Die Trying (6 page)

“Gas station,” Holly called from twenty feet away. “They're filling up for the rest of the ride. Can't do it with us inside. They figure we'd be banging on the side and shouting out for help.”

Reacher nodded and finished his coffee. Sucked the fork from the stew clean. Bent one of the prongs right out and put a little kink into the end with pressure from his thumb-nail. It made a little hook. He used it to pick the lock on his handcuff. Took him eighteen seconds, beginning to end. He dropped the cuff and the chain in the straw and walked over to Holly. Bent down and unlocked her wrist. Twelve seconds. Helped her to her feet.

“Doorman, right?” she said.

“Right,” he said. “Let's take a look around.”

“I can't walk,” she said. “My crutch is in the damn truck.”

Reacher nodded. She stayed in her stall, clinging to the railing. He scouted around the big empty barn. It was a sturdy metal structure, built throughout with the same flecked galvanized metal as the stall railings. The big door was locked from the outside. Probably a steel bar pad-locked into place. No problem if he could get at the padlock, but he was inside and the padlock was outside.

The walls met the floor with a right-angle flange bolted firmly into the concrete. The walls themselves were horizontal metal panels maybe thirty feet long, maybe four feet tall. They were joined together with more right-angle flanges bolted together. Each flange gave a lip about six inches deep. Like a giant stepladder, with the treads four feet apart.

He climbed the wall, hauling himself quickly upward, flange to flange, four feet at a time. The way out of the barn was right there at the top of the wall, seven sections up, twenty-eight feet off the ground. There was a ventilation slot between the top of the wall and the overhanging slope of the metal roof. About eighteen inches high. A person could roll horizontally through the gap like an old-fashioned high jumper, hang down outside and drop twenty feet to the ground below.

He could do that, but Holly Johnson couldn't. She couldn't even walk over to the wall. She couldn't climb it and she sure as hell couldn't hang down outside and drop twenty feet onto a set of wrecked cruciate ligaments.

“Get going,” she called up to him. “Get out of here, right now.”

He ignored her and peered out through the slot into the darkness. The overhanging eaves gave him a low horizon. Empty country as far as the eye could see. He climbed down and went up the other three walls in turn. The second side gave out onto country just as empty as the first. The third had a view of a farmhouse. White shingles. Lights in two windows. The fourth side of the barn looked straight up the farm track. About a hundred and fifty yards to a featureless road. Emptiness beyond. In the far distance, a single set of headlight beams. Flicking and bouncing. Widely spaced. Growing larger. Getting nearer. The truck, coming back.

“Can you see where we are?” Holly called up to him.

“No idea,” Reacher called back. “Farming country somewhere. Could be anywhere. Where do they have cows like this? And fields and stuff?”

“Is it hilly out there?” Holly called. “Or flat?”

“Can't tell,” Reacher said. “Too dark. Maybe a little hilly.”

“Could be Pennsylvania,” Holly said. “They have hills and cows there.”

Reacher climbed down the fourth wall and walked back to her stall.

“Get out of here, for Christ's sake,” she said to him. “Raise the alarm.”

He shook his head. He heard the diesel slowing to turn into the track.

“That may not be the best option,” he said.

She stared at him.

“Who the hell gave you an option?” she said. “I'm ordering you. You're a civilian and I'm FBI and I'm ordering you to get yourself to safety right now.”

Reacher just shrugged and stood there.

“I'm ordering you, OK?” Holly said again. “You going to obey me?”

Reacher shook his head again.

“No,” he said.

She glared at him. Then the truck was back. They heard the roar of the diesel and the groan of the springs on the rough track outside. Reacher locked Holly's cuff and ran back to his stall. They heard the truck door slam and footsteps on the concrete. Reacher chained his wrist to the railing and bent the fork back into shape. When the barn door opened and the light came on, he was sitting quietly on the straw.

