Die Trying by Lee Child

flow. Nothing we can do there before Monday. When we get some

equipment.”

The roads were shown in red like a man had placed his right hand

palm-down on the paper. The small towns of Kalispell and Whitefish

nestled under the palm. Roads fanned out like the four fingers and the

thumb. The index finger ran up through a place called Eureka to the

Canadian border. The thumb ran out northwest through Yorke and stopped

at the old mines. That thumb was now amputated at the first knuckle.

They assume you’ll come up the road,” Johnson said. “So you won’t.

You’ll loop east to Eureka and come in through the forest.”

He ran his pencil down the thumb and across the back of the hand. Back

up the index finger and stopped it at Eureka. Fifty miles of forest

lay between Eureka and Yorke. The forest was represented on the map by

a large green stain. Deep and wide. They knew what that green stain

meant. They could see what it meant by looking around them. The area

was covered in virgin forest. It ran rampant up and down the

mountainsides. Most places the vegetation was so dense a man could

barely squeeze between the tree trunks. But the green stain to the

east of Yorke was a national forest. Owned and operated by the Forest

Service. The green stain showed a web of threads running through it.

Those threads were Forest Service tracks.

“I can get my people here in four hours,” Webster said. The hostage

rescue team. On my own initiative, if it comes to it.”

Johnson nodded.

They can walk right through the woods,” he said. “Probably drive right

through.”

Webster nodded.

“We called the Forest guys,” he said. They’re bringing us a detailed

plan.”

“Perfect,” Johnson said. “If things turn bad, you call your team in,

send them direct to Eureka, we’ll all make a little noise on the

southern flank, and they muscle in straight through from the east.”

Webster nodded again. The contingency plan was made. Until the

National Forests guy came up the short aluminum ladder into the command

post. McGrath brought him inside with Milosevic and Brogan. Webster

made the introductions and Johnson asked the questions. Straight away

the Forest guy started shaking his head.

Those tracks don’t exist,” he said. “At least, most of them don’t.”

Johnson pointed to the map.

“They’re right here,” he said.

The Forest guy shrugged. He had a thick book of topographical plans

under his arm. He opened it up to the correct page. Laid it over the

map. The scale was much larger, but it was obvious the web of threads

was a different shape.

“Mapmakers know there are tracks,” the guy said. “So they just show

them any old place.”

“OK,” Johnson said. “We’ll use your maps.”

The Forest guy shook his head.

These are wrong, too,” he said. They might have been right at some

stage, but they’re wrong now. We spent years closing off most of these

tracks. Had to stop the bear hunters getting in. Environmentalists

made us do it. We bulldozed tons of dirt into the openings of most of

the through tracks. Ripped up a lot of the others. They’ll be totally

overgrown by now.”

“OK, so which tracks are closed?” Webster asked. He had turned the

plan and was studying it.

“We don’t know,” the guy said. “We didn’t keep very accurate records.

Just sent the bulldozers out. We caught a lot of guys closing the

wrong tracks, because they were nearer, or not closing them at all,

because that was easier. The whole thing was a mess.”

“So is there any way through?” Johnson asked.

The Forest guy shrugged.

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. No way of knowing, except to try it.

Could take a couple of months. If you do get through, keep a record

and let us know, OK?”

Johnson stared at him.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re the damn Forest Service

and you want us to tell you where your own tracks are?”

The guy nodded.

“That’s about the size of it,” he said. “Like I told you, our records

are lousy. The way we figured it, who the hell would ever care?”