Die Trying Read online

  Reacher thrust his cuffed hands forward and lifted himself awkwardly out of the chair. Walked over to the map of Montana on the wall. He found Yorke in the top left-hand corner. Well inside the small black outline. He checked the scale and looked at the contour shading and the colors. The river Joseph Ray had talked about lay thirty miles to the west, on the other side of high mountains. It was a thick blue slash running down the map. There were enormous brown heights shown to the north, all the way up to Canada. The only road ran north through Yorke and terminated at some abandoned mine workings. A few haphazard tracks ran through solid forest to the east. To the south, contour lines merged together to show a tremendous east-west ravine.

  “Look at that terrain, Reacher,” Borken said quietly. “What does it tell you?”

  Reacher looked at it. It told him he couldn’t get out. Not on foot, not with Holly. There were weeks of rough walking east and north. Natural barriers west and south. The terrain made a better prison than wire fences or mine-fields could have. He had once been in Siberia, after glasnost, following up on ancient stories about Korean MIAs. The gulags had been completely open. No wire, no barriers. He had asked his hosts: but where are the fences? The Russians had pointed out over the miles of snow and said: there are the fences. Nowhere to run. He looked up at the map again. The terrain was the barrier. To get out was going to require a vehicle. And a lot of luck.

  “They can’t get in,” Borken said. “We’re impregnable. We can’t be stopped. And we mustn’t be stopped. That would be a disaster of truly historic proportions. Suppose the redcoats had stopped the American Revolution in 1776?”

  Reacher glanced around the tiny wooden room and shuddered.

  “This isn’t the American Revolution,” he said.

  “Isn’t it?” Borken asked. “How is it different? They wanted freedom from a tyrannical government. So do we.”

  “You’re murderers,” Reacher said.

  “So they were in 1776,” Borken said. “They killed people. The established system called that murder, too.”

  “You’re racists,” Reacher said.

  “Same in 1776,” Borken said. “Jefferson and his slaves? They knew black people were inferior. Back then, they were exactly the same as we are now. But then they became the new redcoats. Slowly, over the years. It’s fallen to us to get back to how it should have stayed. Live free or die, Reacher. It’s a noble aim. Always has been, don’t you think?”

  He was leaning forward with his great bulk pressing tight against the desk. His hands were in the air. His colorless eyes were shining.

  “But there were mistakes made in 1776,” he said. “I’ve studied the history. War could have been avoided if both sides had acted sensibly. And war should always be avoided, don’t you think?”

  Reacher shrugged.

  “Not necessarily,” he said.

  “Well, you’re going to help us avoid it,” Borken said. “That’s my decision. You’re going to be my emissary.”

  “Your what?” Reacher said.

  “You’re independent,” Borken said. “Not one of us. No ax to grind. An American like them, an upstanding citizen, no felony convictions. A clever, perceptive man. You notice things. They’ll listen to you.”

  “What?” Reacher said again.

  “We’re organized here,” Borken said. “We’re ready for nationhood. You need to understand that. We have an army, we have a treasury, we have financial reserves, we have a legal system, we have democracy. I’m going to show all that to you today. I’m going to show you a society ready for independence, ready to live free or die, and just a day away from doing so. Then I’m going to send you south to America. You’re going to tell them our position is strong and their position is hopeless.”

  Reacher just stared at him.

  “And you can tell them about Holly,” Borken said quietly. “In her special little room. You can tell them about my secret weapon. My insurance policy.”

  “You’re crazy,” Reacher said.

  The hut went silent. Quieter than silent.

  “Why?” Borken whispered. “Why am I crazy? Exactly?”

  “You’re not thinking straight,” Reacher said. “Don’t you realize that Holly counts for nothing? The President will replace Johnson faster than you can blink an eye. They’ll crush you like a bug and Holly will be just another casualty. You should send her back out with me.”

  Borken was shaking his bloated head, happily, confidently.

  “No,” he said. “That won’t happen. There’s more to Holly than who her father is. Hasn’t she told you that?”

