Jack Reacher (№2) - Die Trying

He was going to die trapped inside the mountain. He knew it. The rats knew it. They were sniffing up behind him. Coming closer. He felt them at his feet. He kicked out and sent them squealing away. But they came back. He felt their weight on his legs. They were swarming over him. They burrowed up around his shoulders. Slid under his armpits. He felt cold oily fur on his face as they forced their way past. The flick of their tails as they ran ahead.

To where? He let them run over his arm, to estimate their direction. They were moving ahead of him, into the blind darkness. He felt with his hands. Felt them flowing left. Their passage was stirring the air. The air was cool. He felt it move, a faint breeze, on the sweat on the left side of his face. He jammed himself hard against the right hand wall and moved his left arm sideways, ahead of him. Felt for the left hand wall. It wasn't there. He was stuck at a junction in the tunnels. A new seam ran at a right angle away from the end of the seam he was in. A tight, narrow right angle. Ninety degrees. He forced himself backward as far as his thumbs would push him. He scraped his face on the end wall and jammed his side into the rock. Folded himself arms first around the corner and dragged his legs behind him.

The new seam was no better. It was no wider. The roof was no higher. He hauled himself along, gasping and sweating and shaking. He propelled himself with his toes, an inch at a time. The rats forced their way past him. The rock tore at his sides and his back. But there was still a slight breeze on his face. The tunnel was heading somewhere. He was gasping and panting. He crawled on. Then the new seam widened. Still very low. A flat, low crack in the rock. He crawled on through it, exhausted. Fifty yards. A hundred. Then he felt the roof soar away above him. He pushed on with his toes and suddenly he felt the air change and he was lying halfway into the motor-pool cavern. He realized his eyes were wide open and the white Econoline was right there in front of him in the dark.

He rolled onto his back and lay gasping on the grit. Gasping and shaking. Staggered to his feet and looked back. The seam was invisible. Hidden in the shadow. He made it as far as the white truck and collapsed against its side. The luminous figures on his watch showed he'd been in the tunnels nearly three hours. Most of the time jammed there sweating in panic. A three-hour screaming nightmare come to life. His pants and his jacket were shredded. Every muscle in his body was on fire. His face and hands and elbows and knees were bleeding. But it was the fear that had done it to him. The fear of not getting through. He could still feel the rock pressing down on his back and pressing up on his chest. He could feel it clamping inward on his ribs. He got up again and limped to the doors. Pushed them open and stood in the moonlight, arms out, eyes crazy, mouth open, breathing in lungfuls of the sweet night air.

He was halfway across the bowl before he started thinking straight. So he ran back and ducked into the motor pool once more. Found what he wanted. He found it on one of the jeep's tow hook assemblies. Some heavy stiff wire, ready to feed a trailer's electric circuits. He wrenched it out and stripped the insulation with his teeth. Ran back to the moonlight.

He kept close to the road, all the way back to Yorke. Two miles, twenty minutes at a slow agonizing jog through the trees. He looped around behind the ruined northeastern block and approached the courthouse from the rear. Circled it silently in the shadows. Waited and listened.

He tried to think like Borken. Complacent. Happy with his perimeter. Constant information from inside the FBI. Reacher locked into the punishment hut, Holly locked into her prison room. Would he post a sentry? Not tonight. Not when he was expecting heavy action tomorrow and beyond. He would want his people fresh. Reacher nodded and gambled he was right.

He arrived at the courthouse steps. Deserted. He tried the door. Locked. He smiled. Nobody posts a sentry behind a locked door. He bent the wire into a shallow hook and felt for the mechanism. An old two-lever. Eight seconds. He stepped inside. Waited and listened. Nothing. He went up the stairs.

The lock on Holly's door was new. But cheap. He worked quietly which delayed him. Took him more than thirty seconds before the last tumbler clicked back. He pulled the door open slowly and stepped onto the built-up floor. Glanced apprehensively at the walls. She was on a mattress on the floor. Fully dressed and ready. Awake and watching him. Huge eyes bright in the gloom. He gestured her outside. Turned and climbed down and waited in the corridor for her. She picked up her crutch and limped to the door. Climbed carefully down the step and stood next to him.

