Die Trying Page 22

  26

  “HIS NAME IS Jack Reacher,” Webster said.

  “Good call, General,” McGrath said. “I guess they remembered him.”

  Johnson nodded.

  “Military police keeps good records,” he said.

  They were still in the commandeered crew room inside Peterson Air Force Base. Ten o’clock in the morning, Thursday July third. The fax machine was rolling out a long reply to their inquiry. The face in the photograph had been identified immediately. The subject’s service record had been pulled straight off the Pentagon computer and faxed along with the name.

  “You recall this guy now?” Brogan asked.

  “Reacher?” Johnson repeated vaguely. “I don’t know. What did he do?”

  Webster and the General’s aide were crowding the machine, reading the report as the paper spooled out. They twisted it right side up and walked slowly away to keep it up off the floor.

  “What did he do?” McGrath asked them urgently.

  “Nothing,” Webster said.

  “Nothing?” McGrath repeated. “Why would they have a record on him if he didn’t do anything?”

  “He was one of them,” Webster said. “Major Jack Reacher, military police.”

  The aide was racing through the length of paper.

  “Silver Star,” he said. “Two Bronzes, Purple Heart. This is a hell of a record, sir. This guy was a hero, for God’s sake.”

  McGrath opened up his envelope and pulled out the original video pictures of the kidnap, black-and-white, un-enlarged, grainy. He selected the first picture of Reacher’s involvement. The one catching him in the act of seizing Holly’s crutch and pulling the dry cleaning from her grasp. He slid the photograph across the table.

  “Big hero,” he said.

  Johnson bent to study the picture. McGrath slid over the next. The one showing Reacher gripping Holly’s arm, keeping her inside the tight crush of attackers. Johnson picked it up and stared at it. McGrath wasn’t sure whether he was staring at Reacher, or at his daughter.

  “He’s thirty-seven,” the General’s aide read aloud. “Mustered out fourteen months ago. West Point, thirteen years’ service, big heroics in Beirut right at the start. Sir, you pinned a Bronze on him, ten years ago. This is an absolutely outstanding record throughout. He’s the only non-Marine in history to win the Wimbledon.”

  Webster looked up.

  “Tennis?” he said.

  The aide smiled briefly.

  “Not Wimbledon,” he said. “The Wimbledon. Marine Sniper School runs a competition, the Wimbledon Cup. For snipers. Open to anybody, but a Marine always wins it, except one year Reacher won it.”

  “So why didn’t he serve as a sniper?” McGrath asked.

  The aide shrugged.

  “Beats me,” he said. “Lots of puzzles in this record. Like why did he leave the service at all? Guy like this should have made it all the way to the top.”

  Johnson had a picture in each hand and he was staring closely at them.

  “So why did he leave?” Brogan asked. “Any trouble?”

  The aide shook his head. Scanned the paper.

  “Nothing in the record,” he said. “No reason given. We were shedding numbers at the time, but the idea was to cull the no-hopers. A guy like this shouldn’t have been shaken out.”

  Johnson switched the photographs into the opposite hands, like he was looking for a fresh perspective.

  “Anybody know him real well?” Milosevic asked. “Anybody we can talk to?”

  “We can dig up his old commander, I guess,” the aide said. “Might take us a day to get hold of him.”

  “Do it,” Webster said. “We need information. Anything at all will help.”

  Johnson put the photographs down and slid them back to McGrath.

  “He must have turned bad,” he said. “Sometimes happens. Good men can turn bad. I’ve seen it myself, time to time. It can be a hell of a problem.”

  McGrath reversed the photographs on the shiny table and stared at them.

  “You’re not kidding,” he said.

  Johnson looked back at him.

  “Can I keep that picture?” he said. “The first one?”

  McGrath shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “You want a picture, I’ll take one myself. You and your daughter standing together in front of a headstone, this asshole’s name on it.”

