bullshitting him.”
“But how?” Brogan asked.
McGrath glanced at him. Glanced at Milosevic.
The three of us,” he said. “End of the day, this is a Bureau affair.
Call it whatever you want, terrorism, sedition, kidnaping, it’s all FBI
territory.”
“We’re going to do it?” Milosevic said. “Just the three of us? Right
now?”
“You got a better way?” McGrath said. “You want something done
properly, you do it yourself, right?”
Garber was twisted around, scanning along the three faces on the rear
seat.
“So go do it,” he said.
McGrath nodded and held up his right hand. The thumb and the first two
fingers sticking out.
“I’m the thumb,” he said. “I go in east of the road. Brogan, you’re
the first finger. You walk a mile west of the road and go in from
there. Milo, you’re the second finger. You walk two miles west and go
north from there. We infiltrate separately, spaced out a mile between
each of us. We meet up back on the road a half-mile shy of the town.
Clear?”
Brogan made a face. Then he nodded. Milosevic shrugged. Garber
glanced at McGrath and the general’s aide started the Chevy and rolled
it gently south. He stopped it again after four hundred yards where
the road came back out of the rock cover and there was clear access
left and right into the countryside. The three FBI men checked their
weapons. They each had a government-issue .38 in a shiny brown leather
shoulder holster. Full load of six, plus another six in a speed loader
in their pockets.
Try to capture a couple of rifles,” McGrath said. “Don’t worry about
taking prisoners. You see somebody, you shoot the bastard down, OK?”
Milosevic had the longest walk, so he was first to go. He ducked
across the road and struck out due west across the mountain scrub. He
made it to a small stand of trees and disappeared. McGrath lit a
cigarette and sent Brogan after him. Garber waited until Brogan was in
the trees, then he turned back to McGrath.
“Don’t forget what I told you about Readier,” he said. “I’m not wrong
about that guy. He’s on your side, believe me.”
McGrath shrugged and said nothing. Smoked in silence. Opened the
Chevy’s door and slid out. Ground out the cigarette under his shoe and
walked away east, across the grassy shoulder and onto the scrub.
McGrath was not far off fifty, and a heavy smoker, but he was a fit
man. He had that type of mongrel constitution that age and smoke could
not hurt. He was short at five seven, but sturdy. About one-sixty,
made up of that hard slab by muscle which needs no maintenance and
never fades into fat. He felt the same as he had as a kid. No better,
no worse. His Bureau training had been a long time ago, and fairly
rudimentary compared to what people were getting now. But he’d aced
it. Physically, he’d been indestructible. Not the fastest guy in his
class, but easily the best stamina. The training runs in the early
days of Quantico had been crude. Around and around in the Virginia
woods, using natural obstacles. McGrath would come in maybe third or
fourth every time. But if they were sent around again, he could do the
same exact time, just about to the second. The faster guys would be
struggling at his side as he pounded relentlessly onward. Then they
would fall back. Second time around McGrath would come in first. Third
time around, he would be the only guy to finish.
So he was jogging comfortably as he approached the southern edge of the
ravine. He had worked about three hundred yards east to a point where
the slopes were reasonable and not directly overlooked. He went
straight down without pausing. Short, stiff strides against the
incline. The footing was loose. He skidded on small avalanches of
gravel and used the stunted trees to check his speed. He dodged around
the litter of rocks in the bottom of the trench and started up the
northern slope.
Going up was harder. He kicked his toes into the gravel for grip and