They were in the woods. Halfway between the small clearing and the
Bastion. Reacher stopped. Like the breath had been knocked out of
him. His hands went up to his mouth. He stood breathless, like all
the air had been sucked off the planet.
“Christ, I know why,” he said. “It’s a decoy.”
“What?” McGrath asked.
“I’m getting a bad feeling,” Reacher said.
“About what?” McGrath asked him, urgently.
“Borken,” Reacher said. “Something doesn’t add up. His intentions.
Strike the first blow. But where’s Stevie? You know what? I think
there are two first blows, McGrath. This stuff up here and something
else, somewhere else. A surprise attack. Like Pearl Harbor, like his
damn war books. That’s why he’s set on escalating everything. Holly,
the suicide thing. He wants all the attention up here.”
FORTY-FOUR
HOLLY WAS STANDING UPRIGHT AND FACING HER DOOR WHEN THEY came for her.
The tight wrap on her knee was drying stiff. So she had to stand,
because her leg would no longer bend. And she wanted to stand, because
that was the best way to do it.
She heard the footsteps in the lobby. Heard them clatter up the
stairs. Two men, she estimated. She heard them halt outside her door.
Heard the key slide in and the lock click back. She blinked once and
took a breath. The door opened. Two men crowded in. Two rifles. She
stood upright and faced them. One stepped forward. “Outside, bitch,”
he said.
She gripped her crutch. Leaned on it heavily and limped across the
floor. Slowly. She wanted to be outside before anybody realized she
could move better than they thought. Before anybody realized she was
armed and dangerous.
“Strike the first blow,” Reacher said. “I interpreted that all
wrong.”
“Why?” McGrath asked urgently.
“Because I haven’t seen Stevie,” Reacher said. “Not since early this
morning. Stevie’s not here anymore. Stevie’s gone somewhere else.”
“Reacher, you’re not making any sense,” McGrath said.
Reacher shook his head like he was clearing it and snapped back into
focus. Set off racing east through the trees. Talking quietly, but
urgently.
“I was wrong,” he said. “Borken said they were going to strike the
first blow. Against the system. I thought he meant the declaration of
independence. I thought that was the first blow. The declaration, and
the battle to secure this territory. I thought that was it. On its
own. But they’re doing something else as well. Somewhere else.
They’re doing two things at once. Simultaneous.”
“What are you saying?” McGrath asked.
“Attention,” Reacher said. The declaration of independence is focusing
attention up here in Montana, right?”
“Sure,” McGrath said. They planned to have CNN and the United Nations
up here watching it happen. That’s a lot of attention.”
“But they’d have been in the wrong place,” Reacher said. “Borken had a
bookcase full of theory telling him not to do what they expect. A
whole shelf all about Pearl Harbor. And I overheard him talking in the
mine. When he was fetching the missile launcher. Fowler was with him.
Borken told Fowler by tonight this place will be way down the list of
priorities. So they’re doing something else someplace else as well.
Something different, maybe something bigger. Twin blows against the
system.”
“But what?” McGrath asked. “And where? Near here?”
“No,” Reacher said. “Probably far away. Like Pearl Harbor was.
They’re reaching out, trying to land a killer blow somewhere. Because
there’s a time factor here. It’s all coordinated.”
McGrath stared at him.
They planned it well,” Reacher said. “Getting everybody’s attention
fixed up here. Independence. That stuff they were going to do with
you. They were going to kill you slowly, with the cameras watching.
Then the threats of mass suicide, women and children dying. A
high-stakes siege. So nobody would be looking anywhere else. Borken’s
cleverer than I thought. Twin blows, each one covering for the other.
Everybody’s looking up here, then something big happens someplace else,
everybody’s looking down there, and he consolidates his new nation back
up here.”
“But where is it happening, for God’s sake?” McGrath asked. “And what
the hell is it?”
Reacher stopped and shook his head.
“I just don’t know,” he said.