guy. He knows you’re smart enough to know that he’s smart enough. So
he can’t dead-end the whole thing. But what he can do is keep you all
far enough behind the action to stop you being a problem. And that’s
what he did. He managed the flow of information. The communication
had to be two-way, right? So Monday, he knew they’d rented a truck.
But right through Wednesday, he was still ‘focusing you on stolen
trucks, right? He wasted a lot of time with that Arizona thing. Then
he finally makes the big breakthrough with the rental firm and the
stuff with the mud, and he looks like the big hero, but in reality what
he’s done is keep you way behind the chase. He’s given them all the
time they need to get us here.”
“But he still got us here, right?” McGrath said. “A ways behind them,
OK, but he brought us right here all the same.”
“No loss to him,” Reacher said. “Borken was just itching to tell you
where she was, soon as she was safely here, right? The destination was
never going to be a secret, was it? That was the whole point.
She was a deterrent to stop you attacking. No point in that, without
telling you exactly where she was.”
McGrath grunted. Thinking about it. Unconvinced.
They bribed him,” Reacher said. “You better believe it. They’ve got a
big war chest, McGrath. Twenty million dollars, stolen bearer
bonds.”
The armored car robbery?” McGrath asked. “Northern California
somewhere? They did that?”
They’re boasting about it,” Reacher said.
McGrath ran it through his head. Went pale. Reacher saw it and
nodded.
“Right,” he said. “Let me make a guess: Brogan was never short of
money, was he? Never groused about the salary, did he?”
“Shit,” McGrath said. Two alimony checks every month, girlfriend, silk
jackets, and I never even thought twice about it. I was just so
grateful he wasn’t one of the moaners.”
“He’s collecting his next payment right now,” Reacher said. “And
Milosevic is dead or locked up somewhere.”
McGrath nodded slowly.
“And Brogan worked out of California,” he said. “Before he came to me.
Shit, I never thought twice. A buck gets ten he was the exact agent
who went after Borken. He said Sacramento couldn’t make it stick. Said
the files were unclear as to why not. Why not is because Borken was
handing him bucketfuls of dollars to make sure it didn’t stick. And the
bastard was taking them.”
Reacher nodded. Said nothing.
“Shit,” McGrath said again. “Shit, shit, shit. My fault.”
Still Reacher said nothing. More tactful just to keep quiet. He
understood McGrath’s feelings. Understood his position. He had been
in the same position himself, time to time in the past. He had felt
the knife slip in, right between the shoulder blades.
“I’ll deal with Brogan later,” McGrath said finally. “After we go get
Holly. She mention me at all? She realize I’d come get her? She
mention that?”
Reacher nodded.
“She told me she trusted her people,” he said.
FORTY-THREE
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TWENTY YEARS GENERAL CAREER HAD killed a man. He
hadn’t meant to. He had meant to lay the man out and take his weapon.
That was all. The man was part of an inner screen of sentries. They
were posted at haphazard intervals in a line a hundred yards south of
the courthouse. Garber had trawled back and forth in the woods and
scoped them out. A ragged line of sentries, maybe forty or fifty yards
between each one, two on the shoulders of the road and the rest in the
forest.
Garber had selected the one nearest to a straight line between himself
and the big white building. The man was going to have to move. Garber
needed direct access. And he needed a weapon. So he had selected the
man and worked nearer to him. He had scraped up a fist-sized rock from
the damp forest floor. He had worked around behind him.
Their lack of training made the whole thing easy. A sentry screen
should be mobile. They should be moving side-to-side along the length
of the perimeter they are told to defend. That way, they cover every