Twenty men shot down, thrown into their own truck, piled into this
cavern. He stood and gazed at the appalling sight. Then he snapped
the flashlight off again.
Because he had been right about the noise. It was the noise of
footsteps on the shale outside. He heard them again. They were
getting closer. They were building to a deafening crunching sound in
the night. They were heading straight for the shed. On the shale, no
way of telling how many people there were.
He heard them stop outside the massive doors. Heard the jingle of
keys. Heard the padlocks rattle. The chains were pulled off and the
log lifted aside. The doors sagged open. He dropped to the ground.
Lay face down and pressed himself up against the pile of cold and
oozing bodies.
Four feet. Two voices. Voices he knew well. Fowler and Borken.
Talking quietly, walking confidently. Reacher let his body sag against
the pile. A rat ran over his hand.
“Did he say when?” Fowler was asking.
His voice was suddenly loud against the rock.
“First thing tomorrow morning,” Borken was saying. “Phone company
starts its linemen when? About eight o’clock? Maybe seven-thirty?”
“Let’s be cautious,” Fowler said. “Let’s call it seven-thirty. First
thing they do is cut the line.”
They had flashlights. The beams flicked and swung as they walked.
“No problem,” Borken said. “Seven o’clock here is nine o’clock on the
East Coast. Perfect timing. We’ll do it at seven. DC first, then New
York, then Atlanta. Should be all done by ten past. Ten minutes that
shook the world, right? Twenty minutes to spare.”
They stopped at the second truck. Unbolted the tailboard. It came
down with a loud metallic clang.
Then what?” Fowler asked.
“Then we wait and see,” Borken replied. “Right now, they’ve only got
eight Marines up here. They don’t know what to do. They’re not sure
about the forest. White House is pussyfooting, like we thought. Give
them twelve hours for a decision, they can’t try anything before dark
tomorrow, earliest. And by then this place will be way down their list
of priorities.”
They were leaning into the truck. Their voices were muffled by the
thick canvas siding.
“Does he need the missile as well?” Fowler asked.
“Just the launcher,” Borken answered. “It’s in the electronic part.”
Readier lay among the scuffling rats and heard the sound of the clips
being undone. Then the squeak of the rubber as a launcher came out of
its mountings. Then the rattle of the tailgate bolts ramming home. The
footsteps receded. The flashlight beams flicked back toward the
doors.
The hinges creaked and the bulky timber doors thumped shut. Reacher
heard the launcher being laid gently on the shale and the gasps as the
two men lifted the old log back into the brackets. The rattle of the
chain and the click of the padlocks. The crunch of the footsteps
crossing the shale.
He rolled away from the corpses and hit out at a rat. Caught it with
an angry backhand and sent it squealing off into the dark. He sat up
and waited. Walked slowly to the door. Listened hard. Waited six
minutes. Put his hands into the gap at the bottom of the doors and
pulled them apart.
They wouldn’t move more than an inch. He laid his palms flat on the
smooth timbers and bunched up his shoulders and heaved. They were rock
solid. Like trying to push over a tree. He tried for a minute. He
was straining like a weightlifter. The doors were jammed. Then he
suddenly realized why. They had put the warped old log back in the
brackets the other way around. The curve pointing in toward him, not
out away from him. Clamping the doors with extra efficiency, instead
of allowing the foot of loose movement it had allowed before.
He pictured the log as he had seen it. More than a foot thick, warped,
but dried like iron. Curving away, it was no problem. Curving in, it
would be immovable. He glanced at the army trucks. Gave it up. There
was no space to hit the doors with any kind of momentum. The truck