for thirty minutes and advised her to get out of town, leaving behind
anything he had ever bought her. Then the same agents took Milosevic’s
brand new Ford Explorer out of the Federal Building’s parking lot and
drove it five miles south. They left it on a quiet street, doors
unlocked, keys in. By the time it had been stolen, Holly Johnson was
arriving at the knee clinic for an early appointment. An hour after
that, she was back at her desk. Before lunch, the missing money from
the bearer-bond robbery was following a route of her own choosing out
of the Caymans. Six o’clock Monday evening she was home and packing.
She threw her bags into her car and drove north. Moved into McGrath’s
house up in Evanston.
Tuesday morning, there were three separate stories on the National
Militia Internet. Refugees from an isolated valley in Montana had
drifted south and west to new settlements with reports of a recent
world government maneuver. Foreign troops had wiped out a band of
militia heroes. The foreign battalion had been led by a French
mercenary. He had succeeded only because he had used classified SDI
technology, including satellites and lasers and microchips. Journalists
picked up on the story and called the Hoover Building. Late Tuesday
evening, in a prepared statement, an FBI spokesperson denied all
knowledge of any such events.
Early Wednesday morning, after five hitched rides and four buses
through seven states, Reacher was finally in Wisconsin. It was where
he had aimed to be exactly a week before. He liked it there. It
struck him as a fine place to be in July. He stayed until Friday
afternoon.
Lee Child was born in the industrial Midlands. He studied law, and
worked for twenty years in commercial television. He lives in Cumbria
with his wife and daughter. He is the author of one previous thriller,
Killing Floor.