One Shot

minutes.
    Cash heard Reacher ask: “Gunny, do you see me?”
    Cash lifted the rifle again and swept the length of the driveway from its mouth all the way to the house. “Negative. I don’t see you. Where are you?”
    “About thirty yards in.”
    Cash moved the rifle. Estimated thirty yards from the road and stared through the scope. Saw nothing. Nothing at all. “Good work, soldier. Keep going.”
    Yanni crawled forward. Whispered in Cash’s ear. “Why don’t you see him?”
    “Because he’s nuts.”
    “No, explain it to me. You’ve got a night scope, right?”
    “The best money can buy,” Cash said. “And it works off heat, just like their cameras.” Then he pointed away to his right. “But my guess is Reacher walked through the fields. Soaked himself in water. It’s coming straight up from the aquifer, stone cold. So right now he’s close to ambient temperature. I can’t see him; they can’t see him.”
    “Smart,” Yanni said.
    “Brave,” Cash said. “But ultimately dumb. Because he’s drying out every step of the way. And getting warmer.”

    ______

    Reacher walked through the dark in the dirt ten feet south of the driveway. Not fast, not slow. His shoes were soaked and they were sticking to the mud. Almost coming off. He was so cold he was shivering violently. Which was bad. Shivering is a physiological reaction designed to warm a cold body fast. And he didn’t want to be warm. Not yet.

    Vladimir had gotten a rhythm going. He stared at the East monitor for four seconds, then the North for three.
East, two, three, four, North, two, three. East, two, three, four, North, two, three.
He didn’t move his chair. Just leaned a little one way, then the other. Beside him Sokolov had a similar thing going south and west. Slightly different intervals. Not perfectly synchronized. But just as good, Vladimir guessed. Maybe even better. Sokolov had spent a lot of time on surveillance.

    Reacher walked on. Not fast, not slow. On the map the driveway had looked to be about two hundred yards long. On the ground it felt like an airport runway. Straight as a die. Wide. And long, long, long. He had been walking forever. And he was less than halfway to the house. He walked on. Just kept on going. Looking ahead every step of the way, watching the darkened windows far away in front of him.
    He realized his hair wasn’t dripping anymore.
    He touched one hand with the other. Dry. Not warm, but no longer cold.
    He walked on. He was tempted to run. Running would get him there faster. But running would heat him up. He was approaching the point of no return. He was right out there in no-man’s-land. And he wasn’t shivering. He raised his phone.
    “Helen,” he whispered. “I need that diversion.”

    ______

    Helen took off her heels and left them neatly side by side at the base of the fence. For an absurd moment she felt like a person who piles all her clothes on the beach before she walks into the sea to drown. Then she put her palms down on the dirt like a sprinter in the blocks and took off forward. Just ran crazily, twenty feet, thirty, forty, and then she stopped dead and stood still, facing the house with her arms out wide like a target.
Shoot me,
she thought.
Please shoot me.
Then she got scared that maybe she really meant it and she turned and ran back in a wide zigzag loop. Threw herself down and crawled along the fence again until she found her shoes.

    Vladimir saw her on the North monitor. Nothing recognizable. Just a brief flare that because of the phosphor technology was smeared and a little time-lagged. But he bent his head closer anyway and stared at the afterimage. One second, two. Sokolov sensed the interruption to his rhythm and glanced over. Three seconds, four.
    “Fox?” Vladimir said.
    “I didn’t see it,” Sokolov said. “But probably.”
    “It ran away again.”
    “OK, then.” Sokolov turned back to his own pair of monitors. Glanced at the West view, checked the South, and settled into his regular cadence again.

    Cash had a cadence of his own. He was inching his night scope along at what he guessed was the speed of a walking man. But every five seconds he would sweep it suddenly forward and back in case his estimate was off. During one of those rapid traverses he picked up on what looked like a pale green shadow.
    “Reacher, I can see you,” he whispered. “You’re visible, soldier.”
    Reacher’s voice came back: “What scope have you got on that