Die Trying by Lee Child

bullshitting him.”

“But how?” Brogan asked.

McGrath glanced at him. Glanced at Milosevic.

The three of us,” he said. “End of the day, this is a Bureau affair.

Call it whatever you want, terrorism, sedition, kidnaping, it’s all FBI

territory.”

“We’re going to do it?” Milosevic said. “Just the three of us? Right

now?”

“You got a better way?” McGrath said. “You want something done

properly, you do it yourself, right?”

Garber was twisted around, scanning along the three faces on the rear

seat.

“So go do it,” he said.

McGrath nodded and held up his right hand. The thumb and the first two

fingers sticking out.

“I’m the thumb,” he said. “I go in east of the road. Brogan, you’re

the first finger. You walk a mile west of the road and go in from

there. Milo, you’re the second finger. You walk two miles west and go

north from there. We infiltrate separately, spaced out a mile between

each of us. We meet up back on the road a half-mile shy of the town.

Clear?”

Brogan made a face. Then he nodded. Milosevic shrugged. Garber

glanced at McGrath and the general’s aide started the Chevy and rolled

it gently south. He stopped it again after four hundred yards where

the road came back out of the rock cover and there was clear access

left and right into the countryside. The three FBI men checked their

weapons. They each had a government-issue .38 in a shiny brown leather

shoulder holster. Full load of six, plus another six in a speed loader

in their pockets.

Try to capture a couple of rifles,” McGrath said. “Don’t worry about

taking prisoners. You see somebody, you shoot the bastard down, OK?”

Milosevic had the longest walk, so he was first to go. He ducked

across the road and struck out due west across the mountain scrub. He

made it to a small stand of trees and disappeared. McGrath lit a

cigarette and sent Brogan after him. Garber waited until Brogan was in

the trees, then he turned back to McGrath.

“Don’t forget what I told you about Readier,” he said. “I’m not wrong

about that guy. He’s on your side, believe me.”

McGrath shrugged and said nothing. Smoked in silence. Opened the

Chevy’s door and slid out. Ground out the cigarette under his shoe and

walked away east, across the grassy shoulder and onto the scrub.

McGrath was not far off fifty, and a heavy smoker, but he was a fit

man. He had that type of mongrel constitution that age and smoke could

not hurt. He was short at five seven, but sturdy. About one-sixty,

made up of that hard slab by muscle which needs no maintenance and

never fades into fat. He felt the same as he had as a kid. No better,

no worse. His Bureau training had been a long time ago, and fairly

rudimentary compared to what people were getting now. But he’d aced

it. Physically, he’d been indestructible. Not the fastest guy in his

class, but easily the best stamina. The training runs in the early

days of Quantico had been crude. Around and around in the Virginia

woods, using natural obstacles. McGrath would come in maybe third or

fourth every time. But if they were sent around again, he could do the

same exact time, just about to the second. The faster guys would be

struggling at his side as he pounded relentlessly onward. Then they

would fall back. Second time around McGrath would come in first. Third

time around, he would be the only guy to finish.

So he was jogging comfortably as he approached the southern edge of the

ravine. He had worked about three hundred yards east to a point where

the slopes were reasonable and not directly overlooked. He went

straight down without pausing. Short, stiff strides against the

incline. The footing was loose. He skidded on small avalanches of

gravel and used the stunted trees to check his speed. He dodged around

the litter of rocks in the bottom of the trench and started up the

northern slope.

Going up was harder. He kicked his toes into the gravel for grip and