A Wanted Man

SIXTY-NINE

REACHER HEARD IT all in reverse order. Because of the speed of sound, and because of how close he was to Sorenson, and because of how far he was from the building. He heard the wet punch of the bullet finding its target, and a split second later he heard the supersonic crack of the bullet’s flight through the air, and a split second after that he heard the boom of the rifle that fired it from four hundred yards away. By which time he was already on the ground. He moved on the first sound, throwing himself down, and before he even hit the dirt he had some early conclusions, thoughts not so much developing as flashing fully formed in his mind: he knew it was a sniper rifle, probably an M14 or equivalent, probably a.308, and he knew it had no night scope, or he himself would have been the first target, given human nature, and therefore he knew Sorenson had been spotted simply because she was pale in the moonlight, her skin and her hair just marginally more visible than his or Delfuenso’s.

He knew all of that, instantly and instinctively. And he knew Sorenson was dead. He knew it for sure. There was no mistaking the sound. He had heard such sounds before. It had been a head shot, through and through, in and out, 168 grains at more than twenty-six hundred feet per second, hitting with more than twenty-six hundred foot-pounds of energy, dropping more than twenty-six inches from four hundred yards, like a curveball finding the strike zone.

Not survivable.

Not even remotely.

He waited.

There was no second shot.

He moved his hands. He rubbed dirt on them, front and back. He dragged dirt up to his face and smeared it on.

He moved his head.

He couldn’t see Delfuenso.

Which was good. She was on the ground somewhere, head down and invisible. He looked the other way. He saw a faint gleam in the dirt. Small and pale. Sorenson’s hand. Either her right or her left, depending on how she had fallen.

He knew there would be no answer, but even so, he whispered, ‘Julia?’

There was no answer.

So he whispered, ‘Delfuenso?’

No answer.

‘Delfuenso? Karen? Are you there?’

A breathy voice came back in the dark: ‘Reacher? Are you hit?’

He said, ‘Sorenson was.’

‘Bad?’

‘Worse than bad.’ He started crawling, elbows and knees, head down. The back part of his brain told him he must look like a bug on a bed sheet. The front part told him no, if he was visible he would be dead already. He risked a glance ahead, one eye, and adjusted course a fraction. He stopped an arm’s length from the pale gleam in the dirt. He reached out and found Sorenson’s hand. It was still warm. He found her wrist. He laid two fingers on it.

You could get killed or maimed, doing this.

I don’t need you to look after me.

There was no pulse. Just limp, clammy skin. All the invisible thousand muscular tensions of the living were gone. He crawled half a yard closer. He followed her arm, to her shoulder, to her neck.

No pulse.

Her neck was slick with slippery blood and gelatinous brain tissue and gritty with bone fragments. Her jaw was still there. And her nose. And her eyes, once blue and amused and quizzical. There was nothing left above her eyes. She had been hit in the centre of the forehead. The top of her head had come off. Hair and all. Her scalp would be hanging down somewhere, attached by a thread of skin. He had seen such things before.

He checked her neck one more time.

No pulse.

He wiped his hand in the dirt and patted around for her pistol. He couldn’t find it. It could have been anywhere. Black polycarbonate, in the dead of night. He gave up on it. He found her shoulder again, and the small of her back, and he slipped his hand under her sweater and moved it around and took the spare magazine off her belt. Her hip was still warm. A cotton shirt, and her body under it, somewhere between hard and soft. He lay on his belly and stuffed the magazine in his pocket. Then he backed away, elbows and knees, and he turned like a crab and crawled over to Delfuenso’s position. A long way. Thirty or forty yards.

Delfuenso whispered, ‘Is she dead?’

He said, ‘Instantaneous.’

There was a long, long pause.

Then Delfuenso said, ‘Shit, I really liked her.’

‘Me too,’ Reacher said.

‘A person like that is the best of the Bureau.’

Something wild in her voice.

‘Shit happens,’ Reacher said. ‘Get over it.’

‘Is that how you army people react to things?’

‘How do you FBI people react to things?’

She didn’t answer.

She said, ‘So what now?’

‘You should go back to the car,’ Reacher said. ‘Keep low all the way. Call Quantico and update them. Remember, tell them Whiteman Air Force Base is their best shot. Maybe you should call Omaha, too. Her SAC is a guy called Tony Perry. I talked to him once. And I think the night duty agent was a friend of hers. So break it gently. Also her tech guy. He should hear it personally.’

‘Aren’t you coming with me?’

‘No,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m going to find that sniper.’

‘You can’t do that alone.’

‘You can’t come with me. You have a kid.’

‘I can’t let you. I’m ordering you to withdraw.’

‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘Let Quantico take care of it.’

‘McQueen can’t wait that long.’

‘You’ll be killed. There could be hundreds of them in there.’

‘You said two dozen.’

‘Even so. Two dozen men. They’re trained for this kind of thing.’

‘And now we’re about to find out how well they’re trained. Maybe they were great in high school, but let’s see if they can hit a major league fastball.’

‘They could be vicious.’

‘They don’t know the meaning of the word. Not yet.’

‘I can’t let you do it. You won’t survive. I might as well shoot you now.’

‘You can’t stop me. I’m a civilian.’

‘Therefore McQueen and Sorenson are nothing to you. Let us look after our own.’

‘I would,’ Reacher said. ‘But I don’t hear any SWAT planes in the air.’

‘They’re close.’

‘They’re over Ohio. Maybe Indiana. That’s not close.’

‘How does it help if you get shot too?’

‘It doesn’t. But I might not.’

‘There’s a number of possible outcomes, right?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There is.’

‘And that’s definitely one of them.’

‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘It is.’

‘So why?’

‘Because I liked Sorenson. I liked her a lot. She was fair and decent to me.’

‘So come to her memorial service. Write to the newspaper. Start a fund for a statue. You don’t have to go into battle for her.’

‘Battle offers me better odds.’

‘In what way?’

‘It gives me some kind of a chance to survive the night.’

‘How are those better odds? If you come back with me, you’re guaranteed to survive the night.’

‘No,’ Reacher said. ‘If I come back with you, I’m guaranteed to die of shame.’

There was no more conversation. No more argument. No more back and forth. Just an awkward silence. No doubt the FBI had appropriate banter for the occasion. The army sure did. But private jokes are private. So neither Reacher nor Delfuenso said anything. She just looked at his face. He wasn’t sure why. It was all smeared with dirt. With cowshit, probably. Maybe it was just as well his nose wasn’t working.

Delfuenso said, ‘Good luck.’

Then she backed away, elbows and knees, and she crabbed through a turn and set off back the way they had come, towards Lacey’s store. Reacher watched her until she was lost to sight. He waited a minute more, to be sure she wasn’t going to break her word and double back. He knew she wanted to. But she didn’t. Because of Lucy, presumably. You have a kid. It was about the only line she hadn’t argued with, in all of their long conversation.

He waited a minute more, to be doubly sure, and then he turned around the other way and crawled forward into the darkness.