the sun into the forest.
Fifty yards in there was another clearing. A rough scrubby rectangle,
small in area. Two plywood and cedar structures. Neither had any
windows. The guards halted him and the point man used his rifle barrel
to indicate the left-hand building.
“Command hut,” he said.
Then he pointed to the right.
“Punishment hut,” he said. “We try to avoid that one.”
The six men laughed with the secure confidence of an elite detachment
and the point man knocked on the command hut door. Paused a beat and
opened it. Reacher was shoved inside with a rifle muzzle in the small
of his back.
The hut was blazing with light. Electric bulbs added to green daylight
from mossy skylights set into the roof. There was a plain oak desk and
matching chairs, big old round things like Reacher had seen in old
movies about newspaper offices or country banks. There was no decor
except flags and banners nailed to the walls. There was a huge red
swastika behind the desk, and several similar black-and-white motifs on
the other walls. There was a detailed map of Montana pinned to a board
on the back wall. A tiny portion of the northwest corner of the state
was outlined in black. There were bundles of pamphlets and manuals
stacked on the bare floor. One was titled: Dry It, You’ll Like It. It
claimed to show how food could be preserved to withstand a siege.
Another claimed to show how guerillas could derail passenger trains.
There was a polished mahogany bookcase, incongruously fine, packed with
books. The bar of daylight from the door fell across them and
illuminated their cloth spines and gold-blocked titles. They were
standard histories of the art of war, translations from German and
Japanese. There was a whole shelf with texts about Pearl Harbor. Texts
that Reacher himself had studied, elsewhere and a long time ago.
He stood still. Borken was behind the desk. His hair gleamed white in
the light. The black uniform showed up gray. Borken was just staring
silently at him. Then he waved him to a chair. Motioned the guards to
wait outside.
Reacher sat heavily. Fatigue was gnawing at him and adrenalin was
burning his stomach. The guards tramped across the floor and stepped
outside. They closed the door quietly. Borken moved his arm and
rolled open a drawer. Took out an ancient handgun. Laid it on the
desktop with a loud clatter.
“I made my decision,” he said. “About whether you live or die.”
Then he pointed at the old revolver lying on the desk.
“You know what this is?” he asked.
Reacher glanced at it through the glare and nodded.
“It’s a Marshal Colt,” he said.
Borken nodded.
“You bet your ass it is,” he said. “It’s an original 1873 Marshal
Colt, just like the US cavalry were given. It’s my personal weapon.”
He picked it up, right-handed, and hefted it.
“You know what it fires?” he said.
Reacher nodded again.
“Forty-fives,” he said. “Six shots.”
“Right first time,” Borken said. “Six forty-fives, nine hundred feet
per second out of a seven and a half inch barrel. You know what those
bullets could do to you?”
Reacher shrugged.
“Depends if they hit me or not,” he said.
Borken looked blank. Then he grinned. His wet mouth curled upward and
his tight cheeks nearly forced his eyes shut.
They’d hit you,” he said. “If I’m firing, they’d hit you.”
Reacher shrugged again.
“From there, maybe,” he said.
“From anywhere,” Borken said. “From here, from fifty feet, from fifty
yards, if I’m firing, they’d hit you.”
“Hold up your right hand,” Reacher said.
Borken looked blank again. Then he put the gun down and held up his
huge white hand like he was waving to a vague acquaintance or taking an
oath.
“Bullshit,” Reacher said.
“Bullshit?” Borken repeated.
“For sure,” Reacher said. That gun’s reasonably accurate, but it’s not
the best weapon in the world. To hit a man at fifty yards with it,
you’d need to practice like crazy. And you haven’t been.”
“I haven’t?” Borken said.
“No, you haven’t,” Reacher said. “Look at the damn thing. It was
designed in the 1870s, right? You seen old photographs? People were