No Plan B (Jack Reacher, #27)(7)

The driver swerved hard right. Reacher was penned in by the wall on one side. He’d be hit by the car if he moved the other way. Or if he went forward. Or if he went back.

The car was moving fast. The rear wing was inches away.

There was nowhere for Reacher to go.

Except up. If he timed it just right.

Reacher jammed the gun into his waistband. Waited another fraction of a second. Then sprang onto the car’s trunk and kicked down. Hard. With both legs. He threw his arms above his head for extra lift. His fingertips brushed metal. Rough, cold iron. Part of one of the fire escapes. A rung on its lowest section. Folded into its dormant, horizontal position, like a set of monkey bars in a gym. He grabbed hold. Gripped tight. And swung his legs up to clear the roof of the car.



* * *



—

Reacher almost made it. The top of the empty rear window frame caught his toecaps. He felt an almighty jolt. It slammed through his ankles and his knees and up his body and along his arms and his hands and his fingers. Which loosened. A little. But Reacher didn’t let go. He tightened his grip. He watched the car’s hood pass beneath him. He straightened his legs, ready to drop down and spin around and take another shot. Through the windshield this time. Straight into the front section of the cabin. Where the driver would have nowhere to hide.

Reacher heard a sound. Above him. It was metal, grating and groaning and tearing. There was a bang. Sharp and loud like another gunshot. There was a second noise. A third. From the ironwork. Something was being pulled apart. Maybe because of Reacher’s weight. Maybe because of his weight multiplied by the impact with the car. Or maybe because the equipment wasn’t as well maintained as it appeared from the ground. Maybe the coats of shiny paint concealed all kinds of structural defects. But whatever the reason, the struts connecting the ladder and the gangway to the framework on the next level were failing. The whole section vibrated. It shook. It started to tilt outward, away from the building. Ten degrees. Fifteen. It stabilized for a moment. It settled. But in a new position. It was canted downward now. At an angle the anchor points had never been designed to support. They started to pull free. They screeched and juddered and pulled their sockets right out of the brittle tuck pointing.

Reacher saw what was happening. He let go of the rung. His feet hit the ground. He took half a step. And a twisted mass of iron landed right on top of him.





Chapter 7


For the first fifteen years of his life Jed Starmer didn’t give much thought to the concept of the law.

He was aware that laws existed. He understood that they somehow shaped and controlled the world around him, but only in an invisible, abstract sense, like gravity or magnetism. He knew that there were consequences if you broke them. Penalties. Punishments. All kinds of unpleasant outcomes. He had seen huddles of people in orange jumpsuits at the side of the highway being forced to pick up trash. He had listened to his foster parents’ warnings about juvenile hall. And jail. And ultimately Hell. But still, none of that struck much of a chord. It didn’t seem relevant to his life. He wasn’t about to rob a bank. Or steal a car. He didn’t even cut school very often. There were other things for him to worry about. Far more urgent things, like not being kicked out of the house and forced to live on the street. And how to avoid getting stabbed or shot any time he wanted to go anywhere.

Jed’s perspective changed completely on his fifteenth birthday. That was two weeks and two days ago. It was a Sunday so while his foster parents were at church Jed took the bus five miles, deep into South Central L.A., where he had been told never to go. He walked the last two hundred yards, along the cracked sidewalk, trying not to look scared, staring straight down, desperate to avoid eye contact with anyone who might be watching. He made it to the short set of worn stone steps that led to his birth mother’s apartment building. Scurried to the top. Pushed the door. The lock was broken, as it had been each time he’d snuck over there in the last couple of years, so he stepped into the hallway and started straight up the stairs. Two flights. Then along to the end of the corridor. He knew there was no point trying the buzzer so he knocked. He waited. And he hoped. That his mother would be there. That she would be sober. And that even if she didn’t remember what day it was, she would at least remember him.

It turned out Jed’s mother did remember. The day, and the person. She was perfectly lucid. She was even dressed. She opened the door, cigarette in hand, and led the way through the blue haze to the apartment’s main room. The shades were closed. There was junk everywhere. Clothes. Shoes. Purses. Books. Magazines. CDs. Letters. Bills. All heaped up in vague piles like some halfhearted attempt at organization had been made by someone completely unfamiliar with the concept. She stopped in the center of the mess for a moment, sighed, then gestured toward the couch. Jed squeezed by and took a seat in one corner. She sat at the opposite end and crushed out her cigarette in an ashtray on the side table next to her. It was already overflowing. A river of ash cascaded onto the carpet. She sighed again then turned to face Jed. She said she’d been expecting him. She hadn’t gotten him a present, obviously, but she was glad he had come because there was something she needed to tell him. Two things, in fact.

The first thing was that she was sick. She had pancreatic cancer. Stage four. Jed didn’t have a strong grasp of human biology. He didn’t know what the pancreas did. He wasn’t sure what the number signified. But he gleaned through his mother’s tears that the gist was bad. It meant she didn’t have long left to live. Months, possibly. Maybe weeks. Certainly not longer.