Bad Luck and Trouble

apparition, a sudden giant figure from nowhere looming silently into the noisy orange glow. Then he stood still, close to fully upright, his head jammed up hard against the roof, his feet a yard apart, perfectly triangulated for maximum stability. His left hand held a SIG, pointing straight at Parker’s face. His right held his Glock, pointing straight at Lamaison’s. Both guns were motionless. His face was expressionless. The rotor thrashed on. The Bell continued its slow clockwise rotation. The door held wide open, pushed back like a sail. Gales of noise and wind and kerosene stink blew in.
    O’Donnell arched his back and got his head high enough to turn. His eyes tracked left to Reacher’s boots and closed for a second. Dixon toppled onto her back and rolled over on her bound arms and settled on her other shoulder, facing the rear.
    The pilot stared. Parker stared. Lamaison stared.
    The time of maximum danger.
    Reacher could not afford to fire forward. The chance of hitting some essential cockpit avionics was far too great. He couldn’t afford to put a gun down and work on freeing O’Donnell or Dixon, because Parker was loose in the cabin not more than four feet away. He couldn’t take Parker down hand to hand, because he couldn’t even move. There was no floor space. O’Donnell and Dixon were occupying it all.
    Whereas Lamaison was still strapped in his seat. The pilot was still strapped in his. All the pilot had to do was throw the Bell all over the sky until everyone in the back fell out. They would sacrifice Parker that way, but Reacher couldn’t see Lamaison losing sleep over that decision.
    Stalemate, if they understood.
    Victory, if they seized the moment.

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    They didn’t understand. They didn’t seize the moment. Instead O’Donnell got his head and his feet off the floor and porpoised desperately six inches closer to Reacher and Dixon rolled back the other way and a precious foot of free space opened up between them. Reacher stepped gratefully into it and smashed Parker in the gut with the SIG’s muzzle. The breath punched out of Parker’s lungs and he folded up at the waist and staggered one instinctive step, straight into the channel that O’Donnell and Dixon had created. Reacher dodged past him like a bullfighter and planted the sole of his boot flat on Parker’s ass and shoved him hard from behind and sent him stumbling on stiff legs straight across the cabin and blindly out the door into the night. Before his scream had died Reacher had his left arm hooked around Lamaison’s throat with the SIG pointing straight at the pilot and the Glock jammed hard into the back of Lamaison’s neck.
    After that, it got easier.
    The pilot stayed frozen at the controls. The Bell hung there in its noisy hover. The rotor beat loud and the whole craft kept on turning slow. The door stayed open, wide and inviting, pinned back by the airflow. Reacher clamped his elbow and hauled backward on Lamaison’s neck and pulled him up out of the seat until his shoulder straps went tight. Then he put the Glock on the floor and fished in his pocket for O’Donnell’s knuckleduster. He held it between his fingers like a tool and glanced behind him. He extended his arm and pushed Dixon onto her front and used the knuckleduster’s wicked spines to rub at the bonds on her wrists. She tensed her arms and the sisal fibers ruptured slowly, one by one. Reacher felt each success quite clearly through the hard ceramic material, tiny dull harmonic pings, sometimes two at once. Lamaison started to struggle and Reacher tightened his elbow, which had the advantage of choking Lamaison into submission but the disadvantage of aiming the SIG behind the pilot instead of straight at him. But the pilot made no attempt to take advantage. He didn’t react at all. He just sat there, hands on the stick, feet on the pedals, keeping the Bell turning slow.
    Reacher kept on sawing away, blindly. One minute. Two. Dixon kept on moving her arms, offering new strands, testing progress. Lamaison struggled harder. He was a big guy, strong and powerful, thick neck, broad shoulders. And he was scared. But Reacher was bigger, and Reacher was stronger, and Reacher was angry. More angry than Lamaison was scared. Reacher tightened his arm. Lamaison struggled on. Reacher debated taking time out to hit him, but he wanted him conscious, for later. So he just worried on at the ropes and suddenly a whole skein of sisal fibers unraveled and Dixon’s