Gasped in pain as her knee twisted against the motion.
"Pulled off the highway," Reacher said. "Middle of nowhere."
"This is a big mistake, Reacher," Holly said.
He shrugged and took her hand and helped her into a sitting position, back against the bulkhead. Then he slid forward and put himself between her and the rear doors. He heard the three guys getting out of the cab. Doors slammed. He heard their footsteps crunching over the gravel. Two coming down the right flank, one down the left. He heard the key sliding into the lock. The handle turned.
The left-hand rear door opened two inches. First thing into the truck was the muzzle of the shotgun. Beyond it, Reacher saw a meaningless sliver of sky. Bright blue, small white clouds. Could have been anywhere in the hemisphere. Second thing into the truck was a Glock 17. Then a wrist. The cuff of a cotton shirt. The Glock was rock-steady. Loder.
"This better be good, bitch," he called.
Hostile. A lot of tension in the voice.
"We need to talk," Reacher called back.
The second Glock appeared in the narrow gap. Shaking slightly.
"Talk about what, asshole?" Loder called.
Reacher listened to the stress in the guy's voice and watched the second Glock trembling through its random zigzags.
"This isn't going to work, guys," he said. "Whoever told you to do this, he isn't thinking straight. Maybe it felt like some kind of a smart move, but it's all wrong. It isn't going to achieve anything. It's just going to get you guys in a shitload of trouble."
There was silence at the rear of the truck. Just for a second. But long enough to tell Reacher that Holly was right. Long enough to know he'd made a bad mistake. The steady Glock snapped back out of sight. The shotgun jerked, like it had just changed ownership. Reacher flung himself forward and smashed Holly down flat on the mattress. The shotgun barrel tipped upward. Reacher heard the small click of the trigger a tiny fraction before an enormous explosion. The shotgun fired into the roof. A huge blast. A hundred tiny holes appeared in the metal. A hundred tiny points of blue light. Spent shot rattled and bounced down and ricocheted around the truck like hail. Then the sound of the gun faded into the hum of temporary deafness.
Reacher felt the slam of the door. The sliver of daylight cut off. He felt the rock of the vehicle as the three men climbed back into the cab. He felt the shake as the rough diesel caught. Then a forward lurch and a yaw to the left as the truck pulled back onto the highway.
FIRST THING REACHER heard as his hearing came back was a quiet keening as the air whistled out through the hundred pellet holes in the roof. It grew louder as the miles rolled by. A hundred high-pitched whistles, all grouped together a couple of semitones apart, fighting and warbling like some kind of demented birdsong.
"Insane, right?" Holly said.
"Me or them?" he said.
He nodded an apology. She nodded back and struggled up to a sitting position. Used both hands to straighten her knee. The holes in the roof were letting light through. Enough light that Reacher could see her face clearly. He could interpret her expression. He could see the flicker of pain. Like a blind coming down in her eyes, then snapping back up. He knelt and swept the spent pellets off the mattress. They rattled across the metal floor.
"Now you've got to get out," she said. "You'll get yourself killed soon."
The highlights in her hair flashed under the random bright illumination.
"I mean it," she said. "Qualified or not, I can't let you stay."
"I know you can't," he said.
He used his discarded shirt to sweep the pellets into a pile near the doors. Then he straightened the mattresses and lay back down. Rocked gently with the motion. Stared at the holes in the sheet metal above him. They were like a map of some distant galaxy.
"My father would do what it takes to get me back," Holly said.
Talking was harder than it had been before. The drone of the motor and the rumble of the road were complicated by the high-pitched whistle from the roof. A full spectrum of noise. Holly lay down next to Reacher. She put her head next to his. Her hair fanned out and brushed his cheek and fell to his neck. She squirmed her hips and straightened her leg. There was still space between their