Worth Dying For

right in front of the spy hole and rang the bell. There was a whole minute’s delay. Then the spy hole darkened and lightened and locks and chains rattled and the doctor opened up. He looked tired and battered and worried. His wife was standing behind him in the hallway, in the bright light, with the phone to her ear. The phone was the old-fashioned kind, big and black on a table, with a dial and a curly wire. The doctor’s wife was not talking. She was just listening, concentrating hard, her eyes narrowing and widening.
    The doctor said, ‘You came back.’
    Reacher said, ‘Yes, I did.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Are you OK? The Cornhuskers are out and about.’
    ‘We know,’ the doctor said. ‘We just heard. We’re on the phone tree right now.’
    ‘They didn’t come here?’
    ‘Not yet.’
    ‘So where are they?’
    ‘We’re not sure.’
    Reacher said, ‘Can I come in?’
    ‘Of course,’ the doctor said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He stepped back and Reacher stepped in. The hallway was very warm. The whole house was warm, but it felt smaller than before, like a desperate little fortress. The doctor closed the door and turned two keys and put the chain back on. He asked, ‘Did you see the police files?’
    Reacher said, ‘Yes.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘They’re inconclusive,’ Reacher said. He moved on into the kitchen. He heard the doctor’s wife say, ‘What?’ She sounded puzzled. Maybe a little shocked. He glanced back at her. The doctor glanced back at her. She said nothing more. Just continued to listen, eyes moving, taking mental notes. The doctor followed Reacher into the kitchen.
    ‘Want coffee?’ he asked.
    I’m not drunk
, he meant.
    Reacher said, ‘Sure. Lots of it.’
    The doctor set about filling the machine. The kitchen was even warmer than the hallway. Reacher took off his coat and hung it on the back of a chair.
    The doctor asked, ‘What do you mean, inconclusive?’
    Reacher said, ‘I mean I could make up a story about how the Duncans did it, but there’s really no proof either way.’
    ‘Can you find proof? Is that why you came back?’
    Reacher said, ‘I came back because those two Italian guys who were after me seem to have joined up with a regular United Nations of other guys. Not a peacekeeping force, either. I think they’re all coming here. I want to know why.’
    ‘Pride,’ the doctor said. ‘You messed with the Duncans, and they won’t tolerate that. Their people can’t handle you, so they’ve called in reinforcements.’
    ‘Doesn’t make sense,’ Reacher said. ‘Those Italians were here before me. You know that. You heard what Eleanor Duncan said. So there’s some other reason. They have some kind of a dispute with the Duncans.’
    ‘Then why would they help the Duncans in their own dispute with you?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘How many of them are coming?’ the doctor asked.
    From the hallway his wife said, ‘Five of them.’ She had just gotten off the phone. She stepped into the kitchen and said, ‘And they’re not coming. They’re already here. That was the message on the phone tree. The Italians are back. With three other men. Three cars in total. The Italians in their blue Chevy, plus two guys in a red Ford, and one guy in a black car that everyone swears is Seth Duncan’s Cadillac.’

THIRTY-NINE
    R EACHER POURED HIMSELF A CUP OF COFFEE AND THOUGHT FOR a long moment and said, ‘I left Seth Duncan’s Cadillac at the Marriott.’
    The doctor’s wife asked, ‘So how did you get back here?’
    ‘I took a Chevy Malibu from one of the bad guys.’
    ‘That thing on the driveway?’
    ‘No, that’s a GMC Yukon I took from a football player.’
    ‘So what happened with the Cadillac?’
    ‘I left a guy stranded. I stole his car, and then I guess he stole mine. Probably not deliberate tit for tat. Probably just coincidental, because there wasn’t really an infinite choice down there. He didn’t want some piece-of-shit pick-up truck, obviously, and he didn’t want anything with big-time security built in. The Cadillac fit the bill. Probably the only thing that did. Or else he was just plain lazy, and didn’t want to look around too long. The Cadillac was right there. We were all in the same hotel.’
    ‘Did you see the guys?’
    ‘I didn’t see the Italians. But I saw the other four.’
    ‘That makes six, not five. Where’s the other one?’
    ‘I promise you something,’ Reacher said. ‘The guy who took the Cadillac put his bag on the back