Die Trying by Lee Child

from her. No pain for either of you. Otherwise, nothing I can do

about it.”

He laid his Clock on the desk.

“You want a cigarette?” he asked.

He held out the pack. Smiled. The good cop. The friend. The ally.

The protector. The oldest routine in the book. Requiring the oldest

response. Reacher glanced around. Two guards, one on each side of

him, the right-hand guard nearer, the left-hand guard back almost

against the side wall. Rifles held easy in the crook of their arms.

Fowler behind the desk, holding out the pack. Reacher shrugged and

nodded. Took a cigarette with his free right hand. He hadn’t smoked

in ten years, but when somebody offers you a lethal weapon you take

it.

“So tell me,” Fowler said. “And be quick.”

He thumbed his lighter and held it out. Reacher bent forward and lit

his cigarette from the flame. Took a deep draw and leaned back. The

smoke felt good. Ten years, and he still enjoyed it. He inhaled

deeply and took another lungful.

“How did you disable our radio?” Fowler asked.

Reacher took a third pull. Trickled the smoke out of his nose and held

the cigarette like a sentry does, between the thumb and forefinger,

palm hooded around it. Take quick deep pulls, and the coal on the end

of a cigarette heats up to a couple of thousand degrees. Lengthens to

a point. He rotated his palm, like he was studying the glowing tip

while he thought about something, until the cigarette was pointing

straight forward like an arrow.

“How did you disable our radio?” Fowler asked again.

“You’ll hurt Holly if I don’t tell you?” Reacher asked back.

Fowler nodded. Smiled his lipless smile.

That’s a promise,” he said. “I’ll hurt her so bad she’ll be begging to

die.”

Reacher shrugged unhappily. Sketched a listen-up gesture. Fowler

nodded and shuffled on his chair and leaned close. Reacher snapped

forward and jammed the cigarette into his eye. Fowler screamed and

Reacher was on his feet, the chair cuffed to his wrist clattering after

him. He windmilled right and the chair swung through a wide arc and

smashed against the nearer guard’s head. It splintered and jerked away

as Reacher danced to his left. He caught the farther guard with a

forearm smash to the throat as his rifle came up. Snapped back and hit

Fowler with the wreckage of the chair. Used the follow-through

momentum to swing back to the first guard. Finished him with an elbow

to the head. The guy went down. Reacher grabbed his rifle by the

barrel and swung straight back at the other guard. Felt skull bones

explode under the butt. He dropped the rifle and spun and smashed the

chair to pieces against Fowler’s shoulders. Grabbed him by the ears

and smashed his face into the desktop, once, twice, three times. Took

a leg from the broken chair and jammed it crossways under his throat.

Folded his elbows around each exposed end and locked his hands

together. Tested his grip and bunched his shoulders. Jerked hard,

once, and broke Fowler’s neck against the chair leg with a single loud

crunch.

He took both rifles and the Clock and the handcuff key. Out of the

door and around to the back of the hut. Straight into the trees. He

put the Clock in his pocket. Took the handcuff off his wrist. Put a

rifle in each hand. Breathing hard. He was in pain. Swinging the

heavy wooden chair had opened the red weal on his wrist into a wound.

He raised it to his mouth and sucked at it and buttoned the cuff of his

shirt over it.

Then he heard a helicopter. The faint bass thumping of a heavy

twin-rotor machine, a Boeing, a Sea Knight or a Chinook, far to the

southeast. He thought: last night Borken talked about eight Marines.

They’ve only got eight Marines, he said. The Marines use Sea Knights.

He thought: they’re going for a frontal assault. Holly’s paneled walls

flashed into his mind and he set off racing through the trees.

He got as far as the Bastion. The thumping from the air built louder.

He risked stepping out onto the stony path. It was a Chinook. Not a