by Lee Child
“What analysts?” Webster said. “What sympathies?”
“There was a poll,” Dexter said. “Did we send you a copy? One adult in five would be willing to take up arms against the government, if strictly necessary.”
“So?” Webster asked again.
“There was another poll,” Dexter said. “A simple question, to be answered intuitively, from the gut. Who’s in the right, the government or the militias?”
“And?” Webster said.
“Twelve million Americans sided with the militias,” Dexter said.
Webster stared at him. Waited for the message.
“So,” Dexter said. “Somewhere between twelve and sixty-six million voters.”
“What about them?” Webster asked.
“And where are they?” Dexter asked back. “You won’t find many of them in D.C. or New York or Boston or L.A. It’s a skewed sample. Some places they’re a tiny minority. They look like weirdos. But other places, they’re a majority. Other places, they’re absolutely normal, Harland.”
“So?” he said.
“Some places they control counties,” Dexter said. “Even states.”
Webster stared at him.
“God’s sake, Dexter, this isn’t politics,” he said. “This is Holly.”
Dexter paused and glanced around the small White House room. It was painted a subtle off-white. It had been painted and repainted that same subtle color every few years, while Presidents came and went. He smiled a connoisseur’s smile.
“Unfortunately, everything’s politics,” he said.
“This is Holly,” Webster said again.
Dexter shook his head. Just a slight movement.
“This is emotion,” he said. “Think about innocent little emotional words, like patriot, resistance, crush, underground, struggle, oppression, individual, distrust, rebel, revolt, revolution, rights. There’s a certain majesty to those words, don’t you think? In an American context?”
Webster shook his head doggedly.
“Nothing majestic about kidnapping women,” he said. “Nothing majestic about illegal weapons, illegal armies, stolen dynamite. This isn’t politics.”
Dexter shook his head again. The same slight movement.
“Things have a way of becoming politics,” he said. “Think about Ruby Ridge. Think about Waco, Harland. That wasn’t politics, right? But it became politics pretty damn soon. We hurt ourselves with maybe sixty-six million voters there. And we were real dumb about it. Big reactions are what these people want. They figure that harsh reprisals will upset people, bring more people into their fold. And we gave them big reactions. We fueled their fire. We made it look like big government was just about itching to crush the little guy.”
The room went silent.
“The polls say we need a better approach,” Dexter said. “And we’re trying to find one. We’re trying real hard. So how would it look if the White House stopped trying just because it happens to be Holly who’s involved? And right now? The Fourth of July weekend? Don’t you understand anything? Think about it, Harland. Think about the reaction. Think about words like vindictive, self-interested, revenge, personal, words like that, Harland. Think about what words like those are going to do to our poll numbers.”
Webster stared at him. The off-white walls crushed in on him.
“This is about Holly, for God’s sake,” he said. “This is not about poll numbers. And what about the General? Has the President said all this to him?”
Dexter shook his head.
“I’ve said it all to him,” he said. “Personally. A dozen times. He’s been calling every hour, on the hour.”
Webster thought: now the President won’t even take Johnson’s calls anymore. Dexter has really fixed him.
“And?” he asked.
Dexter shrugged.
“I think he understands the principle,” he said. “But naturally, his judgment is kind of colored right now. He’s not a happy man.”
Webster lapsed into silence. Started thinking hard. He was a smart enough bureaucrat to know if you can’t beat them, you join them. You force yourself to think like they think.
“But busting her out could do you good,” he said. “A lot of good. It would look tough, decisive, loyal, no-nonsense. Could be advantageous. In the polls.”
Dexter nodded.
“I totally agree with you,” he said. “But it’s a gamble, right? A real big gamble. A quick victory is good, a foul-up is a disaster. A big gamble, with big poll numbers at stake. And right now, I’m doubting if you can get the quick victory. Right now, you’re half-cocked. So right now my money would be on the foul-up.”
Webster stared at him.
