Die Trying by Lee Child

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.