Worth Dying For

ride back with you.’
    She was quiet for a second. Then she said, ‘Need anything else?’
    ‘No, thanks. Go on home now.’
    ‘This guy will tell Seth, you know. About what I did.’
    ‘He won’t,’ Reacher said. ‘He and I are going to work something out.’
    Eleanor Duncan said nothing more. She just put her lights back on and her car in gear and drove away, fast and crisp, the sound of her exhaust ripping the night air behind her. Reacher glanced back twice, once when she was half a mile away and again when she was gone altogether. Then he slid into the Malibu’s passenger seat, alongside the guy called John, and closed his door. He held the Glock right-handed across his body. He said, ‘Now you’re going to park this car around the back of this old roadhouse. If the speedo gets above five miles an hour, I’m going to shoot you in the side. Without immediate medical attention you’ll live about twenty minutes. Then you’ll die, inhideous agony. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen. Truth is, John, I’ve made it happen, more than once. We clear?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Say it, John. Say we’re clear.’
    ‘We’re clear.’
    ‘How clear are we?’
    ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’
    ‘I want you to say we’re crystal clear.’
    ‘You got it. Crystal.’
    ‘OK, so let’s do it.’
    The guy fumbled the lever into gear and turned the wheel and drove a wide circle, painfully slow, bumping up on the far shoulder, coming around to the near shoulder, bumping down on to the beaten earth of the old lot, passing the south gable wall, turning sharply behind the building. Reacher said, ‘Pull ahead and then back in, between the two bump-outs, like parallel parking. Do they ask for that in the Nebraska test?’
    The guy said, ‘I passed in Kentucky. In high school.’
    ‘Does that mean you need me to explain it to you?’
    ‘I know how to do it.’
    ‘OK, show me.’
    The guy pulled ahead of the second square bump-out and lined up and backed into the shallow U-shaped bay. Reacher said, ‘All the way, now. I want the back bumper hard against the wood and I want your side of the car hard against the building. I want you to trash your door mirror, John. Totally trash it. Can you do that for me?’
    The guy paused and then turned the wheel harder. He did pretty well. He got the rear bumper hard against the bump-out and he trashed his door mirror good, but he left about an inch between his flank of the car and the back of the building. He checked behind him, checked left, and then looked at Reacher like he was expecting praise.
    ‘Close enough,’ Reacher said. ‘Now shut it down.’
    The guy killed the lights and turned off the motor.
    Reacher said, ‘Leave the key.’
    The guy said, ‘I can’t get out. I can’t open my door.’
    Reacher said, ‘Crawl out after me.’ He opened his own door and slid out and backed off and stood tall and aimed the gun two-handed. The guy came out after him, hands and knees, huge and awkward, feet first, butt high up in the air. He got straight and turned around and said, ‘Want me to close the door?’
    Reacher said, ‘You’re thinking again, aren’t you, John? You’re thinking it’s dark out here, now the lights are off, and maybe I can’t see too well. You’re figuring maybe this would be a good time. But it isn’t. I can see just fine. An owl has got nothing on me in the eyesight department, John. An owl with night-vision goggles sees worse. Believe it, kid. Just hang in there. You can get through this.’
    ‘I’m not thinking anything,’ the guy said.
    ‘So close the door.’
    The guy closed the door.
    ‘Now step away from the car.’
    The guy stepped away. The car was crammed tight in the back southwest quarter of the shallow bay, occupying a fifteen-by-six footprint within the total thirty-by-twelve space. It would be invisible from the road, either north or south, and no one was going to be in the fields to the east until spring ploughing. Safe enough.
    Reacher said, ‘Now move to your right.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘So when I aim the gun at you I’m aiming parallel with the road.’
    The guy moved, two steps, three, and then he stopped and turned and faced front, with his back to the forty empty miles between him and the Cell Block bar.
    Reacher asked him, ‘How close is the nearest house?’
    He said, ‘Miles away.’
    ‘Close enough to hear a gunshot in the night?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘What would they think if they did?’
    ‘Varmint.