"Hello, Reacher," she whispered. "How are you doing?"

"I've felt better," he whispered back. "Time to time."

She turned and glanced back into her room. He followed her gaze and saw the dark stain on the floor.

"Woman who brought me lunch," she whispered.

He nodded.

"What with?" he whispered back.

"Tart of the bed frame," she said.

He saw the satisfaction on her face and smiled.

"That should do it," he said, quietly. "Bed frames are good for that."

She took a last look at the room and gently closed the door. Followed him through the dark and slowly down the stairs. Across the lobby and through the double doors and out into the bright silent moonlight.

"Christ," she said, urgently. "What happened to you?"

He glanced down and checked himself over in the light of the moon. He was gray from head to foot with dust and grit. His clothing was shredded. He was streaked with sweat and blood. Still shaky.

"Long story," he said. "You got somebody in Chicago you can trust?"

"McGrath," she said immediately. "He's my agent-in-charge. Why?"

They crossed the wide street arm-in-arm, looking left and right. Skirted the mound in front of the ruined office building. Found the path running northwest.

"You need to send him a fax," he said. "They've got missiles. You need to warn him. Tonight, because their line is going to be cut first thing in the morning."

"The mole tell them that?" she asked.

He nodded.

"How?" she asked. "How is he communicating?"

"Short-wave radio," Reacher said. "Has to be. Anything else is traceable."

He swayed and leaned on a tree. Gave her the spread, everything, beginning to end.

"Shit," she said. "Ground-to-air missiles? Mass suicide? A nightmare."

"Not our nightmare," he said. "We're out of here."

"We should stay and help them," she said. "The families."

He shook his head.

"Best help is for us to get out," he said. "Maybe losing you will change their plan. And we can tell them about the layout around here."

"I don't know," she said.

"I do," he said. "First rule is stick to priorities. That's you. We're out of here."

She shrugged and nodded.

"Now?" she asked.

"Right now," he said.

"How?" she asked.

"Jeep through the forest," he said. "I found their motor pool. We get up there, steal a jeep, by then it should be light enough to find our way through. I saw a map in Borken's office. There are plenty of tracks running east through the forest."

She nodded and he pushed off the tree. They hustled up the winding path to the Bastion. A mile, in the dark. They stumbled on the stones and saved their breath for walking. The clearing was dark and silent. They worked their way around beyond the mess hall to the back of the communications hut. They came out one of the trees and Reacher stepped close and pressed his ear to the plywood siding. There was no sound inside.

He used the wire again and they were inside within ten seconds. Holly found paper and pen. Wrote her message. Dialed the Chicago fax number and fed the sheet into the machine. It whirred obediently and pulled the paper through. Fed it back out into her waiting hand. She hit the button for the confirmation. Didn't want to leave any trace behind. Another sheet fed out. It showed the destination number correct. Timed the message at ten minutes to five, Friday morning, the fourth of July. She shredded both papers small and buried the pieces in the bottom of a trashcan.

Reacher rooted around on the long counter and found a paper clip. Followed Holly back out into the moonlight and relocked the door. Dodged around and found the cable leading down from the short-wave whip into the side of the hut. Took the paper clip and worried at it until it broke. Forced the broken end through the cable like a pin. Pushed it through until it was even, a fraction showing at each side. The metal would short-circuit the antenna by connecting the wire inside to the foil screen. The signal would come down out of the ether, down the wire, leak into the foil and run away to ground without ever reaching the short-wave unit itself. The best way to disable a radio. Smash one up, it gets repaired. This way, the fault is untraceable, until an exhausted technician finally thinks to check.

"We need weapons," Holly whispered to him.

He nodded. They crept together to the armory door. He looked at the lock. Gave it up. It was a huge thing. Unpickable.

"I'll take the Glock from the guy guarding me," he whispered.

She nodded. They ducked back into the trees and walked through to the next clearing. Reacher tried to think of a story to explain his appearance to Joseph Ray. Figured he might say something about being beamed over to the UN. Talk about how high-speed beaming can rip you up a little. They crept around behind the punishment hut and listened. All quiet. They skirted the corner and Reacher pulled the door. Walked straight into a nine-millimeter. This time, it wasn't a Glock. It was a Sig-Sauer. Not Joseph Ray's. It was Beau Borken's. He was standing just inside the door with Little Stevie at his side, grinning.