“Hey, no offense, Harland,” Dexter said. “I’m paid to think like this, right?”
“So what the hell are you saying here?” Webster asked him. “I need to move the Hostage Rescue Team into place right now?”
“No,” Dexter said.
“No?” Webster repeated incredulously.
Dexter shook his head.
“Permission denied,” he said. “For the time being.”
Webster just stared at him.
“I need a position,” he said.
The room stayed silent. Then Dexter spoke to a spot on the off-white wall, a yard to the left of Webster’s chair.
“You remain in personal command of the situation,” he said. “Holiday weekend starts tomorrow. Come talk to me Monday. If there’s still a problem.”
“There’s a problem now,” Webster said. “And I’m talking to you now.”
Dexter shook his head again.
“No, you’re not,” he said. “We didn’t meet today, and I didn’t speak with the President today. We didn’t know anything about it today. Tell us all about it on Monday, Harland, if there’s still a problem.”
Webster just sat there. He was a smart enough guy, but right then he couldn’t figure if he was being handed the deal of a lifetime, or a suicide pill.
JOHNSON AND HIS aide arrived in Butte an hour later. They came in the same way, Air Force helicopter from Peterson up to the Silver Bow County airport. Milosevic took an air-to-ground call as they were on approach and went out to meet them in a two-year-old Grand Cherokee supplied by the local dealership. Nobody spoke on the short ride back to town. Milosevic just drove and the two military men bent over charts and maps from a large leather case the aide was carrying. They passed them back and forth and nodded, as if further comment was unnecessary.
The upstairs room in the municipal building was suddenly crowded. Five men, two chairs. The only window faced southeast over the street. The wrong direction. The five men were instinctively glancing at the blank wall opposite. Through that wall was Holly, two hundred and forty miles away.
“We’re going to have to move up there,” General Johnson said.
His aide nodded.
“No good staying here,” he said.
McGrath had made a decision. He had promised himself he wouldn’t fight turf wars with these guys. His agent was Johnson’s daughter. He understood the old guy’s feelings. He wasn’t going to squander time and energy proving who was boss. And he needed the old guy’s help.
“We need to share facilities,” he said. “Just for the time being.”
There was a short silence. The General nodded slowly. He knew enough about Washington to decode those five words with a fair degree of accuracy.
“I don’t have many facilities available,” he said in turn. “It’s the holiday weekend. Exactly seventy-five percent of the U.S. Army is on leave.”
Silence. McGrath’s turn to do the decoding and the slow nodding.
“No authorization to cancel leave?” he asked.
The General shook his head.
“I just spoke with Dexter,” he said. “And Dexter just spoke with the President. Feeling was this thing is on hold until Monday.”
The crowded room went silent. The guy’s daughter was in trouble, and the White House fixer was playing politic
s.
“Webster got the same story,” McGrath said. “Can’t even bring the Hostage Rescue Team up here yet. Time being, we’re on our own, the three of us.”
The General nodded to McGrath. It was a personal gesture, individual to individual, and it said: we’ve leveled with each other, and we both know what humiliation that cost us, and we both know we appreciate it.
“But there’s no harm in being prepared,” the General said. “Like the little guy suspects, the military is comfortable with secret maneuvers. I’m calling in a few private favors that Mr. Dexter need never know about.”
The silence in the room eased. McGrath looked a question at him.
“There’s a mobile command post already on its way,” the General said.
He took a large chart from his aide and spread it out on the desk.
“We’re going to rendezvous right here,” he said.
He had his finger on a spot northwest of the last habitation in Montana short of Yorke. It was a wide curve on the road leading into the county, about six miles shy of the bridge over the ravine.
“The satellite trucks are heading straight there,” he said. “I figure we move in, set up the command post, and seal off the road behind us.”
