“Why?” Borken whispered. “Why am I crazy? Exactly?”
“You’re not thinking straight,” Reacher said. “Don’t you realize that
Holly counts for nothing? The president will replace Johnson faster
than you can blink an eye. They’ll crush you like a bug and Holly will
be just another casualty. You should send her back out with me.”
Borken was shaking his bloated head, happily, confidently.
“No,” he said. “That won’t happen. There’s more to Holly than who her
father is. Hasn’t she told you that?”
Reacher stared at him and Borken checked his watch.
“Time to go,” he said. “Time for you to see our legal system at
work.”
Holly heard the quiet footsteps outside her door and eased off the bed.
The lock clicked back and the young soldier with the scarred forehead
stepped up into the room. He had his finger to his lips and Holly
nodded. She limped to the bathroom and set the shower running noisily
into the empty tub. The young soldier followed her in and closed the
door.
“We can only do this once a day,” Holly whispered. “They’ll get
suspicious if they hear the shower too often.”
The young guy nodded.
“We’ll get out tonight,” he said. “Can’t do it this morning. We’re
all on duty at Loder’s trial. I’ll come by just after dusk, with a
jeep. We’ll make a run for it in the dark. Head south. Risky, but
we’ll make it.”
“Not without Readier,” Holly said.
The young guy shook his head.
“Can’t promise that,” he said. “He’s in with Borken now. God knows
what’s going to happen to him.”
“I go, he goes,” Holly said.
The young guy looked at her, nervously.
“OK,” he said. “I’ll try.”
He opened the bathroom door and crept out. Holly watched him go and
turned the shower off. Stared after him.
He looped north and west and took a long route back through the woods,
same way as he had come. The sentry Fowler had hidden in the trees
fifteen feet off the main path never saw him. But the one he had
hidden in the backwoods did. He caught a glimpse of a camouflage
uniform hustling through the undergrowth. Spun around fast, but was
too late to make the face. He shrugged and thought hard. Figured he’d
keep it to himself. Better to ignore it than report he’d failed to
make the actual ID.
So the young man with the scar hurried all the way and was back in his
hut two minutes before he was due to escort his commander down to the
tribunal hearing.
In the daylight, the courthouse on the southeast corner of the
abandoned town of Yorke looked pretty much the same as a hundred others
Reacher had seen all over rural America. Built early in the century.
Big, white, pillared, ornate. Enough square solidity to communicate
its serious purpose, but enough lightness in its details to make it a
handsome structure. He saw a fine cupola floating off the top of the
building, with a fine clock in it, probably paid for by a public
subscription held long ago among a long-forgotten generation. More or
less the same as a hundred others, but the roof was steeper-pitched
than some, and heavier built. He guessed it had to be that way in the
north of Montana. That roof could be carrying a hundred tons of snow
all winter long. But this was the third morning of July, and there was
no snow on the roof. Reacher was warm after walking a mile in the pale
northern sun. Borken had gone ahead separately and Reacher had been
marched down through the forest by the same six elite guards. Still in
handcuffs. They marched him straight up the front steps and inside.
The first-floor interior was one large space, interrupted by pillars
holding up the second floor, paneled in broad smooth planks sawed from
huge pines. The wood was dark from age and polish, and the panels were
stern and simple in their design.
Every seat was taken. Every bench was full. The room was a sea of
camouflage green. Men and women. Sitting rigidly upright, rifles
exactly vertical between their knees. Waiting expectantly. Some