Bad Luck and Trouble

the carpet. He was screaming. Reacher could hear him clearly over the noise. He could feel his chest heaving.
    Too late, Reacher thought. You reap what you sow.
    Lamaison flailed weak backhand blows that didn’t come close to landing. Then he put his hands flat on the floor and tried to buck Reacher off. No chance, Reacher thought. Not unless you can do a push-up with two hundred and fifty pounds riding on your back. Some guys could. Reacher had seen it done. But Lamaison couldn’t. He was strong, but not strong enough. He strained for a spell and collapsed.
    Reacher swapped the SIG into his left hand and looped his right over Lamaison’s neck from behind like a pincer. Lamaison had a big neck, but Reacher had big hands. He jammed his thumb and the tip of his middle finger into the hollows behind Lamaison’s ears and squeezed hard. Lamaison’s arteries compressed and his brain starved for oxygen and he stopped screaming and his feet stopped drumming. Reacher kept the pressure on for a whole extra minute and then rolled him over and spun him around and sat him up like a drunk.
    Grabbed his belt and his collar.
    Pushed him across the floor on his ass, feet-first.
    He got him as far as the door sill and held him there, arms pinned behind him. The helicopter turned, slowly. The engines whined and the rotor beat out discrete bass thumps of sound. Reacher felt every one of them in his chest, like heartbeats. Minutes passed and fresh air blew in and Lamaison came around to find himself sitting upright on the edge with his feet hanging out over the void like a guy on a high wall.
    A mile above the desert floor. Five thousand, two hundred and eighty feet.
    Reacher had rehearsed a speech. He had started composing it in the Denny’s on Sunset, with Franz’s file in his hand. He had perfected it over the following days. It was full of fine phrases about loyalty and retribution, and heartfelt eulogies for his four dead friends. But when it came to it he didn’t say much. No point. Lamaison wouldn’t have heard a word. He was crazy with terror and there was too much noise. A cacophony. In the end Reacher just leaned forward and put his mouth close to Lamaison’s ear and said, “You made a bad mistake. You messed with the wrong people. Now it’s time to pay.”
    Then he straightened Lamaison’s arms behind his back and pushed. Lamaison slid an inch and then lunged forward to try to jack his ass backward on the sill. Reacher pushed again. Lamaison folded up and his chest met his knees. He was staring straight down into the blackness. One mile. A speeding car would take a whole minute to cover it.
    Reacher pushed. Lamaison let his shoulders go slack. No leverage.
    Reacher put his heel flat against the small of Lamaison’s back.
    Bent his leg.
    Let go of Lamaison’s arms.
    Straightened his leg, fast and smooth.
    Lamaison went over the edge and disappeared into the night.

    There was no scream. Or maybe there was. Maybe it was lost in the rotor noise. O’Donnell nudged the pilot and the pilot yawed the craft and reversed the rotation and the door slammed neatly shut. The cabin went quiet. Silent, by comparison. Dixon hugged Reacher hard. O’Donnell said, “You certainly left it until the last minute, didn’t you?”
    Reacher said, “I was trying to decide whether to let them throw you out before I saved Karla. Tough decision. Took some time.”
    “Where’s Neagley?”
    “Working, I hope. The missiles rolled out of the gate in Colorado eight hours ago. And we don’t know where they’re going.”

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    There was nothing the pilot could do to them without killing himself also, so they left him alone in the cockpit. But not before checking the fuel load. It was low. Much less than an hour’s flying time. There was no cell reception. Reacher told the pilot to lose height and drift south to find a signal. Dixon and O’Donnell latched the rear seat backs upright and sat down. They didn’t strap themselves in. Reacher guessed they were done with confinement. He lay on his back on the floor with his arms and legs flung wide like a snow angel. He was tired and dispirited. Lamaison was gone, but no one had come back.
    O’Donnell asked, “Where would you take six hundred and fifty SAMs?”
    “The Middle East,” Dixon said. “And I’d send them by sea. The electronics through LA and the tubes through Seattle.”
    Reacher raised his head. “Lamaison said they were going to Kashmir.”
    “Did you believe