Die Trying

“I’m the other way around,” Holly said. “I like to travel overseas.”

Reacher shrugged.

“I’ve seen overseas,” he said. “Six continents. I’m going to stay here now.”

“I’ve seen the States,” she said. “My dad traveled all the time, but we stayed here, apart from two tours to Germany.”

Reacher nodded. Thought back to the time he’d spent in Germany, man and boy. Many years, in total.

“You picked up on the soccer in Europe?” he asked.

“Right,” Holly said. “Really big deal there. We were stationed one time near Munich, right? I was just a kid, eleven maybe. They gave my father tickets to some big game in Rotterdam, Holland. European Cup, the Bayern Munich team against some English team, Aston Villa, you ever heard of them?”

Reacher nodded.

“From Birmingham, England,” he said. “I was stationed near a place called Oxford at one point. About an hour away.”

“I hated the Germans,” Holly said. “So arrogant, so overpowering. They were so sure they were going to cream these Brits. I didn’t want to go and watch it happen. But I had to, right? NATO protocol sort of a thing, would have been a big scandal if I’d refused. So we went. And the Brits creamed the Germans. The Germans were so furious. I loved it. And the Aston Villa guys were so cute. I was in love with soccer from that night on. Still am.”

Reacher nodded. He enjoyed watching soccer, to an extent. But you had to be exposed early and gradually. It looked very free-form, but it was a very technical game. Full of hidden attractions. But he could see how a young girl could be seduced by it, long ago in Europe. A frantic night under floodlights in Rotterdam. Resentful and unwilling at first, then hypnotized by the patterns made by the white ball on the green turf. Ending up in love with the game afterward. But something was ringing a warning bell. If the eleven-year-old daughter of an American serviceman had refused to go, it would have caused some kind of an embarrassment within NATO? Was that what she had said?

“Who was your father?” he asked her. “Sounds like he must have been an important sort of a guy.”

She turned her head away. Wouldn’t answer. Reacher stared at her. Another warning bell was ringing.

“Holly, who the hell is your father?” he asked urgently.

The defensive tone that had been in her voice spread to her face. No answer.

“Who, Holly?” Reacher asked again.

She looked away from him. Spoke to the metal siding of the truck. Her voice was almost lost in the road noise. Defensive as hell.

“General Johnson,” she said quietly. “At that time, he was C-in-C Europe. Do you know him?”

Reacher stared up at her. General Johnson. Holly Johnson. Father and daughter.

“I’ve met him,” he said. “But that’s not the point, is it?”

She glared at him. Furious.

“Why?” she said. “What exactly is the damn point?”

“That’s the reason,” he said. “Your father is the most important military man in America, right? That’s why you’ve been kidnapped, Holly, for God’s sake. These guys don’t want Holly Johnson, FBI agent. The whole FBI thing is incidental. These guys want General Johnson’s daughter.”

She looked down at him like he had just slapped her hard in the face.

“Why?” she said. “Why the hell does everybody assume everything that ever happens to me is because of who my damn father is?”

16

MCGRATH BROUGHT BROGAN with him and met Milosevic at Meigs Field Airport in Chicago. He brought the four computer-aided mug shots and the test picture of Holly Johnson. He came expecting total cooperation from the airport staff. And he got it. Three hyped-up FBI agents in the grip of fear about a colleague are a difficult proposition to handle with anything other than total cooperation.

Meigs Field was a small commercial operation, right out in the lake, water on three sides, just below the 12th Street beach, trying to make a living in the gigantic shadow of O’Hare. Their record keeping was immaculate and their efficiency was first-class. Not so they could be ready to handle FBI inquiries on the spur of the moment, but so they could keep on operating and keep on getting paid right under the nose of the world’s toughest competitor. But their records and their efficiency helped McGrath. Helped him realize within about thirty seconds that he was heading up a blind alley.

The Meigs Field staff were certain they had never seen Holly Johnson or any of the four kidnappers at any time. Certainly not on Monday, certainly not around one o’clock. They were adamant about it. They weren’t overdoing it. They were just sure about it, with the quiet certainty of people who spend their working days being quietly sure about things, like sending small planes up into the busiest air lanes on the planet.

And there were no suspicious takeoffs from Meigs Field, nowhere between noon and, say, three o’clock. That was clear. The paperwork was explicit on the subject. The three agents were out of there as briskly as they had entered. The tower staff nodded to themselves and forgot all about them before they were even back in their cars in the small parking lot.

“OK, square one,” McGrath said. “You guys go check out this dentist situation up in Wilmette. I’ve got things to do. And I’ve got to put in a call to Webster. They must be climbing the walls down there in D.C.”

SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND two miles from Meigs Field the young man in the woods wanted instructions. He was a good agent, well trained, but as far as undercover work was concerned he was new and relatively inexperienced. Demand for undercover operators was always increasing. The Bureau was hard put to fill all the slots. So people like him got assigned. Inexperienced people. He knew as long as he always remembered he didn’t have all the answers, he’d be OK. He had no ego problem with it. He was always willing to ask for guidance. He was careful. And he was realistic. Realistic enough to know he was now in over his head. Things were turning bad in a way which made him sure they were about to explode into something much worse. How, he didn’t know. It was just a feeling. But he trusted his feelings. Trusted them enough to stop and turn around before he reached his special tree. He breathed hard and changed his mind and set off strolling back the way he had come.

WEBSTER HAD BEEN waiting for McGrath’s call. That was clear. McGrath got him straightaway, like he’d been sitting there in his big office suite just waiting for the phone to ring.

“Progress, Mack?” Webster asked.

“Some,” McGrath said. “We know exactly what happened. We got it all on a security video in a dry cleaner’s store. She went in there at twelve-ten. Came out at twelve-fifteen. There were four guys. Three on the street, one in a car. They grabbed her.”

“Then what?” Webster asked.

“They were in a stolen sedan,” McGrath said. “Looks like they killed the owner to get it. Drove her five miles south, torched the sedan. Along with the owner in the trunk. They burned him alive. He was a dentist, name of Rubin. What they did with Holly, we don’t know yet.”

In Washington, Harland Webster was silent for a long time.

“Is it worth searching the area?” he asked, eventually.

McGrath’s turn to be quiet for a second. Unsure of the implications. Did Webster mean search for a hideout, or search for another body?

“My gut says no,” he said. “They must know we could search the area. My feeling is they moved her somewhere else. Maybe far away.”

There was silence on the line again. McGrath could hear Webster thinking.

“I agree with you, I guess,” Webster said. “They moved her out. But how, exactly? By road? By air?”

“Not air,” McGrath said. “We covered commercial flights yesterday. We just hit a private field. Nothing doing.”