Page 58 of No Plan B

There was no response from inside the truck.

Reacher moved a little farther.

The guy yelled, “Do as I tell you and no one will get hurt. We just want to talk. So come on. Get out.”

The truck’s doors stayed closed.

Reacher kept moving.

The guy yelled, “Last chance. Get out or get shot.”

A noise came from the back of the truck. A piercing electronic shriek. It lasted two seconds. Then there was a whirring sound. Then aclunk. The truck’s tailgate had opened. The guys raised their guns. They started moving toward it, slowly, trying to stay silent. They made it halfway along the side of the load bed. Three-quarters. Then all the way to the back. They paused. They glanced at each other. The guy on the driver’s side held up three fingers. He folded one down. He folded the second. Then the third. Both guys took another step. A big one, on the diagonal. Their guns were raised. They were pointing directly into the load bed.

The truck started moving. It accelerated hard. The pedal must have been all the way to the floor. Its rear wheels spun and skittered and kicked up handfuls of grit. The sharp fragments flew through the air like shrapnel. The guys turned and bent and covered their faces. It was an instinctive reaction. But it only lasted for a second. They straightened up and raised their guns and started firing at the truck. Its tailgate was closing again. The guy on the passenger side hit it with one round. The guy on the driver’s side was going for the tires. He did some damage to the blacktop, but nothing else. They each squeezed off another couple of shots, then the guy on the passenger side started running toward the Explorer.

“Come on,” the guy yelled. “He can’t get far.”

The other guy followed him. They jumped inside. The guy behind the wheel pulled out his keys. He jammed one into the ignition. But he didn’t fire up the engine.

Reacher was sitting in the center of the rear seat. Both his arms were stretched out. He had the captured SIG in his left hand. The Beretta in his right. He pressed the muzzles against the back of both guys’ heads and said, “Open the windows.”

The driver turned his key one notch clockwise and buzzed both front windows all the way down.

Reacher said, “Throw out your guns.”

The guys did as they were told.

Reacher said, “Do you know who I am?”

Both guys nodded.

“Then you know you need to cooperate. I want some information. Give it to me, then you can go.”

The driver said, “We can’t. We don’t know anything.”

“You work for Minerva?”

The driver nodded.

“Is anyone else looking for me between here and Winson?”

Neither of the guys answered.

Reacher pulled the guns back. He slid the SIG between his knees. Then he leaned through the gap between the front seats and punched the passenger just next to his ear. The guy’s head snapped sideways. It smashed into the window, bounced back a few inches, then the guy slumped face-first into the dashboard.

Reacher raised the Beretta again. “Hands on the wheel. Move, and I’ll blow your head off. Do you understand?”

The driver grabbed the wheel. His hands were in the ten and two position and his knuckles were white like a nervous teenager’s before his first lesson.

Reacher said, “Do you know what I just did?”

“You knocked out Wade.”

“I gave you plausible deniability.”

The driver didn’t react.

“Plausible deniability,” Reacher said. “It means you can do something, then say you didn’t and no one can prove otherwise. Like, you can answer my questions.”

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