17 A Wanted Man

their tracks, the gap between them widening slowly and unstoppably. Far too soon for Quantico. They were still in the air, surely. Over Missouri by that point, hopefully, maybe even on approach to Whiteman, maybe even right then lowering the landing gear, but Whiteman was all of sixty miles away, and they still had complex preparations and transfers to make.
    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 inner door to open, the ancient fail-safe circuits still obedient.
    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 cannibalized his part-gone magazines and put a full load in his Glock. One in the chamber, seventeen in the box. Some of the brass ended up smeared with his blood. Which seemed appropriate. Some old guy once said the meaning of life is that it ends. Which was inescapably true. No one lives for ever. In his head Reacher had always known he would die. Every human does. But in his heart he had never really imagined it. Never imagined the time and the place and the details and the particulars.
    He smiled.
    He said, ‘On three?’
    McQueen nodded.
    He said, ‘One.’
    The diesels sounded louder. The inner door, opening.
    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 running towards him from the right, firing, and into the next blue-spot room, with footsteps behind him, and then it was all over, finally and utterly and completely and definitively, because of the taped plastic sheet over the old door ahead of him, and because the Glock jammed and wouldn’t fire any more.
    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.
    The white guy smiled.
    The Arab smiled.
    The white guy closed one eye and sighted down the three-inch barrel.
    The Arab closed one eye.
    Reacher kept both eyes open.
    Their trigger