  Reacher stared at him and Borken checked his watch.

  “Time to go,” he said. “Time for you to see our legal system at work.”

  HOLLY HEARD THE quiet footsteps outside her door and eased off the bed. The lock clicked back and the young soldier with the scarred forehead stepped up into the room. He had his finger to his lips and Holly nodded. She limped to the bathroom and set the shower running noisily into the empty tub. The young soldier followed her in and closed the door.

  “We can only do this once a day,” Holly whispered. “They’ll get suspicious if they hear the shower too often.”

  The young guy nodded.

  “We’ll get out tonight,” he said. “Can’t do it this morning. We’re all on duty at Loder’s trial. I’ll come by just after dusk, with a jeep. We’ll make a run for it in the dark. Head south. Risky, but we’ll make it.”

  “Not without Reacher,” Holly said.

  The young guy shook his head.

  “Can’t promise that,” he said. “He’s in with Borken now. God knows what’s going to happen to him.”

  “I go, he goes,” Holly said.

  The young guy looked at her nervously.

  “OK,” he said, “I’ll try.”

  He opened the bathroom door and crept out. Holly watched him go and turned the shower off. Stared after him.

  HE LOOPED NORTH and west and took a long route back through the woods, same way as he had come. The sentry Fowler had hidden in the trees fifteen feet off the main path never saw him. But the one he had hidden in the back-woods did. He caught a glimpse of a camouflage uniform hustling through the undergrowth. Spun around fast, but was too late to make the face. He shrugged and thought hard. Figured he’d keep it to himself. Better to ignore it than report he’d failed to make the actual ID.

  So the young man with the scar hurried all the way and was back in his hut two minutes before he was due to escort his commander down to the tribunal hearing.

  IN THE DAYLIGHT, the courthouse on the southeast corner of the abandoned town of Yorke looked pretty much the same as a hundred others Reacher had seen all over rural America. Built early in the century. Big, white, pillared, ornate. Enough square solidity to communicate its serious purpose, but enough lightness in its details to make it a handsome structure. He saw a fine cupola floating off the top of the building, with a fine clock in it, probably paid for by a public subscription held long ago among a long-forgotten generation. More or less the same as a hundred others, but the roof was steeper-pitched than some, and heavier built. He guessed it had to be that way in the north of Montana. That roof could be carrying a hundred tons of snow all winter long.

  But this was the third morning of July, and there was no snow on the roof. Reacher was warm after walking a mile in the pale northern sun. Borken had gone ahead separately and Reacher had been marched down through the forest by the same six elite guards. Still in handcuffs. They marched him straight up the front steps and inside. The first-floor interior was one large space, interrupted by pillars holding up the second floor, paneled in broad smooth planks sawed from huge pines. The wood was dark from age and polish, and the panels were stern and simple in their design.

  Every seat was taken. Every bench was full. The room was a sea of camouflage green. Men and women. Sitting rigidly upright, rifles exactly vertical between their knees. Waiting expectantly. Some children, silent and confused
. Reacher was led in front of the crowd, over to a table in the well of the court. Fowler was waiting there. Stevie next to him. He nodded to a chair. Reacher sat. The guards stood behind him. A minute later, the double doors opened and Beau Borken walked over to the judge’s bench. The old floor creaked beneath his bulk. Every person in the room except Reacher stood up. Stood to attention and saluted, as if they were hearing an inaudible cue. Borken was still in his black uniform, with belt and boots. He had added a large holster to hold his Sig-Sauer. He held a slim leatherbound book. He came in with six armed men in a loose formation. They took up station in front of the bench and stood at rigid attention, gazing forward, looking blank.

