Worth Dying For_ A Reacher Novel - Lee Child [130]
Reacher unloaded the Remington, five remaining shells from the magazine and one from the breech. He turned the gun upside down and clamped it in the vise. He found an electric jigsaw and fitted a woodcutting blade. He plugged it in and fired it up and put the dancing blade on the walnut and sawed off the shoulder stock, first with a straight cut across the narrowest point, and then again along a curving line that mirrored the front contour of the pistol grip. Two more passes put a rough chamfer on each raw edge, and then he found a rasp and cleaned the whole thing up, with twists of walnut falling away like grated chocolate, and then he finished the job with a foam pad covered with coarse abrasive. He blew off the dust and rubbed his palm along the result, and he figured it was satisfactory.
He swapped the jigsaw blade for a metal cutter, a fine blued thing with tiny teeth, and he laid it against the barrel an inch in front of the forestock. The saw screeched and screamed and howled and the last foot of the barrel fell off and rang like a bell against the floor. He found a metal file and cleaned the burrs of steel off the new muzzle, inside and out. He released the vise and lifted the gun out and pumped it twice, crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch, and then he reloaded it, five in the magazine and one in the breech. A sawn-off with a pistol grip, not much longer than his forearm.
He found the coat closet on his way back through the house and retrieved his winter parka. The Glock and the switchblade were still in the pockets, along with the two screwdrivers and the wrench. He used the switchblade to slit the lining inside the left-hand pocket, so the sawn-off would go all the way in. He put the coat on. Then he unlocked the front door, and went back to the dining room to wait.
The Cornhuskers came in separately, one by one, the first of them right on time, exactly thirty minutes after the doctor had spoken, in a black pick-up truck he left on the road. He jogged up the driveway and pushed in through the door like he owned the place, and Reacher laid him out with a vicious blow to the back of the head, from behind, with the wrench. The guy dropped to his knees and toppled forward on his face. Reacher invested a little time and effort in dragging him onward across the shiny wood, and then he taped him up, quick and dirty, not a permanent job, but enough for the moment. The crunch of the wrench and the thump of the guy falling and Reacher’s grunting and groaning woke the doctor’s wife and Dorothy Coe. They came out of their rooms wearing bathrobes. The doctor’s wife looked at the new guy on the floor and said, “I guess they’re coming in for breakfast.”
Reacher said, “But today they’re not getting any.”
Dorothy Coe asked, “What about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is a new day. How well do you know Eleanor Duncan?”
“She’s not to blame for anything.”
“She’ll be hauling your harvest this year. She’s going to be in charge.”
Dorothy Coe said nothing.
The doctor’s wife said, “You want us to stay out of the way?”
“Might be safer,” Reacher said. “You don’t want one of these guys falling on you.”
“Another one coming,” the doctor called from the dining room, soft and urgent.
The second guy went down exactly the same as the first, and in the same place. There was no room left to drag him forward. Reacher folded his legs at the knees so the door would close, and then he taped him up right there.
The last to arrive was the guy who had broken Reacher’s nose.
And he didn’t come alone.
Chapter 52
A white SUV parked on the road beyond the fence, and the guy who had broken Reacher’s nose climbed out of the driver’s seat. Then the passenger door opened and the kid called John got out. The kid Reacher had left at the depot. Go to bed, Reacher had said. But the kid hadn