Lee Child - Die Trying

But not the Hostage Rescue Team. This guy had no equipment. The HRT came in all loaded down with paramilitary gear. Reacher was familiar with their procedures. He had read some of their manuals. Heard about some of their training. He knew guys who had been in and out of Quantico. He knew how the HRT worked. They were a high-technology operation. They looked like regular soldiers, in blue. They had vehicles. This guy he was watching was on foot in the forest. Dressed like he had just stepped out of a meeting.

It was a puzzle. Eight Marines. No Hostage Rescue Team. An unarmed search-and-rescue Chinook. Then Reacher suddenly thought maybe he understood. Maybe this was a very clandestine operation. Low-profile. Invisible. They had tracked Holly all the way west from Chicago, but for some reason they maybe weren’t gathering any kind of a big force. They were dealing with it alone. Some tactical reason. Maybe a political reason. Maybe something to do with Holly and the White House. Maybe the policy was to deal with this secretly, deal with it hard, tackle it with a tight little team. So tight the right hand didn’t know what the left was doing. Hence the unarmed search-and-rescue chopper. It had come in blind. Hadn’t known what it was getting into.

In which case this ambushed guy he was watching was direct from Chicago. Part of the original operation that must have started up back on Monday. He looked like a senior guy. Maybe approaching fifty. Could be Brogan, Holly’s section head. Could even be McGrath, the top boy. In either case that made Milosevic the mole. Question was, was he up here as well, or was he still back in Chicago?

The jeep turned slowly in the road. The Bureau guy in the suit was in back, jammed between two armed men. His nose was bleeding and Reacher could see a swelling starting on his face. Borken had twisted his bulk around and was talking at him. The rest of the ambush squad was forming up in the road. The jeep drove past them, north toward town. Passed by thirty yards from where Reacher was standing in the trees. He watched it go. Turned and picked up his rifle. Strolled through the woods, deep in thought.

His problem was priority order. He had a rule: stick to the job in hand. The job in hand was getting Holly away safe. Nothing else. But this Bureau guy was in trouble. He thought about Jackson. The last Bureau guy they’d gotten hold of. Maybe this new guy was heading for the same fate. In which case, he ought to intervene. And he liked the look of the guy. He looked tough. Small, but strong. A lot of energy. Some kind of charisma there. Maybe an ally would be a smart thing to have. Two heads, better than one. Two pairs of hands. Four trigger fingers. Useful. But his rule was: stick to the job in hand. It had worked for him many times over the years. It was a rule which had served him well. Should he bend that rule? Or not? He stopped and stood concealed in the forest while the ambush squad marched by on the road. Listened to the sound of their footsteps die away. Stood there and thought about the guy some more and forced himself toward a tough decision.

GENERAL GARBER WATCHED the whole thing happen, too. He was a hundred and fifty yards south of the ambush. West side of the road, behind a rocky outcrop, exactly three hundred yards south of where Reacher had been. He had waited three minutes and then followed McGrath in through the ravine. Garber was also a reasonably fit man, but a lot older, and it had cost him a lot to keep pace with McGrath. He had arrived at the rocky outcrop and collapsed, out of breath. He figured he had maybe fifteen or twenty minutes to recover before the rendezvous took place. Then his plan was to follow behind the three agents and see what was going to happen. He didn’t want anybody making mistakes about Jack Reacher.

But the rendezvous had never happened. He had watched the ambush and realized a lot of mistakes had been made about a lot of things.

“YOU’RE GOING TO die,” Borken said.

McGrath was jammed between two soldiers on the back seat of the jeep. He was bouncing around because the road was rough. But he couldn’t move his arms, because the seat was not really wide enough for three people. So he put the shrug into his injured face instead.

“We’re all going to die,” he said. “Sooner or later.”

“Sooner or later, right,” Borken said. “But for you, it’s going to be sooner, not later.”

Borken was twisted around in the front seat, staring. McGrath looked past him at the vast blue sky. He looked at the small white clouds and thought: Who was it? Who knew? Air Force operational personnel, he guessed, but that link was ludicrous. Had to be somebody nearer and closer. Somebody more involved. The only possibilities were Johnson or his aide, or Webster himself, or Brogan, or Milosevic. Garber, conceivably. He seemed pretty hot on excusing this Reacher guy. Was this some military police conspiracy to overthrow the Joint Chiefs?

“Who was it, Borken?” he asked.

“Who was what, dead man?” Borken asked back.

“Who’s been talking to you?” McGrath said.

Borken smiled and tapped his finger on his temple.

“Common cause,” he said. “This sort of issue, there are a lot more people than you think on our side.”

McGrath glanced back to the sky and thought about Dexter, safe in the White House. What had Webster said he’d said? Twelve million people? Or was it sixty-six million? ›

“You’re going to die,” Borken said again.

McGrath shifted his focus back.

“So tell me who it was, before I do,” he said.

Borken grinned at him.

“You’ll find out,” he said. “It’s going to be a big surprise.”

The jeep pulled up in front of the courthouse. McGrath twisted and looked up at it. There were six soldiers standing guard outside the building. They were fanned into a rough arc, facing south and east.

“She in there?” he asked.

Borken nodded and smiled.

“Right now she is,” he said. “I may have to get her out later.”

The walkie-talkie on his belt burst into life. A loud burst of static and a quick distorted message. He pressed the key and bent his head down. Acknowledged the information without unclipping the unit. Then he pulled the radio transmitter from his pocket. Flipped it open and pulled up the short antenna. Pressed the send button.

“Webster?” he said. “You lied to me. Twice. First, there were three of your agents down there with you. We just rounded them all up.”

He listened to the response. Kept the radio tight against his ear. McGrath could not hear what Webster was saying.

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Borken said. “They weren’t all on your side. Some people in this world will do anything for money.”

He paused for a response. Apparently there was none.

“And you bullshitted me,” Borken said. “You weren’t going to fix the line at all, were you? You were just stringing me along.”

Webster was starting a reply, but Borken cut him off.

“You and Johnson,” he said. “You can get off the bridge now. The Marines stay there. We’re watching. You and Johnson walk back to your trucks. Get yourselves in front of those TVs. Should be some interesting action pretty soon.”

He clicked off the radio and folded it back into his pocket. A big wide smile on his face.

“You’re going to die,” he said to McGrath for the third time.

“Which one?” McGrath asked. “Brogan or Milosevic?”

Borken grinned again.

“Guess,” he said. “Figure it out for yourself. You’re supposed to be the big smart federal investigator. Agent-in-Charge, right?”

The driver jumped down and pulled a pistol from his holster. Aimed it two-handed at McGrath’s head. The left-hand guard squeezed out and unslung his rifle. Held it ready. The right-hand guy did the same. Then Borken eased his bulk down.