  The people sat down again. Reacher glanced up at the ceiling and quartered it with his eyes. Worked out which was the southeast corner. The doors opened again and the crowd drew breath. Loder was pushed into the room. He was surrounded by six guards. They pushed him to the table opposite Fowler’s. The accused’s table. The guards stood behind him and forced him into the chair with their hands on both his shoulders. His face was white with fear and crusted with blood. His nose was broken and his lips were split. Borken stared across at him. Sat down heavily in the judge’s chair and placed his big hands, palms down, on the bench. Looked around the quiet room and spoke.

  “We all know why we’re here,” he said.

  HOLLY COULD SENSE there was a big crowd in the room below her. She could feel the faint rumble of a body of people holding themselves still and quiet. But she didn’t stop working. No reason to believe her Bureau contact would fail, but she was still going to spend the day preparing. Just in case.

  Her search for a tool had led her to the one she had brought in with her. Her metal crutch. It was a one-inch aluminum tube, with an elbow clip and a handle. The tube was too wide and the metal was too soft to act as a pry bar. But she realized that maybe if she pulled the rubber foot off, the open end of the tube could be molded into a makeshift wrench. She could maybe crush the tube around the shape of the bolts holding the bed together. Then she could bend the tube at a right angle, and maybe use the whole thing like a flimsy tire iron.

  But first she had to scrape away the thick paint on the bolts. It was smooth and slick, and it welded the bolts to the frame. She used the edge of the elbow clip to flake the top layers. Then she scraped at the seams until she saw bright metal. Now her idea was to limp back and forth from the bathroom with a towel soaked in hot water. She would press the towel hard on the bolts and let the heat from the water expand the metal and crack its grip. Then the soft aluminum of the crutch might just prove strong enough to do the job.

  “RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT OF the mission,” Beau Borken said.

  His voice was low and hypnotic. The room was quiet. The guards in front of the judge’s bench stared forward. The guard at the end was staring at Reacher. He was the younger guy with the trimmed beard and the scar on his forehead Reacher had seen guarding Loder the previous night. He was staring at Reacher with curiosity.

  Borken held up the slim leatherbound volume and swung it slowly, left to right, like it was a searchlight and he wanted to bathe the whole of the room with its bright beam.

  “The Constitution of the United States,” he said. “Sadly abused, but the greatest political tract ever devised by man. The model for our own constitution.”

  He turned the pages of the book. The rustle of stiff paper was loud in the quiet room. He started reading.

  “The Bill of Rights,” he said. “The Fifth Amendment specifies no person shall be held to answer for a capital crime without a grand jury indictment except in cases arising in the militia in times of public danger. It says no person shall be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law. The Sixth Amendment specifies the accused shall have the right to a speedy public trial in front of a local jury. It says the accused has the right to assistance of counsel.”

  Borken stopped again. Looked around the room. Held up the book.

  “This book tells us what to do,” he said. “So we need a jury. Doesn’t say how many. I figure three men will do. Volunteers?”

  There was a flurry of hands. Borken pointed randomly here and there and three men walked across the pine floor. They stacked their rifles and filed into the jury box. Borken turned in his seat and spoke to them.

  “Gentlemen,” he said. “This is a militia matter and this is a time of public danger. Are we agreed on that?”

  The new jurymen all nodded and Borken turned and looked down from the bench toward Loder, alone at his table.

  “You had counsel?” he said.

  “You offering me a lawyer now?” Loder asked.

  His voice was thick and nasal. Borken shook his head.

  “There are no lawyers here,” he said. “Lawyers are what went wrong with the rest of America. We’re not going to have lawyers here. We don’t want them. The Bill of Rights doesn’t say anything about lawyers. It says counsel. Counsel means advice. That’s what my dictionary says. You had advice? You want any?”

  “You got any?” Loder said.

  Borken nodded and smiled a cold smile.

  “Plead guilty,” he said.

  Loder just shook his head and dropped his eyes.

  “OK,” Borken said. “You’ve had counsel, but you’re pleading not guilty?”

  Loder nodded. Borken looked down at his book again. Turned back to the beginning.

  “The Declaration of Independence,” he said. “It is the right of the people to alter or to abolish the old government and to institute new government in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

  He stopped and scanned the crowd.

