The world narrowed.
His chest fought for oxygen and lost the rhythm. His lungs pulled in the chemical smell whether he wanted them to or not.
The smell filled his lungs, thick and cloying.
The dark came fast.
PART SIX
26
Cold came first.
Not the clean kind. Not air. This was ground-cold, soaked into concrete and steel and salt, the kind that crawled into muscle and stayed there. Joe Reacher surfaced into it slowly, dragged upward through pain and stiffness and the sour aftertaste of chemicals.
He opened his eyes.
Nothing happened.
He blinked harder. Shapes bled in around the edges. Dim, flat light. Flat light. The light hurt. It pressed against his eyeballs like thumbs.
A plow depot. The kind where trucks and plows fill their beds with sand or salt, or both.
He knew it instantly. He could smell it. Salt. Sand. Oil. Old diesel. The air was dry and raw, scraping the back of his throat with every breath. His mouth tasted like copper and chemicals and blood, probably his own.
Mounded piles of aggregate rose like small hills along one wall, their surfaces crusted with ice. Rust-streaked plow blades leaned upright nearby, their edges nicked and scarred fromyears of scraping asphalt. A county truck sat dormant in the corner, its orange paint faded to the color of old rust.
No office. No heat worth mentioning. Just a big metal building meant to shelter machines, not people.
The cold radiated up from the concrete floor, seeping through his jeans, his jacket, working its way into his bones. His breath came out in pale clouds that hung in the still air.
Reacher tested his body without moving.
Wrists bound behind his back. Plastic ties cinched hard enough that his hands had gone numb. He flexed his fingers experimentally. Pins and needles shot up his forearms. Ankles free. Knees bent beneath him. He was sitting on the concrete, back against a steel support post. The post was cold enough to burn through his jacket.
His head throbbed in deep, rhythmic pulses that matched his heartbeat. Each pulse brought a fresh wave of nausea. His ribs hurt when he breathed. He didn’t think they were broken, just badly bruised.
His neck was stiff, the muscles locked up from the impact and the awkward position.
His gun was gone. His wallet was probably gone too, though he couldn't check.
Three men stood in front of him.
They weren't close. They didn't need to be. They'd spaced themselves out in a shallow arc, ten feet away, relaxed but alert.
One by the salt piles, leaning against a shovel handle.
One near the parked plow truck with COUNTY markings half sanded off.
One directly in front of him, centered.
No masks. No hurry.
All three watched him come around with the same detached interest, like mechanics waiting for an engine to turn over.
The man in front stepped forward and crouched. He was in his forties. Thick neck. Weathered face, the kind that came from years of outdoor work in bad weather. He wore insulated work gloves and a dark jacket that didn't quite hide the outline of a pistol under it.
His boots were good quality, and probably not cheap. A worthy investment in this kind of environment.
