Page 48 of One Shot (Jack Reacher 9)

Chapter 17

In the end, it came down to waiting. Wait, and good things come to you. And bad things. Reacher crept back to the second floor. The last door on the left was still closed. He ducked into the kitchen. Linsky was on the floor, on his back in a pool of blood. Reacher relit the flame under the kettle. Then he stepped out to the hallway. Walked quietly to the front of the house and leaned on the wall beyond the last door on the left.

And waited.

The kettle boiled after five minutes. The whistle started low and quiet, and then the note and the volume rose to full blast. Within ten seconds the second floor of the house was full of an insane shrieking. Ten seconds after that, the door on Reacher's right opened. A small man stepped out. Reacher let him take a pace forward and then spun him around and jammed the Smith 60 hard in the base of his throat.

And stared.

The Zec. He was a wide, ancient, twisted, stooped, battered old man. A wraith. Barely human. He was covered in livid scars and patches of discolored skin. His face was lined and drooping and seething with rage and hatred and cruelty. He was unarmed. His ruined hands didn't seem capable of holding a weapon. Reacher forced him down the hallway. Into the kitchen, backward. To the stove. The noise from the kettle was unbearable. Reacher used his left hand and killed the flame. Then he hauled the Zec back toward the living room. The kettle's whistle died away, like an air raid siren winding down. The house went quiet again.

"It's over," Reacher said. "You lost. "

"It's never over," the Zec replied. Hoarse voice, low, guttural.

"Guess again," Reacher said. He kept the Smith hard against the Zec's throat. Too low and too close for him to see it. He eased the hammer back. Slowly, carefully. Deliberately. Loudly. Click-click-click-crunch. An unmistakable sound.

"I'm eighty years old," the Zec said.

"I don't care if you're a hundred," Reacher said. "You're still going down. "

"Idiot," the Zec said back. "I meant I've survived things worse than you. Since long before you were born. "

"Nobody's worse than me. "

"Don't flatter yourself. You're nothing. "

"You think?" Reacher said. "You were alive this morning and you won't be tomorrow. After eighty years. That makes me something, don't you think?"

No answer.

"It's over," Reacher said. "Believe me. Long and winding road, OK, I understand all of that, but this is the end of it. Had to happen sometime. "

No response.

"You know when my birthday is?" Reacher asked.

"Obviously not. "

"It's in October. You know what day?"

"Of course not. "

"You're going to find out the hard way. I'm counting in my head. When I reach my birthday, I'm going to pull the trigger. "

He started counting in his head. First, second. He watched the Zec's eyes. Fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth. No response. Tenth, eleventh, twelfth.

"What do you want?" the Zec said.

Negotiation time.

"I want to talk," Reacher said.

"Talk?"

"The twelfth," Reacher said. "That's how long you lasted. Then you gave it up. You know why? Because you want to survive. It's the deepest instinct you've got. Obviously. Otherwise how would you have gotten as old as you are? It's probably a deeper instinct than I could ever understand. A reflex, a habit, roll the dice, stay alive, make the next move, take the next chance. It's in your DNA. It's what you are. "

"So?"

"So now we've got ourselves a competition. What you are, against what I am. "

"And what are you?"

"I'm the guy who just threw Chenko out a third-floor window. After crushing Vladimir to death with my bare hands. Because I didn't like what they did to innocent people. So now you've got to pit your strong desire to survive against my strong desire to shoot you in the head and piss in the bullet hole. "

No response.

"One shot," Reacher said. "In the head. Lights out. That's your choice. Another day, another roll of the dice. Or not. As the case may be. "

He saw calculation in the Zec's eyes. Assessment, evaluation, speculation.

"I could throw you down the stairs," he said. "You could crawl over and take a look at Vladimir. I cut his throat afterward. Just for fun. That's who I am. So don't think I don't mean what I say. I'll do it and I'll sleep like a baby the rest of my life. "

"What do you want?" the Zec asked again.

"Help with a problem. "

"What problem?"

"There's an innocent man I need to get out of the prison ward. So I need you to tell the truth to a detective called Emerson. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I need you to finger Chenko for the shooting, and Vladimir for the girl, and whoever it was for Ted Archer. And whatever else you've done. The whole nine yards. Including how you and Linsky set it all up. "

A flicker in the Zec's eyes. "Pointless. I'd get the death penalty. "

"Yes, you would," Reacher said. "That's for damn sure. But you'd still be alive tomorrow. And the next day, and the next. The appeals process lasts forever here. Ten years, sometimes. You might get lucky. There might be a mistrial, there might be a jailbreak, you might get a pardon, there might be a revolution, or an earthquake. "

"Unlikely. "

"Very," Reacher said. "But isn't that who you are? A guy who will take the tiniest slim fragment of a chance to live another minute, as opposed to no chance at all?"

No response.

"You already answered me once," Reacher said. "When you quit the birthday game on the twelfth of October. That was pretty fast. There are thirty-one days in October. Law of averages said you'd be OK until the fifteenth or the sixteenth. A gambler would have waited for the twentieth. But you didn't get past the twelfth. Not because you're a coward. Nobody could accuse you of that. But because you're a survivor. That's who you are. Now what I want is some practical confirmation. "

No response.

"Thirteenth," Reacher said. "Fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth. "

"OK," the Zec said. "You win. I'll talk to the detective. "

Reacher pinned him against the hallway wall with the Smith. Took out his phone. "Gunny?"

"Here. "

"Come on in, all of you. I'll open the door. And, Franklin? Wake those guys up, like we talked about before. "

The phone went dead. Franklin had killed the comms net to make his calls.

