Die Trying Part 33

The five guards that had been six when Jackson was with them formed up in a line. They moved forward and took up position around Reacher and Holly. The crowd started filing away, quietly. Their feet crunched and slid on the stony ground. Then that sound was gone and the rifle range was quiet.

Fowler stooped and picked up the guns. He hefted one in each hand and walked away through the trees. The five guards unslung their weapons with the loud sound of palms slapping on wood and metal.

"OK," Borken said again. "Punishment detail."

He turned to Holly.

"You too," he said. "You're not too d.a.m.n valuable for that. You can help him. He's got a task to perform for me."

The guards stepped forward and marched Reacher and Holly behind Borken, slowly down through the trees to the Bastion and on along the beaten-earth track to the command-hut clearing. They halted there. Two of the guards peeled off and walked to the stores. They were back within five minutes with their weapons shouldered. The first guard was carrying a long-handled shovel in his left hand and a crowbar in his right. The second was carrying two olive fatigue s.h.i.+rts. Borken took them from him and turned to face Reacher and Holly.

Take your s.h.i.+rts off," he said. Tut these on."

Holly stared at him.

"Why?" she said.

Borken smiled.

"All part of the game," he said. "You're not back by nightfall, we turn the dogs loose. They need your old s.h.i.+rts for the scent."

Holly shook her head.

"I'm not undressing," she said.

Borken looked at her and nodded.

"We'll turn our backs," he said. "But you only get one chance. You don't do it, these boys will do it for you, OK?"

He gave the command and the five guards fanned out in a loose arc, facing the trees. Borken waited for Reacher to turn away and then swiveled on his heels and stared up in the air.

"OK," he said. "Get on with it."

The men heard unb.u.t.toning sounds and the rasp of cotton. They heard the old s.h.i.+rt fall to the ground and the new one slipping on. They heard fingernails clicking against b.u.t.tons.

"Done," Holly muttered.

Reacher took off his jacket and his s.h.i.+rt and s.h.i.+vered in the mountain breeze. He took the new s.h.i.+rt from Borken and shrugged it on. Slung the jacket over his shoulder. Borken nodded and the guard handed Reacher the shovel and the crowbar. Borken pointed into the forest.

"Walk due west a hundred yards," he said. Then north another hundred.

You'll know what to do when you get there."

Holly looked at Reacher. He looked back and nodded. They strolled together into the trees, heading west.

Thirty yards into the woods, as soon as they were out of sight, Holly stopped. She planted her crutch and waited for Reacher to turn and rejoin her.

"Borken," she said. "I know who he is. I've seen his name in our files. They tagged him for a robbery, northern California somewhere.

Twenty million dollars in bearer bonds. Armored car driver was killed.

Sacramento office investigated, but they couldn't make it stick."

Reacher nodded.

"He did it," he said. That's for d.a.m.n sure. Fowler admitted it. Says they've got twenty million in the Caymans. Captured from the enemy."

Holly grimaced.

"It explains the mole in Chicago," she said. "Borken can afford a pretty handsome bribe with twenty million bucks in the bank, right?"

Reacher nodded again, slowly.

"Anybody you know would take a bribe?" he asked.

She shrugged.

"They all b.i.t.c.h about the salary," she said.

He shook his head.

"No," he said. Think of somebody who doesn't b.i.t.c.h about it. Whoever's got Borken's bearer bonds behind him isn't worried about money anymore."

She shrugged again.

"Some of them don't grumble," she said. "Some of them just put up with it. Like me, for instance. But I guess I'm different."

He looked at her. Walked on.

"You're different," he repeated. That's for d.a.m.n sure."

He said it vaguely, thinking about it. They walked on for ten yards.

He was walking slower than his normal pace and she was limping at his side. He was lost in thought. He was hearing Borken's high voice claiming: she's more than his daughter. He was hearing her own exasperated voice asking: why the h.e.l.l does everybody a.s.sume everything that ever happens to me is because of who my d.a.m.n father is? Then he stopped walking again and looked straight at her.

"Who are you, Holly?" he asked.

"You know who I am," she said.

He shook his head again.

"No, I don't," he said. "At first I thought you were just some woman.

Then you were some woman called Holly Johnson. Then you were an FBI agent. Then you were General Johnson's daughter. Then Borken told me you're even more than that. She's more than his daughter, he said.

That stunt you pulled, he was s.h.i.+rting himself. You're some kind of a triple-A gold-plated hostage, Holly. So who the h.e.l.l else are you?"

She looked at him. Sighed.

"Long story," she said. "Started twenty-eight years ago. My father was made a White House Fellow. Seconded to Was.h.i.+ngton. They used to do that, with the fast-track guys. He got friendly with another guy.

Political a.n.a.lyst, aiming to be a Congressman. My mother was pregnant with me, his wife was pregnant, he asked my parents to be G.o.dparents, my father asked them to be G.o.dparents. So this other guy stood up at my christening."

"And?" Reacher said.

The guy got into a career," Holly said. "He's still in Was.h.i.+ngton. You probably voted for him. He's the president."

Reacher walked on in a daze. Kept glancing at Holly, gamely matching him stride for stride. A hundred yards west of the punishment hut, there was an outcrop of rock, bare of trees. Reacher and Holly turned there and walked north, into the breeze.

"Where are we going?" Holly said. Her voice had an edge of worry.

