Persuader (52 page)

“Remember me?” I said again.

One second. Two. His mouth started moving.

“I saw you in Boston,” he said. “On the street. A Saturday night. Maybe two weeks ago.”

“Try again,” I said.

His face was completely blank. He didn’t remember me. They diagnosed amnesia, Duffy had said. Certainly about the trauma, because that’s almost inevitable. They figured he might be genuinely blank about the incident and the previous day or two.

“I’m Reacher,” I said. “I need you to remember me.”

He glanced helplessly at Beck.

“Her name was Dominique,” I said.

He turned back to me. Stared at me. Eyes wide. Now he knew who I was. His face changed. Blood drained out and fury swarmed in. And fear. The.22 scars went pure white. I thought about aiming right between them. It would be a difficult shot.

“You really thought I wouldn’t find you?” I said.

“Can we talk?” he said. Sounded like his mouth was dry.

“No,” I said. “You’ve already been talking ten extra years.”

“We’re all armed here,” Beck said. He sounded afraid. The three Arabs were staring at me. They had plaster dust stuck to the oil in their hair.

“So tell everybody to hold their fire,” I said. “No reason for more than one casualty here.”

People eased away from me. Dust settled on the table. A slab of falling ceiling had broken a glass. I moved with the crowd and turned and adjusted the geometry to herd the bad guys together at one end of the room. At the same time I tried to force Elizabeth and Richard and the cook together at the other. Where they would be safe, by the window.

Pure body language. I turned my shoulder and inched forward and even though the table was between me and most of them they went where I wanted them. The little gathering parted obediently into two groups, eight and three.

“Everybody should step away from Mr. Xavier now,” I said.

Everybody did, except Beck. Beck stayed right at his shoulder. I stared at him. Then I realized Quinn had a grip on his arm. He was holding it tight just above the elbow.

Pulling on it. Pulling on it hard. Looking for a human shield.

“These slugs are an inch wide,” I said to him. “As long as I can see an inch of you, that won’t work very well.”

He said nothing back. Just kept on pulling. Beck was resisting. There was fear in his eyes, too. It was a static little slow-motion contest. But I guessed Quinn was winning it. Inside ten seconds Beck’s left shoulder was overlapping Quinn’s right. Both of them were quivering with effort. Even though the Persuader had a pistol grip instead of a stock I raised it high to my shoulder and sighted carefully down the barrel.

“I can still see you,” I said.

“Don’t shoot,” Richard Beck said, behind me.

Something in his voice.

I glanced back at him. Just a brief turn of my head. Just a flash. There and back. He had a Beretta in his hand. It was identical to the one in my pocket. It was pointed at my head.

The electric light was harsh on it. It was highlighted. Even though I had only looked for a fraction of a second I had seen the elegant engraving on the slide. Pietro Beretta. I had seen the dew of new oil. I had seen the little red dot that is revealed when the safety is pushed to fire.

“Put it away, Richard,” I said.

“Not while my father is there,” he said.

“Let go of him, Quinn,” I said.

“Don’t shoot, Reacher,” Richard said. “I’ll shoot you first.”

By then Quinn had Beck almost all the way in front of him.

“Don’t shoot,” Richard said again.

“Put it down, Richard,” I said.

“No.”

“Put it down.”

“No.”

I listened carefully to his voice. He wasn’t moving. He was standing still. I knew exactly where he was. I knew the angle I would have to turn through. I rehearsed it in my head.

Turn. Fire. Pump. Turn. Fire. I could get them both within a second and a quarter. Too fast for Quinn to react. I took a breath.

Then I pictured Richard in my mind. The silly hair, the missing ear. The long fingers. I pictured the big Brenneke slug blasting through him, crushing, bludgeoning, the immense kinetic energy blowing him apart. I couldn’t do it.

“Put it away,” I said.

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“You’re helping them.”

“I’m helping my dad.”

“I won’t hit your dad.”

“I can’t take that risk. He’s my dad.”

“Elizabeth, tell him.”

“No,” she said. “He’s my husband.”

Stalemate.

Worse than stalemate. Because there was absolutely nothing I could do. I couldn’t fire on Richard. Because I wouldn’t let myself. Therefore I couldn’t fire on Quinn. And I couldn’t say I wasn’t going to fire on Quinn because then eight guys would immediately pull guns on me. I might get a few of them, but sooner or later one of them would get me.

And I couldn’t separate Quinn from Beck. No way was Quinn going to let go of Beck and walk out of the room alone with me. Stalemate.

Plan C.

“Put it away, Richard,” I said.

Listen.

“No.”

He hadn’t moved. I rehearsed it again. Turn. Fire. I took a breath. Spun and fired. A foot to Richard’s right, at the window. The slug smashed through the drapes and caught the casement frame and blew it away. I ran three paces and went headfirst through the hole.

Rolled twice wrapped in a torn velvet curtain and scrambled up on my feet and ran.

Straight out on the rocks.

I turned back after twenty yards and stood still. The remaining curtain was billowing in the wind. It was flapping in and out of the hole. I could hear the fabric snapping and beating. Yellow light shone behind it. I could see backlit figures crowding together behind the shattered glass. Everything was moving. The curtain, the people. The light was fading and blazing as the curtain flapped in and out. Then shots started coming at me. Handguns were firing. First two, then four, then five. Then more. Rounds were buzzing through the air all around me. Hitting the rocks and sparking and ricocheting.

