Bad Luck and Trouble

hesitated. Reacher put the Glock’s muzzle against Mauney’s temple. Mauney picked up the phone. Dialed. Reacher listened hard and heard ring tones from the earpiece and the Chryslers idling a hundred yards away on the open ground and a muted bell forty yards away in the guard shack.
    The call was answered. Mauney said, “This is Mauney. Open the gate one minute from now.” Then he hung up. Reacher turned to Neagley.
    “Am I your CO?” he asked.
    “Yes,” she said. “You are.”
    “Then listen up,” he said. “When the gate opens we head for our cars and we get out of here as fast as we possibly can.”
    “And then?” she asked.
    “We come back later.”
    “In time?”
    Reacher nodded. “We’ll make it in time if we’re fast right now. They’re already in their cars. So we have to really go for it. You’re a lot faster than me, so I’ll be behind you. But don’t wait for me. Don’t even look back. We can’t afford to lose a yard, either one of us.”
    “Understood,” she said. “Three minutes gone.”
    Reacher grabbed Mauney’s collar and hauled him to his feet. Dragged him out from behind the desk, out of the office, down the hallway, into the open area. Over to the main doorway. And then a yard outside, into the night. The smell of wet ash was strong. The three Chryslers were moving again in the distance. They were turning tight circles on the open ground and their headlights were sweeping random patterns against the fence like searchlights in a prison movie.
    “Wait for the starting gun,” Reacher said to Neagley.
    He watched the gate. Saw the guard move in his booth, saw the concertina wire sway, heard the tortured screech of wheels on a metal rail. Saw the gate start to move. He put the Glock to Mauney’s temple and pulled the trigger. Mauney’s skull exploded and Neagley and Reacher took off at full speed, like sprinters out of their blocks.
    Neagley was ahead after half a step. Reacher stopped dead and watched her go. She flew through the pool of light from the guard hut and dodged like a running back around the end of the moving gate. She raced out to the street. Then she was lost to sight.
    Reacher turned and ran in the opposite direction. Fifteen seconds later he was back where he had started, behind the Bell’s long nose.

77
    Maybe they had seen Neagley go, and assumed Reacher was ahead of her. Or maybe they had just seen the gate move, or heard its sound through their open windows. Certainly they must have heard the gunshot. Possibly they imagined the rest. But they took the bait. They reacted instantly. All three cars braked and maneuvered and turned and accelerated and headed for the street, fishtailing like crazy and spraying huge rooster tails of dirt high in the air. They went out through the gate like stock cars through a turn. Their headlights lit up the street like day.
    Reacher watched them go.
    He waited for the night to go dark and quiet again. Then he counted to ten and moved slowly along the Bell’s starboard flank. He ignored the cockpit door. He moved right past it and put his hand on the rear door’s handle.
    He tried it.
    It was unlocked.
    He glanced over his shoulder at the pilot’s hut. No movement there. He eased the handle down. The latch came free. The door opened. It was wide and light and tinny. Like a panel van’s. Not at all what he was expecting. Not heavy and pneumatic like an airliner’s.
    He held the door two feet open and looped around it and climbed inside. Pulled the door after him and paused and then closed it against the latch with one sudden decisive click. He ducked down and peered out the window and watched the pilot’s hut.
    No reaction.
    He turned around in a crouch and knelt on the cabin floor in the darkness. From the inside the Bell looked like a swelled-up version of a minivan. A little wider and a little longer than the kind of things soccer moms drove in television commercials. Less boxy. A little more contoured. Narrower at the front, wider at floor level, pinched in a little more at head height, narrower at the rear. There would have been seven seats, two in the cockpit, three in the center row, two way in back, except that the center row was missing. The seats were all bulky high-backed recliners, faced with black leather. They had headrests and arms. Captains’ chairs. They had safety harnesses. Below the waistline the bulkheads were lined with black carpet. Above, they were padded with black quilted vinyl. Very