Reacher stopped suddenly. He knew where they were going. The answer was on the breeze. He went cold. His skin crawled. He stared down at the implements in his hands like he'd never seen such things before.

"You stay here," he said.

She shook her head.

"No," she said. "I'm coming with you, wherever it is."

"Please, Holly," he said. "Stay here, will you?"

She looked surprised by his voice, but she carried on shaking her head.

"I'm coming with you," she said again.

He gave her a bleak look and they walked on north. He forced himself onward, toward it. Fifty yards. Each step required a conscious effort of will. Sixty yards. He wanted to turn and run. Just run and never stop. Hurl himself across the wild river and get the h.e.l.l out. Seventy yards. He stopped.

"Stay here, Holly," he said again. "Please."

"Why?" she asked.

"You don't need to see this," he said, miserably.

She shook her head again and walked on. He caught her up. They smelled it long before they saw it. Faint, sweet, unforgettable. One of the most common and one of the most terrible smells in mankind's long and awful history. The smell of fresh human blood. Twenty paces after they smelled it, they heard it. The insane buzzing of a million flies.

Jackson was crucified between two young pines. His hands had been dragged apart and nailed to the trees through the palms and wrists. He had been forced up onto his toes and his feet had been nailed flat against the base of the trunks. He was naked and he had been mutilated. He had taken several minutes to die. Reacher was clear on that.

He was immobile, staring at the crawling ma.s.s of blue s.h.i.+ny flies.

Holly had dropped her crutch and her face was white. Ghastly staring white. She fell to her knees and retched. Spun herself away from the dreadful sight and fell forward on her face. Her hands clawed blindly in the forest dirt. She bucked and screamed into the buzzing forest silence. Screamed and cried.

Reacher watched the flies. His eyes were expressionless. His face was impa.s.sive. Just a tiny muscle jumping at the corner of his jaw gave anything away. He stood still for several minutes. Holly went silent, on the forest floor beside him. He dropped the crowbar. Slung his jacket over a low branch. Stepped over directly in front of the body and started digging.

He dug with a quiet fury. He smashed the shovel into the earth as hard as he could. He chopped through tree roots with single savage blows.

When he hit rocks, he heaved them out and hurled them into a pile.

Holly sat up and watched him. She watched the blazing eyes in his impa.s.sive face and the bulging muscles in his arms. She followed the relentless rhythm of the shovel. She said nothing.

The work was making him hot. The flies were checking him out. They left Jackson's body and buzzed around his head. He ignored them. Just strained and gasped his way six feet down into the earth. Then he propped the shovel against a tree. Wiped his face on his sleeve.

Didn't speak. Took the crowbar and stepped close to the corpse. Batted away the flies. Levered the nails out of the left hand. Jackson's body flopped sideways. The left arm pointed grotesquely down into the pit.

The flies rose in an angry cloud. Reacher walked around to the right hand. Pried the nails out. The body flopped forward into the hole.

He extracted the nails from the feet. The body tumbled free into the grave. The air was dark with flies and loud with their sound. Reacher slid down into the hole and straightened the corpse out. Crossed the arms over the chest.

He climbed back out. Without pausing he picked up the shovel and started filling the hole. He worked relentlessly. The flies disappeared. He worked on. There was too much dirt. It mounded up high when he had finished, like graves always do. He pounded the mound into a neat shape and dropped the shovel. Bent and picked up the rocks he'd cleared. Used them to sh.o.r.e up the sides of the mound. Placed the biggest one on top, like some kind of a headstone.

Then he stood there, panting like a wild man, streaked with dirt and sweat. Holly watched him. Then she spoke for the first time in an hour.

"Should we say a prayer?" she asked.

Reacher shook his head.

"Way too late for that," he said quietly.

"You OK?" she asked.

"Who's the mole?" he asked in turn.

"I don't know," she said.

"Well, think about it, will you?" he said, angrily.

She glared up at him.

"Don't you think I have been?" she said. "What the h.e.l.l else do you think I was doing for the last hour?"

"So who the h.e.l.l is it?" he asked. Still angry.

She paused. Went quiet again.

"Could be anybody," she said. "There are a hundred agents in Chicago."

She was sitting on the forest floor, small, miserable, defeated. She had trusted her people. She had told him that. She had been full of naive confidence. I trust my people, she had said. He felt a wave of tenderness for her. It crashed over him. Not pity, not concern, just an agonizing tenderness for a good person whose bright new world was suddenly dirty and falling apart. He stared at her, hoping she would see it. She stared back, eyes full of tears. He held out his hands.

She took them. He lifted her to her feet and held her. He lifted her off the ground and crushed her close. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were against his pounding chest. Her tears were against his neck.

Then her hands were behind his head, pulling him close. She squirmed her face up and kissed him. She kissed him angrily and hungrily on the mouth. Her arms were locking around his neck. He felt her wild breathing. He knelt and laid her gently on the soft earth. Her hands burrowed at his s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.tons. His at hers.

They made love naked on the forest floor, urgently, pa.s.sionately, greedily, as if they were defying death itself. Then they lay panting and spent in each other's arms, gazing up at the sunlight spearing down through the leaves.

He stroked her hair and felt her breathing slow down. He held her silently for a long time, watching the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams over her head.

"Who knew your movements on Monday?" he asked softly.

She thought about it. Made no reply.