37

Four-thirty in the morning, Webster was more than ready for the watch change. Johnson and Garber and the general's aide were dozing in their chairs. McGrath was outside with the telephone linemen. They were just finishing up. The job had taken much longer than they had anticipated. Some kind of interface problem. They had physically cut the phone line coming out of Yorke, and bent the stiff copper down to a temporary terminal box they had placed at the base of a pole. Then they had spooled cable from the terminal box down the road to the mobile command vehicle. Connected it into one of the communications ports.

But it didn't work. Not right away. The linemen had fussed with multimeters and muttered about impedances and capacitances. They had worked for three solid hours. They were ready to blame the army truck for the incompatibility when they thought to go back and check their own temporary terminal box. The fault lay there. A failed component. They wired in a spare and the whole circuit worked perfectly. Four thirty-five in the morning, McGrath was shaking their hands and swearing them to silence when Webster came out of the trailer. The two men stood and watched them drive away. The noise of their truck died around the curve. Webster and McGrath stayed standing in the bright moonlight. They stood there for five minutes while McGrath smoked. They didn't speak. Just gazed north into the distance and wondered.

"Go wake your boys up," Webster said. "We'll stand down for a spell."

McGrath nodded and walked down to the accommodation trailers. Roused Milosevic and Brogan. They were fully dressed on their bunks. They got up and yawned. Came down the ladder and found Webster standing there with Johnson and his aide. Garber standing behind them.

"The telephone line is done," Webster said.

"Already?" Brogan said. "I thought it was being done in the morning."

"We figured sooner was better than later," Webster said. He inclined his head toward General Johnson. It was a gesture which said: he's worried, right?

"OK," Milosevic said. "We'll look after it."

"Wake us at eight," Webster said. "Or earlier if necessary, OK?"

Brogan nodded and walked north to the command vehicle. Milosevic followed. They paused together for a look at the mountains in the moonlight. As they paused, the fax machine inside the empty command trailer started whirring. It fed its first communication face upward into the message tray. It was ten to five in the morning, Friday the fourth of July.

Brogan woke General Johnson an hour and ten minutes later, six o'clock exactly. He knocked loudly on the accommodation trailer door and got no response, so he went in and shook the old guy by the shoulder.

"Teterson Air Force Base, sir," Brogan said. "They need to talk to you."

Johnson staggered up to the command vehicle in his shirt and pants. Milosevic joined Brogan outside in the pre-dawn glow to give him some privacy. Johnson was back out in five minutes.

"We need a conference," he called.

He ducked back into the trailer. Milosevic walked down and roused the others. They came forward, Webster and the general's aide yawning and stretching, Garber ramrod-straight. McGrath was dressed and smoking. Maybe hadn't tried to sleep at all. They filed up the ladder and took their places around the table, bleak red eyes, hair fuzzed on the back from the pillows.

"Teterson called, "Johnson told them. "They're sending a helicopter search-and-rescue out, first light, looking for the missile unit."

His aide nodded.

"That would be standard procedure," he said.

"Based on an assumption," Johnson said. "They think the unit has suffered some kind of mechanical and electrical malfunction."

"Which is not uncommon," his aide said. "If their radio fails, their procedure would be to repair it. If a truck also broke down at the same time, their procedure would be to wait as a group for assistance."

"Circle the wagons?" McGrath asked.

The aide nodded again.

"Exactly so," he said. "They would pull off the road and wait for a chopper."

"So do we tell them?" McGrath asked.

The aide sat forward.

"That's the question," he said. "Tell them what exactly? We don't even know for sure that these maniacs have got them at all. It's still possible it's just a radio problem and a truck problem together."

"Dream on," Johnson said.

Webster shrugged. He knew how to deal with such issues.

"What's the upside?" he said.

"There is no upside," Johnson said. "We tell Peterson the missiles have been captured, the cat's out of the bag, we lose control of the situation, we're seen to have disobeyed Washington by making an issue out of it before Monday."

"OK, so what's the downside?" Webster asked.

"Theoretical," Johnson said. "We have to assure they've been captured, so we also have to assume they've been well hidden. In which case the air force will never find them. They'll just fly around for a while and then go home and wait."

