Die Trying by Lee Child

long time to wait. He watched Borken’s skull explode like it had been

burst from the inside with a sledgehammer. It came apart like a

diagram. Reacher saw curved shards of bone bursting outward and red

mist blooming.

But what he couldn’t see were Garber’s three bullets, hurtling through

the mess unimpeded, and flying straight on toward the courthouse

wall.

FORTY-FIVE

THE CLASSIC MISTAKE IN FIRING AN AUTOMATIC WEAPON IS TO let the recoil

from the first bullet jerk the barrel upward, so that the second bullet

goes high, and the third higher still. But Garber did not make that

mistake. He had enough hours on the range to be reliable from seventy

yards. He had been through enough edgy situations to know how to stay

cool and concentrated. He put all three bullets right through the

exact center of the pink cloud that had been Borken’s head.

They spent two ten-thousandths of a second traveling through it and

flew on uninterrupted. They smashed through the new plywood sheeting

in the window frame The leading bullet was distorted slightly by the

impact and jerked left, tearing through the inner pine siding

twenty-two inches later. It crossed Holly’s room and re-entered the

wall to the left of the doorway. Smashed right through and buried

itself in the far wall of the corridor.

The second bullet came in through the first bullet’s hole and therefore

traversed the twenty-two-inch gap in a straight line. It came out

through the inner siding and was thrown to the right. Crossed the room

and smashed on through the bathroom partition and shattered the cheap,

white ceramic toilet.

The third shell was rising just a fraction. It hit a nail in the outer

wall and turned a right angle. Drilled itself sideways and down

through eight of the new two-by-fours like a demented termite before

its energy was expended. It ended up looking like a random blob of

lead pressed into the back of the new pine boarding.

Reacher saw Garber’s muzzle flash through his scope. Knew he must be

firing triples. Knew he must have hit the courthouse wall. He stared

down from twelve hundred yards away and gripped the ridge of the roof

and shut his eyes. Waited for the explosion.

Garber knew his shots hadn’t killed Borken. There hadn’t been time.

Even dealing with tiny fractions of a second, there’s a rhythm. Fire

… hit. Borken had been hit before his bullets could possibly have

gotten there. So somebody else was up and shooting. There was a team

in action. Garber smiled. Fired again. Pumped his trigger finger

nine more times and stitched Borken’s two soldiers all over the

courthouse wall with his remaining twenty-seven shells.

Milosevic came out of the courthouse lobby and down the steps at a run.

He had his Bureau .38 held high in his right hand and his gold shield

in his left.

“FBI agent!” he screamed. “Everybody freeze!”

He glanced to his right at Holly and then at Garber on his way up to

meet him and at McGrath racing around from behind the office building.

McGrath went straight for Holly. He hugged her tight against the dead

tree. She was laughing. She couldn’t hug back, because her arms were

still cuffed behind the post. McGrath let her go and ran down the

slope. Smacked a high five with Milosevic.

“Who’s got the keys?” McGrath yelled.

Garber pointed over toward the two dead soldiers. McGrath ran to them

and searched through the oozing pockets. Came out with a key and ran

back up to the knoll. Ducked around to the back of the stump and

unlocked Holly’s wrists. She staggered away and McGrath darted forward

and grabbed her arm. Milosevic found her crutch on the road and tossed

it over. McGrath caught it and handed it to her. She got steady and

came down the rise, arm in arm with McGrath. They made it to level

ground and stood there together, gazing around in the sudden deafening

quiet.

“Who do I thank?” Holly asked.

She was holding McGrath’s arm, staring at the remains of Borken, lying

sixty feet away. The corpse was flat on its back, high and wide. It