Page 20 of Chain Reaction

They drove closer. Not in another dirty white crew cab. They were in a giant black off-roader. Maybe it had started out a regular pickup truck once upon a time, but since then it had been jacked up way high, and fitted with gigantic tires with tread patterns fit for impossible terrain, and bars of spotlights all over the front, and the roof, where two gigantic spare tires were bolted to a rack, which had red jerrycans of extra fuel strapped everywhere the tires weren’t. What little bodywork was visible under all the ironmongery was painted pearly black, and it was clean and shiny all over.

It slowed down in a hurry. They had seen the abandoned crew cab. They stopped thirty yards short of it. Foot on the brake, talking, the truck creeping forward. They moved on, and then stopped again. They had seen the open door.

They got out. No guns yet. They moved level with the front of their hood and looked all around. They stared ahead at the crew cab. Silence everywhere. No movement. One guy was tall and one guy was wide. The tall guy was probably six-eight. He was wearing a ball cap and mirror shades. Dark stubble, denims, beat-up cowboy boots. He was built solid, by any objective measure. But he was a skinny beanpole next to his brother. The wide one. Same hat, same shades, same stubble, but jammed on a wide head and all over a fat slab of a face. Same denim and boots, but he was much shorter, maybe only five-eleven. He made up for it in width. That was for damn sure. From Reacher’s angle the guy looked almost square.

They started walking toward the crew cab. Shoulder to shoulder. No infantry training. That was also for damn sure. The two of them side by side presented one single extremely tall and extremely wide target. They should have walked far apart. Widely separated. Civilians. Dumb legbreakers. Deceived by the calm and the quiet.

They reached the crew cab’s hood. Peered in through the windshield. Saw nothing. They tracked around to the driver’s door. Six inches open. They didn’t touch it. They angled around, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. They lined themselves up and bent slightly at the waist and peered inside.

Just like Reacher had hoped they would. Three seconds, he figured. They were half expecting to see the dumbass driver’s dead body sprawled across the seats. Because he wasn’t answering his phone. It would take a whole second to register they weren’t seeing it. Another full second to formulate the obvious question in their minds: so what the hell is going on here? A third whole second to glance around the cab for a note or a message or evidence of trouble. Then maybe even a bonus fourth second, depending on how fast their brains could process information and form conclusions.

Reacher checked the traffic. Nothing there, east or west, all the way to both horizons. He eased out under the lip of the solar panel and placed a careful foot on the gravel. He transferred his weight. He placed his other foot. He aimed, both eyes open, his right wrist resting on his left, crossways under it, relaxed but solid.

He breathed out.

He shot the tall guy through the back of his left heel. Dead on. Pretty good for a three inch barrel firing across a road. The guy’s weight was thrown out from under him and he went down hard on his back. His hat and his shades tumbled away.

Then Reacher shot the wide guy in the right heel. He went down too, the same way, a cartoon pratfall like a fat man slipping on ice, with a loud thump and blown sand puffing up off the blacktop all around.

Six rounds left.

They howled and yelped and twisted and scrabbled around, looking all over, trying to piece together what the hell had just happened to them, but Reacher was on them before they could mount any practical response. He kicked them away from the crew cab and stood back where they could both see him from lying flat on the road.

“Listen carefully,” he said. “I’m going to search you and confiscate your possessions. Then you’re going to answer two questions. Then you can drive yourselves to the hospital. First sign of reluctance or refusal or opposition or telling me lies, I’ll shoot you in the other foot. Second time, I’ll shoot you in the balls. Even after all that, I would still have two rounds left. So you’re in big trouble here. You just lost the game. Although I guess you appreciate that already, seeing as you’re lying there in the road with one working foot, and I’m not. I’m offering you a deal. You could live another day. Limping a bit, probably, but that’s better than nothing. All in exchange for the stuff in your pockets and the answers to a couple of questions. Do you want that deal?”

There was no actual reply, but they seemed to be lying as still as they could, so Reacher ducked down and frisked them left-handed, like he had learned to, a thousand times in training, a hundred times for real. He kept his attention focused rigidly in front of him, mostly on where his right hand was aiming the gun, while his left hand searched blindly and tossed everything it found behind him. Then he backed away and stood up straight.

At his feet were two wallets, two folds of cash money, a sprinkling of coins, four cell phones, two packs of Marlboro cigarettes, two plastic lighters, the truck key, two bunches of house keys, plus two Colt 1911 semiautomatic pistols.

No big knife.

He squatted down again and checked the phones. Two of the four were clearly personal. Modern, thin, glassy. Two were clearly drugstore burners. Cheap, plain, simple, like his own. He checked the call logs. One was busier than the other. The tall guy’s, presumably. He did all the talking. There were plenty of calls to and from two particular numbers. The wide guy and the dumbass driver, no doubt. Plus a long one-time incoming call from two weeks before. Exactly the right day, exactly the right time. They called ahead and subbed it out to a local contractor. Then a brief return call to the same number, the same day, nearly ten hours later. Job done, presumably. The situation is resolved.

Reacher stood up again.

“Question time,” he said. “Remember the rules. Don’t try to play it smart. My bullshit meter is always at eleven. If the issue is outside my area of expertise, I’ll check with my boss. Her bullshit meter is set around a thousand. Are we clear on this?”

They both kind of nodded. They were both lying on their fronts. The least uncomfortable position. Their faces were turned, resting cheek-down on the blacktop, their eyes rolled up in their heads, staring at Reacher standing alone above them, with the bright sky behind him.

“Two weeks ago,” he said. “Which one of you knifed the guy from the yellow Toyota?”

They didn’t answer. Not right away. What could they say? What were their options? One or the other would have to confess, or rat out his brother. Either way would be a serious problem, to have such knowledge out there in public. Against every instinct. Or they could claim neither of them did it, which would mean neither of them would ever walk again, because of the bullshit meter and the rule about telling lies. The tall guy heaved himself up on his forearms and looked at his brother. Who looked right back at him. They were asking each other the same desperate question. Then you can drive yourselves to the hospital. Did they believe it? They wanted to. That was for damn sure. Where there’s life, there’s hope.

The wide guy said, “I did.”

“OK,” Reacher said. “Good to know.”

Silence. Maybe a hint of a breeze, sliding up the smooth angled glass all around, singing a little as it spilled over the aluminum lip.

Reacher looked at the tall guy.

“Second question,” he said. “Who called you with the job?”

The guy said, “Ah, shit.”

“Remember the rules.”

“You’re not going to believe me.”