Die Trying by Lee Child

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