Worth Dying For

first guy opened the passenger door, and the second guy opened the driver’s door. The guy at the passenger door stood ready to block an escape, and the guy at the driver’s door reached inside and hauled the doctor out by the collar of his coat. The doctor went down like a dead weight, straight to the blacktop, and the guy hauled him up again and hit him hard in the gut and then turned him around and hit him twice more, low in the back, right over his kidneys. The doctor fell to his knees and puked bourbon on the road.
    The guy who had been waiting at the passenger door walked back to his vehicle and parked it where it had been before. Then he put the doctor’s truck right behind it. He rejoined his buddyand between them they wrestled the doctor up into the cab of the first guy’s truck. Then they drove away, one on the right, one on the left, with the doctor jammed between them on the three-person bench, shaking and shivering, his chin on his chest.
    In Las Vegas Safir dialled his phone, and his guy answered, in Rossi’s office, six blocks away. Safir said, ‘New developments. I’m sending you two to Nebraska. I’ll fax the details to the airport.’
    His guy said, ‘OK.’
    Safir said, ‘Rossi’s guys will meet you at the hotel. Mahmeini is sending guys too. The six of you will work together until the stranger is down. In the meantime try and get something going with the Duncans. Build a relationship. Then take Rossi’s guys out. That way we’re one step closer to the motherlode. We can double our margin.’
    His guy said, ‘OK.’
    ‘And if you get the chance, take Mahmeini’s guys out too. I think I can get next to his customer. I mean, where else can he get stuff like this? We could maybe quadruple our margin.’
    His guy said, ‘OK, boss.’
    The Cornhuskers drove south, five fast miles, and then they slowed and turned in on the Duncans’ shared driveway. The doctor looked up at the change of speed and direction and moaned a strangled inarticulate sigh and closed his eyes and dropped his head again. The guy on his right smacked an elbow in his ribs. He said, ‘You need to get that voice working better, my friend. Because you’ve got some explaining to do.’
    They took it slow all the way up to the houses, formal and ceremonial, mission accomplished, and they parked out front and got out and hauled their prize out after them. They marched him to Jacob Duncan’s door and knocked. A minute later Jacob Duncan opened it up and one of the Cornhuskers put his hand flat on the doctor’s back and shoved him inside, and said, ‘We found this guy using the truck we lost. He put his own damn plates on it.’
    Jacob Duncan looked at the doctor for ten long seconds. He raised his hand and patted him gently on the cheek. Pale skin, damp and clammy, lumps and bruises. Then he bunched the front of the doctor’s shirt in his fist and dragged him farther into the hallway. He turned and pushed him onward, through the dark depths of the house, towards the kitchen in back. Their prisoner, in the system.
    Jacob Duncan turned back to the Cornhuskers.
    ‘Good work, boys,’ he said. ‘Now go finish the job. Find Reacher. He’s on foot again, clearly. If the doctor knows where he is, he’s sure to tell us soon, and we’ll let you know. But in the meantime, keep looking.’
    Roberto Cassano was still in Jacob Duncan’s kitchen. Angelo Mancini was still in there with him. They saw the sadsack doctor stumble in from the hallway, all drunk and raggedy and terrified, with Mancini’s earlier handiwork still clearly visible all over his face. Then Cassano’s phone rang. He checked the screen and saw that it was Rossi calling and he stepped out the back door and walked across the weedy gravel. He hit the button and raised the phone and Rossi said, ‘Complications.’
    Cassano said, ‘Such as?’
    ‘I had to calm things down at this end. It was getting out of control. I had to talk to people, change a few perceptions. Long story short, you’re getting reinforcements. Two of Safir’s guys, and two of Mahmeini’s.’
    ‘That should shorten the process.’
    ‘Initially,’ Rossi said. ‘But then it’s going to get very difficult. A buck gets ten they’re coming with instructions to cut us out of the chain. Mahmeini is probably looking to cut Safir out too. So don’t let any of them get close to the Duncans. Not for a minute. Don’t let the Duncans make any new friends. And watch your step as soon as