Reacher tied the Zec's wrists and ankles with wire torn from table lamps and left him on the living room floor. Then he went downstairs. Glanced into the surveillance room. Vladimir was on his back in a lake of blood. His eyes were open. So was his throat. Reacher could see bone. Sokolov was slumped facedown on the table. His blood was all over the place. Some of it must have seeped into the wiring, because the South monitor had shorted out. The other three pictures were still there, green and ghostly. On the West monitor four figures were visible on the driveway. Yellow haloes, red cores. Close together, moving fast. Reacher turned the lights off and closed up the room. Walked on down the hallway and opened the front door.

Yanni came in first. Then Cash. Then Rosemary. Then Helen. She was barefoot and carrying her shoes in her hand. She was covered in mud. She stopped in the doorway and hugged Reacher hard. Held him for a long moment and then moved on.

"What's that smell?" Yanni asked.

"Blood," Cash said. "And other organic fluids of various kinds. "

"Are they all dead?"

"All but one," Reacher said.

He led the way upstairs. Stopped Rosemary outside the living room.

"The Zec is in there," he said. "You OK about seeing him?"

She nodded.

"I want to see him," she said. "I want to ask him a question. "

She stepped into the living room. The Zec was on the floor, where Reacher had left him. Rosemary stood over him, quiet, dignified, not gloating. Just curi

ous.

"Why?" she said. "I mean, to an extent I understand what you thought you had to do. From your warped perspective. But why didn't you just use Chenko from the highway? Why did you have to bring my brother down?"

The Zec didn't answer. He just stared into space, seeing something, but probably not Rosemary Barr.

"Psychology," Reacher said.

"His?"

"Ours. The public's. "

"How?"

"There had to be a story," Reacher said. "No, there was a story, and he had to control what the story was about. If he gave up a shooter, then the story would be about the shooter. No shooter, the story would have been about the victims. And if the story had been about the victims, too many questions would have been asked. "

"So he sacrificed James. "

"That's what he does. There's a long list. "

"Why?"

"One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. "

"Joseph Stalin," Yanni said.

Reacher kicked the Zec aside and pulled the sofa away from the window about four feet. Grabbed the Zec's collar and hauled him up and dumped him on one end. Got him sitting up straight against the arm.

"Our star witness," he said.

He told Cash to perch on the windowsill behind the sofa. Told Yanni to go find three dining chairs. Pushed armchairs against the side walls. Yanni came back three separate times dragging chairs behind her. Reacher put them in a line facing the sofa. He ended up with a square arrangement, sofa, dining chairs, armchairs off to the sides.

His clothes were nearly dry. Just a little dampness where the seams were thick. He ran his fingers through his hair. Patted it down. Checked his watch. Nearly four in the morning. Least resistance. A biorhythm thing.

"Now we wait," he said.

They waited less than thirty minutes. Then they heard cars on the road far away in the distance. Tires on the blacktop, engine noise, exhaust pipes. The sounds grew louder. The cars slowed. They crunched onto the limestone driveway. There were four of them. Reacher went downstairs and opened the door. Saw Franklin's black Suburban. Saw Emerson sliding out of a gray Crown Vic. Saw a compact woman with short dark hair getting out of a blue Ford Taurus. Donna Bianca, he assumed. He saw Alex Rodin climbing out of a silver BMW. Rodin locked it with his remote. He was the only one who did.

Reacher stood aside and let them gather in the hallway. Then he led them upstairs. He put Alex Rodin and Donna Bianca and Emerson in the dining chairs, left to right. He put Franklin in an armchair next to Yanni. Rosemary Barr and Helen Rodin were in armchairs on the other side of the room. Helen was looking at her father. He was looking at her. Cash was on the windowsill. Reacher stepped away and leaned up in the doorway.

"Start talking," Reacher said.

The Zec stayed silent.

"I can send these guys away again," Reacher said. "Just as easily as I brought them here. Then I'll start counting again. At the seventeenth. "

The Zec sighed. Started talking. Slowly at first, and then faster. He told a long story. So much length and so much complexity that it got confusing. He spilled details of earlier unconnected crimes. Then he got to the bidding process for the city contracts. He named the official he had suborned. It wasn't just about money. There had been girls too, supplied in small groups in a Caribbean villa. Some of them very young. He talked about Ted Archer's fury, his two-year search, his close approach to the truth. He described the ambush, one Monday morning. Jeb Oliver had been used. The red Dodge Ram had been his payoff. Then the Zec paused, decided, moved on. He described the fast decision to get rid of Oline Archer two months later, when she became dangerous. He described Chenko's subterfuge, the hasty but thorough planning, how they lured James Barr out of the way with a promise of a date with Sandy Dupree. He described the end of Jeb Oliver's usefulness. He told them where to find his body. He told them about Vladimir killing Sandy in an effort to stop Reacher in his tracks. Altogether he talked for thirty-two minutes, hands tied behind him, then he stopped suddenly and Reacher saw calculation in his eyes. He was already thinking about the next move. The next roll of the dice. A mistrial. A jailbreak. A ten-year appeals process.

The room went quiet.

Donna Bianca said, "Unbelievable. "

Reacher said, "Keep talking. "

The Zec just looked at him.

"Something you left out," Reacher said. "You need to tell us about your inside man. That's what we're all waiting for. "

The Zec switched his gaze. He looked at Emerson. Then at Donna Bianca. Then at Alex Rodin. Right to left, along the line. Then he glanced back at Reacher.

"You're a survivor," Reacher said. "But you're not an idiot. There won't be a mistrial. There won't be a jailbreak. You're eighty years old and you won't survive a ten-year appeals process. You know all that. But still you agreed to talk. Why?"

The Zec said nothing.

"Because you knew sooner or later you'd be talking to a friend. Someone you own. Someone you bought and paid for. Am I right?"

The Zec didn't move.

"Someone right here, right now, in fact," Reacher said.

The Zec said nothing.

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