Page 133 of Chain Reaction

Hennessy unzipped his jacket and took it off.

“Over the fence,” Reacher said.

Hennessy froze another beat, unsure, but then he balled the jacket up and threw it. It sailed upward and then came down like a failed parachute, streaming the arms behind. There was something heavy in the pockets. That was for sure. It crashed on the gravel, six feet the other side of the bars.

“Now watch this,” Reacher said.

He flipped the gun and caught it by the barrel. He threw it over the fence. It clanged against the side of the building and fell to the ground. He held up his empty hands, palms out.

“You got busted early on,” he said. “You messed up some good old boy in a bar across the line in Alabama. You broke your leg during the arrest. Remember?”

“So what?”

“It was my unit that arrested you. Consider this a follow-up conversation. Now you’re threatening a woman and a child. I’m starting to sense a pattern here.”

“What do you want?”

“You’re man enough to threaten women and children. Let’s see if you’re man enough to get past me to the helicopter.”

“What?”

“Get past me, and I’ll let you fly away.”

“What is this?”

“They were all one-syllable words, except away, which is only two.”

“You want to fight me?”

“No,” Reacher said. “You want to fight me. You don’t like me. And you want to get out of here alive. That’s your aim, not mine. I’m happy for you to stay here forever. In fact those are your options, right there in a nutshell. Either you get past me, or you stay here forever.”

Hennessy didn’t answer. But he understood. And he had made his choice. That was clear. He tensed up and glanced all around. Rehearsing in his head. Time and motion. This way, then that. He didn’t look confident. He was out of practice. He had carried a gun too long. His other skills had wasted away, like muscles rarely used.

Reacher was standing off-center in the forty-foot channel. Not much. Not blatantly. But subtly. There was an impression of more space on his right than his left. He could see Hennessy was aware of it. That was where his glances were going. Would he go for it? Or would he just pretend to go for it? A nimble person would head that way, and then side-step around the defender. Like football. But Hennessy was not a nimble person. He was thick-legged and bulky, overweight and out of shape.

“Make your move, sergeant,” Reacher said. “Give it your best shot. Be brave. As brave as you were when you were facing down an eleven-month-old baby. I bet that took guts.”

Hennessy went for it. He charged toward the space on Reacher’s right. Reacher tracked him, easing across, waiting for the sidestep, waiting for the feint. Which never came. Hennessy ran a straight line, angling toward the fence, away from Reacher coming toward him, hoping to thread the needle. He didn’t make it. Reacher timed a huge sideways shuffle and barged him shoulder to shoulder and bounced him off the fence. Hennessy went down on his knees but scrambled up again and backed away. Reacher took a pace forward, crowding him, closing down the space. Hennessy went the other way, left, but Reacher stepped over and barged him again. Hennessy went spinning away, flailing, off balance. Like running into an oak tree.

Reacher waited. Hennessy was breathing hard and backing away toward the opposite fence. Reacher followed, maintaining the angles. The narrow lane on his left, the wide lane on his right. Hennessy went for the narrow lane. Some kind of double bluff. Reacher was ready. He stepped over and caught his arm and hurled him through a three-quarter circle and bounced him off the opposite fence. Hennessy fell hard on the gravel but scrambled up again, not slow, but not peak performance either. Reacher could see he wanted to bend down a minute with his hands on his knees, but he wouldn’t. It would be a sign of weakness.

Reacher said, “All this running around is not really working, is it? You need to be more direct.”

“I’m just trying to make a living, man. That’s all. What are you, a saint?”

“Compared to you. You sat in an office or took a call and some weird kid told you to go kill an innocent woman. You said sure, no problem. You got there and found she had a baby. That was no problem either.”

“You’re no different.”

“Except in two important ways. I’ve done bad things, sure, but first, none of them involved innocent women and children. And second, I never got beat. Not like you are now. This is the end of the road for you. Judgment Day is here. Pretend we’re in an old Norse fable. I’m the gatekeeper, standing on the bridge. You’re here to make your case. So far I’m not impressed.”

Hennessy charged toward him, a sudden explosion of desperate energy. He swung a big right-handed haymaker, which Reacher batted away with his left forearm, while his right hand snaked out and caught Hennessy by the throat. He straightened his arm and locked his elbow. And squeezed, arm’s length. A right-handed four out of ten to start with. Then a five. In response most people would claw at their attacker’s wrist. Human nature. But pointless. Hennessy knew better. He went for Reacher’s eyes. Couldn’t get there. Reacher’s arms were six inches longer. Hennessy’s fingertips barely grazed Reacher’s shoulder. There’s no such thing as an unfair advantage.

Reacher squeezed harder. A six. Then a seven.

“Goodbye, Hennessy,” he said.

Then an eight. No more was necessary. Hennessy’s eyes bulged and his face turned blue. His legs gave out under him. Reacher followed his dead weight to the floor, kneeling over him, keeping the pressure on, making sure, thirty extra seconds, a whole minute. Then he stood up and shook the strain out of his hand and walked away.