One Shot

It had been a Benelli Nova Pump. The stock had been cut off behind the pistol grip. The barrel had been hacked off ahead of the slide. Twelve-gauge. Four-shot magazine. A handsome weapon, butchered.
    “Emerson,” the Zec called. “Come over here and untie me.”
    Reacher heard Emerson stand up. He didn’t look back at him. Just took a tiny pace forward and sideways, closer to Chenko. He was a foot taller and twice as wide.
    “I need a knife here,” Emerson said.
    “The soldier’s got a knife,” Chenko said. “I’m damn sure of that, based on what I saw happened to my buddies downstairs.”
    Reacher moved a little closer to him. A big guy and a little guy directly face-to-face, separated by about three feet, most of which was occupied by the Benelli. Reacher’s waist was level with Chenko’s chest.
    “Knife,” Emerson said.
    “Come and get it,” Reacher said.
    “Slide it across the floor.”
    “No.”
    “I’ll shoot,” Chenko said. “Twelve-gauge, in the gut.”
    Reacher thought:
And then what? A pump-action shotgun ain’t much use to a one-armed man.
    “So shoot,” he said.
    He felt eyes on him. He knew everyone was looking at him. Staring at him. Silence buzzed in his ears. He was suddenly aware of the smells in the room. Dust in the carpet, worn furniture, fear, tension, damp night air blowing in from the open door downstairs and the busted window upstairs and carrying with it the odor of rich earth and fertilizer and budding new growth.
    “Go ahead,” he said. “Shoot.”
    Chenko did nothing. Just stood there. Reacher stood there directly in front of him. He knew exactly how the room was laid out. He had arranged it. He pictured it in his mind. Chenko was in the doorway facing the window. Everyone else was facing the other way. Reacher himself right in front of Chenko, face-to-face, close enough to touch. Cash directly behind him all the way in back, behind the sofa, on the windowsill, staring forward. Then the Zec on the sofa, looking the same way. Then Emerson in the middle of the floor, near the Zec, standing up, indecisive, watching. Then Yanni and Franklin and Helen and Rosemary Barr in the armchairs against the side walls, heads turned. Then Donna Bianca and Alex Rodin on their dining chairs, twisted around at the waist, eyes wide.
    Reacher knew where everyone was, and he knew what they were looking at.
    “Shoot,” he said. “Aim at my belt. That’ll work. Go ahead.”
    Chenko did nothing. Just stared up at him. Reacher was so close and so big he was all Chenko could see. It was just the two of them, like they were alone in the room.
    “I’ll help you out,” Reacher said. “I’ll count to three. Then you pull the trigger.”
    Chenko just stood there.
    “You understand?” Reacher said.
    No reply.
    “One,” Reacher said.
    No reaction.
    “Two,” Reacher said.
    Then he stepped out of the way. Just took a long fast sideways shuffle to his right. Cash fired from behind the sofa at the spot where Reacher’s belt had been a split second before, and Chenko’s chest blew apart.
    Then Cash put his rifle back on the floor just as silently as he had picked it up.

    ______

    Two night-shift squad cars came and took the Zec and Emerson away. Then four ambulances arrived for the casualties. Bianca asked Reacher what exactly had happened to the first three. Reacher told her he had absolutely no idea. None at all. He speculated that it might have been some kind of an internal dispute. A falling-out among thieves, maybe? Bianca didn’t push it. Rosemary Barr borrowed Franklin’s cell phone and used it to call area hospitals, looking for a safe berth for her brother. Helen and Alex Rodin sat close together, talking. Gunny Cash sat in a chair and dozed. An old soldier’s habit.
Sleep when you can.
Yanni stepped up close to Reacher and said, “Rough men stand ready in the night.” Reacher found himself very aware of the live phone. He just smiled and said, “I’m usually in bed by twelve o’clock.”
    “Me too,” Yanni said. “Alone. You remember my address?”
    Reacher smiled again, and nodded. Then he went downstairs and stepped out to the front porch and walked a little ways south across the dirt until he could see past the bulk of the house to the eastern sky. Dawn was coming. Black shaded to purple right on the horizon. He turned and watched the last ambulance loading up. Vladimir’s final ride, judging by the size of the shape under the sheet on the gurney. Reacher