  27

  FOUR MEN WERE dragging Loder’s body away and the crowd was dispersing quietly. Reacher was left standing on the courthouse steps with his six guards and Fowler. Fowler had finally unlocked the handcuffs. Reacher was rolling his shoulders and stretching. He had been cuffed all night and all morning and he was stiff and sore. His wrists were marked with red weals where the hard metal had bitten down.

  “Cigarette?” Fowler asked.

  He was holding his pack out. A friendly gesture. Reacher shook his head.

  “I want to see Holly,” he said.

  Fowler was about to refuse, but then he thought some more and nodded.

  “OK,” he said. “Good idea. Take her out for some exercise. Talk to her. Ask her how we’re treating her. That’s something you’re sure to be asked later. It’ll be very important to them. We don’t want you giving them any false impressions.”

  Reacher waited at the bottom of the steps. The sun had gone pale and watery. Wisps of mist were gathering in the north. But some of the sky was still blue and clear. After five minutes, Fowler brought Holly down. She was walking slowly, with a little staccato rhythm as her good leg alternated with the thump of her crutch. She walked through the door and stood at the top of the steps.

  “Question for you, Reacher,” Fowler called down. “How far can you run in a half hour with a hundred and twenty pounds on your back?”

  Reacher shrugged.

  “Not far enough, I guess,” he said.

  Fowler nodded.

  “Right,” he said. “Not far enough. If she’s not standing right here in thirty minutes, we’ll come looking for you. We’ll give it a two-mile radius.”

  Reacher thought about it and nodded. A half hour with a hundred and twenty pounds on his back might get him more than two miles. Two miles was probably pessimistic. But he thought back to the map on Borken’s wall. Thought about the savage terrain. Where the hell would he run? He made a show of checking his watch. Fowler walked away, up behind the ruined office building. The guards slung their weapons over their shoulders and stood easy. Holly smoothed her hair back. Stood face up to the pale sun.

  “Can you walk for a while?” Reacher asked her.

  “Slowly,” she said.

  She set off north along the middle of the deserted street. Reacher strolled beside her. They waited until they were out of sight. They glanced at each other. Then they turned and flung themselves together. Her crutch toppled to the ground and he lifted her a foot in the air. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck.

  “I’m going crazy in there,” she said.

  “I’ve got bad news,” he said.

  “What?” she said.

  “They had a helper in Chicago,” he said.

  She stared up at him.

  “They were only gone five days,” he said. “That’s what Fowler said at the trial. He said Loder had been gone just five days.”

  “So?” she said.

  “So they didn’t have time for surveillance,” he said. “They hadn’t been watching you. Somebody told them where you were going to be, and when. They had help, Holly.”

  The color in her face drained away. It was replaced by shock.

  “Five days?” she said. “You sure?”

  Reacher nodded. Holly went quiet. She was thinking hard.

  “So who knew?” he asked her. “Who knew where you’d be, twelve o’clock Monday? A roommate? A friend?”

  Her eyes were darting left and right. She was racing through the possibilities.

  “Nobody knew,” she said.

  “Wer
e you ever tailed?” he asked.

  She shrugged helplessly. Reacher could see she desperately wanted to say yes, I was tailed. Because he knew to say no was too awful for her to contemplate.

  “Were you?” he asked again.

  “No,” she said quietly. “By a bozo like one of these? Forget it. I’d have spotted them. And they’d have had to hang around all day outside the Federal Building, just waiting. We’d have picked them up in a heartbeat.”

  “So?” he asked.

  “My lunch break was flexible,” she said. “It varied, sometimes by a couple of hours either way. It was never regular.”

  “So?” he asked again.

  She stared at him.

  “So it was inside help,” she said. “Inside the Bureau. Had to be. Think about it, no other possibility. Somebody in the office saw me leave and dropped a dime.”