Webster nodded.

"OK," he said. "No upside, no downside, no problem."

There was a short silence.

"So we sit tight," Johnson said. "We let the chopper fly."

McGrath shook his head. Incredulous.

"Suppose they use them to shoot the chopper down?" he asked.

The general's aide smiled an indulgent smile.

"Can't be done," he said. "The IFF wouldn't allow it."

"IFF?" McGrath repeated.

"Identify Friend or Foe," the aide said. "It's an electronic system. The chopper will be beaming a signal. The missile reads it as friendly, refuses to launch."

"Guaranteed?" McGrath asked.

The aide nodded.

"Foolproof," he said.

Garber glowered at him. But he said nothing. Not his field of expertise.

"OK," Webster said. "Back to bed. Wake us again at eight, Brogan."

* * *

On the tarmac at Peterson, a Boeing CH-47D Chinook was warming its engines and sipping the first of its eight hundred fifty-eight gallons of fuel. A Chinook is a giant aircraft, whose twin rotors thump through an oval of air a hundred feet long and sixty wide. It weighs more than ten tons empty, and it can lift another eleven. It's a giant flying box, the engines and the fuel tanks strapped to the top and the sides, the crew perched high at the front. Any helicopter can search, but when heavy equipment is at stake, only a Chinook can rescue.

Because of the holiday weekend, the Peterson dispatcher assigned a skeleton crew of two. No separate spotter. He figured he didn't need one. How difficult could it be to find five army trucks on some shoulder in Montana?

* * *

"You should have stayed here," Borken said. "Right, Joe?"

Reacher glanced into the gloom inside the punishment hut. Joseph Ray was standing to attention on the yellow square. He was staring straight ahead. He was naked. Bleeding from the mouth and nose.

"Right, Joe?" Borken said again.

Ray made no reply. Borken walked over and crashed his fist into his face. Ray stumbled and fell backward. Staggered against the back wall and scrambled to regain his position on the square.

"I asked you a question," Borken said.

Ray nodded. The blood poured off his chin.

"Reacher should have stayed here," he said.

Borken hit him again. A hard straight right to the face. Ray's head snapped back. Blood spurted. Borken smiled.

"No talking when you're on the square, Joe," he said. "You know the rules."

Borken stepped back and placed the muzzle of the Sig-Sauer in Reacher's ear. Used it to propel him out into the clearing. Gestured Stevie to follow.

"You stay on the square, Joe," he called over his shoulder.

Stevie slammed the door shut. Borken reversed his direction and used the Sig-Sauer to shove Reacher toward him.

"Tell Fowler to get rid of this guy," he told him. "He's outlived his usefulness, such as it ever was. Put the bitch back in her room. Put a ring of sentries right around the building. We got things to do, right? No time for this shit. Parade ground at six-thirty. Everybody there. I'm going to read them the proclamation, before we fax it."

* * *

McGrath couldn't sleep. He walked back to the accommodations trailer with the others and got back on his bunk, but he gave it up after ten minutes. Quarter to seven in the morning, he was back in the command vehicle with Brogan and Milosevic.

"You guys take a break if you want," he said. "I'll look after things here."

"We could go organize some breakfast," Brogan said. "Diners in Kalispell should be open by now."

McGrath nodded vaguely. Started into his jacket for his wallet.

"Don't worry about it," Brogan said. "I'll pay. My treat."

"OK, thanks," McGrath said. "Get coffee. Lots of it."

Brogan and Milosevic stood up and left. McGrath stood in the doorway and watched them drive an army sedan south. The sound of the car faded and he was left with the silent humming of the equipment behind him. He turned to sit down. The clock ticked around to seven. The fax machine started whirring.

* * *

Holly smoothed her hands over the old mattress like Reacher was there on it. Like it was really his body under her, scarred and battered, hot and hard and muscular, not a worn striped cotton cover stuffed with ancient horsehair. She blinked the tears out of her eyes. Blew a deep sigh and focused on the next decision. No Reacher, no Jackson, no weapon, no tools, six sentries in the street outside. She glanced around the room for the thousandth time and started scoping it out all over again.