7

THE MATERIAL USED to pack the twenty-two-inch cavity between the outside of the old walls and the inside of the new walls was hauled over from its storage shed in an open pickup truck. There was a ton of it, and it took four trips. Each consignment was carefully unloaded by a team of eight volunteers. They worked together like an old-fashioned bucket brigade attending a fire. They passed each box along, hand to hand, into the building, up the stairs to the second floor. The boxes were stacked in the hallway outside the modified corner room. The three builders opened each box in turn and carried the material into the room. Then they stacked it carefully into the wide spaces behind the new softwood framing. The unloaders generally paused for a moment and watched them, grateful for a moment of rest.

The process lasted most of the afternoon, because of the amount of material and the care they took in moving it. When the last of the four loads was stacked upstairs, the eight volunteers dispersed. Seven of them headed for the mess hall. The eighth stretched in the last of the afternoon sun and strolled off. It was his habit. Four or five times a week, he would take a long walk on his own, especially after a period of heavy work. It was assumed to be his way of relaxing.

He strolled in the forest. There was a beaten path running west through the silence. He followed it for a half-mile. Then he paused and stretched again. He used the weary twisting motion of a tired man easing a sore back to glance around a complete circle. Then he stepped sideways off the path. Stopped strolling. Started an urgent walk. He dodged trees and followed a wide looping course west, then north. He went straight for a particular tree. There was a large flat rock bedded in needles at its base. He stood still and waited. Listened hard. Then he ducked down and heaved the rock to one side. Underneath was a rectangular shape wrapped in oilcloth. He unfolded the cloth and took out a small handheld radio. Pulled the stubby antenna and hit a button and waited. Then he whispered a long and excited message.

 

WHEN THE OLD building was quiet again, the employer stopped by with some strange new instructions. The three builders asked no questions. Just listened carefully. The guy was entitled to get what he wanted. The new instructions meant a certain amount of work would have to be redone. In the circumstances, not a problem. Even less of a problem when the employer offered a cash bonus on top of the bid price.

The three builders worked fast and it took them less time than it might have. But it was already evening by the time they finished. The junior man stayed behind to pack tools and coil cables. The crew chief and the other guy drove north in the dark and parked exactly where the employer had told them to. Got out of their truck and waited in the silence.

“In here,” a voice called. The employer. “All the way in back.”

They went in. The place was dark. The guy was waiting for them, somewhere in the shadows.

“These boards any use to you?” the employer asked.

There was a stack of old pine boards, way in back.

“They're good lumber,” the employer said. “Maybe you can use them. Like recycling, you know?”

There was something else on the ground beside the stack of boards. Something strange. The two carpenters stared. Strange humped shapes. The two carpenters stared at the strange humped shapes, then they stared at each other. Then they turned around. The employer smiled at them and raised a dull black automatic.

 

THE RESIDENT AGENT at the FBI's remote satellite station was a smart enough guy to realize it was going to be important. He didn't know exactly how or why it was going to be important, but an undercover informant doesn't risk a radio message from a concealed location for no reason. So he copied the details into the FBI computer system. His report flashed across the computer network and lodged in the massive mainframe on the first floor of the FBI's Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. The Hoover Building database handles more new reports in a day than there are seconds, so it took a long moment for the FBI software to scan through and pick out the key words. Once it had done so, it lodged the bulletin high in its memory and waited.

At exactly the same time, the system was logging a message from the FBI Field Office in Chicago. The bureau chief up there, Agent-in-Charge McGrath, was reporting that he'd lost one of his people. Special Agent Holly Johnson was missing, last seen twelve o'clock Chicago time, whereabouts currently unknown, contact attempted but not achieved. And because Holly Johnson was a pretty special case, the message carried an eyes-only code which kept it off every terminal in the building except the one all the way upstairs in the Director's office.

 

THE DIRECTOR OF the FBI got out of a budget review meeting just before seven-thirty in the evening. He walked back to his office suite and checked his messages. His name was Harland Webster and he had been with the Bureau thirty-six years. He had one more year to run on his term as Director, and then he'd be gone. So he wasn't looking for trouble, but he found it glowing on the monitor of his desktop terminal. He clicked on the report and read it through twice. He sighed at the screen.

“Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

The report in from McGrath in Chicago was not the worst news Webster had ever had in thirty-six years, but it came pretty damn close. He buzzed the intercom on his desk and his secretary answered.

“Get me McGrath in Chicago,” he said.

“He's on line one,” his secretary told him. “He's been waiting for you.”

Webster grunted and hit the button for line one. Put the call on the speakerphone and leaned back in his chair.

“Mack?” he said. “So what's the story?”

McGrath's voice came in clear from Chicago.

“Hello, chief,” he said. “There is no story. Not yet. Maybe we're worrying too early, but I got a bad feeling when she didn't show. You know how it is.”

“Sure, Mack,” Webster said. “You want to confuse me with some facts?”

“We don't have any facts,” McGrath said. “She didn't show for a five o'clock case conference. That struck me as unusual. There were no messages from her anywhere. Her pager and her cell phone are out of commission. I asked around and the last anybody saw of her was about twelve o'clock.”

“She was in the office this morning?” Webster asked.

“All morning,” McGrath said.

“Any appointments before this five o'clock thing?” Webster said.

“Nothing in her diary,” McGrath said. “I don't know what she was doing or where she was doing it.”

“Christ, Mack,” Webster said. “You were supposed to take care of her. You were supposed to keep her off the damn streets, right?”

“It was her lunch break,” McGrath said. “What the hell could I do?”

There was a silence in the Director's suite, broken only by the faint hum on the speakerphone. Webster drummed his fingers on his desk.

“What was she working on?” he asked.

“Forget it,” McGrath said. “We can assume this is not interference by a Bureau suspect, right? Doesn't make any kind of sense in her case.”

Webster nodded to himself.

“In her case, I agree, I guess,” he said. “So what else are we looking at?”

“She was injured,” McGrath said. “Tore up her knee playing ball. We figure maybe she fell, made it worse, maybe ended up in the ER. We're checking the hospitals now.”

Webster grunted.

“Or else there's a boyfriend we don't know about,” McGrath said. “Maybe they're in a motel room somewhere, getting laid.”

“For six hours?” Webster said. “I should be so lucky.”

There was silence again. Then Webster sat forward.

“OK, Mack,” he said. “You know what to do. And you know what not to do, case like hers, right? Keep in touch. I've got to go to the Pentagon. I'll be back in an hour. Call me then if you need me.”

Webster broke the connection and buzzed his secretary to call his car. Then he walked out to his private elevator and rode down to the underground parking lot. His driver met him there and they walked together over to the Director's bulletproof limousine.

“Pentagon,” Webster said to his driver.

 

TRAFFIC WASN'T BAD, seven-thirty on a June Monday evening. Took about eleven minutes to do the two and a half miles. Webster spent the time making urgent calls on his mobile. Calls to various locations within such a tight geographical radius that he could probably have reached them all by shouting. Then the big car came up to the Pentagon River Entrance and the Marine sentry stepped over. Webster clicked off his phone and buzzed his window down for the identification ritual.

“The Director of the FBI,” he said. “To see the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

The sentry snapped a salute and waved the limousine through. Webster buzzed the window back up and waited for the driver to stop. Then he got out and ducked in through the personnel door. Walked through to the Chairman's suite. The Chairman's secretary was waiting for him.

“Go right through, sir,” she said. “The General will be along in a moment.”

Webster walked into the Chairman's office and stood waiting. He looked out through the window. The view was magnificent, but it had a strange metallic tint. The window was made of one-way bulletproof Mylar. It was a great view, but the window was on the outside of the building, right next to the River Entrance, so it had to be protected. Webster could see his car, with his driver waiting beside it. Beyond the car was a view of the Capitol, across the Potomac. Webster could see sailboats in the Tidal Basin, with the last of the evening sun glinting low on the water. Not a bad office, Webster thought. Better than mine, he thought.