Worth Dying For

high centre of gravity tipped over and its offside wheels came up in the air. Then they crashed back to earth and the rear end fishtailed violently a full ninety degrees and the truck snapped around and came to rest parallel with the Malibu, less than ten feet away, stalled out and silent, the scream of stressed rubber dying away, thin drifts of moving blue smoke following it and catching it and stopping and rising all around it and billowing away into the cold night air.
    Reacher pulled the Iranian’s Glock from his pocket and stormed the driver’s door and wrenched it open and danced back and pointed the gun. In general he was not a big fan of dramatic arrests, but he knew from long experience what worked and what didn’t with shocked and unpredictable subjects, so he screamed GET OUT OF THE CAR GET OUT OF THE CAR GET OUT OF THE CAR as loud as he could, which was plenty loud, and the guy behind the wheel more or less tumbled out, and then Reacher was on him, forcing him down, flipping him, jamming him face down into the blacktop, his knee in the small of the guy’s back, the Glock’s muzzle hard in the back of the guy’s neck, all thetime screaming STAY DOWN STAY DOWN STAY DOWN, all the while watching the sky over his shoulder for more lights.
    There were no more lights. No one else was coming. No backup. The guy hadn’t called it in. He was planning a solo enterprise. All the glory for himself. As expected.
    Reacher smiled.
    Human nature.
    The scene went quiet. Nothing to hear, except the Malibu’s patient idle. Nothing to see, except four high beams stabbing the far shoulder. The air was full of the smell of burned rubber and hot brakes, and gas, and oil. The Cornhusker lay completely still. Hard not to, with 250 pounds on his back, and a gun to his head, and television images of SWAT arrests in his mind. Maybe real images. Country boys get arrested from time to time, the same as anyone else. And things had happened fast, all dark and noise and blur and panic, enough that maybe the guy hadn’t really seen Reacher’s face yet, or recognized his description from the Duncans’ warnings. Maybe the guy hadn’t put two and two together. Maybe he was waiting it out like a civilian, waiting to explain to a cop that he was innocent, like people do. Which gave Reacher a minor problem. He was about to transition away from what the guy might have taken to be a legitimate law enforcement takedown, straight to what the guy was going to know for sure was a wholly illegitimate kidnap attempt. And the guy was big. Six-six or a little more, two-ninety or a little more. He had on a large red football jacket and baggy jeans. His feet were the size of boats.
    Reacher said, ‘Tell me your name.’
    The guy’s chin and his lips and his nose were all jammed hard down on the blacktop. He said, ‘John,’ like a gasp, like a grunt, just a soft expulsion of breath, quiet and indistinct.
    ‘Not Brett?’ Reacher asked.
    ‘No.’
    ‘That’s good.’ Reacher shifted his weight, turned the guy’s head, jammed the Glock in his ear, saw the whites of his eyes. ‘Do you know who I am?’
    The guy on the ground said, ‘I do now.’
    ‘You know the two things you really need to understand?’
    ‘What are they?’
    ‘Whoever you think you are, I’m tougher than you, and I’m more ruthless than you. You have absolutely no idea. I’m worse than your worst nightmare. Do you believe that?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Really believe it? Like you believe in mom and apple pie?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You know what I did to your buddies?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What did I do?’
    ‘You finished them.’
    ‘Correct. But here’s the thing, John. I’m prepared to work with you, to save your life. We can do this, if we try. But if you step half an inch out of line, I’ll kill you and walk away and I’ll never think about you again and I’ll sleep like a baby the whole rest of my life. We clear on that?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So you want to try?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Are you thinking about some stupid move? Are you quarter-backing it right now? You planning to wait until my attention wanders?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Good answer, John. Because my attention never wanders. You ever seen someone get shot?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘It’s not like the movies, John. Big chunks of disgusting stuff come flying out. Even a flesh wound, you never really recover. Not a hundred per cent. You get infections. You’re weak and hurting, for ever.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘So stand up