“Then there never was any danger.”
“Until we took them out.”
“How long does it take, for a thing like that?”
“We already agreed, neither one of us knows.”
“Does it have to be that mailbox? How about the nearest mailbox?”
“No collateral damage,” Reacher said. “Just in case.”
“You don’t really know, do you?”
“It’s not necessarily the kind of thing that has a yes or no answer.”
“Are the transmissions cut off or not?”
“I’m guessing probably. Not my area of expertise. But I listen to people talk. They’re forever bitching and moaning about their calls cutting out. For all kinds of reasons, all of which sound much less serious than getting shut in a small metal box.”
“But right now they’re right here on the table, so there is currently a degree of danger.”
Reacher nodded.
“Getting larger every minute,” he said.
—
This time Reacher carried the phones, for no reason other than normal squad rotation. There were plenty of cars around. Plenty of bouncing, blinding headlight beams. All kinds of makes and models. But no Lincoln Town Cars. No sudden changes in speed or direction. Apparently no interest at all.
They put the phones in the mailbox and squealed it shut. This time Reacher kept his jacket. Not just for the warmth. For the guns in the pockets. They set out to walk back to Barton’s house. They got less than a block and a half.
Chapter 26
Nothing to do with complex triangulations of cell phone signals, or GPS pinpoint telltales accurate to half a yard. Much later Reacher figured it had happened the old-school way. A random guy in a random car had remembered his pre-watch briefing. That was all. Be on the lookout. A man and a woman.
Reacher and Abby made a right, intending to make the next left, which involved walking the length of a cobblestone block, on a narrow sidewalk, defined on the right-hand side by an unbroken sequence of iron-bound loading docks in back of the next street’s buildings, and on the left-hand side by a sporadic line of cars parked on the curb. Not every space was filled. Maybe fifty-fifty. One of the cars was parked the wrong way around. Head on. It had no nighttime dew on it. In the split second it took the back of Reacher’s brain to spark the front, the car’s door opened, and the driver’s gun came out, followed by the driver’s hand, and then the driver himself, in a smooth athletic crouch, concealed behind the open door, aiming level through the open window.
At Reacher, at first. Then at Abby. Then back again. And again. Back and forth. Like on a TV show. The guy was making it clear he was covering both of them at once. He was wearing a blue suit. And a red tie, tied tight.
They won’t shoot me. They want to ask me questions.
It’s a psychological dynamic. Like in the theater.
It’s not necessarily the kind of thing that has a yes or no answer.
The gun was a Glock 17, a little scratched and worn. The guy was using a two-handed grip. Both wrists were resting on the window rubber. His trigger finger was in position. The gun was steady. Its left-right arc was controlled and horizontal only. Competent, except that a crouch was an inherently unstable position, and also a pointless one, because a car door offered no kind of meaningful protection against a bullet. Better than aluminum foil, but not much. A smart guy would stand straight and rest his wrists on top of the door. More commanding. Easier to transition to whatever came next, like walking or running or fighting.
The guy with the gun called out, “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Reacher called back, “Do we have a problem?”
The guy called out, “I don’t have a problem.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “Good to know.” He turned to Abby and said, quieter, “You could head back to the corner, if you like. I could join you there in a minute. This guy wants to ask me questions, is all.”
But the guy called out, “No, she stays, too. Both of you.”
A man and a woman.
Reacher turned to face front again, and used the maneuver to conceal half a step of forward progress.
He said, “We stay for what?”
“Questions.”
“Ask away.”
“My boss will ask the questions.”
“Where is he?”
“Coming.”
“What’s on his mind?”
“Many things, I’m sure.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “Put the gun away and come out from there and we’ll all wait together. Right here on the sidewalk. Until he shows up.”
The guy stayed crouched behind his door.
The gun didn’t move.
“You can’t use it anyway,” Reacher said. “Your boss wouldn’t like it if he showed up and found us dead or wounded or in shock or in a coma. Or quivering with some kind of traumatic stress disorder. He wants to ask us questions. He wants coherent answers that make sense. Plus the cops wouldn’t stand for it. I don’t care what kind of accommodations you think you got with them. A gunshot on a city street at night is going to get a reaction.”
“You think you’re a smart guy?”
“No, but I’m hoping you are.”
The gun didn’t move.
Which was OK. The trigger was the important part. Specifically the finger. Which was connected to the guy’s central nervous system. Which could get all frozen up, even if just temporarily, with doubts and thoughts and second guesses.
Or at least slowed down a beat.
Reacher took another step. He raised his left hand halfway, palm out, patting the air, a conciliatory gesture, but also urgent, as if there was an immediate problem to solve. The guy’s gaze followed the moving object, and appeared to miss Reacher’s right hand, which was also moving, but slower and lower. It slipped unobtrusively into his right-hand pocket, where the H&K was that he knew for sure worked.
The guy said, “We wait in the car. Not on the sidewalk.”
“OK,” Reacher said.
“Doors closed.”
“Sure.”
“You in the back, me in the front.”
“Until your boss shows up,” Reacher said. “Then he can get in the front with you. He can ask his questions. Is that the plan?”
“Until then you keep quiet.”
“Sure,” Reacher said again. “You win. You’re the man with the gun, after all. We’ll get in the car.”
The guy nodded, satisfied.
After which it was easy. The guy dropped the outer fingers out of his two-handed grip, and pressed them hard on the window rubber, tented, like a pianist playing an emphatic chord, which could have been a semaphore signal that a conclusive agreement had been reached, but was more likely simple physics, as the guy prepared to boost and balance and bounce his way up out of his crouch. Which by then had been going on a long time, to bad effect, in terms of numbness and tingle. Either way the gun came under reduced control, and its butt tipped back and its barrel tipped up, which again could have been seen as a gesture, that the immediate threat was thereby formally withdrawn, in favor of newfound cooperation, but was more likely weight and balance and a natural backward rotation around the trigger guard.
Reacher left the H&K in his pocket.
He took a long pace forward and kicked the car door gently. It clanged back and whacked the guy in the knees, and that small pulse of force rolled him backward over the balls of his feet, agonizingly slow, but irresistible, until finally he rolled over on his back, helpless, like a turtle. His hands whipped up to break his fall and the clenched Glock hit the sidewalk with a plastic smack and bounced loose and skittered away. But then the guy jerked sideways and rolled once and sprang up, from the horizontal to the vertical almost instantly, and without apparent effort. Athletic, like he had been minutes before, getting out of the car. All of which meant Reacher got there half a step late.
The guy danced sideways, out of range of the swing of the still-open driver’s door, and then he came up with another instant change of direction, suddenly leaning in and launching a clubbing right at Reacher’s face, which Reacher saw coming, so he ducked and twisted and took it high on the shoulder, all sharp knuckles, not much of a blow, but even so the action and reaction opened up a fractional gap between them, just a split second, which given the guy’s speed meant he could dance away again, scuffing his feet across the ground, glancing down, searching for his gun.