Worth Dying For_ A Reacher Novel - Lee Child [47]
In Las Vegas the Lebanese man named Safir selected his two best guys and dispatched them to babysit the Italian man named Rossi. An unwise decision, as it turned out. Its unwisdom was made clear within the hour. Safir’s phone rang and he answered it, and found himself talking to an Iranian man named Mahmeini. Mahmeini was Safir’s customer, but there was no transactional equality in their business relationship. Mahmeini was Safir’s customer in the same way a king might have been a boot maker’s customer. Much more powerful, imperious, superior, dismissive, and likely to be lethally angry if the boots were defective.
Or late.
Mahmeini said, “I should have received my items a week ago.”
Safir couldn’t speak. His mouth was dry.
Mahmeini said, “Please look at it from my point of view. Those items are already allocated, to certain people in certain places, for certain date-specific uses. If they are not delivered in time, I’ll take a loss.”
“I’ll make good,” Safir said.
“I know you will. That’s the purpose of my call. We have much to discuss. Because my loss won’t be a onetime thing. It will be ongoing. My reputation will be ruined. Why would my contacts ever trust me again? I’ll lose their business forever. Which means you’ll have to compensate me forever. In effect I will own you for the rest of your life. Do you see my point?”
All Safir could say was “I believe the shipment is actually on its way, as of right now.”
“A week late.”
“I’m suffering too. And I’m trying to do something about it. I made my contact send two of his men up there. And then I sent two of my men over to him, to make sure he concentrates.”
“Men?” Mahmeini said. “You employ men? Or boys?”
“They’re good people.”
“You’re about to find out what men are. I’m sending two of mine. To you. To make sure you concentrate.”
Then the phone went dead, and Safir was left sitting there, awaiting the arrival of two Iranian tough guys in an office that had, just an hour ago, been stripped of the better half of its security.
Reacher made it to the two wooden buildings without further trouble, which was no big surprise to him. Six remaining football players and two out-of-towners made a total of just eight warm bodies, and he guessed the out-of-towners would be riding together, which made a total of just seven roving vehicles loose in a county that must have covered many hundreds of square miles. One random encounter had been fortuitous in the extreme. Two would be incalculably unlikely.
The old barn was still locked and listing, and the pick-up truck was still hidden in the smaller shelter. Undiscovered and undisturbed, as far as Reacher could tell. It was cold and inert. The air in the shelter was dry, and it smelled of dust and mouse droppings. The countryside all around was empty and silent.
Reacher opened up the tool locker in the pick-up’s load bed and took a look at the contents. The biggest thing left in there was an adjustable wrench about a foot long. Some kind of polished steel alloy. It weighed about a pound and a half. Made in the U.S.A. Not the greatest weapon in the world, but better than nothing. Reacher put it in his coat pocket and rooted around for more. He came up with two screwdrivers, one a stubby Phillips cross-head design with a rubber handle, and one a long slender thing with a regular blade for a regular slotted screw. He put them in his other pocket and closed the locker and climbed in the cab. He started up and backed out and then he followed the deep tractor ruts all the way east to the road, where he turned north and headed for the motel.
Safir’s two tough guys arrived in Rossi’s office carrying guns in shoulder holsters and black nylon bags in their hands. They unpacked the bags on Rossi’s desk, right in front of him. The first bag carried just one item, and the second bag carried two items. From the first bag came a belt sander, already loaded with a fresh loop of coarse-grain abrasive. From the second bag came a propane blowtorch and a roll