Die Trying

by Child, Lee

He turned to Holly.

  “You too,” he said. “You’re not too damn valuable for that. You can help him. He’s got a task to perform for me.”

  The guards stepped forward and marched Reacher and Holly behind Borken, slowly down through the trees to the Bastion and on along the beaten earth track to the command hut clearing. They halted there. Two of the guards peeled off and walked to the stores. They were back within five minutes with their weapons shouldered. The first guard was carrying a long-handled shovel in his left hand and a crowbar in his right. The second was carrying two olive fatigue shirts. Borken took them from him and turned to face Reacher and Holly.

  “Take your shirts off,” he said. “Put these on.”

  Holly stared at him.

  “Why?” she said.

  Borken smiled.

  “All part of the game,” he said. “You’re not back by nightfall, we turn the dogs loose. They need your old shirts for the scent.”

  Holly shook her head.

  “I’m not undressing,” she said.

  Borken looked at her and nodded.

  “We’ll turn our backs,” he said. “But you only get one chance. You don’t do it, these boys will do it for you, OK?”

  He gave the command and the five guards fanned out in a loose arc, facing the trees. Borken waited for Reacher to turn away and then swiveled on his heels and stared up in the air.

  “OK,” he said. “Get on with it.”

  The men heard unbuttoning sounds and the rasp of cotton. They heard the old shirt fall to the ground and the new one slipping on. They heard fingernails clicking against buttons.

  “Done,” Holly muttered.

  Reacher took off his jacket and his shirt and shivered in the mountain breeze. He took the new shirt from Borken and shrugged it on. Slung the jacket over his shoulder. Borken nodded and the guard handed Reacher the shovel and the crowbar. Borken pointed into the forest.

  “Walk due west a hundred yards,” he said. “Then north another hundred. You’ll know what to do when you get there.”

  Holly looked at Reacher. He looked back and nodded. They strolled together into the trees, heading west.

  THIRTY YARDS INTO the woods, as soon as they were out of sight, Holly stopped. She planted her crutch and waited for Reacher to turn and rejoin her.

  “Borken,” she said. “I know who he is. I’ve seen his name in our files. They tagged him for a robbery, northern California somewhere. Twenty million dollars in bearer bonds. Armored car driver was killed. Sacramento office investigated, but they couldn’t make it stick.”

  Reacher nodded.

  “He did it,” he said. “That’s for damn sure. Fowler admitted it. Says they’ve got twenty million in the Caymans. Captured from the enemy.”

  Holly grimaced.

  “It explains the mole in Chicago,” she said. “Borken can afford a pretty handsome bribe with twenty million bucks in the bank, right?”

  Reacher nodded again, slowly.

  “Anybody you know would take a bribe?” he asked.

  She shrugged.

  “They all bitch about the salary,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “Think of somebody who doesn’t bitch about it. Whoever’s got Borken’s bearer bonds behind him isn’t worried about money anymore.”

  “Some of them don’t grumble,” she said. “Some of them just put up with it. Like me, for instance. But I guess I’m different.”

  He looked at her. Walked on.

  “You’re different,” he repeated. “That’s for damn sure.”

  He said it vaguely, thinking about it. They walked on for ten yards. He was walking slower than his normal pace and she was limping at his side. He was lost in thought. He was hearing Borken’s high voice claiming: she’s more than his daughter. He was hearing her own exasperated voice asking: why the hell does everybody assume everything that ever happens to me is because of who my damn father is? Then he stopped walking again and looked straight at her.

  “Who are you, Holly?” he asked.

  “You know who I am,” she said.

  He shook his head again.

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “At first I thought you were just some woman. Then you were some woman called Holly Johnson. Then you were an FBI agent. Then you were General Johnson’s daughter. Then Borken told me you’re even more than that. She’s more than his daughter, he said. That stunt you pulled, he was shitting himself. You’re some kind of a triple-A gold-plated hostage, Holly. So who the hell else are you?”

