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
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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
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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.