Die Trying by Lee Child

They crashed out of the trees, six men line abreast, automatic rifles

at the slope. Camouflage fatigues, beards. The same six guards who

had stood in front of the judge’s bench that morning. Borken’s

personal detail. Reacher scanned across the line of faces. The

younger guy with the scar was at the left-hand end of the line.

oon

Jackson, the FBI plant. They paused and reset their course. Rushed

across the leveled ground toward Readier. As they approached, Fowler

stood back, leaving Reacher looking like an isolated target. Five of

the men fanned out into a loose arc. Five rifles aimed at Reacher’s

chest. The sixth man stepped up in front of Fowler. No salute, but

there was a deference in his stance which was more or less the same

thing.

“Beau wants this guy back,” the soldier said. “Something real

urgent.”

Fowler nodded.

Take him,” he said. “He’s beginning to piss me off.”

The rifle muzzles jerked Reacher into a rough formation and the six men

hustled him south through the thin belt of trees, moving fast. They

passed through the shooting range and followed the beaten earth path

back to the Bastion. They turned west and walked past the armory and

on into the forest toward the command hut. Reacher lengthened his

stride and sped up. Pulled ahead. Let his foot hit a root and went

down heavily on the stones. First guy to him was Jackson. Reacher saw

the scarred forehead. He grabbed Reacher’s arm.

“Mole in Chicago,” Reacher breathed.

“On your feet, asshole,” Jackson shouted back.

“Hide out and run for it tonight,” Reacher whispered. “Maximum care,

OK?”

Jackson glanced at him and replied with a squeeze of his arm. Then he

pulled him up and shoved him ahead down the path into the smaller

clearing. Beau Borken was framed in his command hut doorway. He was

dressed in huge baggy camouflage fatigues, dirty and disheveled. Like

he had been working hard. He stared at Reacher as he approached.

“I see we gave you new clothes,” he said.

Reacher nodded.

“So let me apologize for my own appearance,” Borken said. “Busy

day.”

“Fowler told me,” Reacher said. “You’ve been building abatises.”

“Abatises?” Borken said. “Right.”

Then he went quiet. Reacher saw his big white hands, opening and

closing.

“Your mission is canceled,” Borken said quietly.

“It is?” Reacher said. “Why?”

Borken eased his bulk down out of the doorway and stepped close.

Reacher’s gaze was fixed on his blazing eyes and he never saw the blow

coming. Borken hit him in the stomach, a big hard fist on the end of

four hundred pounds of body weight Reacher went down like a tree and

Borken smashed a foot into his back.

TWENTY-EIGHT

His NAME is JACKSON; WEBSTER SAID. “How long has he been in there?”

Milosevic asked. “Nearly a year,” Webster said.

Eleven o’clock in the morning, Thursday July third, inside Peterson.

The section head at Quantico was faxing material over from Andrews down

the air force’s own secure fax network as fast as the machines could

handle it. Milosevic and Brogan were pulling it off the machines and

passing it to Webster and McGrath for analysis. On the other side of

the table General Johnson and his aide were scanning a map of the

northwest corner of Montana.

“You got people undercover in all these groups?” Johnson asked.

Webster shook his head and smiled.

“Not all of them,” he said. Too many groups, not enough people. I

think we just got lucky.”

“I didn’t know we had people in this one,” Brogan said.

Webster was still smiling.

“Lots of things lots of people don’t know,” he said. “Safer that way,

right?”

“So what is this Jackson guy saying?” Brogan asked.

“Does he mention Holly?” Johnson asked.

“Does he mention what the hell this is all about?” Milosevic asked.

Webster blew out his cheeks and waved his hand at the stack of curling

fax paper. McGrath was busy sifting through it. He was separating the

paper into two piles. One pile for routine stuff, the other pile for

important intelligence. The routine pile was bigger. The important

intelligence was sketchy.

“Analysis, Mack?” Webster said.

McGrath shrugged.

“Up to a point, pretty much normal,” he said.