* * *

McGrath woke the others by thumping on the sides of the accommodations trailer with both fists. Then he ran back to the command post and found a third copy of the message spooling out of the machine. He already had two. Now he had three.

Webster was the first into the trailer. Then Johnson, a minute behind. Then Garber, and finally the general's aide. They rattled up the ladder one by one and hurried over to the table. McGrath was absorbed in reading.

"What, Mack?" Webster asked him.

"They're declaring independence," McGrath said. "Listen to this."

He glanced around the four faces. Started reading out loud.

"Governments are instituted among men." he read "Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. It is the right of the people to alter or abolish them after a long train of abuses and usurpations."

"They're quoting from the original," Webster said.

"Paraphrasing," Garber said.

McGrath nodded.

"Listen to this," he said again. "The history of the present government of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations all designed to establish an absolute tyranny over the people."

"What the hell is this?" Webster said. "1776 all over again?"

"It gets worse," McGrath said. "We therefore are the representatives of the Free States of America, located initially in what was formerly Yorke County in what was formerly Montana, and we solemnly publish and declare that this territory is now a free and independent state, which is absolved of allegiance to the United States, with all political connection totally dissolved, and that as a free and independent state has full power to levy war, conclude peace, defend its land borders and its airspace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other things as all independent states may do."

He looked up. Shuffled the three copies into a neat stack and laid them on the table in silence.

"Why three copies?" Garber asked.

"Three destinations," McGrath said. "If we hadn't intercepted them, they'd be all over the place by now."

"Where?" Webster asked.

"First one is a DC number," McGrath said. "I'm guessing it's the White House."

Johnson's aide scooted his chair to the computer terminal. McGrath read him the number. He tapped it in, and the screen scrolled down. He nodded.

"The White House," he said. "Next?"

"New York somewhere," McGrath said. Read out the number from the second sheet.

"United Nations," the aide said. "They want witnesses."

"Third one, I don't know," McGrath said. "Area code is 404."

"Atlanta, Georgia," Garber said.

"What's in Atlanta, Georgia?" Webster asked.

The aide was busy at the keyboard.

"CNN," he said. They want publicity."

Johnson nodded.

"Smart moves," he said. "They want it all on live TV. Christ, can you imagine? The United Nations as umpires and round-the-clock coverage on the cable news? The whole world watching?"

"So what do we do?" Webster asked.

There was a long silence.

"Why did they say airspace?" Garber asked out loud.

"They were paraphrasing," Webster said. "1776, there wasn't any airspace."

"The missiles," Garber said. "Is it possible they've disabled the IFF?"

There was another long silence. They heard a car pull up. Doors slammed. Brogan and Milosevic rattled up the ladder and stepped into the hush. They carried brown bags and Styrofoam cups with plastic lids.

* * *

The giant search-and-rescue Chinook made it north from Peterson in Colorado to Malmstrom Air Force Base outside of Great Falls in Montana without incident. It touched down there and fuel bowsers came out to meet it. The crew walked to the mess for coffee. Walked back twenty minutes later. Took off again and swung gently in the morning air before lumbering away northwest.

38

"We're getting no reaction," Fowler said. "Makes us wonder why."

Reacher shrugged at him. They were in the command hut. Stevie had dragged him through the trees to the Bastion, and then Fowler had dragged him back again with two armed guards. The punishment hut was unavailable. Still occupied by Joseph Ray. They used the command hut instead. They sat Reacher down and Fowler locked his left wrist to the arm of the chair with a handcuff. The guards took up position on either side, rifles sloped, watchful. Then Fowler walked up to join Borken and Stevie for the ceremony on the parade ground. Reacher heard faint shouting and cheering in the distance as the proclamation was read out. Then he heard nothing. Ninety minutes later, Fowler came back to the hut alone. He sat down behind Borken's desk and lit a cigarette, and the armed guards remained standing.

"We faxed it an hour ago," Fowler said. "No reaction."

Reacher smelled his smoke and gazed at the banners on the walls. Dark reds and dull whites, vivid crooked symbols in black.

"Do you know why we're getting no reaction?" Fowler asked.

Reacher just shook his head.

"You know what I think?" Fowler said "They cut the line. Phone company is colluding with the federal agents. We were told it would happen at seven-thirty. It obviously happened earlier."

