Jack Reacher feels the sting of the Scorpion

CALLING in a favour from his time as a military cop, Jack Reacher has rustled up a Black Hawk chopper to rescue his rag-tag companions from a snowbound bar. But will they be in time to stop the deadly hitman – known as the Christmas Scorpion – from striking? Find out in the second, and final, instalment of our gripping Christmas short story by bestselling author Lee Child…

THE Black Hawk was a roomy machine, but basic inside, with all kinds of wires and belts and straps and webbing, and nothing to sit on except canvas slings bolted to the bulkheads. Not like a commercial airliner. Not even economy class. It was a deafening metal box full of snow, kicked up through the door by the beating rotor.

Annie Ness got the older couple situated, and then she sat down next to Tony Jackson. Reacher gave the pilot a wait-one gesture, and he plugged in headsets for Ness and Jackson and himself, so they could confer with the crew over the scream of the engines. The pilot looked back, and Reacher said: ‘We have two humanitarian evacuations, plus two British Army MPs actively searching for a highranking official from their own government, who may or may not have made it by road to Irwin after the storm started, and who currently has a credible security threat against him.’

The pilot said: ‘What’s the medical status on the humanitarians?’

‘Cranky but stable. No urgency, within reason.’

‘They can hear what you say, you know. It’s me they can’t hear.’ ‘Notice they’re not denying it.’ ‘Is the high-ranking Brit a civilian?’

‘Affirmative, plus a civilian aide.’

‘Irwin gatehouses report no civilian arrivals in the past six hours.’

‘Then they’re stuck in a snow bank somewhere between here and there.’

‘I hope they turned the motor off. You can gas yourself.’

‘Then you freeze. We better go find them.’

‘Which is why I asked about the needs of the evacs. We can’t follow the roads because we can’t see the roads. A visual search could take some time.’

‘They’ll survive,’ Reacher said. ‘But sooner or later you’re going to have to feed them. You should call ahead. Food and warmth seem to be the issues.’

The engines screamed louder and the Black Hawk lifted. Through the portholes the light was bright again, and the snow billowed like a huge flat doughnut, perfectly symmetrical all around, until they were a thousand feet up, when the small local disturbance far below settled back to earth, like sparkling mist, an insignificant smudge on a vast white sheet.

We can’t see the roads, the pilot had said, and he was right. Whatever vertical distance there was between the crown of the blacktop in the middle and the bottom of the ditches either side was less than the depth of the snow. The view was literally featureless. Icy white everywhere, perfectly smooth, perfectly flat, uninterrupted. The pilot asked: ‘What kind of vehicle were they in?’ Jackson said: ‘A Chevrolet staff car. An Impala. A saloon.’ ‘Sedan,’ Ness said. ‘Not very tall.’ Reacher checked the sun in the sky. A winter afternoon. Christmas Eve. About as low as the sun ever got, in southern California. He said: ‘Go up a bit. Five thousand feet, maybe.’ From the new altitude they could see faint hints of shadows thrown out by the low sun, where the crust of the snow rose or fell half an inch. Over what? Some shadows were isolated and meaningless, just rocks, but others made patterns. Some made straight lines, or gentle curves, which with a little imagination could be linked to other faint ghostly hints of more lines and curves, miles farther on, all heading roughly north of east, which was where Fort Irwin was. Reacher said: ‘I think that’s the road.’ They followed it, five thousand feet up, thumping and clattering, with terse words and static in their headsets, sometimes guessing for miles at a time, sometimes needing to zigzag back and forth before picking up the next faint hints of the right direction.

DIFFICULT, but also encouraging, in a way, because in comparison they felt a snowed-in Chevy was going to look like a lump the size of a football stadium. An Impala was about five feet tall, Reacher thought, which even if buried completely would leave a broad oval hump about two feet high, which in the low sun would look like the Himalayas.

He asked: ‘How is the Christmas Scorpion supposed to be getting around?’

‘We don’t know,’ Ness said. ‘The file says he gets in and out of places like a ghost. No one has ever seen him. But we have to assume he’s human. So he could be stuck in a snowdrift somewhere, same as everyone else.’

‘We might see him,’ Reacher said. ‘Today could be two for the price of one. Then my guy would get two medals. Or three, I guess, if your boss gave him one too, because of how the minister of defence is an important person, relatively speaking.’ ‘My boss?’ ‘The Queen. You could ask her.’ ‘I could ask for a date with George Clooney, too.’