McGrath stood still, looking down at the map. He knew that to agree was to hand over total control to the military. He knew that to disagree was to play petty games with his agent and this man’s daughter. Then he saw that the General’s finger was resting a half-inch south of a much better location. A little farther north, the road narrowed dramatically. It straightened to give a clear view north and south. The terrain tightened. A better site for a roadblock. A better site for a command post. He was amazed that the General hadn’t spotted it. Then he was flooded with gratitude. The General had spotted it. But he was leaving room for McGrath to point it out. He was leaving room for give-and-take. He didn’t want total control.
“I would prefer this place,” McGrath said.
He tapped the northerly location with a pencil. The General pretended to study it. His aide pretended to be impressed.
“Good thinking,” the General said. “We’ll revise the rendezvous.”
McGrath smiled. He knew damn well the trucks were already heading for that exact spot. Probably already there. The General grinned back. The ritual dance was completed.
“What can the spy planes show us?” Brogan asked.
“Everything,” the General’s aide said. “Wait until you see the pictures. The cameras on those babies are unbelievable.”
“I don’t like it,” McGrath said. “It’s going to make them nervous.”
The aide shook his head.
“They won’t even know they’re there,” he said. “We’re using two of them, flying straight lines, east to west and west to east. They’re thirty-seven thousand feet up. Nobody on the ground is even going to be aware of them.”
“That’s seven miles up,” Brogan said. “How can they see anything from that sort of height?”
“Good cameras,” the aide said. “Seven miles is nothing. They’ll show you a cigarette pack lying on the sidewalk from seven miles. The whole thing is automatic. The guys up there hit a button, and the camera tracks whatever it’s supposed to track. Just keeps pointing at the spot on the ground you chose, transmitting high-quality video by satellite, then you turn around and come back, and the camera swivels around and does it all again.”
“Undetectable?” McGrath asked.
“They look like airliners,” the aide said. “You look up and you see a tiny little vapor trail and you think it’s TWA on the way somewhere. You don’t think it’s the Air Force checking whether you polished your shoes this morning, right?”
“Seven miles, you’ll see the hairs on their heads,” Johnson said. “What do you think we spent all those defense dollars on? Crop dusters?”
McGrath nodded. He felt naked. Time being, he had nothing to offer except a couple of rental jeeps, two years old, waiting at the sidewalk.
“We’re getting a profile on this Borken guy,” he said. “Shrinks at Quantico are working it up now.”
“We found Jack Reacher’s old CO,” Johnson said. “He’s doing desk duty in the Pentagon. He’ll join us, give us the spread.”
McGrath nodded.
“Forewarned is forearmed,” he said.
The telephone rang. Johnson’s aide picked it up. He was the nearest.
“When are we leaving?” Brogan asked.
McGrath noticed he had asked Johnson direct.
“Right now, I guess,” Johnson said. “The Air Force will fly us up there. Saves six hours on the road, right?”
The aide hung up the phone. He looked like he’d been kicked in the gut.
“The missile unit,” he said. “We lost radio contact, north of Yorke.”
31
HOLLY PAUSED IN the corridor. Smiled. The woman had left her weapon propped against the wall outside the door. That had been the delay. She had used the key, put the tray on the floor, unslung her weapon, propped it against the wall, and picked up the tray again before nudging open the door.
She swapped the iron tube for the gun. Not a weapon she had used before. Not one she wanted to use now. It was a tiny submachine gun. An Ingram MAC 10. Obsolete military issue. Obsolete for a reason. Holly’s class at Quantico had laughed about it. They called it the phone booth gun. It was so inaccurate you had to be in a phone booth with your guy to be sure of hitting him. A grim joke. And it fired way too quickly. A thousand rounds per minute. One touch on the trigger and the magazine was empty.
But it was a better weapon than part of an old iron bed frame. She checked the magazine. It was full, thirty shells. The chamber was clean. She clicked the trigger and watched the mechanism move. The gun worked as well as it was ever going to. She smacked the magazine back into position. Straightened the canvas strap and slung it tight over her shoulder. Clicked the cocking handle to the fire position and closed her hand around the grip. Took a firm hold on her crutch and eased to the top of the stairs.
