Tripwire by Lee Child

What he saw was a disaster. The guy with the hook and the burned face was dropping a weapon and gasping and clutching at the door frame, but he was on the wrong side of Jodie. The far side. He was on Jodie’s right and the reception counter was on her left. She was a foot nearer than he was. She was much shorter but Reacher was down on the floor looking up at an angle that put her head directly in front of his head, her body directly in front of his body. There was no clear shot. No clear shot anywhere. Jodie was in

the way. The guy with the hook and the face was making

sounds in his throat and Jodie was staring down at the floor. Then there was a second guy behind them in the open doorway. The Suburban driver. He stopped behind Jodie’s shoulder and stared. He was carrying a Beretta in his right hand. He stared forward and down at the floor and then he stepped alongside Jodie and pushed his way past her. He stepped a yard into the room. He stepped into clear air.

Reacher squeezed the trigger, fourteen whole

pounds of pressure, and the silencer banged loud and

the guy’s face blew apart. It took the nine-millimetre

bullet in the exact centre and exploded. Blood and

bone hit the ceiling and sprayed the far wall behind

him. Jodie froze in direct line with the guy with the

hook. And the guy with the hook was very fast. Faster

than he should have been for a crippled fifty-year-old.

He went one way with his left arm and scooped the

shotgun off the floor. He went the other way with his

right arm and folded it around Jodie’s waist. The steel

hook was bright against her suit. He was moving her

before the other guy had even hit the floor. He

clamped his right arm hard around her and lifted her

off her feet and dragged her backward. The crash of

the shot from the Steyr was still rumbling.

‘How many?’ Reacher screamed.

She was as fast as Leon ever was.

‘Two down, one up,’ she screamed back.

So the guy with the hook was the only one, but he

was already swinging the shotgun around. It arced up

through the air and he used the momentum to crunch

the pump. Reacher was caught half-exposed, low

down, scrambling out from behind the counter. It was

only a tiny fractional opportunity, but the guy went

right ahead and took it. He fired low and the gun

flashed and boomed and the reception counter splintered into ten thousand pieces. Reacher ducked his head but sharp needles of wood and metal and hot stray pellets smashed him in the side of the face like a blow from a sledgehammer, all the way from his cheek to his forehead. He felt the dull crump and the sharp agonizing sting of serious injury. It was like falling from a window and hitting the ground head first. He rolled up dazed and the guy was hauling Jodie backward through the doorway, crunching the pump once more against the shotgun’s weight as it moved. Reacher was dull and motionless against the back wall and the muzzle was coming up on him. His forehead was numb and icy. There was terrible pain there. He raised the Steyr. The silencer pointed straight at Jodie. He jerked it a fraction left and right. It still pointed at Jodie. The guy was making himself small behind her. He was craning around with his left hand, levelling the shotgun. His finger was tightening on the trigger. Reacher was immobile against the wall. He stared at Jodie, fixing her face in his mind before he died. Then a fair-haired woman was suddenly behind her, shouldering desperately into the guy’s back, pushing him off balance. He staggered and whirled and clubbed at her with the shotgun barrel. Reacher caught a glimpse of a pink dress as she went down.

Then the shotgun was swinging back towards him. But Jodie was bouncing and wrestling against the guy’s arm. She was stamping and kicking. The guy was staggering around against her energy. He blundered with her all the way back out into the reception area and tripped against the Suburban driver’s legs. He fell with Jodie and the shotgun fired against the corpse. There was deafening sound and smoke and