This is a big mistake, Reacher,” Holly said.
He shrugged and took her hand and helped her into a sitting position,
back against the bulkhead. Then he slid forward and put himself
between her and the rear doors. He heard the three guys getting out of
the cab. Doors slammed. He heard their footsteps crunching over the
gravel. Two coming down the right flank, one down the left. He heard
the key sliding into the lock. The handle turned.
The left-hand rear door opened two inches. First thing into the truck
was the muzzle of the shotgun. Beyond it, Reacher saw a meaningless
sliver of sky. Bright blue, small white clouds. Could have been
anywhere in the hemisphere. Second thing into the truck was a Clock
17. Then a wrist. The cuff of a cotton shirt. The Clock was
rock-steady. Loder.
This better be good, bitch,” he called.
Hostile. A lot of tension in the voice.
“We need to talk,” Readier called back.
The second Clock appeared in the narrow gap. Shaking slightly.
Talk about what, asshole?” Loder called.
Readier listened to the stress in the guy’s voice and watched the
second Clock trembling through its random zigzags.
This isn’t going to work, guys,” he said. “Whoever told you to do
this, he isn’t thinking straight. Maybe it felt like some kind of a
smart move, but it’s all wrong. It isn’t going to achieve anything.
It’s just going to get you guys in a shitload of trouble.”
There was silence at the rear of the truck. Just for a second. But
long enough to tell Readier that Holly was right. Long enough to know
he’d made a bad mistake. The steady Clock snapped back out of sight.
The shotgun jerked, like it had just changed ownership. Reacher flung
himself forward and smashed Holly down flat on the mattress. The
shotgun barrel tipped upward. Reacher heard the small click of the
trigger a tiny fraction before an enormous explosion. The shotgun
fired into the roof. A huge blast. A hundred tiny holes appeared in
the metal. A hundred tiny points of blue light. Spent shot rattled
and bounced down and ricocheted around the truck like hail. Then the
sound of the gun faded into the hum of temporary deafness.
Reacher felt the slam of the door. The sliver of daylight cut off. He
felt the rock of the vehicle as the three men climbed back into the
cab. He felt the shake as the rough diesel caught. Then a forward
lurch and a yaw to the left as the truck pulled back onto the
highway.
First thing Reacher heard as his hearing came back was a quiet keening
as the air whistled out through the hundred pellet holes in the roof.
It grew louder as the miles rolled by. A hundred high-pitched
whistles, all grouped together a couple of semitones apart, fighting
and warbling like some kind of demented birdsong.
“Insane, right?” Holly said.
“Me or them?” he said.
He nodded an apology. She nodded back and struggled up to a sitting
position. Used both hands to straighten her knee. The holes in the
roof were letting light through. Enough light that Reacher could see
her face clearly. He could interpret her expression. He could see the
flicker of pain. Like a blind coming down in her eyes, then snapping
back up. He knelt and swept the spent pellets off the mattress. They
rattled across the metal floor.
“Now you’ve got to get out,” she said. “You’ll get yourself killed
soon.”
The highlights in her hair flashed under the random bright
illumination.
“I mean it,” she said. “Qualified or not, I can’t let you stay.”
“I know you can’t,” he said.
He used his discarded shirt to sweep the pellets into a pile near the
doors. Then he straightened the mattresses and lay back down. Rocked
gently with the motion. Stared at the holes in the sheet metal above
him. They were like a map of some distant galaxy.
“My father will do what it takes to get me back,” Holly said.
Talking was harder than it had been before. The drone of the motor and
the rumble of the road were complicated by the high-pitched whistle