  She looked at him. Sighed.

  “Long story,” she said. “Started twenty-eight years ago. My father was made a White House Fellow. Seconded to Washington. They used to do that, with the fast-track guys. He got friendly with another guy. Political analyst, aiming to be a congressman. My mother was pregnant with me, his wife was pregnant, he asked my parents to be godparents, my father asked them to be godparents. So this other guy stood up at my christening.”

  “And?” Reacher said.

  “The guy got into a career,” Holly said. “He’s still in Washington. You probably voted for him. He’s the President.”

  REACHER WALKED ON in a daze. Kept glancing at Holly, gamely matching him stride for stride. A hundred yards west of the punishment hut, there was an outcrop of rock, bare of trees. Reacher and Holly turned there and walked north, into the breeze.

  “Where are we going?” Holly said. Her voice had an edge of worry.

  Reacher stopped suddenly. He knew where they were going. The answer was on the breeze. He went cold. His skin crawled. He stared down at the implements in his hands like he’d never seen such things before.

  “You stay here,” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “I’m coming with you, wherever it is.”

  “Please, Holly,” he said. “Stay here, will you?”

  She looked surprised by his voice, but she kept on shaking her head.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said again.

  He gave her a bleak look and they walked on north. He forced himself onward, toward it. Fifty yards. Each step required a conscious effort of will. Sixty yards. He wanted to turn and run. Just run and never stop. Hurl himself across the wild river and get the hell out. Seventy yards. He stopped.

  “Stay here, Holly,” he said again. “Please.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “You don’t need to see this,” he said, miserably.

  She shook her head again and walked on. He caught her up. They smelled it long before they saw it. Faint, sweet, unforgettable. One of the most common and one of the most terrible smells in mankind’s long and awful history. The smell of fresh human blood. Twenty paces after they smelled it, they heard it. The buzzing of a million flies.

  Jackson was crucified between two young pines. His hands had been dragged apart and nailed to the trees through the palms and wrists. He had been forced up onto his toes and his feet had been nailed flat against the base of the trunks. He was naked and he had been mutilated. He had taken several minutes to die. Reacher was clear on that.

  He stood immobile, staring at the crawling mass of blue shiny flies. Holly had dropped her crutch and her face was white. Ghastly staring white. She fell to her knees and retched. Spun herself away from the dreadful sight and fell forward on her face. Her hands clawed blindly in the forest dirt. She bucked and screamed into the buzzing forest silence. Screamed and cried.

  Reacher watched the flies. His eyes were expressionless. His face was impassive. Just a tiny muscle jumping at the corner of his jaw gave anything away. He stood still for several minutes. Holly went silent, on the forest floor beside him. He dropped the crowbar. Slung his jacket over a low branch. Stepped over directly in front of the body and started digging.

  He dug with a quiet fury. He smashed the shovel into the earth as hard as he could. He chopped through tree roots with single savage blows. When he hit rocks, he heaved them out and hurled th
em into a pile. Holly sat up and watched him. She watched the blazing eyes in his impassive face and the bulging muscles in his arms. She followed the relentless rhythm of the shovel. She said nothing.

  The work was making him hot. The flies were checking him out. They left Jackson’s body and buzzed around his head. He ignored them. Just strained and gasped his way six feet down into the earth. Then he propped the shovel against a tree. Wiped his face on his sleeve. Didn’t speak. Took the crowbar and stepped close to the corpse. Batted away the flies. Levered the nails out of the left hand. Jackson’s body flopped sideways. The left arm pointed grotesquely down into the pit. The flies rose in an angry cloud. Reacher walked around to the right hand. Pried the nails out. The body flopped forward into the hole. Reacher extracted the nails from the feet. The body tumbled free into the grave. The air was dark with flies and loud with their sound. Reacher slid down into the hole and straightened the corpse out. Crossed the arms over the chest.

