Die Trying by Lee Child

rumbled a mile south and met a waiting Montana State Police cruiser on

the road. The State guy conferred with McGrath and opened his trunk.

Pulled out a box of red danger flares and an array of temporary road

signs. The soldiers jogged south and put a pair of flares either side

of a sign reading: Danger, Road Out. They came back north and set up a

trio of flares in the center of the blacktop with a sign reading:

Bridge Out Ahead. Fifty yards farther north, they blocked the whole

width of the road with more flares. They strung Road Closed signs

across behind them. When the State guy had slalomed his way back south

and disappeared, the soldiers took axes from their vehicle and started

felling trees. The armored carrier nudged them over and pushed them

across the road, engine roaring, tires squealing. It lined them up in

a rough zigzag. A vehicle could get through, but only if it slowed to

a dead crawl and threaded its way past. Two soldiers were posted as

sentries on the shoulders. The other six rode back north with

McGrath.

Johnson was in the command vehicle. He was in radio contact with

Peterson. The news was bad. The missile unit had been out of radio

contact for more than eight hours. Johnson had a rule of thumb. He

had learned it by bitter experience in the jungles of Vietnam. The

rule of thumb said: when you’ve lost radio contact with a unit for more

than eight hours, you mark that unit down as a total loss.

Webster and Garber did not talk during the plane ride. That was

Webster’s choice. He was experienced enough as a bureaucrat to know

that whatever he heard from Garber, he’d only have to hear all over

again when the full team was finally assembled. So he sat quietly in

the noisy jet whine and read the Borken profile from Quantico. Garber

was looking questions at him, but he ignored them. Explain it to

Garber now, and he’d only have to do it all over again for McGrath and

Johnson.

The evening air at Kalispell was cold and gray for the short noisy walk

across the apron to the air force Bell. Garber identified himself to

the co-pilot, who dropped a short ladder to the tarmac. Garber and

Webster scrambled up inside and sat where they were told. The co-pilot

signaled with both hands that they should fasten their harnesses and

that the ride would take about twenty-five minutes. Webster nodded and

listened to the beat of the rotor as it lifted them all into the air.

General Johnson had just finished another long call to the White House

when he heard the Bell clattering in. He stood framed in the

command-post doorway and watched it put down on the same gravel

turnout, two hundred yards south. He saw two figures spill out and

crouch away. He saw the chopper lift and yaw and turn south.

He walked down and met them halfway. Nodded to Garber and pulled

Webster to one side.

“Anything?” he asked.

Webster shook his head.

“No change,” he said. “White House is playing safe. You?”

“Nothing,” Johnson said.

Webster nodded. Nothing more to say.

“What we got here?” he asked.

“Far as the White House knows, nothing,” Johnson said. “We’ve got two

camera planes in the air. Officially, they’re on exercises. We’ve got

eight Marines and an armored car. They’re on exercises too. Their COs

know where they are, but they don’t know exactly why, and they’re not

asking.”

“You sealed the road?” Webster asked.

Johnson nodded.

“We’re all on our own up here,” he said.

THIRTY-FOUR

R BACKER AND HOLLY SAT ALONE IN THE FOREST, BACKS TO TWO adjacent

pines, staring at the mound above Jackson’s grave. They sat like that

until the afternoon light faded and died. They didn’t speak. The

forest grew cold. The time for the decision arrived.

“We’re going back,” Holly said.

It was a statement, not a question. A lot of resignation in her voice.

He made no reply. He was breathing low, staring into space, lost in

thought. Reliving in his mind her taste and smell. Her hair and her