Lee Child - Worth Dying For

Lee Child

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Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781407083131

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First published in Great Britain
in 2010 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright Lee Child 2010

Lee Child has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBNs 9780593065662 (cased) 9780593065679 (tpb)

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Typeset in 11/14pt Century Old Style by Kestrel Data, Exeter, Devon. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk.

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

For Ruth
my daughter

Also by Lee Child

KILLING FLOOR
DIE TRYING
TRIPWIRE
THE VISITOR
ECHO BURNING
WITHOUT FAIL
PERSUADER
THE ENEMY
ONE SHOT
THE HARD WAY
BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE
NOTHING TO LOSE
GONE TOMORROW
61 HOURS

For more information on Lee Child and his books,
see his website at www.jackreacher.co.uk

E LDRIDGE T YLER WAS DRIVING A LONG STRAIGHT TWO - LANE ROAD in Nebraska when his cell phone rang. It was very late in the afternoon. He was taking his granddaughter home after buying her shoes. His truck was a crew-cab Silverado the colour of a day-old newspaper, and the kid was flat on her back on the small rear seat. She was not asleep. She was lying there wide awake with her legs held up. She was staring fascinated at the huge white sneakers wobbling around in the air two feet above her face. She was making strange sounds with her mouth. She was eight years old. Tyler figured she was a late developer.

Tylers phone was basic enough to be nothing fancy, but complex enough to have different ringtones against different numbers. Most played the manufacturers default tune, but four were set to sound a low urgent note halfway between a fire truck siren and a submarines dive klaxon. And that sound was what Tyler heard, in the late afternoon, on the long straight two-lane road in Nebraska, ten miles south of the outlet store and twenty miles north of home. So he fumbled the phone up from the console and hit the button and raised it to his ear and said, Yes?

A voice said, We might need you.

Tyler said, Me?

Well, you and your rifle. Like before.

Tyler said, Might?

At this stage its only a precaution.

Whats going on?

Theres a guy sniffing around.

Close?

Hard to say.

How much does he know?

Some of it. Not all of it yet.

Who is he?

Nobody. A stranger. Just a guy. But he got involved. We think he was in the service. We think he was a military cop. Maybe he didnt lose the cop habit.

How long ago was he in the service?

Ancient history.

Connections?

None at all, that we can see. He wont be missed. Hes a drifter. Like a hobo. He blew in like a tumbleweed. Now he needs to blow out again.

Description?

Hes a big guy, the voice said. Six-five at least, probably two-fifty. Last seen wearing a big old brown parka and a wool cap. He moves funny, like hes stiff. Like hes hurting.

OK, Tyler said. So where and when?

We want you to watch the barn, the voice said. All day tomorrow. We cant let him see the barn. Not now. If we dont get him tonight, hes going to figure it out eventually. Hes going to head over there and take a look.

Hes going to walk right into it, just like that?

He thinks there are four of us. He doesnt know there are five.

Thats good.

Shoot him if you see him.

I will.

Dont miss.

Do I ever? Tyler said. He clicked off the call and dumped the phone back on the console and drove on, the little girls new shoes waving in his mirror, dead winter fields ahead, dead winter fields behind, darkness to his left, the setting sun to his right.

The barn had been built long ago, when moderate size and wooden construction had been appropriate for Nebraska agriculture. Its function had since been supplanted by huge metal sheds built in distant locations chosen solely on the basis of logistical studies. But the old place had endured, warping slowly, rotting slowly, leaning and weathering. All around it was an apron of ancient blacktop that had been heaved by winter frosts and cracked by summer sun and laced with wiry weeds. The main door was a slider built of great baulks of timber banded together with iron, hung off an iron rail by iron wheels, but the gradual tilt of the building had jammed it solid in its tracks. The only way in was the judas hole, which was a small conventional door inset in the slider, a little left of its centre, a little smaller than man-sized.

Eldridge Tyler was staring at that small door through the scope on his rifle. He had been in position an hour early, well before dawn, a precaution he considered prudent. He was a patient man. And thorough. And meticulous. He had driven his truck off the road and followed winding tractor ruts through the dark, and he had parked in an ancient three-sided shelter designed long ago to keep spring rain off burlap fertilizer sacks. The ground was frozen hard and he had raised no dust and left no sign. He had shut down the big V-8 and stepped back to the shelters entrance and tied a tripwire across it, made of thin electric cable insulated with black plastic, set shin-high to a tall man.

Then he had walked back to his truck, and he had climbed into the load bed, and he had stepped on the roof of the cab, and he had passed his rifle and a canvas tote bag up on to a half-loft built like a shelf under the shelters peaked roof. He had levered himself up after them, and crawled forward, and eased a loose louvre out of the ventilation hole in the lofts gable wall, which would give him a clear view of the barn exactly a hundred and twenty yards north, just as soon as there was light in the sky. No luck involved. He had scouted the location many years before, the first time his four friends had called on him for help, and he had prepared well, driving in the nails for the tripwire, pacing out the distance to the barn, and loosening the louvre. Now he had once again gotten comfortable up on the half-loft, and he had kept as warm as he could, and he had waited for the sun to come up, which it had eventually, pale and wan.