Blue Moon - Lee Child Page 0,122
that be agreeable?”
“Probably best,” the guy said.
“First come lock the door for us.”
The guy stood up.
Which was when the plan went wrong. When the so-far easy execution ran off the rails. Although, afterward, in periods of honest reflection, Reacher found he thought of it as the moment when the plan went right. He wanted it. Secretly he had hoped for it. Hence the crosscut saws.
Something completely unhinged.
Hogan bent down to zip-tie the first guy’s ankle. Either the guy straight-up panicked, or he got hit by some kind of last-chance desperation, or both, or maybe he was hoping to start up some kind of insurrection, but for whatever reason, suddenly he bolted forward, straight at Vantresca, wild emotions in his eyes, wild energy in his actions. He more or less ran himself onto the muzzle of Vantresca’s gun.
Vantresca did everything right. In the corner of his eye he saw that Hogan was rolling away, like a good Marine should, to avoid the charging guy’s feet, to avoid friendly fire. He saw that there was no one behind. No danger from a through-and-through. He knew they were in a concrete building. No danger of a through-the-wall random calamity. Not even much noise, given the proximity shot. The guy’s chest cavity would act as a giant suppressor.
Vantresca pulled the trigger.
There was no insurrection.
The other three guys stayed where they were.
The rent-a-cop said, “Oh, shit.”
“We’ll get to you in a minute,” Reacher said. “First lock the door.”
* * *
—
On the nineteenth floor, someone noticed the lobby screen was dark. No one knew how long it had been that way. At first it was taken to be a technical fault. But then someone else felt the blankness was not completely uniform. Not zero volts across the board. Something else. So they rolled back the hard drive and saw a young woman spraying an aerosol can. After first posing with a gun. After first rushing in through the revolving door, with four other figures. All in different street clothes, but all equipped with identical mission-specific satchels. A black-ops unit, led by a woman. This was America.
Of course the first thing they did was call down to the lobby. Just in case. Four separate cell numbers. Four no answers. As feared, because as expected. The same everywhere, the last two hours. They even tried the building’s rent-a-cop. They had the number. The landline, on his silly desk.
No answer.
Completely isolated. No information at all. Now not even from the lobby. No idea what was happening. Cut off from the world. Nothing on the news. Nothing on the rumor sites. No weird deployments. No press secretaries waiting on standby.
They tried all the numbers again.
No answer.
Then the elevator rumbled. The center shaft.
The car arrived, with a hiss of air.
The doors opened, smooth and swish.
On the back wall of the car someone had spray painted the Ukrainian word for loser. Under its dripping Cyrillic was one of their own guys, from the lobby, black suit and tie, sitting splayed out, arms and legs at an angle. He had been shot in the chest.
His head had been cut off.
His head was propped up between his legs.
The doors closed, smooth and swish.
The elevator rumbled.
The car went back down.
Completely isolated. No contact. Everyone without a specific task to attend to gathered in the elevator lobby. Outside the cage. Close to the wire. Staring in. Positioning themselves as if laying bets. Some opposite the center elevator. As if expecting it to return, with its gruesome tableau. Others chose the first elevator, or the third. Some outliers watched the fire stairs. There were all kinds of theories.
They waited.
Nothing happened.
People changed places at the wire. As if the delay was subtly altering the odds. As if it was making one scenario slightly more likely than another. Or less unlikely.
They waited.
They tried three sample numbers. One more time. First Gregory’s, then Danilo’s, then the watch leader’s, down in the lobby. With no real hope.
With no answer.
They waited. They changed position at the wire.
They listened.
The elevator rumbled. This time the left-hand shaft.
The car arrived, with a hiss of air.
The doors opened, smooth and swish.
On the floor of the car was another of their guys. From the lobby. Black suit and tie. Lying on his side. Hogtied, with his wrists and his ankles zipped together behind him. Gagged with a black rag wound around his head. Squirming, thrashing, appealing with his eyes, desperately, mouthing the gag, as if screaming, please come get me, please come get me,