Better off Dead (Jack Reacher #26)(58)

    If you looked down on the school from above it would have looked like a capital H. The assembly hall and dining hall would be one of the uprights. The glass corridor would be the crossbar. And the other upright would be Dendoncker’s half. I was hoping that half would have plenty of doors and windows. And it did. There was a door in both of the short sides. Four doors in the long side. As well as four windows. They were big. Six feet high by twenty wide. But none of them were any use to me. They were all boarded up. With steel plates. Half an inch thick. With tamper-proof bolts. The kind that are used to keep thieves and squatters out of high-value construction sites. There was no way to break through them. No way to pry them off. And no way up to the roof.

All the down pipes had been sawn off fifteen feet from the ground. There was no way to smash through the side of the building with a vehicle. Giant dollops of concrete had been dumped all the way around. They were four feet in diameter, on average. Reinforced with steel rebar. With a gap between them of no more than three feet. The only way to breach the place would be with a tank. Or explosives. I didn’t have either. Which left the glass corridor as the only possible way in. I figured I’d have to rethink my approach. It was time to get a little more creative.

There was nothing interesting between the long side of the building and the fence. Just a big patch of ground covered with weird, rubbery asphalt. Maybe the site of a playground, back in the day. Now it was empty so I followed around the next corner. I came upon a kind of rough shed. It was built of cinder block, painted white, with a corrugated metal roof. It had a wooden door, secured with a padlock. A new one. Hefty. There was one window. At head height. It was barred, but there was no glass. I struck a match. Stretched in. Took a look. And instantly blew out the flame. The interior was packed full of cylindrical objects, sitting on flat bases with sharp noses pointing up to the ceiling. Artillery shells. Twenty rows of fifteen. At least. They looked in bad shape. Their cases were rusty and corroded. Some were dented and scraped. Not the kind of things I was in any hurry to get involved with.

    I found another structure ten feet farther on. It was smaller. Cube-shaped. And slightly irregular. Each side was no more than three feet long. It was all metal, including the roof. Or the lid. There was a row of holes punched along the top edge of the sides. Maybe an inch diameter. The front was hinged. It was standing open a little. I opened it wider. Risked another match. And looked in. It was empty. It had been used recently, though. For something. Maybe animal related, judging by the stench. Or maybe part of Dendoncker’s interrogation setup. It was the kind of place no one would want to be cooped up in. Especially not in the midday sun.





Chapter 39


I completed my circuit of the building and went back inside. I made my way through the assembly hall. Across the dining hall. And crouched in front of the doors leading to the glass corridor. I knocked. MP style. I figured one of three things would happen. The guys on the other side would ignore me. They would call for reinforcements. Or they would investigate.

The first option would be no help. The second could work out OK. But I was hoping for the third. I was hoping that one guy would stay back, and one would approach. He’d open the door. The one on my left, judging by the way they fitted together. He would pull it back into the corridor. Then either his gun would appear, or his head. I didn’t care which. I would grab whatever I saw. Yank the guy through. Break his neck. And I’d do it quickly, before the door swung closed again. I’d take the guy’s Uzi and fire it through the gap. When the clip was empty I would follow up with a pistol. If that was still necessary. If the guy who’d stayed back didn’t resemble Swiss cheese. After that it would be a question of taking his key or his transponder or whatever was needed to open the other pair of doors. Then I could find out what the guys were guarding. Or who. Probably Dendoncker. And hopefully Fenton.

    There was no response to my first knock so I tried again. After a moment I heard footsteps. They were heavy. Deliberate. The door opened. The left one, as I’d thought. Then Mansour appeared. Not as I’d thought. He didn’t pause. He didn’t peer out. He just came striding through.

I straightened up. The door was already closing, but that was the least of my worries. Mansour spun around to face me. He was grinning. His left cheek was blue and bruised and swollen. A souvenir from my elbow, that morning. I threw a swift jab, looking to add to the damage, but he read it. He dodged sideways and right away he came back at me. He was fast. Crazy fast, given his size. He raised his knee. High. Almost instantly his massive foot flicked out. He was going for my stomach. It would have been like getting hit by a bowling ball if he’d connected. My organs would have been mashed. I’d have been thrown against the door. Maybe through the door.

It would have been game over, right there. No way was I going to let that happen so I danced to the side. Slipped around his kick and launched myself forward. I grabbed his thigh. Pinned it to my side and drove the heel of my hand up and into his chin. His head rocked back. It was a solid hit. Not the best ever, but it would have knocked most guys on their ass. I had no doubt about that. I felt him begin to topple backward. I thought the job was halfway done. Loosened my grip on his leg. Shaped up to kick him as soon as he was down. Which was a mistake. The guy was falling. But deliberately. He threw both his arms around me. Locked his hands behind my back and pulled me over with him. There was no way I could resist. He had at least a hundred pounds on me. And momentum was on his side.