Worth Dying For

down and got out and walked to the door. She had a wool hat pulled down over her ears and she was wearing a quilted coat open over a grey dress. She asked, ‘Did the Cornhuskers come here?’
    The doctor’s wife said, ‘Not yet.’
    ‘What do you think they want?’
    ‘We don’t know.’
    They all stepped back inside and the doctor closed up after them, locks and chain, and they went back to the dining room, now four of them. Dorothy Coe took off her coat, because of the heat. They sat in a line and watched the window like a movie screen. Dorothy Coe was next to Reacher. He asked her, ‘They didn’t go to your place?’
    She said, ‘No. But Mr Vincent saw one, passing the motel. About twenty minutes ago. He was watching out the window.’
    Reacher said, ‘That was me. I came in that way, in the truck I took. There are only five of them left now.’
    ‘OK. I understand. But that concerns me a little.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I would expect at least one of us to have seen at least one of them, roaming around somewhere. But no one has. Which means they aren’t all spread out. They’re all bunched up. They’re hunting in a pack.’
    ‘Looking for me?’
    ‘Possibly.’
    ‘Then I don’t want to bring them here. Want me to leave?’
    ‘Maybe,’ Dorothy said.
    ‘Yes,’ the doctor said.
    ‘No,’ his wife said.
    Impasse. No decision. They all turned back to the window and watched the road. It stayed dark. The cloud was clearing a little. There was faint moonlight in the sky. It was almost one o’clock in the morning.
    The motel was closed down for the night, but Vincent was still in the lounge. He was still watching out the window. He had seen the gold Yukon go by. He had recognized it. He had seen it before, many times. It belonged to a young man called John. A very unpleasant person. A bully, even by Duncan standards. Once he had made Vincent get down on his knees and beg not to be beaten. Beg, like a dog, with limp hands held up, pleading and howling, five whole minutes.
    Vincent had called in the Yukon sighting, to the phone tree, and then he had gone back to the window and watched some more. Twenty minutes had gone by without incident. Then he saw the five men everyone was talking about. Their strange little convoy pulled into his lot. The blue Chevrolet, the red Ford, Seth Duncan’s black Cadillac. He knew from the phone tree that someone else was using Seth’s car. No one knew how or why. But he saw the guy. A small man slid out of the driver’s seat, rumpled and unshaven, foreign, like people from the Middle East he had seen on the news. Then the two men who had roughed him up climbed out of the Chevrolet. Then two more got out of the Ford, tall, heavy, dark-skinned. Also foreign. They all stood together in the gloom.
    Vincent didn’t automatically think the five men were there for him. There could be other reasons. His lot was the only stopping place for miles. Plenty of drivers used it, for all kinds of purposes, passers-by checking their maps, taking off their coats, getting things from the trunk, sometimes just stretching their legs. It was private property, no question, properly deeded, but it was used almost like a public facility, like a regular roadside turnout.
    He watched. The five men were talking. His windows were ordinary commercial items, chosen by his parents in 1969. They were screened on the inside and opened outward, with little winding handles. Vincent thought about opening the one he was standing behind. Just a crack. It was almost an obligation. He might hear what the five men were saying. He might get valuable information, for the phone tree. Everyone was expected to contribute. That was how the system worked. So he started to turn the handle, slowly, a little at a time. At first it went easily. But then it went stiff. The casement was stuck to the insulating strip. Paint and grime and long disuse. He used finger and thumb, and tried to ease some steady pressure into it. He wanted to pop it loose gently. He didn’t want to make a loud plastic sound. The five men were still talking. Or rather, the man from the Cadillac was talking, and the other four were listening.
    * * *
    Mahmeini’s man was saying, ‘I let my partner out a mile back. He’s going to work behind the lines. He’s more use to me that way. Pincer movements are always best.’
    Roberto Cassano said, ‘Is he going to coordinate with the rest of us?’
    ‘Of course he is. What else would he do? We’re a