Child, Lee – Without Fail

underside. The fuel tank, the differential. She braked gently

and he caught the door handle and flung the door open and

floundered downhill alongside the truck until he had built

enough speed to fling himself inside. He hauled himself into the

seat and slammed the door and she stamped hard on the gas

and the violent battering roller coaster ride came back.

Clime?’ she screamed

He fought to keep his wrist still and stared at his watch. He

was breathing too hard to speak. He just shook his head. They

were at least ten minutes behind. And it was a crucial ten

minutes. The Tahoe would arrive back at its starting point about

two minutes into it and Armstrong would touch down after

388

another five. Neagley drove on. She hurtled up the rises and

took off and plunged hood-deep into the drifts and battered her

way through and did it all over again. Without the wheel to hold

on to Reacher was thrown all over the place. He fought the

alternate weightlessness and physical pounding and caught

blurred glimpses of the time on his watch. He stared through

the windshield at the sky in the east. The sun was in his eyes.

He dropped his gaze to the terrain. Nothing there. No Tahoe. It

was long gone. All that remained were its tracks through the

snow, deep twinned ruts that narrowed in the far distance

ahead. They pointed resolutely towards the town of Grace like

arrows. They were full of ice crystals that burned red and

yellow against the early dawn light.

Then they changed. They swooped a fight ninety-degree left

and disappeared into a north-south ravine.

‘What?’ Neagley shouted.

‘Follow,’ Reacher gasped.

The ravine was narrow, like a trench. It ran steeply downhill.

The Tahoe’s tracks were clearly visible for fifty yards and then

they swerved out of sight again, a sharp right behind a rock

outcrop the size of a house. Neagley braked hard as the grade

fell away. She stopped. She paused a beat and Reacher’s mind

screamed an ambush now? a split second after her foot hit the

gas again and her hands turned the wheel. The Yukon locked

into the Tahoe’s ruts and its two-ton weight slid it helplessly

down the icy slope. The Tahoe ,burst out of hiding, backward,

directly in front of them. It jammed to a skidding stop right

across their path. Neagley was out of her door before the

Yukon stopped moving. She rolled in the snow and floundered

away to the north. The Yukon slewed violently and stalled in a

snowdrift. Reacher’s door was jammed shut by the depth of the

snow. He used all his strength and forced it half open and

scraped out through the gap. Saw the driver spilling from the

Tahoe, slipping and falling in the snow. Reacher rolled away

and pulled his Steyr from his pocket. Thrashed round to the

back of the Yukon and crawled forward through the snow along

its other side. The Tahoe driver was holding a rifle, rowing

himself through the snow with its muzzle, slipping and sliding.

He was heading for cover in the rock. He was the guy from

389

Bismarck. No doubt about that. Lean face, long body. He even

had the same coat on. He was bulling through the snowdrift

with the coat flapping open and small snowstorms kicking

outward from his knees at every step. Reacher raised the Steyr

and steadied it against the Yukon’s fender and tracked the guy’s

head. Tightened his finger on the trigger. Then he heard a

voice, loud and urgent, right behind him.

‘Hold your fire,’ the voice called.

He turned and saw a second guy ten yards north and west.

Neagley was stumbling through the snow directly ahead of him.

He had her Heckler & Koch held low in his left hand. A

handgun in his right, jammed in her back. He was the guy from

the garage video. No doubt about that, either. Tweed overcoat,

short, wide in the shoulders, a little squat. No hat this time. He

had the same face as the Bismarck guy, a little fatter. The same

greying sandy hair, a little thicker. Brothers.

‘hrow the weapon down, sir,’ he called.

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