Die Trying by Lee Child

on the second day, chances are they aren’t going to call at all.

“Anything I can do?” Johnson asked.

Webster nodded.

“You can give me a reason,” he said. “Who would threaten you like

this?”

Johnson shook his head. He’d been asking himself the same question

since Monday night.

“Nobody,” he said.

“You should tell me,” Webster said. “Anything secret, anything hidden,

better you tell me right now. It’s important, for Holly’s sake.”

“I know that,” Johnson said. “But there’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

Webster nodded. He believed him, because he knew it was true. He had

reviewed the whole of Johnson’s Bureau file. It was a weighty

document. It started on page one with brief biographies of his

maternal great-grandparents. They had come from a small European

principality which no longer existed.

“Will Holly be OK?” Johnson asked quietly.

The recent file pages recounted the death of Johnson’s wife. A

surprise, a vicious cancer, no more than six weeks, beginning to end.

Covert psychiatric opinion commissioned by the Bureau had predicted the

old guy would hold up because of his daughter. It had proven to be a

correct diagnosis. But if he lost her too, you didn’t need to be a

psychiatrist to know he wouldn’t handle it well. Webster nodded again

and put some conviction into his voice.

“She’ll be fine,” he said.

“So what have we got so far?” Johnson asked.

“Four guys,” Webster said. “We’ve got their pickup truck. They

abandoned it prior to the snatch. Burned it and left it. We found it

north of Chicago. It’s being airlifted down here to Quantico, right

now. Our people will go over it.”

“For clues?” Johnson said. “Even though it burned?”

Webster shrugged.

“Burning is pretty dumb,” he said. “It doesn’t really obscure much.

Not from our people, anyway. We’ll use that pickup to find them.”

“And then what?” Johnson asked.

Webster shrugged again.

Then we’ll go get your daughter back,” he said. “Our hostage rescue

team is standing by. Fifty guys, the best in the world at this kind of

thing. Waiting right by their choppers. We’ll go get her, and we’ll

tidy up the guys who grabbed her.”

There was a short silence in the dark quiet room.

“Tidy them up?” Johnson said. “What does that mean?”

Webster glanced around his own office and lowered his voice. Thirty-six

years of habit.

“Policy,” he said. “A major DC case like this? No publicity. No

media access. We can’t allow it. This sort of thing gets on TV, every

nut in the country is going to be trying it. So we go in quietly. Some

weapons will get discharged. Inevitable in a situation like this. A

little collateral damage here and there.”

Johnson nodded slowly.

“You’re going to execute them?” he asked, vaguely.

Webster just looked at him, neutrally. Bureau psychiatrists had

suggested to him the anticipation of deadly revenge could help sustain

self-control, especially with people accustomed to direct action, like

other agents, or soldiers.

“Policy,” he said again. “My policy. And like the man says, I’ve got

personal command.”

The charred pickup was lifted onto an aluminum platform and secured

with nylon ropes. An air force Chinook hammered over from the military

compound at O’Hare and hovered above it, its downdraft whipping the

lake into a frenzy. It winched its chain down and eased the pickup

into the air. Swung round over the lake and dipped its nose and roared

back west to O’Hare. Set its load down right in front of the open nose

of a Galaxy transport. Air force ground crew winched the platform

inside. The cargo door closed on it and four minutes later the Galaxy

was taxiing. Four minutes later again it was in the air, groaning east

towards Washington. Four hours after that, it was roaring over the

capital, heading for Andrews Air Force Base. As it landed, another

borrowed Chinook took off and waited in mid air. The Galaxy taxied to

its apron and the pickup was winched out. The Chinook swooped down and

swung it into the air. Flew it south, following 1-95 into Virginia,

forty miles, all the way to Quantico.

The Chinook set it down gently on the tarmac right outside the vehicle