Reacher shrugged again. Made no reply.

"We would expect to be informed about a thing like that," Fowler said.

He picked up his Glock and propped it in front of him, butt on the desktop, swiveling it like naval artillery left and right.

"And we haven't been," he said.

"Maybe your pal from Chicago has given you up," Reacher said.

Fowler shook his head. His Glock came to rest aimed at Reacher's chest.

"We've been getting a stream of intelligence," he said. "We know where they are, how many of them there are, what their intentions are. But now, when we still need information, we aren't getting it. Communication has been interrupted."

Reacher said nothing.

"We're investigating," Fowler said. "We're checking the radio right now."

Reacher said nothing.

"Anything you want to tell us about the radio?" Fowler asked.

"What radio?" Reacher said.

"It worked OK yesterday," Fowler said. "Now it doesn't work at all, and you were wandering around all night."

He ducked down and rolled open the drawer where Borken kept the Colt Marshal. But he didn't come out with a revolver. He came out with a small black radio transmitter.

"This was Jackson's," he said. "He was most anxious to show us where it was hidden. In fact he was begging to show us. He screamed and cried and begged. Just about tore his fingernails off digging it up, he was so anxious."

He smiled and put the unit carefully in his pocket.

"We figure we just switch it on," he said. "That should put us straight through to the federal scum, person-to-person. This stage of the process, we need to talk direct. See if we can persuade them to restore our fax line."

"Terrific plan," Reacher said.

"The fax line is important, you see," Fowler said. "Vital. The world must be allowed to know what we're doing here. The world must be allowed to watch and witness. History is being made here. You understand that, right?"

Reacher stared at the wall.

"They've got cameras, you know," Fowler said. "Surveillance planes are up there right now. Now it's daylight again, they can see what we're doing. So how can we exploit that fact?"

Reacher shook his head.

"You can leave me out of it," he said.

Fowler smiled.

"Of course we'll leave you out of it," he said. "Why would they care about seeing you nailed to a tree? You're nothing but a piece of shit, to us and to them. But Holly Johnson, there's a different story. Maybe we'll call them up on their own little transmitter and tell them to watch us do it with their own spy cameras. That might make them think about it. They might trade a fax line for her left breast."

He ground out his cigarette. Leaned forward. Spoke quietly.

"We're serious here, Reacher," he said. "You saw what we did to Jackson. We could do that to her. We could do that to you. We need to be able to communicate with the world. We need that fax line. So we need the short-wave to confirm what the hell they've done with it. We need those things very badly. You understand that, right? So if you want to avoid a lot of unnecessary pain, for you and for her, you better tell me what you did to the radio."

Reacher was twisted around, looking at the bookcase. Trying to recall the details of the inexpert translations of the Japanese Pearl Harbor texts he'd read.

"Tell me now," Fowler said softly. "I can keep them away from you and from her. No pain for either of you. Otherwise, nothing I can do about it."

He laid his Glock on the desk.

"You want a cigarette?" he asked.

He held out the pack. Smiled. The good cop. The friend. The ally. The protector. The oldest routine in the book. Requiring the oldest response. Reacher glanced around. Two guards, one on each side of him, the right-hand guard nearer, the left-hand guard back almost against the side wall. Rifles held easy in the crook of their arms. Fowler behind the desk, holding out the pack. Reacher shrugged and nodded. Took a cigarette with his free right hand. He hadn't smoked in ten years, but when somebody offers you a lethal weapon you take it.

"So tell me," Fowler said. "And be quick."

He thumbed his lighter and held it out. Reacher bent forward and lit his cigarette from the flame. Took a deep draw and leaned back. The smoke felt good. Ten years, and he still enjoyed it. He inhaled deeply and took another lungful.

"How did you disable our radio?" Fowler asked.

Reacher took a third pull. Trickled the smoke out of his nose and held the cigarette like a sentry does, between the thumb and forefinger, palm hooded around it. Take quick deep pulls, and the coal on the end of a cigarette heats up to a couple of thousand degrees. Lengthens to a point. He rotated his palm, like he was studying the glowing tip while he thought about something, until the cigarette was pointing straight forward like an arrow.