"Still sure?"

"Yes," I said.

"So go."

She didn't get up. None of them did. I just eased myself off the bed and walked out through the silent room. I was halfway back to the Cadillac when Terry Villanueva came out after me. He waved me to wait and walked across to me. He moved stiff and slow, like the old guy he was.

"Bring me in," he said. "Any chance you get, I want to be there."

I said nothing.

"I could help you out," he said.

"You already did."

"I need to do more. For the kid."

"Duffy?"

He shook his head. "No, Teresa."

"You got a connection?"

"I got a responsibility," he said.

"How?"

"I was her mentor," he said. "It worked out that way. You know how that is?"

I nodded. I knew exactly, totally, and completely how that was.

"Teresa worked for me for a spell," he said. "I trained her. I broke her in, basically. Then she moved up. But ten weeks ago she came back to me and asked if I thought she should accept this mission. She had doubts."

"But you said yes."

He nodded. "Like a d.a.m.n fool."

"Could you really have stopped her?"

"Probably. She would have listened to me if I had made a case why she shouldn't do it.

She'd have made up her own mind, but she'd have listened."

"I understand," I said.

And I did, no question about it. I left him standing there in the motel lot and slid into the car and watched him watch me drive away.

I stayed on Route One all the way through Biddeford and Saco and Old Orchard Beach and then struck out east on the long lonely road out to the house. I checked my watch as I got close and figured I had been away two whole hours, of which only forty minutes were legitimate. Twenty minutes to the warehouse, twenty back. But I didn't expect to have to explain myself to anybody. Beck would never know I hadn't come straight home and the others would never know I had been supposed to. I figured I was right there in the endgame, freewheeling toward victory.

But I was wrong.

I knew it before Paulie got halfway through opening the gate. He came out of his house and stepped across to the latch. He was wearing his suit. No coat. He lifted the latch by b.u.t.ting it upward with his clenched fist. Everything was still normal. I had seen him open the gate a dozen times and he was doing nothing he hadn't done before. He wrapped his fists around the bars. Pulled the gate. But before he got halfway through opening it he stopped it dead. He just made enough s.p.a.ce to squeeze his giant frame through. Then he stepped out to meet me. He walked around toward my window and when he got six feet from the car he stopped and smiled and took two guns out of his pockets. It happened in less than a second. Two pockets, two hands, two guns. They were my Colt Anacondas.

The steel looked dull in the gray light. I could see they were both loaded. There were bright snub-nose copper jackets winking at me from every chamber I could see.

Remington.44 Magnums, without a doubt. Full metal jacket. Eighteen bucks for a box of twenty. Plus tax. Ninety-five cents each. Twelve of them. Eleven dollars and forty cents' worth of precision ammunition, ready to go, five dollars and seventy cents in each hand.

And he was holding those hands very steady. They were like rocks. The left was aimed a little ahead of the Cadillac's front tire. The right was aimed directly at my head. His fingers were tight on the triggers. The muzzles weren't moving at all. Not even a fraction.

He was like a statue.

I did all the usual things. I ran all the numbers. The Cadillac was a big car with long doors but he had put himself just far enough away that I couldn't jerk my door open and hit him with it. And the car was stationary. If I hit the gas he would fire both guns instantly. The bullet from the one in his right hand might well pa.s.s behind my head but the car's front tire would roll straight into the path of the one from his left. Then I would hit the gates hard and lose momentum and with a blown front tire and maybe with damaged steering I would be a sitting duck. He would fire ten more times and even if I wasn't killed outright I would be badly wounded and the car would be crippled. He could just step over and watch me bleed while he reloaded.

I could sneak it into reverse and howl away backward but reverse gear is pretty low on most cars and therefore I would be moving slowly. And I would be moving directly away from him in a perfectly straight line. No lateral displacement. None of the usual benefits of a moving target. And a Remington.44 Magnum leaves a gun barrel at more than eight hundred miles an hour. No easy way to outrun one.

I could try my Beretta. It would have to be a very fast snap shot through the window gla.s.s. But the window gla.s.s on a Cadillac is pretty thick. They make it that way to keep the interior quiet. Even if I got the gun out and fired before he did, it would be pure chance if I hit him. The gla.s.s would shatter for sure, but unless I took all the time I needed to make absolutely certain the trajectory was exactly perpendicular to the window the bullet would deflect. Perhaps radically. It could miss him altogether. And even if it hit him it would be pure chance if it hurt him. I remembered kicking him in the kidney.

Unless I happened to hit him in the eye or straight through the heart he would think he had been stung by a bee.

I could buzz the window down. But it was very slow. And I could predict exactly what would happen. He would straighten his arm while the gla.s.s was moving and bring the right-hand Colt within three feet of my head. Even if I got the Beretta out real fast he would still have a h.e.l.l of a jump on me. The odds were not good. Not good at all. Stay alive, Leon Garber used to say. Stay alive and see what the next minute brings.

Paulie dictated the next minute.

"Put it in Park," he yelled.

I heard him clearly, even through the thick gla.s.s. I moved the gearshift into Park.

"Right hand where I can see it," he yelled.

I put my right palm up against the window, fingers extended, just like when I signaled I see five people to Duke.

"Open the door with your left," he yelled.

I scrabbled blindly with my left hand and pulled the door release. Pushed on the gla.s.s with my right. The door swung open. Cold air came in. I felt it around my knees.