She stood still and waited. Listened hard. No sound. She went down the stairs, slowly, a step at a time, the Ingram out in front of her. At the bottom, she waited and listened again. No sound. She crossed the lobby and arrived at the doors. Eased them open and looked outside.
The street was deserted. But it was wide. It looked like a huge city boulevard to her. To reach safety on the other side was going to take her minutes. Minutes out there in the open, exposed to the mountain slopes above. She estimated the distance. Breathed hard and gripped her crutch. Jabbed the Ingram forward. Breathed hard again and took off at a lurching run, jamming the crutch down, leaping ahead with her good leg, swinging the gun left and right to cover both approaches.
She threw herself at the mound in front of the ruined county office. Scrabbled north around behind it and fought through grabbing undergrowth. Entered the forest parallel to the main track, but thirty yards from it. Leaned on a tree and bent double, gasping with exertion and fear and exhilaration.
This was the real thing. This was what the whole of her life had led her to. She could hear her father’s war stories in her head. The jungles of Vietnam. The breathless fear of being hunted in the green undergrowth. The triumph of each safe step, of each yard gained. She saw the faces of the tough quiet men she had known on the bases as a child. The instructors at Quantico. She felt the disappointment of her posting to a safe desk in Chicago. All the training wasted, because of who she was. Now it was different. She straightened up. Took a deep breath. Then another. She felt her genes boiling through her. Before, they’d felt like resented intruders. Now they felt warm and whole and good. Her father’s daughter? You bet your ass.
REACHER WAS CUFFED around the trunk of a hundred-foot pine. He had been dragged down the narrow track to the Bastion. Burning with fury. One punch and one kick was more than he had yielded since his early childhood. The rage was burying the pain. And blurring his mind. A life for a life, the fat bast
ard had said. Reacher had twisted on the floor and the words had meant nothing to him.
But they meant something now. They had come back to him as he stood there. Men and women had strolled up to him and smiled. Their smiles were the sort of smiles he had seen before, long ago. The smiles of bored children living on an isolated base somewhere, after they had been told the circus was coming to town.
SHE THOUGHT HARD. She had to guess where he was. And she had to guess where the parade ground was. She had to get herself halfway between those two unknown locations and set up an ambush. She knew the ground sloped steeply up to the clearing with the huts. She remembered being brought downhill to the courthouse. She guessed the parade ground had to be a large flat area. Therefore it had to be farther uphill, to the northwest, where the ground leveled out in the mountain bowl. Some distance beyond the huts. She set off uphill through the trees.
She tried to figure out where the main path was running. Every few yards, she stopped and peered south, turning left and right to catch a glimpse of the gaps in the forest canopy where the trees had been cleared. That way, she could deduce the direction of the track. She kept herself parallel to it, thirty or forty yards away to the north, and fought through the tough whippy stems growing sideways from the trunks. It was all uphill, and steep, and it was hard work. She used her crutch like a boatman uses a pole, planting it securely in the soil and thrusting herself upward against it.
In a way, her knee helped her. It made her climb slowly and carefully. It made her quiet. And she knew how to do this. From old Vietnam stories, not from Quantico. The Academy had concentrated on urban situations. The Bureau had taught her how to stalk through a city street or a darkened building. How to stalk through a forest came from an earlier layer of memory.
SOME PEOPLE STROLLED up and strolled away, but some of them stayed. After a quarter hour, there was a small crowd of maybe fifteen or sixteen people, mostly men, standing aimlessly in a wide semicircle around him. They kept their distance, like rubberneckers at a car wreck, behind an invisible police line. They stared at him, silently, not much in their faces. He stared back. He let his gaze rest on each one in turn, several seconds at a time. He kept his arms hitched as high behind him as he could manage. He wanted to keep his feet free for action, in case any of them felt like starting the show a little early.
