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“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 ru
“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.”