models. Directly south the mountain slopes fell away into the thick
forest. Where there were no trees there were savage ravines. Reacher
gazed at them quietly. Fowler pointed.
“Hundred feet deep, some of those,” he said. “Full of elk and bighorn
sheep. And we got black bears roaming. A few of the folk have seen
mountain lions on the prowl. You can hear them in the night, when it
gets real quiet.”
Reacher nodded and listened to the stunning silence. Tried to figure
out how much quieter the nights could be. Fowler turned and pointed
here and there.
This is what we built,” he said. “So far.”
Reacher nodded again. The clearing held ten buildings. They were all
large utilitarian wooden structures, built from plywood sheet and
cedar, resting on solid concrete piles. There was an electricity
supply into each building from a loop of heavy cable running between
them.
Tower comes up from the town,” Fowler said. “A mile of cable. Running
water, too, piped down from a pure mountain lake through plastic
tubing, installed by militia labor.”
Reacher saw the hut he’d been locked into most of the night. It was
smaller than the others.
“Administration hut,” Fowler said.
One of the huts had a whip antenna on the roof, maybe sixty feet high.
Short-wave radio. And Reacher could see a thinner cable, strapped to
the heavy power line. It snaked into the same hut, and didn’t come out
again.
“You guys are on the phone?” he asked. “Unlisted, right?”
He pointed and Fowler followed his gaze.
The phone line?” he said. “Runs up from Yorke with the power cable.
But there’s no telephone. World government would tap our calls.”
He gestured Reacher to follow him over to the hut with the antenna,
where the line terminated. They pushed in together through the narrow
door. Fowler spread his hands in a proud little gesture.
The communications hut,” he said.
The hut was dark and maybe twenty feet by twelve. Two men inside, one
crouched over a tape recorder, listening to something on headphones,
the other slowly turning the dial of a radio scanner. Both the long
sides of the hut had crude wooden desks built into the walls. Reacher
glanced up at the gable and saw the telephone wire running in through a
hole drilled into the wall. It coiled down and fed a modem. The modem
was wired into a pair of glowing desktop computers.
The National Militia Internet,” Fowler said.
A second wire bypassed the desktops and fed a fax machine. It was
whirring away to itself and slowly rolling a curl of paper out.
The Patriotic Fax Network,” Fowler said.
Reacher nodded and walked closer. The fax machine sat on the counter
next to another computer and a large short-wave radio.
This is the shadow media,” Fowler said. “We depend on all this
equipment for the truth about what’s going on in America. You can’t
get the truth any other way.”
Reacher took a last look around and shrugged.
“I’m hungry,” he said. That’s the truth about me. No dinner and no
breakfast. You got some place with coffee?”
Fowler looked at him and grinned.
“Sure,” he said. “Mess hall serves all day. What do you think we are?
A bunch of savages?”
He dismissed the six guards and gestured again for Reacher to follow
him. The mess hall was next to the communications hut. It was about
four times the size, twice as long and twice as wide. Outside it had a
sturdy chimney on the roof, fabricated from bright galvanized metal.
Inside it was full of rough trestle tables in neat lines, simple
benches pushed carefully underneath. It smelled of old food and the
dusty smell that large communal spaces always have.
There were three women working in there. They were cleaning the
tables. They were dressed in olive fatigues, and they all had long,
clean hair and plain, unadorned faces, red hands and no jewelry. They
paused when Fowler and Reacher walked in. They stopped working and
stood together, watching. Reacher recognized one of them from the
courtroom. She gave him a cautious nod of greeting. Fowler stepped
forward.
“Our guest missed breakfast,” he said.