The twin impacts had torn his hands off the wheel. The airbag was collapsing in front of him. He dragged his eyes to the mirror and saw a giant black hood buried in the back of the jeep. The top of a shiny chrome grille, bent out of shape. Some huge four-wheel-drive truck. One guy in it, visible behind the tinted screen. Not a guy he knew. Cars were honking
behind them and traffic was pulling left and steering around the obstruction. Faces were turning to stare. There was a loud hissing somewhere. Steam from his radiator, or maybe ringing from his ears after the enormous sudden sounds. The guy behind was getting out of the four-wheel drive. Hands held up in apology, worry and fright in his face. He was folding himself around his door, out there in the slow traffic stream, walking up towards Reacher’s window, glancing sideways at the tangle of sheet metal as he passed. A woman was getting out of the sedan in front, looking dazed and angry. The traffic was snarling around them. The air was shimmering from overheated motors and loud with horns blasting. Jodie was upright in her seat, feeling the back of her neck with her fingers.
‘You OK?’ he asked her.
She thought about it for a long moment, and then she nodded.
‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘You?’
‘Fine,’ he said.
She poked at the collapsed airbag with her finger, fascinated.
‘These things really work, you know that?’
‘First time I ever saw one deploy,’ he said.
‘Me too.’
Then there was rapping on the driver’s side window. The guy from behind was standing there, knocking urgently with his knuckles. Reacher stared out at him. The guy was gesturing for him to open up, urgently, like he was anxious about something.
‘Shit,’ Reacher yelled.
He stamped on the gas. The jeep struggled forward, pushing against the woman’s wrecked sedan. It made
a yard, slewing to the left, sheet metal screeching.
‘Hell are you doing?’ Jodie screamed.
The guy had his hand on the door handle. His other hand in his pocket.
‘Get down,’ Reacher shouted.
He found reverse and howled back the yard he’d made and smashed into the four-wheel drive behind. The new impact won him another foot. He shoved the selector into drive and spun the wheel and barged left. Smashed into the rear quarter of the sedan in a new shower of glass. Traffic behind was swerving and slewing all over again. He glanced right and one of the guys he’d seen in Key West and Garrison was at the window with his hand on Jodie’s door. He stamped on the gas and hurled the jeep backward, spinning the wheel. The guy kept a tight hold, jerked backward by his arm, flung off his feet by the violent motion. Reacher smashed all the way backward into the black truck and bounced off again forward, screaming the motor, spinning the wheel. The guy was up again, still gripping the door handle, jerking and hauling, spare arm and legs flailing, like he was a wrangler and the jeep was a wild young steer in a desperate fight out of a trap. Reacher mashed the pedal and angled out forward close to the rear corner of the woman’s wrecked sedan and scraped the guy off against the trunk. The fender took him at the knees and he somersaulted and his head came down on the rear glass. In the mirror Reacher saw a blur of flailing arms and legs as his momentum carried him up over the roof. Then he was gone, sprawling back to the sidewalk.
‘Watch out!’ Jodie screamed.
The guy from the truck was still there at the driver’s window. Reacher was out in the traffic stream, but the
traffic stream was slow and the guy was just running fast beside him, struggling to free something from his pocket. Reacher swerved left and came in parallel to a panel truck in the next lane. The guy was still running, skipping sideways, holding the door handle, coming out with something from his pocket. Reacher jammed left again and thumped him hard against the side of the truck. He heard a dull boom as the guy’s head hit the metal and then he was gone. The truck jammed to a panic stop and Reacher hauled left and got in front of it. Broadway was a solid mass of traffic. Ahead of him was a shimmering patchwork of metallic colours, sedan roofs winking in the sun, dodging left, dodging right, crawling forward, fumes rising, horns blasting. He hauled left again, and turned and went through a crosswalk against the light, a crowd of jostling people skittering out of his way. The jeep was juddering and bouncing and pulling hard to the right. The temperature gauge was off the scale. Steam was boiling up through the gaps around the buckled hood. The collapsed airbag was hanging down to his knees. He jerked forward and hauled left again and jammed into an alley full of restaurant waste. Boxes, empty drums of cooking oil, rough wooden trays piled with spoiled vegetables. He buried the nose in a pile of cartons. They spilled down on the wrecked hood and bounced off the windshield. He killed the motor and pulled the keys.