"Both hands where I can see them," he said. He spoke quieter, now the gla.s.s wasn't between us. He brought the left-hand Colt around on me, now the car was out of gear. I looked at the twin muzzles. It was like sitting on the foredeck of a battleship looking up at a pair of naval guns. I put both hands where he could see them.

"Feet out of the car," he said.

I swiveled on my b.u.t.t, slowly on the leather. Got my feet out onto the blacktop. I felt like Terry Villanueva outside the college gate, early in the morning of day eleven.

"Stand up," he said. "Step away from the car."

I levered myself upright. Stepped away from the car. He pointed both guns directly at my chest. He was four feet away from me.

"Stand very still," he said.

I stood very still.

"Richard," he called.

Richard Beck came out of the gatehouse door. He was pale. I saw Elizabeth Beck behind him in the shadows. Her blouse was open at the front. She was clutching it tight around herself. Paulie grinned at me. A sudden, lunatic grin. But the guns didn't waver. Not even a fraction. They stayed rock steady.

"You came back a little too soon," he said. "I was about to make him have s.e.x with his mother."

"Are you out of your mind?" I said. "What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

"I got a call," he said. "That's what's going on."

I should have been back an hour and twenty minutes ago.

"Beck called you?"

"Not Beck," he said. "My boss."

"Xavier?" I said.

" Mr. Xavier," he said.

He stared at me, like a challenge. The guns didn't move.

"I went shopping," I said. Stay alive. See what the next minute brings.

"I don't care what you did."

"I couldn't find what I wanted. That's why I'm late."

"We expected you to be late."

"Why?"

"We got new information."

I said nothing to that.

"Walk backward," he said. "Through the gate."

He kept both guns four feet from my chest and walked forward while I walked backward through the gate. He matched me pace for pace. I stopped twenty feet inside, in the middle of the driveway. He stepped to one side and half-turned so he could cover me on his left and Richard and Elizabeth on his right.

"Richard," he called. "Close the gate."

He kept the left-hand Colt aimed at me and swung the right-hand Colt toward Richard.

Richard saw it coming around at him and stepped up and grabbed the gate and pushed it shut. It clanged into place, loud and metallic.

"Chain it."

Richard fumbled with the chain. I heard it ringing and rattling against the iron. I heard the Cadillac, idling quietly and obediently forty feet away on the wrong side of the gate. I heard the waves pounding on the sh.o.r.e behind me, slow and regular and distant. I saw Elizabeth Beck in the gatehouse doorway. She was ten feet away from the big machine gun hanging on its chain. It had no safety catch. But Paulie was in the blind spot. The back window couldn't see him.

"Lock it," Paulie called.

Richard snapped the padlock shut.

"Now you and your mom go stand behind Reacher."

They met near the gatehouse door. Walked toward me. Pa.s.sed right by me. They were both white and trembling. Richard's hair was blowing. I saw his scar. Elizabeth had her arms crossed tight against her chest. I heard them both stop behind me. Heard their shoes on the blacktop as they shuffled around to face my back. Paulie stepped over to the center of the driveway. He was ten feet away. Both barrels were aimed at my chest, one to the left side, one to the right. Jacketed.44 Magnums would go straight through me and probably straight through Richard and Elizabeth, too. They might make it all the way to the house. Might break a couple of first-floor windows.

"Now Reacher holds his arms out by his sides," Paulie called.

I held them out, away from my body, stiff and straight, angled down.

"Now Richard takes Reacher's coat off," Paulie called. "He pulls it down, from the collar."

I felt Richard's hands on my neck. They were cold. They grasped my collar and peeled the coat down. It slid off my shoulders and came down my arms. It pulled past one wrist, then past the other.

"Ball it up," Paulie called.

I heard Richard balling it up.

"Bring it here," Paulie called.

Richard came out from behind me carrying the balled coat. He got within five feet of Paulie and stopped.

"Throw it over the gate," Paulie said. "Real far."

Richard threw it over the gate. Real far. The arms flapped in the air and it sailed up and then down and I heard the dull padded thump of the Beretta in the pocket landing hard on the Cadillac's hood.

"Same thing with the jacket," Paulie said.

My jacket landed next to the coat on the Cadillac's hood and slid down the shiny paint and ended up on the road in a crumpled heap. I was cold. The wind was blowing and my shirt was thin. I could hear Elizabeth breathing behind me, fast and shallow. Richard was just standing there, five feet from Paulie, waiting for his next instruction.

"Now you and your mom walk fifty paces," Paulie said to him. "Back toward the house."

Richard turned and walked back and pa.s.sed by me again. I heard his mother get in step with him. Heard them walk away together. I turned my head and saw them stop about forty yards back and turn around and face front again. Paulie tracked backward toward the gate, one pace, two, three. He stopped five feet from it. His back was to it. He had me fifteen feet in front of him and I guessed he could see Richard and Elizabeth over my shoulder, maybe a hundred feet farther on in the distance. We were all in a perfect straight line on the driveway, Paulie near the gate and facing the house, Richard and Elizabeth halfway to the house and facing back at him, me in the middle, trying to stay alive to see what the next minute would bring, facing Paulie, looking him square in the eye.

He smiled.

"OK," he said. "Now watch carefully."

He stayed facing me the whole time. He maintained eye contact. He crouched down and placed both guns on the blacktop by his feet and then flipped them backward toward the base of the gate. I heard their steel frames sc.r.a.ping on the rough surface. Saw them come to rest a yard behind him. Saw his hands come back, empty. He stood up again and showed me his palms.

"No guns," he said. "I'm going to beat you to death."