  “You all understand what that means?” he said. “The old laws are gone. Now we have new laws. New ways of doing things. We’re putting right two hundred years of mistakes. We’re going back to where we should have been all along. This is the first trial under a brand-new system. A better system. A system with a far stronger claim to legitimacy. We have the right to do it, and what we are doing is right.”

  There was a slight murmur from the crowd. Reacher detected no disapproval in the sound. They were all hypnotized. Basking in Borken’s bright glow like reptiles in a hot noontime sun. Borken nodded to Fowler. Fowler stood up next to Reacher and turned to the jury box.

  “The facts are these,” Fowler said. “The commander sent Loder out on a mission of great importance to all our futures. Loder performed badly. He was gone for just five days, but he made five serious mistakes. Mistakes which could have wrecked the whole venture. Specifically, he left a trail by burning two vehicles. Then he mistimed two operations and thereby snarled up two civilians. And finally he allowed Peter Bell to desert. Five serious mistakes.”

  Fowler stood there. Reacher stared at him, urgently. “I’m calling a witness,” Fowler said. “Stevie Stewart.” Little Stevie stood up fast and Fowler nodded him across to the old witness box, alongside and below the judge’s bench. Borken leaned down and handed him a black book. Reacher couldn’t see what book it was, but it wasn’t a Bible. Not unless they had started making Bibles with swastikas on the cover.

  “You swear to tell the truth here?” Borken asked.

  Stevie nodded.

  “I do, sir,” he said.

  He put the book down and turned to Fowler, ready for the first question.

  “The five mistakes I mentioned?” Fowler said. “You see Loder make them?”

  Stevie nodded again.

  “He made them,” he said.

  “He take responsibility for them?” Fowler asked.

  “Sure did,” Stevie said. “He played the big boss the whole time we were away.”

  Fowler nodded Stevie back to the table. The courtroom was silent. Borken smiled knowingly at the jurymen and glanced down at Loder.

  “Anything to say in your defense?” he asked quietly.

  The way he said it, he made it seem absurd that anybody could possibly dream up any kind of defense to t
hose kinds of charges. The courtroom stayed silent. Still. Borken was watching the crowd. Every pair of eyes was locked onto the back of Loder’s head.

  “Anything to say?” Borken asked him again.

  Loder stared forward. Made no reply. Borken turned toward the jury box and looked at the three men sitting on the old worn benches. Looked a question at them. The three men huddled for a second and whispered. Then the guy on the left stood up.

  “Guilty, sir,” he said. “Definitely guilty.”

  Borken nodded in satisfaction.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said.

  The crowd set up a buzz. He turned to quell it with a look.

  “I am required to pass sentence,” he said. “As many of you know, Loder is an old acquaintance of mine. We go back a long way. We were childhood friends. And friendship means a great deal to me.”

  He paused and looked down at Loder.

  “But other things mean more,” he said. “Performance of my duties means more. My responsibility to this emerging nation means more. Sometimes, statesmanship must be put above every other value a man holds dear.”

  The crowd was silent. Holding its breath. Borken sat for a long moment. Then he glanced over Loder’s head at the guards behind him and made a small, delicate motion with his head. The guards grabbed Loder’s elbows and hauled him to his feet. They formed up and hustled him out of the room. Borken stood and looked at the crowd. Then he turned and walked to the doors and was gone. The people in the public benches shuffled to their feet and hurried out after him.

  Reacher saw the guards walking Loder to a flagpole on the patch of lawn outside the courthouse. Borken was striding after them. The guards reached the flagpole and shoved Loder hard up against it, facing it. They held his wrists and pulled, so he was pressed up against the pole, hugging it, face tight against the dull white paint. Borken came up behind him. Pulled the Sig-Sauer from its holster. Clicked the safety catch. Cocked a round into the chamber. Jammed the muzzle into the back of Loder’s neck and fired. There was an explosion of pink blood and the roar of the shot cannoned back off the mountains.