the pain. It was hammering at him.

“I’ll be standing here as long as it takes,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of time. Like you figured, I’m a drifter. I don’t have any pressing appointments to get to.”

Allen smiled.

“Brave words,” he said. “But you’re bleeding from the head. You know that? You’ve got a piece of metal sticking in your head. I can see it from here.”

Jodie nodded desperately, eyes full of terror.

“Check it out, Mr. Curry,” Allen said. “Tell him.”

The guy on the sofa underneath the Steyr crabbed around and knelt up. He kept well away from Reacher’s gun arm and craned his head around to look. Then his face creased in horror.

“It’s a nail,” he said. “A woodworking nail. You’ve got a nail in your head.”

“From the reception desk,” Allen said.

The guy called Curry ducked down again and Reacher knew it was true. As soon as the words were spoken, the pain doubled and quadrupled and exploded. It was a piercing agony centered in his forehead, an inch above his eye. The adrenaline had masked it for a long time. But adrenaline doesn’t last forever. He forced his mind away from it with all the power of his will, but it was still there. Bad pain, razor-sharp and nausea-dull all at the same time, booming and throbbing through his head, sending brilliant lightning strikes into his eyes. The blood had soaked his shirt, all the way down to his waist. He blinked, and saw nothing at all with his left eye. It was full of blood. Blood was ru

“I’m fine,” he said. “Don’t anybody worry about me.”

“Brave words,” Allen said again. “But you’re in pain and you’re losing a lot of blood. You won’t outlast me, Reacher. You think you’re tough, but you’re nothing next to me. I crawled away from that helicopter with no hand. Severed arteries. I was on fire. I survived three weeks in the jungle like that. Then I got myself home free. Then I lived with danger for thirty years. So I’m the tough guy here. I’m the toughest guy in the world. Mentally and physically. You couldn’t outlast me even if you didn’t have a nail in your damn head. So don’t kid yourself, OK?”

Jodie was staring at him. Her hair was golden in the faint diffused light from the window blinds. It was hanging forward over her face, parted by the sweep of her brow. He could see her eyes. Her mouth. The curve of her neck. Her slim strong body, tense against Allen’s arm. The hook, shining against the color of her suit. The pain was hammering in his head. His soaked shirt was cold against his skin. There was blood in his mouth. It tasted metallic, like aluminum. He was feeling the first faint tremors in his shoulder. The Steyr was starting to feel heavy in his hand.

“And I’m motivated,” Allen said. “I’ve worked hard for what I’ve got. I’m going to keep it. I’m a genius and a survivor. You think I’m going to let you take me down? You think you’re the first person who ever tried?”

Reacher swayed against the pain.

“Now let’s up the stakes a little,” Allen called to him.

He forced Jodie upward with all the strength in his arm. Jammed the gun in so hard she bent away from it, folding forward against the arm and sideways against the gun. He hauled her up so he was invisible behind her. Then the hook moved. The arm came up from crushing her waist to crushing her chest. The hook plowed over her breasts. She gasped in pain. The hook moved up until the arm was at a steep angle crushing her body and the hook was resting on the side of her face. Then the elbow turned out and the steel tip dug into the skin of her cheek.

“I could rip her open,” Allen said. “I could tear her face off, and there’s nothing you could do about it except feel worse. Stress makes it worse, right? The pain? You’re starting to feel faint, right? You’re on your way out, Reacher. You’re going down. And when you’re down, the stalemate is over, believe me.”

Reacher shuddered. Not from the pain, but because he knew Allen was right. He could feel his knees. They were there, and they were strong. But a fit man never feels his knees. They’re just a part of him. Feeling them valiantly holding up 250 pounds of body weight means that pretty soon they won’t be. It’s an early warning.

“You’re going down, Reacher,” Allen called again. “You’re shaking, you know that? You’re slipping away from us. Couple of minutes, I’ll walk right over and shoot you in the head. All the time in the world.”

Reacher shuddered again and scoped it out. It was hard to think. He was dizzy. He had an open head wound. His skull was penetrated. Nash Newman flashed into his mind, holding up bones in a classroom. Maybe Nash would explain it, many years in the future. A sharp object penetrated the frontal lobe-here-and pierced the meninges and caused a hemorrhage. His gun hand was shaking. Then Leon was there, scowling and muttering if plan A doesn’t work, move on to plan B.

Then the Louisiana cop was there, the guy from years ago in another life, talking about his.38-caliber revolvers, saying you just can’t rely on them to put a guy down, not if he’s coming at you all pumped up on angel dust. Reacher saw the guy’s unhappy face. You can’t rely on a.38 to put a man down. And a short-barrel.38, worse still. Hard to hit a target with a short barrel. And with a struggling woman in your arms, harder still. Although her struggling might put the bullet dead center by accident. His head spun. It was being pounded by a giant with a jackhammer. His strength was draining out of him from the inside. His right eye was jacked open and it was dry and stinging, like needles were in it. Five more minutes, maybe, he was thinking. Then I’m done for.

He was in a rented car, next to Jodie, driving back from the zoo. He was talking. It was warm in the car. There was sun and glass. He was saying the basis of any scam is show them what they want to see. The Steyr wobbled in his hand and he thought OK, Leon, here’s plan B. See how you like it.

His knees buckled and he swayed. He came back upright and brought the Steyr back to the only thin sliver of Allen’s head he could make out. The muzzle wavered through a circle. A small circle at first, then a larger one as the weight of the gun overwhelmed the control in his shoulder. He coughed and pushed blood out of his mouth with his tongue. The Steyr was coming down. He watched the front sight dropping like a strong man was pulling on it. He tried to bring it up, but it wouldn’t come. He forced his hand upward, but it just moved sideways, like an invisible force was deflecting it. His knees went again and he jerked back upright like a spasm. The Steyr was miles away. It was hanging down to the right. It was pointing at the desk. His elbow was locked against its weight and his arm was bending. Allen’s hand was moving. He watched it one-eyed and wondered is what I feel for Jodie as good as being pumped up on angel dust? The barrel snagged out from a fold of cloth and came free of her jacket. Am I going to make it? His knees were going and he started shaking. Wait. Just wait.