Die Trying by Lee Child

thought. Looks like my chief was right.”

Ray nodded proudly and Reacher checked his watch.

“It’s seven-thirty, right?” he said. “I’m going to sleep two and a

half hours. The satellite will wake me at ten exactly. You wait and

see.”

He lay back down on the floor and curled his arm under his head. Set

the alarm in his head for two minutes to ten. Said to himself: don’t

let it fail me tonight.

2R1

THIRTY-FIVE

I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT,” GENERAL GARBER SAID. “He’s involved,” Webster

said in reply. That’s for damn sure. We got the pictures, clear as

day.”

Garber shook his head.

“I was promoted lieutenant forty years ago,” he said. “Now I’m a

three-star general. I’ve commanded thousands of men. Tens of

thousands. Got to know most of them well. And out of all of them,

Jack Reacher is the single least likely man to be involved in a thing

like this.”

Garber was sitting ramrod-straight at the table in the mobile command

post. He had shed his khaki raincoat to reveal an old creased uniform

jacket. It was a jacket which bore the accumulated prizes of a

lifetime of service. It was studded with badges and ribbons. It was

the jacket of a man who had served forty years without ever making a

single mistake.

Johnson was watching him carefully. Garber’s grizzled old head was

still. His eyes were calm. His hands were laid comfortably on the

table. His voice was firm, but quiet. Definite, like he was being

asked to defend the proposition that the sky was blue and the grass was

green.

“Show the general the pictures, Mack,” Webster said.

McGrath nodded and opened his envelope. Slid the four stills over the

table to Garber. Garber held each one up in turn, tilted to catch the

green light from the overhead. Johnson was watching his eyes. He was

waiting for the flicker of doubt, then the flicker of resignation. He

saw neither.

These are open to interpretation,” Garber said.

His voice was still calm. Johnson heard an officer loyally defending a

favored subordinate. Webster and McGrath heard a policeman of sorts

expressing a doubt. They figured forty years’ service had bought the

guy the right to be heard.

“Interpretation how?” Webster asked.

“Four isolated moments out of a sequence,” Garber said. “They could be

telling us the wrong story.”

Webster leaned over and pointed at the first still.

“He’s grabbing her stuff,” he said. “Plain as day, General.”

Garber shook his head. There was silence. Just electronic hum

throughout the vehicle. Johnson saw a flicker of doubt. But it was in

McGrath’s eyes, not Garber’s. Then Brogan rattled his way up the

ladder. Ducked his head into the truck.

“Surveillance tapes, chief,” he said. “We’ve been reviewing the stuff

the planes got earlier. You should come see it.”

He ducked out again and the four men glanced at each other and got up.

Walked the short distance through the cold evening to the satellite

truck and up the ladder. Milosevic was in shirt sleeves, bathed in the

blue light from a bank of video screens. He shuttled a tape back and

pressed play. Four screens lit up with a perfect clear overhead view

of a tiny town. The quality of the picture was magnificent. Like a

perfect movie picture, except filmed vertically downward, not

horizontal.

“Yorke,” Milosevic said. The old courthouse, bottom right. Now

watch.”

He hit fast wind and watched the counter. Slowed the tape and hit play

again.

This is a mile and a quarter away,” he said. The camera tracked

northwest. There’s a parade ground, and this rifle range.”

The camera had zoomed out for a wide view of the area. There were two

clearings with huts to the south and a flat parade ground to the north.

In between was a long narrow scar in the undergrowth, maybe a half-mile

long and twenty yards wide.

The camera zoomed right out for a moment, to establish the scale, then

it tightened in on a crowd at the eastern end of the range. Then it

tightened farther to a small knot of people standing on some brown

matting. There were four men clearly visible. And one woman. General