Die Trying by Lee Child

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.