Then he sensed more movement in the corridor. Almost nothing. Just a faint disturbance in the air.
He looked at Rye and said, “You should cut your losses and get the hell out. Or shoot Massee, not me. He got you into this mess. He’s as bad as his big brother.”
Rye said nothing.
Behind his left shoulder Reacher saw a third of a face, a green eye, a sweep of dark blond hair. Brennan, peering around the doorjamb. Exactly the same as at the chained door of her hotel room, back at the beginning.
He said, “Time is ticking away.”
Brennan moved soundlessly into the room. A yard behind Rye.
Reacher said, “I wish I was a woman.”
Rye said, “What?”
“I would have a purse. I could swing it like a bat. I could knock your gun hand out of the way.”
“What?” Rye said again.
And Brennan did exactly that. Reacher saw thirty-seven hours of anger and outrage and frustration in her face, channeling into some kind of deadly focus. She wound up like a discus thrower at the Olympics and swung her bag from behind and smashed it into Rye’s forearm with all the strength in her body. Which was evidently considerable. The gun was swept all the way from the six on the clock face to the three. It fired with a deafening crash and a television monitor exploded, and simultaneously Reacher smashed a giant fist into the exposed side of Rye’s head, jaw, ear, and cheekbone, and then he danced to his right and crashed an elbow into Warwick’s throat. Rye and Warwick went down backward, and Massee sank to his knees clutching his chest. Maybe a heart attack, all by himself.
Reacher looked at Brennan and said, “Thank you.”
Brennan took a breath and said, “You’re welcome.”
Then there were sirens outside and boots in the corridor and six men in FBI windbreakers burst into the room, followed by Szewczk and Dupreau, followed by Veronica Luong.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2310 EST
THEY BOTH NEEDED TO DECOMPRESS. and reacher was hungry.
Certain the Marriott bars and restaurants would be packed with alcohol-buzzed toxicologists, pathologists, lawyers, and engineers, they opted for the Raven in Mount Pleasant. Brennan remembered it from her drinking days. The dive decor. The heart-stopping cheeseburgers and onion rings. She hoped it was still there.
It was. And a good choice. The interior was dim, lit mostly by neon beer signs. Bar to one side, booths to the other, each with its own miniature jukebox. The place, largely empty, had only one flaw. The syrupy stench of grease and stale beer.
They chose an alcove in the rear and climbed onto high chrome stools with cracked vinyl seats. Brennan climbed. Reacher simply straddled and dropped.
On the wall above their shoulders, his left, her right, was a bulgy-screen TV that looked like it had been mounted sometime in the ’80s. The picture was on but the sound was muted.
After a brief wait, a guy slouched over and asked what they wanted. His tee, once white, was stained and stretched way too tight over his belly. On it was an unnaturally elongated Latvian flag.
Reacher asked for a burger, very rare, and black coffee. Brennan asked for the same, medium rare, double cheese. Perrier and lime to drink.
Their eyes met.
Reacher amended their order to two pints of whatever was on tap. The guy recommended some microbrewery IPA with an unlikely name.
The beer hit the table seconds later. Brennan took in a few molecules, mostly foam. Did the automatic alkie count in her head. How many months? Years? She’d be fine.
“What’s an IPA?” Reacher asked.
“Damn good,” Brennan said.
Brennan’s eyes drifted to the ancient Sony above and between them. Read a headline below a grim-faced anchor. Faking a Murderer. To the anchor’s right was a graphic of a middle-aged man in an air force officer’s uniform.
“We’ve made the eleven o’clock news.” Brennan echoed Matias’s words.
As Reacher glanced left, the screen cut to video. Bathed in artificial light, Dupreau led a handcuffed Warwick from the Crystal City building. Szewczk followed with Rye. Massee was in the hands of a guy with FBI lettered on the back of his jacket.
The footage ended and the anchor returned. They watched her lips silently summarize the breaking story, Brennan’s image now hanging where Calder Massee’s had been.
Their burgers arrived. They added garnish and condiments. Ate in silence.
Brennan spoke when only lettuce remained on her plate. “Rye set the whole thing up.”
“Two birds with one stone,” Reacher agreed. “Eliminate Yeow, who was going to back your suicide finding, thereby killing his story. Hype attention for his documentary.”
“Rye wanted it to hit big, like Making a Murderer. Or Serial.”
Reacher just looked at her.
“A TV documentary and a podcast.”
Reacher said nothing.
“Everyone in America watched. Or listened.”
“I’m on the move a lot.”
“You headed south now?” Brennan changed the subject.
“I was.”
“Good time of year for that.”
“I often sleep outside.”
“You sleeping outside tonight?” Brennan took another sip of her IPA.
“It’s Luong’s dime, so I’m staying one more night at the Marriott.”
“As am I.” Brennan studied Reacher over the rim of her mug.
“Shall we go there?” Reacher studied her back.
Brennan ingested another milliliter of beer. A long moment passed before she answered.
“Uber?”
Reacher nodded.
And they did.
DIANA GABALDON AND STEVE BERRY
DIANA GABALDON IS A FORMER scientist with four degrees, including a PhD in behavioral ecology. In the 1980s she had a story churning in the back of her head. A tale about a mid-18th century Scotsman and a feisty Englishwoman. To really liven things up, she decided to add the element of time travel. The end result became the novel Outlander, which went on to be a massive bestseller with twenty-seven million copies in print across the globe. To date, there have been seven more installments in the adventures of James Fraser and Claire Randall. Now there’s even a television series that has brought the characters to life for a whole new audience.
Diana’s world thrives in the past, which made her the perfect partner for Steve Berry, who writes modern-day thrillers that rely heavily on something unique from the past. Steve’s character, Cotton Malone, has starred in twelve novels. He’s a retired Justice Department agent, living in Copenhagen, who runs an old bookshop. And much to his chagrin, his former profession keeps finding him.
As with Sandra Brown, Steve is also short story challenged. He can write them, but they take great effort. Likewise, as with C. J. Box, Diana is proficient. So, together she and Steve plotted the story, then Diana produced a first draft. Steve then edited and rewrote. Interestingly, this is the only story written for this anthology in the first person.
And present tense, no less.
But these two intrepid writers faced a complicated dilemma. How do they seamlessly meld the 18th-century world of Diana Gabaldon (including time travel), with Steve’s modern-day hero Cotton Malone?
Their solution is masterful.
Fans of both writers are going to love— Past Prologue.