One Shot

empty. All unused. He paused at the bottom of the stairs. Backed away into an empty twelve-by-twenty space that might once have been a parlor. Crouched and laid the knife on the floor and pulled out his phone.
    “Gunny?” he whispered.
    Cash answered: “You back with us?”
    “Phone was in my pocket.”
    “Yanni found Helen. She’s OK.”
    “Good. The basement and the first floor are clear. I think you were right after all. Rosemary must be in the attic.”
    “You going upstairs now?”
    “I guess I’ll have to.”
    “Body count?”
    “Two down so far.”
    “Lots more upstairs, then.”
    “I’ll be careful.”
    “Roger that.”
    Reacher put the phone back in his pocket and retrieved the knife from the floor. Stood up and crept out to the hallway. The staircase was in the back of the house. It was wide, doglegged, and shallow-pitched. Quite grand. There was a wide landing halfway up where the dogleg reversed direction. He went up the first half-flight backward. It made more sense that way. He wanted to know right away if there was someone in the second-floor hallway looking down over the banister. He kept close to the wall. If stairs creaked at all, they creaked most in the middle of a tread. He went slowly, feeling with his heels, putting them down gently and deliberately. And quietly.
Boat shoes. Good for something.
After five up-and-back steps, his head was about level with the second-story floor. He raised the gun. Took another step. Now he could see the whole of the hallway. It was empty. It was a quiet carpeted space lit by a single low-wattage bulb. Nothing to see, except six closed doors, three on a side. He breathed out and made it to the half-landing. Shuffled left and crept up the second part of the dogleg going forward. Stepped off the staircase. Into the hallway.
    Now what?
    Six closed doors.
Who was where?
He moved slowly toward the front of the house. Listened at the first door. Heard nothing. He moved on. Heard nothing at the second door. Moved on again but before he reached the third door he heard sounds from the floor above. Sounds that were coming down
through
the floor. Sounds that he didn’t understand. Sliding, scraping, crunching noises, repeated rhythmically, with a single light footfall at the end of every sequence.
Slide, scrape, crunch, tap. Slide, scrape, crunch, tap.
He stared up at the ceiling. Then the third door opened and Grigor Linsky stepped out into the hallway right in front of him. And froze.
    He was wearing his familiar double-breasted suit. Gray color, boxy shoulders, cuffed pants. Reacher stabbed him in the throat. Instantly, right-handed, instinctively. He buried the blade and jerked it left.
Sever the windpipe. Keep him quiet.
He stepped aside to avoid the fountain of blood. Caught him under the arms from behind and dragged him back into the room he had come out of. It was a kitchen. Linsky had been making tea. Reacher turned out the light under the kettle. Put the gun and the knife on the counter. Bent down and clamped Linsky’s head between his hands and twisted it left and jerked it right. Broke his neck. The
snap
was loud enough to worry about. It was a very quiet house. Reacher retrieved the gun and the knife and listened at the door. Heard nothing except:
Slide, scrape, crunch, tap. Slide, scrape, crunch, tap.
He stepped back into the hallway. Then he knew.
    Glass.
    Cash had returned fire through Chenko’s favored northern vantage point and like all good snipers had sought maximum damage from his one shot. And in turn, like all good snipers, Chenko was keeping his physical environment operational.
He was cleaning up the broken glass.
He had a twenty-five percent chance of being directed back to that particular window and he wanted his passage through the room clear.
    Slide, scrape, crunch, tap.
He was using the side of his foot to sweep the glass aside. Into a pile. Then he was stepping forward to sweep the next arc. He would want a clear two-foot walkway through the room. No danger of slipping or sliding.
    How far had he got?
    Reacher crept to the next staircase. It was identical to the last one. Wide, shallow, doglegged. He walked up backward, listening hard.
Slide, scrape, crunch, tap.
He crossed the half-landing. Kept on going forward. The third-floor hallway had the same layout as the one below, but it wasn’t carpeted. Just bare boards. There was an upright chair in the center of the corridor. All the doors were open. North was to the right.