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 Clock 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 Clock 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?”
Readier 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