  He climbed back out. Without pausing he picked up the shovel and started filling the hole. He worked relentlessly. The flies disappeared. He worked on. There was too much dirt. It mounded up high when he had finished, like graves always do. He pounded the mound into a neat shape and dropped the shovel. Bent and picked up the rocks he’d cleared. Used them to shore up the sides of the mound. Placed the biggest one on top, like some kind of a headstone.

  Then he stood there, panting like a wild man, streaked with dirt and sweat. Holly watched him. Then she spoke for the first time in an hour.

  “Should we say a prayer?” she asked.

  Reacher shook his head.

  “Way too late for that,” he said quietly.

  “You OK?” she asked.

  “Who’s the mole?” he asked in turn.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Well, think about it, will you?” he said, angrily.

  She glared up at him.

  “Don’t you think I have been?” she said. “What the hell else do you think I was doing for the last hour?”

  “So who the hell is it?” he asked. Still angry.

  She paused. Went quiet again.

  “Could be anybody,” she said. “There are a hundred agents in Chicago.”

  She was sitting on the forest floor, small, miserable, defeated. She had trusted her people. She had told him that. She had been full of naive confidence. I trust my people, she had said. He felt a wave of tenderness for her. It crashed over him. Not pity, not concern, just an agonizing tenderness for a good person whose bright new world was suddenly dirty and falling apart. He stared at her, hoping she would see it. She stared back, eyes full of tears. He held out his hands. She took them. He lifted her to her feet and held her. He lifted her off the ground and crushed her close. Her breasts were against his pounding chest. Her tears were against his neck.

  Then her hands were behind his head, pulling him close. She squirmed her face up and kissed him. She kissed him angrily and hungrily on the mouth. Her arms were locking around his neck. He felt her wild breathing. He knelt and laid her gently on the soft earth. Her hands burrowed at his shirt buttons. His at hers.

  They made love naked on the forest floor, urgently, passionately, greedily, as if they were defying death itself. Then they lay panting and spent in each other’s arms, gazing up at the sunlight spearing down through the leaves.

  HE STROKED HER hair and felt her breathing slow down. He held her silently for a long time, watching the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams over her head.

  “Who knew your movements on Monday?” he asked softly.

  She thought about it. Made no reply.

  “And which of them didn’t know about Jackson then?” he asked.

  No reply.

  “And which of them isn’t short of money?” he asked.

  No reply.

  “And which of them is recent?” he asked. “Which of them could have come close enough to Beau Borken somewhere to get bought off? Sometime in the past? Maybe investigating the robbery thing in California?”

  She shuddered in his arms.

  “Four questions, Holly,” he said. “Who fits?”

  She ran through all the possibilities. Like a process of elimination. An algorithm. She boiled the hundred names down. The first question eliminated most of them. The second question eliminated a few more. The third question eliminated a handful. It was the fourth question which proved decisive. She shuddered again.

  “Only two possibilities,” she said.

  33

  MILOSEVIC AND BROGAN were strapped side by side in the rear of the Air Force chopper. McGrath and Johnson and the General’s aide were crushed into the middle row of seats. The aircrew were shoulder to shoulder in the front. They lifted off from Silver Bow and clattered away northwest over the town of Butte, nose down, low altitude, looking for maximum airspeed. The helicopter was an old Bell, rebuilt with a new engine, and it was pushing a hundred and twenty miles an hour, which made for a lot of noise inside. Consequently McGrath and Johnson were screaming into their radio mikes to make themselves understood.

  McGrath was patched through to the Hoover Building. He was trying to talk to Harland Webster. He had one hand cupped over the mike and the other was clamping the earphone to his head. He was talking about the missile unit. He didn’t know if Webster was hearing him. He just repeated his message over and over, as loud as he could. Then he flicked the switch and tore off the headset. Tossed it forward to the copilot.

