Die Trying by Lee Child

with something in each palm. Things that glinted and caught the sun.

She skipped forward and slashed desperately at the face in front of

her. Danced and whirled and swung the glinting weapons.

The aide jerked the zoom control. The first man was down, clutching at

his throat and face. Blood on his hands. Holly was spinning fast

circles, slashing at the air like a panther in a cage turning on a

stiff leg, the other foot dancing in and out as she darted left and

right. Webster could hear distorted breathing and gasping through the

earpiece. He could hear shouting and screaming. He stared at the

screen and pleaded silently: go left, Holly, go for the jeep.

She went right. Swung her left hand high and held her right hand low,

like a boxer. Darted for the second man. He raised his rifle, but

crossways, in a sheer panic move to ward off the slashing blow. He

punched the rifle up to meet her arm and her wrist cracked against the

barrel. Her weapon flew off into the air. She kicked hard under the

rifle and caught him in the groin. He wheeled away and collapsed. She

darted for Borken. Her glittering hand swung a vicious arc. Webster

heard a shriek in his ear. The camera showed Borken ducking away,

Holly swarming after him. But the first man was up again, behind her.

Hesitating. Then he was swinging his rifle like a bat. He caught her

with the stock flat on the back of her head. She went limp. Her leg

stayed stiff. She collapsed over it like she was falling over a gate

and sprawled on the road at Borken’s feet.

Two down. One of them was Holly. Reacher adjusted the field glasses

and stared at her. Two still standing. A grunt with a rifle, and

Borken with a handgun and the radio. All in a tight knot, visible

through the trees twelve hundred yards southeast and three hundred feet

below. Reacher stared at Holly, inert on the ground. He wanted her.

He loved her for her courage. Two armed men and Borken, and she’d gone

for it. Hopeless but she’d gone for it. He lowered the field glasses

and hitched his legs around the chimney. Like he was riding a metal

horse. The chimney was warm. His upper body was flat on the slope of

the roof. His head and shoulders were barely above the ridge. He

raised the field glasses again, and held his breath, and waited.

They saw Borken’s agitated gestures and then the injured man was

getting up and moving in with the other who had hit her. They saw them

pinning her arms behind her and dragging her to her feet. Her head was

hanging down. One leg was bent, and the other was stiff. They propped

her on it and paused. Borken signaled them to move. They dragged her

away across the road. Then Borken’s voice came back in Webster’s ear,

loud and breathy.

“OK, fun’s over,” he said. Tut her old man on.”

Webster handed the radio to Johnson. He stared at it. Raised it to

his ear.

“Anything you want,” he said. “Anything at all. Just don’t hurt

her.”

Borken laughed. A loud, relieved chuckle.

That’s the kind of attitude I like,” he said. “Now watch this.”

The two men dragged Holly up the knoll in front of the ruined

QQH

office building. Dragged her over to the stump of the dead tree. They

turned her and walked her until her back thumped against the wood. They

wrapped her arms around the stump behind her. Her head came up. She

shook it, in a daze. One man held both wrists while the other fumbled

with something. Handcuffs. He locked her wrists behind the tree. The

two men stepped away, back toward Borken. Holly fell and slid down the

stump. Then she pushed back and stood up. Shook her head again and

gazed around.

“Target practice,” Borken said into the radio.

Johnson’s aide fiddled with the zoom and made the picture bigger.

Borken was walking away. He walked twenty yards south and turned, the

Sig-Sauer pointing at the ground, the radio up at his face.