  He said nothing. Just watched the dismay on her face. “A mole inside Chicago,” she said. A statement, not a question. “Inside the Bureau. No other possibility. Shit, I don’t believe it.”

  Then she smiled. A brief, bitter smile.

  “And we’ve got a mole inside here,” she said. “Ironic, right? He identified himself to me. Young guy, big scar on his forehead. He’s undercover for the Bureau. He says we’ve got people in a lot of these groups. Deep undercover, in case of emergency. He called it in when they put the dynamite in my walls.”

  He stared back at her.

  “You know about the dynamite?” he said.

  She grimaced and nodded.

  “No wonder you’re going crazy in there,” he said.

  Then he stared at her in a new panic.

  “Who does this undercover guy call in to?” he asked urgently.

  “Our office in Butte,” Holly said. “It’s just a satellite office. One resident agent. He communicates by radio. He’s got a transmitter hidden out in the woods. But he’s not using it now. He says they’re scanning the frequencies.”

  He shuddered.

  “So how long before the Chicago mole blows his cover?” he said.

  Holly went paler.

  “Soon, I guess,” she said. “Soon as somebody figures we were headed out in this direction. Chicago will be dialing up the computers and trawling for any reports coming out of Montana. His stuff will be top of the damn pile. Christ, Reacher, you’ve got to get to him first. You’ve got to warn him. His name is Jackson.”

  They turned back. Started hurrying south through the ghost town.

  “He says he can break me out,” Holly said. “Tonight, by jeep.”

  Reacher nodded grimly.

  “Go with him,” he said.

  “Not without you,” she said.

  “They’re sending me anyway,” he said. “I’m supposed to be an emissary. I’m supposed to tell your people it’s hopeless.”

  “Are you going to go?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Not if I can help it,” he said. “Not without you.”

  “You should go,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  He shook his head again.

  “I am worrying about you,” he said.

  “Just go,” she said. “Forget me and get out.”

  He shrugged. Said nothing.

  “Get out if you get the chance, Reacher,” she said. “I mean it.”

  She looked like she meant it. She was glaring at him.

  “Only if you’re gone first,” he said finally. “I’m sticking around until you’re out of here. I’m definitely not leaving you with these maniacs.”

  “But you can’t stick around,” she said. “If I’m gone, they’ll go apeshit. It’ll change everything.”

  He looked at her. Heard Borken say: she’s more than his daughter.

  “Why, Holly?” he said. “Why will it change everything? Who the hell are you?”

  She didn’t answer. Glanced away. Fowler strolled into view, coming north, smoking. He walked up to them. Stopped right in front of them. Pulled his pack.

  “Cigarette?” he asked.

  Holly looked at the ground. Reacher shook his head.

  “She tell you?” Fowler asked. “All the comforts of home?”

  The guards were standing to attention. They were in a sort of honor guard on the courthouse steps. Fowler walked Holly to them. A guard took her inside. At the door, she glanced back at Reacher. He nodded to her. Tried to make it say: see you later, OK? Then she was gone.

  “NOW FOR THE grand tour,” Fowler said. “You stick close to me. Beau’s orders. But you can ask any questions you want, OK?”

  Reacher glanced vaguely at him and nodded. Glanced at the six guards behind him. He walked down the steps and paused. Looked over at the flagpole. It was set dead center in the remains of a fine square of lawn in front of the building. He walked across to it and stood in Loder’s blood and looked around.

  The town of Yorke was pretty much dead. Looked like it had died some time ago. And it looked like it had never been much of a place to begin with. The road came through north to south, and there had been four developed blocks flanking it, two on the east side and two on the west. The courthouse took up the whole of the southeastern block and it faced what might have been some kind of a county office on the southwestern block. The western side of the street was higher. The ground sloped way up. The foundation of the county office building was about level with the second floor of the courthouse. It had started out the same type of structure, but it had fallen into ruin, maybe thirty years before. The paint was peeled and the siding showed through iron-gray. There was no glass in any window. The sloping knoll surrounding it had returned to mountain scrub. There had been an ornamental tree dead center. It had died a long time ago, and it was now just a stump, maybe seven feet high, like an execution post.