The Black Hawk clattered onward, north and east, sometimes tilting or dropping down for a better look. There were snow-covered table rocks that could have been buried cars, but none of them was. There was no sign of life.

Inside the noisy cabin the older couple sat mute, hands on their knees, looking uncertain, and maybe a little airsick from all the tilting and swooping. Reacher looked a question at them, as if to say, are you OK? The man shrugged, and the woman responded by winding her scarf tighter around her neck.

The pilot said: ‘Maybe they turned back. Maybe we’re looking in the wrong direction. What would a smart driver do, under the circumstances? He just passed the spot where we picked you up, and he’s got a long distance and uncertain

conditions ahead, so when the snow sets in bad, what does he do? He turns back towards what he already knows, surely. Toward the shelter he’s seen. Or maybe he heads for Barstow. In fact getting to Barstow would be a big win, with a highvalue passenger on board. I think they’re behind us.’

‘Unless they passed the point of no return,’ Jackson said.

‘Decision time, guys. If you’re wrong, we’re getting further away from them a mile every minute.’ No reply. ‘Keep going,’ Reacher said. ‘Doesn’t matter how much common sense the driver had. The passenger outranked him. The passenger is a male politician. Therefore he can’t be seen to chicken out of any challenge, ever. Turning around today would come back to haunt him eventually. It would become a metaphor. He can’t be the guy who didn’t get there.’

The Black Hawk clattered on. The old couple sat still. They looked puzzled, like people trying to reconstruct a conversation from one side of a cell phone call. Reacher patted the air, as if pushing the matter aside. As if he was saying, don’t worry about it. The man shrugged, and the woman wound her scarf tighter around her neck. The pilot said: ‘What’s that?’ Up ahead was a broad oval hump in a flat field of snow. The hump was maybe two feet high. Like the Himalayas. ‘Go take a look,’ Reacher said.

THE pilot got down to where his rotor wash was blasting snow in every direction, including clean off what looked like a smooth black-painted panel, nicely contoured, no doubt newly washed and waxed for the occasion. The roof of a governmentowned Chevy Impala. No doubt about it.

The pilot put his wheels through the crust of the snow, above where he guessed the road was, and Reacher scrambled out, followed by Ness, and Jackson, and they floundered thigh-high and waisthigh, like swimming standing up, to the car, where they dug with their hands, flinging snow aside, searching for a window, for a door, for a handle, digging some more, cracking the door, letting the rotor wash blast inside, like supercharged oxygen, then digging a V, and opening the door all the way, and crawling in.

They were alive. Blue with cold, and panting for air. Ness went in to check on them. She was also a medic, as well as everything else.

The driver was a specialist from Irwin, young and fit, happy to wait. The aide was older and colder but it was his job to wait. So Ness hauled the minister out first.

He had grey hair and grey skin, not helped by the cold. He was about 60 years old, and he was dressed in a grey suit. He was low on air and couldn’t walk. Reacher was the biggest guy there, twice Ness’s weight, a head taller than Jackson, so he scooped up the minister and carried him firefighter-style through the swirl and the blast to the hovering helicopter, where he twisted and went up on tiptoe and rolled the guy as gently as possible onto the cabin floor. The old couple stared from their canvas seats. Reacher turned back to go get the others, and bumped into Jackson, who was coming the other way. Jackson put his head close and yelled: ‘I have to stay with the minister.’ Reacher nodded and changed places with him, and slapped him on the back, as if passing the baton. He turned to go, and he was a step into his return trip when he heard the old woman’s voice, above him, from inside the Black Hawk, commanding, loud and clear over the engine noise. She said: ‘Stay where you are.’ He didn’t. He turned around. Saw she wasn’t talking to him. She was keeping Jackson out of the helicopter. She was standing inside the door, leaning over the sprawling minister, pointing a gun. A Sig Sauer P226, Reacher noted, automatically. Nine millimetre, 15 rounds in the magazine, plus probably one in the chamber, total 16, against maximum seven opponents, not good odds at all.

