Die Trying

Johnson was in the command vehicle. He was in radio contact with Peterson. The news was bad. The missile unit had been out of radio contact for more than eight hours. Johnson had a rule of thumb. He had learned it by bitter experience in the jungles of Vietnam. The rule of thumb said: when you’ve lost radio contact with a unit for more than eight hours, you mark that unit down as a total loss.

WEBSTER AND GARBER did not talk during the plane ride. That was Webster’s choice. He was experienced enough as a bureaucrat to know that whatever he heard from Garber, he’d only have to hear all over again when the full team was finally assembled. So he sat quietly in the noisy jet whine and read the Borken profile from Quantico. Garber was looking questions at him, but he ignored them. Explain it to Garber now, and he’d only have to do it all over again for McGrath and Johnson.

The evening air at Kalispell was cold and gray for the short noisy walk across the apron to the Air Force Bell. Garber identified himself to the copilot who dropped a short ladder to the tarmac. Garber and Webster scrambled up inside and sat where they were told. The copilot signaled with both hands that they should fasten their harnesses and that the ride would take about twenty-five minutes. Webster nodded and listened to the beat of the rotor as it lifted them all into the air.

GENERAL JOHNSON HAD just finished another long call to the White House when he heard the Bell clattering in. He stood framed in the command post doorway and watched it put down on the same gravel turnout, two hundred yards south. He saw two figures spill out and crouch away. He saw the chopper lift and yaw and turn south.

He walked down and met them halfway. Nodded to Garber and pulled Webster to one side.

“Anything?” he asked.

Webster shook his head.

“No change,” he said. “White House is playing safe. You?”

“Nothing,” Johnson said.

Webster nodded. Nothing more to say.

“What we got here?” he asked.

“Far as the White House knows, nothing,” Johnson said. “We’ve got two camera planes in the air. Officially, they’re on exercises. We’ve got eight Marines and an armored car. They’re on exercises, too. Their COs know where they are, but they don’t know exactly why, and they’re not asking.”

“You sealed the road?” Webster asked.

Johnson nodded.

“We’re all on our own up here,” he said.

34

REACHER AND HOLLY sat alone in the forest, backs to two adjacent pines, staring at the mound above Jackson ’s grave. They sat like that until the afternoon light faded and died. They didn’t speak. The forest grew cold. The time for the decision arrived.

“We’re going back,” Holly said.

It was a statement, not a question. A lot of resignation in her voice. He made no reply. He was breathing low, staring into space, lost in thought. Reliving in his mind her taste and smell. Her hair and her eyes. Her lips. The feel of her, strong and lithe and urgent underneath him.

“Nightfall,” she said.

“Not just yet,” he said.

“We have to,” she said. “They’ll send the dogs after us.”

He didn’t speak again. Just sat there, eyes locked into the distance.

“There’s nowhere else to go,” she said.

He nodded slowly and stood up. Stretched and caught his breath as his tired muscles cramped. Helped Holly up and took his jacket down off the tree and shrugged it on. Left the crowbar lying in the dirt next to the shovel.

“We leave tonight,” he said. “Shit’s going to hit the fan tomorrow. Independence Day.”

“Sure, but how?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he said.

“Don’t take risks on my account,” she said.

“You’d be worth it,” he said.

“Because of who I am?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Because of who you are,” he said. “Not because of who your father is. Or your damn godfather. And no, I didn’t vote for him.”

She stretched up and kissed him on the mouth.

“Take care, Reacher,” she said.

“Just be ready,” he said. “Maybe midnight.”

She nodded. They walked the hundred yards south to the rocky outcrop. Turned and walked the hundred yards east to the clearing. Came out of the woods straight into a semicircle of five guards waiting for them. Four rifles. Center man was Joseph Ray. He was in charge of the detail, with a Glock 17 in his hand.

“She goes back to her room,” Ray said. “You go in the punishment hut.”

The guards formed up. Two of them stepped either side of Holly. Her eyes were blazing and they didn’t try to take her elbows. Just walked slowly beside her. She turned and glanced back at Reacher.

“See you later, Holly,” Reacher called.

“Don’t you bet on that, Ms. Johnson,” Joseph Ray said, and laughed.

He escorted Reacher to the door of the punishment hut. Took out a key and unlocked the door. Swung it open. Pushed Reacher through, gun out and ready. Then he pulled the door closed again and relocked it.

The punishment hut was the same size and shape as Borken’s command hut. But it was completely empty. Bare walls, no windows, lights meshed with heavy wire. On the floor near one end was a perfect square of yellow paint, maybe twelve inches by twelve. Apart from that, the hut was featureless.

“You stand on that square,” Ray said.

Reacher nodded. He was familiar with that procedure. Being forced to stand at attention, hour after hour, never moving, was an effective punishment. He had heard about it, time to time. Once, he’d seen the results. After the first few hours, the pain starts. The back goes, then the agony spreads upward from the shins. By the second or third day, the ankles swell and burst and the thighbones strike upward and the neck collapses.

“So stand on it,” Ray said.

Reacher stepped to the corner of the hut and bent to the floor. Made a big show of brushing the dust away with his hand. Turned and lowered himself gently so he was sitting comfortably in the angle of the walls. Stretched his legs out and folded his hands behind his head. Crossed his ankles and smiled.

“You got to stand on the square,” Ray said.

Reacher looked at him. He had said: believe me, I know tanks. So he had been a soldier. A grunt, in a motorized unit. Probably a loader, maybe a driver.

“Stand up,” Ray said.

Give a grunt a task, and what’s the thing he’s most afraid of? Getting chewed out by an officer for failing to do it, that’s what.

“Stand up, damn it,” Ray said.

So either he doesn’t fail, or if he does, he conceals it. No grunt in the history of the world has ever just gone to his officer and said: I couldn’t do it, sir.

“I’m telling you to stand up, Reacher,” Ray said quietly.

If he fails, he keeps it a big secret. Much better that way.

“You want me to stand up?” Reacher asked.

“Yeah, stand up,” Ray said.

Reacher shook his head.

“You’re going to have to make me, Joe,” he said.

Ray was thinking about it. It was a reasonably slow thought process. Its progress was visible in his body language. First, the Glock came up. Then it went back down. Shooting at the prisoner was its own admission of failure. It was the same thing as saying: I couldn’t make him do it, sir. Then he glanced at his hands. Glanced across at Reacher. Glanced away. Unarmed combat was rejected. He stood there, in a fog of indecision.

“Where did you serve?” Reacher asked him.

Ray shrugged.

“Here and there,” he said.

“Like where and where?” Reacher asked.

“I was in Germany twice,” Ray said. “And I was in Desert Storm.”

“Driver?” Reacher asked.

“Loader,” Ray answered.

Reacher nodded.

“You boys did a good job,” he said. “I was in Desert Storm. I saw what you boys did.”

Ray nodded. He took the opening, like Reacher knew he would. If you can’t let them beat you, you let them join you. Ray moved casually to his left and sat down on the floor, back against the door, Glock resting against his thigh. He nodded again.