Chips of stone flew everywhere. The shots sounded quiet. They sounded like dull insignificant pops. Their sound was lost in the howl of the wind and the crash of the waves. I dropped to my knees. Raised the Persuader. Then the shooting stopped. I held my fire. The curtain disappeared. Somebody had torn it down. Light flooded out at me. I saw Richard and Elizabeth forced to the front of the crowd at the window. Their arms were twisted up behind them. I saw Quinn’s face behind Richard’s shoulder. He was aiming a gun straight at me.

“Shoot me now,” he screamed.

His voice was nearly lost in the wind. I heard the seventh wave crash in behind me. Spray burst upward and the wind caught it and it hit me hard in the back of the head. I saw one of Quinn’s guys behind Elizabeth. Her face was twisted in pain. His right wrist was resting on her shoulder. His head was behind her head. He had a gun in his hand. I saw another gun butt come forward and knock shards of glass out of the frame. It raked it clean. Then Richard was jerked forward. His knee came up on the sill. Quinn pushed him all the way outside. Came out after him, still holding him close.

“Shoot me now,” he screamed again.

Behind him Elizabeth was lifted out through the window. There was a thick arm around her waist. Her legs kicked desperately. She was planted on the ground and pulled backward to cover the guy holding her. I could see her face, pale in the darkness. Twisted in pain. I shuffled backward. More people climbed out. They swarmed. They formed up together. They made a wedge. Richard and Elizabeth were held shoulder to shoulder at the front like a blunt point. The wedge started lurching toward me. It was uncoordinated.

I could see five guns. I shuffled backward. The wedge kept coming. The guns started firing again.

They were aiming to miss. They were aiming to corral me. I moved backward. Counted rounds. Five guns, full mags, they had at least seventy-five shells between them. Maybe more. And they had fired maybe twenty. They were a long way from empty. And their fire was controlled. They weren’t just blasting away. They were aiming left and right of me, into the rocks, regular spaced shots every couple of seconds. Coming on like a machine. Like a tank armored with humans. I stood up. Moved backward. The wedge kept coming at me.

Richard was on the right and Elizabeth was on the left. I picked a guy behind Richard and to his right and aimed. The guy saw me do it and crowded in tight. The wedge jammed together. Now it was a narrow column. It kept on coming. I had no shot. I walked backward, step by step.

My left heel found the edge of Harley’s cleft.

Water boiled in and covered my shoe. I heard the waves. Gravel rattled and sucked. I moved my right foot level with my left. Balanced on the edge. I saw Quinn smiling at me.

Just the gleam of his teeth in the dark.

“Say good night now,” he screamed.

Stay alive. See what the next minute brings.

The column grew arms. Six or seven of them, reaching out, turning forward with their guns. Aiming. They were waiting for a command. I heard the seventh wave crash in at my feet. It came up over my ankles and flooded ten feet in front of me. It paused there for a second and then it drained back, indifferent, like a metronome. I looked at Elizabeth and Richard. Looked at their faces. Took a deep breath. Thought: Them or me. I dropped the Persuader and threw myself backward into the water.

First was the shock of the cold, and then it was like falling off a building. Except it wasn’t a free fall. It was like landing in a freezing lubricated tube and being sucked down it at a steep and controlled angle. With acceleration. I was upside down. I was traveling head-first. I had landed on my back and for a split second I had felt nothing. Just the freezing water in my ears and my eyes and my nose. It stung my lip. I was about a foot under the surface. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was worried about floating back up. I would bob to the surface right in front of them. They would be crowding around the lip of the cleft with their guns aimed down at the water.

But then I felt my hair stand up. It was a gentle sensation. Like somebody was combing it upright and pulling on it. Then I felt a grip on my head. Like a strong man with big hands was clamping my face between his palms and pulling, very gently at first, and then a little harder. And harder. I felt it in my neck. It was like I was getting taller. Then I felt it in my chest and my shoulders. My arms were floating free and suddenly they were wrenched up above my head. Then I fell off the building. It was like a perfect swallow dive, on my back. I just arched downward. But I accelerated. Much faster than a free fall through the air. It was like I was being reeled in by a gigantic elastic cord.

I couldn’t see anything. I didn’t know if my eyes were open or shut. The cold was so stunning and the pressure on my body was so uniform that I didn’t really feel anything, either. No physical force. It was completely fluid. It was like some kind of science fiction transportation. Like I was being beamed down. Like I was liquid. Like I had been elongated. Like I was suddenly thirty feet tall and an inch wide. There was blackness and coldness everywhere. I held my breath. All the tension went out of me and I leaned my head back to feel the water on my scalp. Pointed my toes. Arched my spine. Stretched my arms far up ahead of me. Opened my fingers to feel the water flow between them. It felt very peaceful. I was a bullet. I liked it.

Then I felt a panicked thump all through my chest and knew I was drowning. So I started to fight. I tumbled myself over and my coat came up around my head. I tore it off, spinning and somersaulting in the freezing tube. The coat whipped across my face and hurtled away. I slid out of my jacket. It disappeared. I suddenly felt the bitter cold. I was still going down fast. My ears were hissing. I was tumbling in slow motion. Whipping down and down faster than I had ever traveled and rolling and tumbling like I was mired in treacle.

How wide was the tube? I didn’t know. I kicked desperately and clawed at the water around me. It felt like quicksand. Don’t swim down. I kicked and fought and tried to find the edge. Bargained with myself. Concentrate. Find the edge. Make progress. Stay calm.