  The northern blocks were rows of faded, boarded-up stores. There had once been tall ornate frontages concealing simple square buildings, but the decay of the years had left the frontages the same dull brown as the boxy wooden structures behind. The signs above the doors had faded to nothing. There were no people on the sidewalks. No vehicle noise, no activity, no nothing. The place was a ghost. It looked like an abandoned cowboy town from the Old West.

  “This was a mining town,” Fowler said. “Lead, mostly, but some copper, and a couple of seams of good silver for a while. There was a lot of money made here, that’s for damn sure.”

  “So what happened?” Reacher asked.

  Fowler shrugged.

  “What happens to any mining place?” he said. “It gets worked out, is what. Fifty years ago, people were registering claims in that old county office like there was no tomorrow, and they were disputing them in that old courthouse, and there were saloons and banks and stores up and down the street. Then they started coming up with dirt instead of metal, and they moved on, and this is what got left behind.”

  Fowler was looking around at the dismal view and Reacher was following his gaze. Then he transferred his eyes upward a couple of degrees and took in the giant mountains rearing on the horizon. They were massive and indifferent, still streaked with snow on the third of July. Mist hung in the passes and floated through the dense conifers. Fowler moved and Reacher followed him up a track launching steeply northwest behind the ruined county office. The guards followed in single file behind. He realized this was the track he’d stumbled along twice in the dark the night before. After a hundred yards, they were in the trees. The track wound uphill through the forest. Progress was easier in the filtered green daylight. After a mile of walking they had made maybe a half mile of straight-line progress and they came out in the clearing the white truck had driven into the previous night. There was a small sentry squad, armed and immaculate, standing at attention in the center of the space. But there was no sign of the white truck. It had been driven away.

  “We call this the Bastion,” Fowler said. “These were the very first acres we bought.”

  In the clear daylight, the place looked different. The
Bastion was a big tidy clearing in the brush, nestled in a mountain bowl three hundred feet above the town itself. There was no man-made perimeter. The perimeter had been supplied a million years ago by the great glaciers grinding down from the Pole. The north and west sides were mountainous, rearing straight up to the high peaks. Reacher saw snow again, packed by the wind into the high north-facing gullies. If it was there in July, it had to be there twelve months of the year.

  To the southeast, the town was just visible below them through the gaps in the trees where the track had been carved out. Reacher could see the ruined county building and the white courthouse set below it like models. Directly south, the mountain slopes fell away into the thick forest. Where there were no trees, there were savage ravines. Reacher gazed at them, quietly. Fowler pointed.

  “Hundred feet deep, some of those,” he said. “Full of elk and bighorn sheep. And we got black bears roaming. A few of the folk have seen mountain lions on the prowl. You can hear them in the night, when it gets real quiet.”

  Reacher nodded and listened to the stunning silence. Tried to figure out how much quieter the nights could be. Fowler turned and pointed here and there.

  “This is what we built,” he said. “So far.”

  Reacher nodded again. The clearing held ten buildings. They were all large utilitarian wooden structures, built from plywood sheet and cedar, resting on solid concrete piles. There was an electricity supply into each building from a loop of heavy cable running between them.

  “Power comes up from the town,” Fowler said. “A mile of cable. Running water, too, piped down from a pure mountain lake through plastic tubing, installed by militia labor.”

  Reacher saw the hut he’d been locked into most of the night. It was smaller than the others.

  “Administration hut,” Fowler said.

  One of the huts had a whip antenna on the roof, maybe sixty feet high. Shortwave radio. And Reacher could see a thinner cable, strapped to the heavy power line. It snaked into the same hut, and didn’t come out again.

  “You guys are on the phone?” he asked. “Unlisted, right?”