A Wanted Man

‘Back to back?’ McQueen asked.

‘Who leads?’ Reacher said.

‘Doesn’t really matter.’

‘It might,’ Reacher said. He wasn’t pi

‘You lead,’ Reacher said.

McQueen stepped out into the corridor. Reacher stepped out behind him, walking backward, and they moved together, slow and quiet and cautious, back to back, almost touching, but not quite. From that point on it was all about trust. Reacher desperately wanted to glance back over his shoulder, and he knew McQueen felt the same, but neither man did. Each was responsible for a hundred and eighty degrees, no more, no less. They made it twenty feet, to the next pair of doors, one on the left and one on the right, and McQueen slowed and took a breath. Both doors were open.

No blue spots.

Nobody in the rooms.

Onward.

Another twenty feet. Another pair of doors. One on the left, one on the right.

Smarter than smart.

The bad guys had people in both rooms.

Reacher and McQueen pivoted ninety degrees, instantly, Reacher firing right, McQueen firing left, and way up at the far end of the corridor a third guy stepped out and way down at the bottom end a fourth guy stepped out and Reacher and McQueen were caught in a literal crossfire, with incoming rounds from all four points of the compass. Reacher hit the guy in the room ahead of him and the guy went down and McQueen bundled in after Reacher and slammed the door. They stood there together, stooped and panting, with the dead guy on the floor between them.

‘You hit?’ Reacher asked.

‘No,’ McQueen said.

That was the good news. The rest of the news was all bad. Ahead of them was a blastproof concrete wall probably ten feet thick. To their left and their right and behind them were plywood partitions just half an inch thick. And outside a thin cheap door with no lock were four hostiles who knew exactly where they were.

Reacher said, ‘They don’t even need to come in. They can fire through the walls. Or the door.’

‘I know,’ McQueen said.

And they did. Immediately. The first round came through the door. It punched out an ugly scab of wood that spun sideways and missed McQueen by an inch. The second round came through the wall. The plywood was tougher. But not much. The bullet came right through, but it had shattered into fragments. One of them nicked Reacher on the back of his hand. No big deal, in the grand scheme of things, but the cut started a fat trickle of blood. He stepped close to the splintered hole and put the Glock’s muzzle hard on it and fired back, twice, at different angles. McQueen did the same thing at the door. Reacher heard feet wheeling away.

Temporary relief, but ultimately only a stalemate.

Reacher stepped to the side wall and raised his boot high and kicked it, the same way a firefighter kicks down a door. The wall cracked and gave a little. He figured they could kick their way through eventually. But there was no point. They were on the wrong side of the corridor for the old lateral doors. All the blue spots were on the opposite side. And slow and noisy progress from one rat trap to another would gain them absolutely nothing.

Not good.

And then it got worse.

The building filled with a faint diesel roar. The outer door, opening, at the far end of the hundred-foot entrance tu

So, not the cavalry.

More bad guys.

He said, ‘They’re bringing in reinforcements.’

McQueen nodded, and said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘How many, do you think?’

‘Could be dozens. Hundreds, even. There’s a network. Everything’s a co-production now.’

Reacher said, ‘OK.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ McQueen said. ‘Thank you for everything you tried to do.’

They shook hands, mute and awkward in the miserable plywood room, McQueen still trailing frayed cords from his wrists, Reacher’s hand bloody from his cut.

The diesel noise started up again. The outer door closing, to allow the i

McQueen said, ‘I assume they’ll lead them straight here.’

Reacher nodded. ‘So at least let’s not wait for them. Let’s make them work for it.’

‘The third chamber is the place to be. They’ll be a little less willing to shoot in there.’

Reacher nodded again. The flatbed trailers, the giant yellow flasks. The radiation symbols. He said, ‘Don’t stop for me. No matter what. Better that one of us gets out than neither.’

McQueen said, ‘Likewise.’

‘I’ll go first. I’ll go left and through. You go right.’

‘You want the Colt back?’

‘You keep it. It drifts left and down. Remember that.’ Reacher ca

He smiled.

He said, ‘On three?’

McQueen nodded.

He said, ‘One.’

The diesels sounded louder. The i

McQueen said, ‘Two.’

Reacher stepped over to the splintered threshold.

McQueen said, ‘Three.’

Reacher burst out at full speed, through the door, through some kind of final mental barrier, into the corridor, ice cold and careless, in his mind already dead like his father and his mother and his brother, bargaining for nothing more at all except the chance to take someone with him, or two of them, or three, and a guy to his left heard the noise and stepped out of a room and Reacher shot him, a triple tap, chest, chest, head, and then he plunged onward, across the narrow space, into a blue-spot room, a guy right in front of him going down the same way, chest, chest, head, and then Reacher was through the ancient door, into another plywood room, which was empty, with gunfire behind him, and out into the centre chamber’s corridor, a shape ru

A tired spring in the magazine, maybe, or his blood on the shell casings, already sticky and all fouled up.

The world went very quiet.

He turned around, slowly, and he put his back on the plastic sheet. Two men had guns on him. One pale face, one dark. The odd ethnic mixture. They were shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. The last two survivors from the original headcount. Both for him. Which was OK. It meant McQueen was getting a clear run, at least for the moment.

Their guns were Smith & Wesson 2213s, stainless steel, the exact same thing as McQueen had used in the fat man’s motel lobby. Wadiah’s standard issue, apparently. Maybe a bulk purchase, at a discount price. Three-inch barrels, eight .22 Long Rifle rimfires in the magazines. But not aimed high this time. Not high at all. Aimed right at the centre of his chest.