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waited until she nodded silently. Then the driver with the shotgun took up position behind them and the leader unlocked their cuff and freed their wrists. He looped one of the chains around the stall railing and locked the ends into the spare half of the cuff dangling from Reacher’s left arm. Pulled it and rattled it to check it was secure. Then he dragged Holly two stalls away and used the new cuffs and the second length of chain to lock her to the railing, twenty feet from Reacher. Her knee gave way and she fell heavily with a gasp of pain onto the dirty straw. The leader ignored her. Just walked back to where Reacher was chained up. Stood right in front of him.
    “So who the hell are you, asshole?” he said.
    Reacher didn’t reply. He knew the keys to both cuffs were in this guy’s pocket. He knew it would take him about a second and a half to snap his neck with the loop of chain hanging off his wrist. But the other two guys were out of reach. One Glock, one shotgun, too far away to grab before he’d unlocked himself, too near to get a chance to do that. He was dealing with a reasonably efficient set of opponents. So he just shrugged and looked at the straw at his feet. It was clogged with dung.
    “I asked you a damn question,” the guy said.
    Reacher looked at him. In the corner of his eye, he saw the jumpy guy ratchet his Glock upward a degree or two.
    “I asked you a question, asshole,” the leader said again, quietly.
    The jumpy guy’s Glock was jutting forward. Then it was straight out, shoulder-high. Aimed right at Reacher’s head. The muzzle was trembling through a small jerky circle, but probably not trembling enough to make the guy miss. Not from that sort of a close distance. Reacher looked from one guy to the other. The guy with the shotgun tore his attention away from Holly’s breasts. He raised the weapon to his hip. Pointed it in Reacher’s direction. It was an Ithaca 37. Twelve-bore. The five-shot version with the pistol grip and no shoulder stock. The guy racked a round into the chamber. The crunch-crunch of the mechanism was loud in the barn. It echoed off the metal walls. Died into silence. Reacher saw the trigger move through the first eighth-inch of its short travel.
    “Name?” the leader asked.
    The shotgun trigger tightened another eighth. If it fired on that trajectory, Reacher was going to lose both his legs and most of his stomach.
    “Name?” the leader asked for the second time.
    It was a twelve-bore, wouldn’t kill him outright, but he’d bleed to death in the dirty straw. Femoral artery gone, about a minute, maybe a minute and a half. In those circumstances, no real reason to make a big deal out of giving this guy a name.
    “Jack Reacher,” he said.
    The leader nodded in satisfaction, like he’d achieved a victory.
    “You know this bitch?” he asked.
    Reacher glanced across at Holly.
    “Better than I know some people,” he said. “I just spent six hours handcuffed to her.”
    “You some kind of a wise guy, asshole?” the leader asked.
    Reacher shook his head.
    “Innocent passerby,” he said. “I never saw her before.”
    “You with the Bureau?” the guy asked.
    Reacher shook his head again.
    “I’m a doorman,” he said. “Club back in Chicago.”
    “You sure, asshole?” the guy said.
    Reacher nodded.
    “I’m sure,” he said. “I’m a wise enough guy that I can recall what I do for a living, one day to the next.”
    There was silence for a long moment. Tension. Then the jumpy guy with the Glock came out of his shooting stance. The driver with the shotgun swung his weapon down toward the straw on the floor. He turned his head and went back to staring at Holly’s breasts. The leader nodded at Reacher.
    “OK, asshole,” he said. “You behave yourself, you stay alive for now. Same for the bitch. Nothing’s going to happen to anybody. Not just yet.”
    The three men regrouped in the center aisle and walked out of the barn. Before they locked the door,