Jack Reacher (№2) - Die Trying

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 backwoods 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 leather-bound 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 leather-bound 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 for 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 defence?" he asked quietly.

26

"Is 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, 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 9m numbers at the time, but the idea was to cull the no-hopers. A guy like this shouldn't have been shaken out."

Johnson swapped 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 slowy, with a little staccato 9m 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.

"Were 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 ape shit 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 free 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 the 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 must 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.