On the other hand a 226 weighed 27 ounces, which was a heavy weapon for a woman north of 60. She might get tired. He stared at her. Ness said the Christmas Scorpion got in and out of places like a ghost. No one ever saw him. Because he was a she. The physical characteristic would be a physical mark, he thought. Like a tattoo. Maybe the arachnid itself on a holly leaf. Maybe with a berry. On her neck. Hence all the stupid business with the scarf.

They can hear what you say, the pilot had warned. He had used the name. Every time he looked at her she must have thought he could see right through her.

SHE had her target at her feet. Delivered there personally, by Reacher himself, like a gift or a tribute.

Except that the story didn’t work. He felt Ness arrive behind him. She stepped up and stood shoulder to shoulder. Behind her came the aide and the driver. The air was full of snowflakes and the whop-whop of the rotor blades.

Ness whispered: ‘We brought her exactly where she wanted to be. She’s a genius.’

‘Like Lionel Messi,’ Reacher said. ‘I saw him on the television. The whole world expected the far post, Messi scored at the near post. Except something is wrong. It doesn’t work. Who made this threat?’ ‘The usual people.’ ‘Exactly,’ Reacher said. The old woman yelled: ‘Take a step back.’ Nobody moved. The woman pointed her gun straight down, at the minister’s head. Jackson stepped back. Behind him Reacher stepped back. Ness stayed with him. Behind them the aide and the driver stepped back.

The old man stepped up next to his wife. They stood together, framed in the doorway. He took out a gun of his own. Same make, same model. Like official issue. He aimed it centre-mass at the small crowd below him.

His wife put her own gun away. One was enough. She untied the knot in her scarf and unwound it from her neck, one turn, two. She had a small round tattoo in the pit of her throat, the size of a casino chip, of a Christmas wreath complete with leaves and bows and candles, all surrounding the black silhouette of a scorpion.

She wagged her head from side to side, and rubbed the skin on the back of her neck, as if she was relieved to get the scarf off. As if it had been itchy.

She said: ‘The threat against the minister here has one very interesting aspect.’ No one spoke. ‘OK, I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘It could have been carried out at any time. Means, motive and opportunity

have been in place for many months. So why wait?’

‘The meeting,’ Ness whispered to Reacher.

‘Two for the price of one,’ the old lady said. ‘Your minister, spelled with a c, and our secretary, spelled with an s. Two very senior figures in a very senior alliance. The resulting chaos could be fatal, especially given the times we live in, which are so bad they drove the dead guys to have a secret meeting on Christmas Eve in the first place.

‘The fallout would be completely unpredictable. All in all it was seen as something worth waiting for. Until the two senior figures were in the same place at the same time.”

Which they weren’t yet, Reacher thought.

The woman said: ‘Obviously it’s absurd to think the Scorpion could be a woman. The people who pay the bills wouldn’t deal with a woman. They would doubt a woman would get the kind of access she would need, and by and large they would be right. Obviously the Scorpion is a man.’

She put her hand in her pocket and came out with a worn leather wallet. She flipped it open. There was a gold shield on one side, and

a photo ID on the other. ‘FBI,’ she said. ‘My husband here isn’t really my husband. He’s my partner. Counter-terrorism. We’re looking after our guy, just the same as you’re looking after your guy.’

She dug her thumbnail in the pit of her throat and peeled off the tattoo. It was printed on clingy transparent plastic.

She said: ‘For a long time all we knew was a year ago he had this exact design put on his chest. I promised myself I would wear this thing every day until we caught him. Call me sentimental, I guess. Or superstitious.’

Means, motive and opportunity, Reacher thought. Why wait?

The old lady said: ‘For a long time that was all we knew, but now we know more. Who could realistically expect to penetrate Fort Irwin during a lockdown? Who can come and go like a ghost, without attracting a second glance? Who gets access to all the right places?’

Reacher was ready. Jackson turned and ran, which was stupid, in thick snow, with a gun at his back, and a guy as big as Reacher in his way. In the process of taking him down his T-shirt got torn, thereby exposing a tattoo on his chest identical to the FBI lady’s plastic replica. After that things went smoothly. The law ran its course. Everyone got medals, except Reacher, but he got Christmas dinner in the officers’ mess, with the fire blazing, and that was enough.

The Midnight Line, by Lee Child, is out now. Lee Child is the 2018 Programming Chair of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, July 19-22, with Special Guest Don Winslow. harrogate internationalfestivals.com