  Johnson was talking to Peterson. Radio contact had not been restored. He limited himself to requesting an update by secure landline direct to the mobile command post in two hours’ time. He failed to decipher the reply. He pulled off his headset and looked a question at McGrath. McGrath shrugged back at him. The helicopter clattered onward.

  HARLAND WEBSTER HEARD the shrieking din cut off. He hung up his phone in the sudden silence of his office. Leaned forward and buzzed his secretary.

  “Car,” he said.

  He walked through to the elevator and rode down to the garage. Walked over to his limousine. His driver was holding the door for him.

  “White House,” he said.

  This time, the driver said nothing. Just fired it up and eased out of the garage. Bumped up and out into the afternoon rush. Crawled the sixteen hundred yards west in silence. Webster was directed to the same off-white room. He waited there a quarter hour. Dexter came in. Clearly not pleased to see him back so soon.

  “They’ve stolen some missiles,” Webster said.

  “What missiles?” Dexter asked.

  He described everything as well as he could. Dexter listened. Didn’t nod. Didn’t ask any questions. Didn’t react. Just told him to wait in the room.

  THE AIR FORCE Bell put down on a gravel turnout two hundred yards south of where the road into Yorke narrowed and straightened into the hills. The pilot kept the engine turning and the five passengers ducked out and ran bent over until they were out of the fierce downdraft. There were vehicles on the road ahead. A random pattern of military vehicles slewed across the blacktop. One of them was turning slowly in the road. It turned in the narrow space between the rocky walls and straightened as it approached. It slowed and halted fifty yards away. General Johnson stepped out into view. The car moved forward and stopped in front of him. It was a new Chevrolet, sprayed a dull olive green. There were white stenciled letters and figures on the hood and along the sides. An officer slid out. He saluted the General and skipped around to open all the doors. The five men squeezed in and the car turned again and rolled the two hundred yards north to the mess of vehicles.

  “The command post is on its way, sir,” the officer said. “Should be here inside forty minutes. The satellite trucks are an hour behind it. I suggest you wait in the car. It’s getting cold outside.”

  “Word from the missile unit?” Johnson asked.

  The officer shook his head in the gloom.

  “No word, sir,” he said.

  WEBSTER WAITED MOST of an hou
r. Then the door of the small off-white room cracked open. A Secret Service agent stood there. Blue suit, curly wire running up out of his collar to his earpiece.

  “Please come with me, sir,” the agent said.

  Webster stood up and the guy raised his hand and spoke into his cuff. Webster followed him along a quiet corridor and into an elevator. The elevator was small and slow. It took them down to the first floor. They walked along another quiet corridor and paused in front of a white door. The agent knocked once and opened it.

  The President was sitting in his chair behind his desk. The chair was rotated away and he had his back to the room. He was staring out through the bulletproof windows at the darkness settling over the garden. Dexter was in an armchair. Neither asked him to sit down. The President didn’t turn around. As soon as he heard the door click shut, he started speaking.

  “Suppose I was a judge,” he said. “And suppose you were some cop and you came to me for a warrant?”

  Webster could see the President’s face reflected in the thick glass. It was just a pink smudge.

  “OK, sir, suppose I was?” he said.

  “What have you got?” the President asked him. “And what haven’t you got? You don’t even know for sure Holly’s there at all. You’ve got an undercover asset in place and he hasn’t confirmed it to you. You’re guessing, is all. And these missiles? The Army has lost radio contact. Could be temporary. Could be any number of reasons for that. Your undercover guy hasn’t mentioned them.”

  “He could be experiencing difficulties, sir,” Webster said. “And he’s been told to be cautious. He doesn’t call in with a running commentary. He’s undercover, right? He can’t just disappear into the forest any old time he wants to.”

  The President nodded. The pink smudge in the glass moved up and down. There was a measure of sympathy there.

  “We understand that, Harland,” he said. “We really do. But we have to assume that with matters of this magnitude, he’s going to make a big effort, right? But you’ve heard nothing. So you’re giving us nothing but speculation.”