17 A Wanted Man

We need to preserve the paperwork.’
    ‘I don’t have any matches, anyway. We’d have to try to get to the kitchen and use the stove. In which case we might as well try to get all the way out.’
    ‘We should go sideways. There’s a clear run through the third chamber.’
    ‘Pick a door,’ Reacher said. He couldn’t see the blue spots. All the doors were folded back into the rooms. He knew there were six doors with blue spots. Built like rooms, used like lobbies. There were five bad guys. Therefore one way through was clear. A sixteen per cent chance. Sixteen point six, recurring for ever, to be totally accurate.
    ‘Back to back?’ McQueen asked.
    ‘Who leads?’ Reacher said.
    ‘Doesn’t really matter.’
    ‘It might,’ Reacher said. He wasn’t pinning much hope on a sixteen per cent chance. They were likely to run into someone in whichever lateral lobby they chose. One of the five. The resulting gunfire would alert the other four. If they gave chase, then the backward-facing guy would have to do most of the hard work. But if the four survivors did the smart thing and made lateral loops of their own, one by one, like outflanking manoeuvres, then the forward-facing guy would take most of the load.
    ‘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 tunnel. Reacher pictured the seal breaking, the big diesels rumbling, the two halves of the door grinding back along