Worth Dying For

on both sides of the border had computer programs with sophisticated software. Individual words could trigger alerts. And even without compromising language, an electronic record of where a guy had been, and when, was always best avoided. For the same reason, all gas purchases were made with cash, in the local currency, and at every stop the driver turned his collar up and pulled his hat down low, in case there were cameras connected to digital recorders or distant control rooms.
    The van rolled on, making steady progress, heading east.
    Rossi clicked off the call with Cassano and thought hard for five minutes, and then he dialled Safir, six blocks away. He took a breath and held it and asked, ‘Have you ever seen better merchandise?’
    Safir said, ‘You don’t have to play the salesman. I already fell for your pitch.’
    ‘And you’ve always been satisfied, right?’
    ‘I’m not satisfied now.’
    ‘I understand,’ Rossi said. ‘But I want to discuss something with you.’
    ‘Equals discuss,’ Safir said. ‘We’re not equals. I tell, you ask.’
    ‘OK, I want to ask you something. I want to ask you to take a step back and consider something.’
    ‘For example?’
    ‘I need this shipment, you need this shipment, everyone needs this shipment. So I want to ask you to put our differences aside and make common cause. Just for a day or two.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘My contacts in Nebraska have a bug up their ass.’
    ‘I know all about that,’ Safir said. ‘My men gave me a full report.’
    ‘I want you to send them up there to help.’
    ‘Send who? Up where?’
    ‘Your men. To Nebraska. There’s no point in having them here in my office. Your interests are my interests, and I’m already working as hard as I can on this. So I’m thinking your guys could go help my guys and between us we could solve this problem.’
    The doctor made it to Dorothy’s farmhouse unobserved and parked in the yard behind it, nose to tail with Dorothy’s own pick-up. He found her in her kitchen, washing dishes. Breakfast dishes, presumably. Hers and Reacher’s. Which had been a crazy risk.
    He asked, ‘How are you holding up?’
    She said, ‘I’m OK. You look worse than me.’
    ‘I’ll survive.’
    ‘You’re in a Duncan truck.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘That’s dumb.’
    ‘Like cooking breakfast for the guy was dumb.’
    ‘He was hungry.’
    The doctor asked, ‘You need anything?’
    ‘I need to know how this is going to end.’
    ‘Not well, probably. He’s one guy, on his own. And there’s no guarantee he’ll even stick around.’
    ‘You know where he is right now?’
    ‘Yes. More or less.’
    ‘Don’t tell me.’
    ‘I won’t.’
    Dorothy said, ‘You should go check on Mr Vincent. He was hurt pretty bad.’
    ‘That’s where I’m headed next,’ the doctor said.
    Safir clicked off the call with Rossi and thought hard for ten long minutes, and then he dialled his customer Mahmeini, eightblocks across town. He took a breath and held it and asked, ‘Have you ever seen better merchandise?’
    Mahmeini said, ‘Get to the damn point.’
    ‘There’s a kink in the chain.’
    ‘Chains don’t have kinks. Hoses have kinks. Chains have weak links. Are you confessing? You’re the weak link?’
    ‘I’m just saying. There’s a speed bump. A Catch-22. It’s crazy, but it’s there.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘We all have a common goal. We all want that shipment. And we’re not going to get it until the speed bump disappears. That’s a fact, unfortunately. There’s nothing any of us can do about it. We’re all victims here. So I’m asking you to put our differences aside and make common cause, just for a day or two.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘I want you to take your guys out of my office and send them up to Nebraska. I’m sending my guys. We could all work together and solve this problem.’
    Mahmeini went quiet. Truth was, he was nothing more than a link in a chain, too, the same as Safir, the same as Rossi, who he knew all about, the same as the Duncans, who he knew all about too, and Vancouver. He knew the lie of the land. He had exercised due diligence. He had done the research. They were all links in a chain, except that he was the penultimate link, the second to last, and therefore he was under the greatest strain. Because right next to him at the top were Saudis, unbelievably rich and beyond vicious. A bad combination.
    Mahmeini said, ‘Ten per cent discount.’
    Safir said, ‘Of course.’
    Mahmeini said,