hold on tight around his neck. It was the only way she could stay
upright.
“Excuse me, please,” she muttered.
The leader gestured with his Glock over to his left. They were in a
large cow barn. No cows, but they hadn’t been long absent, judging by
the odor. The truck was parked in a wide central aisle. Either side
were cow stalls, roomy, made up from galvanized steel-piping
efficiently welded together. Reacher twisted and held Holly’s waist
and the two of them hopped and staggered over to the stall the guy with
the Clock was pointing at. Holly seized a railing and held on,
embarrassed.
“Excuse me,” she muttered again.
Reacher nodded and waited. The driver with the shotgun covered them
and the leader walked away. He heaved the big door open and stepped
through. Reacher caught a glimpse of darkening sky. Cloudy. No clue
at all to their location.
The leader was gone five minutes. There was silence in the barn. The
other two guys stood still, weapons out and ready. The jumpy guy with
the Clock was staring at Reacher’s face. The driver with the shotgun
was staring at Holly’s breasts. Smiling a half-smile. Nobody spoke.
Then the leader stepped back in. He was carrying a second pair of
handcuffs and two lengths of heavy chain.
“You’re making a big mistake here,” Holly said to him. “I’m an FBI
agent.”
“I know that, bitch,” the guy said. “Now be quiet.”
“You’re committing a serious crime,” Holly said.
“I know that, bitch,” the guy said again. “And I told you to be quiet.
Another word out of you, I’ll shoot this guy in the head. Then you can
spend the night with a corpse chained to your wrist, OK?”
He waited until she nodded silently. Then the driver with the shotgun
took up position behind them and the leader unlocked their cuff and
freed their wrists. He looped one of the chains around the stall
railing and locked the ends into the spare half of the cuff dangling
from Reacher’s left arm. Pulled it and rattled it to check it was
secure. Then he dragged Holly two stalls away and used the new cuffs
and the second length of chain to lock her to the railing, twenty feet
from Reacher. Her knee gave way and she fell heavily with a gasp of
pain onto the dirty straw. The leader ignored her. Just walked back
to where Reacher was chained up. Stood right in front of him.
“So who the hell are you, asshole?” he said.
Reacher didn’t reply. He knew the keys to both cuffs were in this
guy’s pocket. He knew it would take him about a second and a half to
snap his neck with the loop of chain hanging off his wrist. But the
other two guys were out of reach. One Clock, one shotgun, too far away
to grab before he’d unlocked himself, too near to get
Q7
a chance to do that. He was dealing with a reasonably efficient set of
opponents. So he just shrugged and looked at the straw at his feet. It
was clogged with dung.
“I asked you a damn question,” the guy said.
Readier looked at him. In the corner of his eye he saw the jumpy guy
ratchet his Clock upward a degree or two.
“I asked you a question, asshole,” the leader said again, quietly.
The jumpy guy’s Clock was jutting forward. Then it was straight out,
shoulder-high. Aimed right at Reacher’s head. The muzzle was
trembling through a small jerky circle, but probably not trembling
enough to make the guy miss. Not from that sort of a close distance.
Readier looked from one guy to the other. The guy with the shotgun
tore his attention away from Holly’s breasts. He raised the weapon to
his hip. Pointed it in Reacher’s direction. It was an Ithaca 37.
Twelve-bore. The five-shot version with the pistol grip and no
shoulder stock. The guy racked a round into the chamber. The
crunch-crunch of the mechanism was loud in the barn. It echoed off the
metal walls. Died into silence. Reacher saw the trigger move through
the first eighth-inch of its short travel.