Die Trying (28 page)

“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 leatherbound 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 to 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 defense?” he asked quietly.

The way he said it, he made it seem absurd that anybody could possibly dream up any kind of defense to those kinds of charges. The courtroom stayed silent. Still. Borken was watching the crowd. Every pair of eyes was locked onto the back of Loder's head.

“Anything to say?” Borken asked him again.

Loder stared forward. Made no reply. Borken turned toward the jury box and looked at the three men sitting on the old worn benches. Looked a question at them. The three men huddled for a second and whispered. Then the guy on the left stood up.

“Guilty, sir,” he said. “Definitely guilty.”

Borken nodded in satisfaction.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said.

The crowd set up a buzz. He turned to quell it with a look.

“I am required to pass sentence,” he said. “As many of you know, Loder is an old acquaintance of mine. We go back a long way. We were childhood friends. And friendship means a great deal to me.”

He paused and looked down at Loder.

“But other things mean more,” he said. “Performance of my duties means more. My responsibility to this emerging nation means more. Sometimes, statesmanship must be put above every other value a man holds dear.”

The crowd was silent. Holding its breath. Borken sat for a long moment. Then he glanced over Loder's head at the guards behind him and made a small, delicate motion with his head. The guards grabbed Loder's elbows and hauled him to his feet. They formed up and hustled him out of the room. Borken stood and looked at the crowd. Then he turned and walked to the doors and was gone. The people in the public benches shuffled to their feet and hurried out after him.

Reacher saw the guards walking Loder to a flagpole on the patch of lawn outside the courthouse. Borken was striding after them. The guards reached the flagpole and shoved Loder hard up against it, facing it. They held his wrists and pulled, so he was pressed up against the pole, hugging it, face tight against the dull white paint. Borken came up behind him. Pulled the Sig-Sauer from its holster. Clicked the safety catch. Cocked a round into the chamber. Jammed the muzzle into the back of Loder's neck and fired. There was an explosion of pink blood and the roar of the shot cannoned back off the mountains.

26

“HIS 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, un-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 numbers at the time, but the idea was to cull the no-hopers. A guy like this shouldn't have been shaken out.”

Johnson switched 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.