and hammered the third peg in. The fourth peg completed an exact
square, eight feet on each side. McGrath had a pretty good idea what
that square was for.
“We normally do this in the woods,” the unit leader said. “We normally
do it vertically, with trees.”
Then the guy pointed upward at the sky.
“But we need to let them see,” he said. They can’t see properly in the
woods. This time of year, too many leaves in the way, right?”
The guard who had driven the tent pegs into the ground was panting from
the exertion. He changed places with his leader again. Jammed his
rifle into McGrath’s gut and leaned on it, recovering. McGrath gasped
and squirmed under the pressure. The leader squatted down and sorted
through the ropes. Untangled one and caught McGrath by the ankle.
Looped the rope around and tied it off, hard. Used the rope to drag
McGrath by the leg into the approximate center of the square. Then he
tied the loose end to the fourth peg. Tied it tight and tested it.
The second length of rope went around McGrath’s other ankle. It was
tied off to the third peg. McGrath’s legs were forced apart at a right
angle. His hands were still cuffed behind his back, crushed against
the rocky ground. The leader used the sole of his boot to roll
McGrath’s upper body sideways. Ducked down and unlocked the cuff.
Caught a wrist and looped a rope around. Tied it tight and hauled the
wrist up to the second peg. He pulled on it until McGrath’s arm was
stretched tight, in a perfect straight line with the opposite leg. Then
he tied it tight to the peg and reached down for the other wrist. The
soldiers jammed their muzzles in tighter. McGrath stared up at the
vapor trails and gasped in pain as his arm was stretched tight and he
was tied into a perfect cross.
The two soldiers jerked their rifles away and stepped back. They stood
with their leader. Gazing down. McGrath lifted his head and looked
wildly around. Pulled on the ropes, and then realized he was only
pulling the knots tighter. The three men stepped farther back and
glanced up at the sky. McGrath realized they were making sure the
cameras got an uninterrupted view.
The cameras were getting an uninterrupted view. Seven miles in the
sky, the pilots were flying circles, one on a tight radius of a few
miles, the other outside him on a wider path. Their cameras were
trained downward, under the relentless control of their computers. The
inside plane was focusing tight on the clearing where McGrath was
spreadeagled. The outer camera was zoomed wider, taking in the whole
of the area from the courthouse in the south to the abandoned mines in
the north. Their real-time video signals were bouncing down more or
less vertically to the dish vehicle parked behind the mobile command
post. The dish was focusing the datastream and feeding it through the
thick armored cable into the observation truck. Then the decoding
computers were feeding the large color monitors. Their phosphor
screens were displaying the appalling truth. General Johnson and his
aide and Webster were motionless in front of them. Motionless, silent,
staring. Video recorders were whirring away, dispassionately recording
every second’s activity taking place six miles to the north. The whole
vehicle was humming with faint electronic energy. But it was as silent
as a tomb.
“Can you zoom in?” Webster asked quietly. “On McGrath?”
The general’s aide twisted a black rubber knob. Stared at the screen.
He zoomed in until the individual pixels in the picture began to clump
together and distort. Then he backed off a fraction.
“Close as we can get,” he said.
It was close enough. McGrath’s spreadeagled figure just about filled
the screens. The unit leader could be seen from directly above,
stepping over the lengths of rope as he circled. He had a knife in his
hand. A black handle, a shiny blade, maybe ten inches long. It looked
like a big kitchen knife. The sort of thing a gourmet cook might buy.
Useful for slicing a tough cut of steak into strips. The sort of tool