Die Trying Part 39

It was not in his nature to panic. Never had been. He was a calm man, and his long training had made him calmer. He had been taught to a.s.sess and evaluate, and to use pure force of will to prevail. You're Jack Readier, he had been told. You can do anything. First his mother had told him, then his father, then the quiet deadly men in the training schools. And he had believed them.

But, at the same time, he hadn't believed them. Part of his mind always said: you've just been lucky. Always lucky. And, in the quiet times, he would sit and wait for his luck to run out. He sat on the stony ground with his back against the timbers of the door and asked himself: has it run out now?

He flicked the flashlight beam around the cavern. The rats were staying away from him. They were interested in the darkness in back.

They're deserting me, he thought. Deserting the sinking s.h.i.+p. Then his mind clicked in again. No, they're interested in the tunnels, he thought. Because tunnels lead places. He remembered the giant mouse holes blasted into the rock face, north wall of the bowl. Maybe all interconnected by these narrow seams in back.

He ran back into the depth of the cavern, past the trucks, past the grotesque heap of corpses. Back to where he could no longer stand. A rat disappeared into the seam to his left. He dropped to his stomach and flicked the flashlight on. Crawled after it.

He crawled into a skeleton. He scrabbled with his feet and came face to face with a grinning skull. And another. There were four or five skeletons jammed into the excavated seam. Jumbled bones in a pile. He gasped in shock and backed off a foot. Looked carefully. Used the flashlight close up.

All males. He could see that from the five pelvises. The skulls showed gunshot wounds. All in the temples. Neat entry wounds, neat exit holes. Jacketed high-velocity handgun bullets. Fairly recent, certainly within a year. The flesh hadn't decayed. It had been eaten off. He could see the parallel sc.r.a.pe marks on the bones from rodent teeth.

The bones were all disturbed. The rats had hauled them away to eat.

There were sc.r.a.ps of clothing material here and there. Some of the ribcages were still covered. Rats don't disturb clothing much. Not on the torso. Why should they? They eat their way in through the inside.

The soft parts first. They come to the ribs from the back.

The clothing material was khaki and olive green. Some black and gray camouflage. Reacher saw a colored thread. Traced it back to a shoulder flash hidden under a gnawed shoulder blade. It was a curved felt badge embroidered in silk. It said: Northwestern Freemen. He pulled at the skeleton's jacket. The ribcage collapsed. The breast pocket had three chromium stars punched through.

Reacher made a thorough search, lying on his stomach, up to his armpits in bones. He pieced together five separate uniforms. He found two more badges. One said: White Christian Ident.i.ty. The other said: Montana Const.i.tutional Militia. He lined up the five splintered skulls. Checked the teeth. He was looking at five men, middle-aged, maybe between forty and fifty. Five leaders. The leaders who had disappeared. The leaders who could not stand the pace. The leaders who had abandoned their members to Beau Borken.

The roof was too low for Reacher to climb over the bones. He had to push them aside and crawl through them. The rats showed no interest.

These bones were picked clean. Their new feast lay back inside the cavern. They swarmed back in that direction. He held the flashlight out in front of him and pushed on into the mountain against the squealing tide.

He lost his sense of direction. He hoped he was going roughly west, but he couldn't tell. The roof came down to a couple of feet. He was crawling through an old geological seam, excavated long ago for its ore. The roof came down even more. Down to a foot and a half. It was cold. The seam narrowed. His arms were out in front of him. The seam became too narrow to pull them back. He was crawling down a slim rock tube, a billion tons of mountain above him, no idea where he was going.

And the flashlight was failing. The battery was spent. Its light was fading to a dull orange glow.

He was breathing hard. And shaking. Not from exertion. From dread.

From terror. This was not what he had expected. He had visualized a stroll down a s.p.a.cious abandoned gallery. Not this narrow crack in the rock. He was pus.h.i.+ng himself head-first into his worst childhood nightmare. He was a guy who had survived most things, and he was a guy who was rarely afraid. But he had known since his early boyhood that he was terrified of being trapped in the dark in a s.p.a.ce too small to turn his giant frame. All his damp childhood nightmares had been about being closed into tight s.p.a.ces. He lay on his stomach and screwed his eyes shut. Lay and panted and gagged. Forced the air in and out through his clamping throat. Then he inched himself slowly onward into the nightmare.

The glow from the flashlight finally died a hundred yards into the tunnel. The darkness was total. The seam was narrowing. It was pus.h.i.+ng his shoulders down. He was forcing himself into a s.p.a.ce that was way too small for him. His face was forced sideways. He fought to stay calm. He remembered what he had said to Borken: people were smaller then. Sc.r.a.ppy little guys, migrating west, seeking their fortune in the bowels of the mountain. People half the size of Reacher, squirming along, maybe on their backs, chipping the bright veins out of the rock roof.

He was using the dead flashlight like a blind man uses a white cane. It smashed on solid rock two feet ahead of his face. He heard the tinkle of gla.s.s over the rasping of his breath. He struggled ahead and felt with his hands. A solid wall. The tunnel went no farther. He tried to move backward. He couldn't move at all. To push himself backward with his hands, he had to raise his chest to get leverage. But the roof was too low to let him do that. His shoulders were jammed up hard against it. He could get no leverage. His feet could push him forward, but they couldn't pull him backward. He went rigid with panic. His throat clamped solid. His head hit the roof and his cheek hit the grit floor. He fought a scream by breathing fast.

He had to go back. He hooked his toes into the grit. Turned his hands inward and planted his thumbs on the floor. Pulled with his toes and pushed with his thumbs. He moved backward a fraction and then the rock clamped hard against his sides. To slide his weight backward, his shoulder muscles were bunching and jamming against the rock. He breathed out and let his arms go limp. Pulled with his toes. They scrabbled uselessly in the grit. He helped them with his thumbs. His shoulders bunched and jammed again.

He jerked his hips from side to side. He had a couple of inches spare.

He smashed his hands into the shale and heaved backward. His body jammed solid, like a wedge in a door. He tilted sideways and banged his cheek on the roof. Jerked back down and caught his other cheek on the floor. The rock was crus.h.i.+ng in on his ribs. This time, he couldn't fight the scream. He had to let it go. He opened his mouth and wailed in terror. The air in his lungs crushed his chest against the floor and his back against the roof.

He couldn't tell if his eyes were open or shut. He pushed forward with his feet and regained the inch he'd moved back. He stretched with his arms. Felt up ahead again. His shoulders were jammed so tight he couldn't move his hands through much of an angle. He spread his fingers and scrabbled them left and right, up and down. Solid rock ahead. No way to go forward. No way to move backward.

He was going to die trapped inside the mountain. He knew it. The rats knew it. They were sniffing up behind him. Coming closer. He felt them at his feet. He kicked out and sent them squealing away. But they came back. He felt their weight on his legs. They were swarming over him. They burrowed up around his shoulders. Slid under his armpits. He felt cold oily fur on his face as they forced their way past. The flick of their tails as they ran ahead.

To where? He let them run over his arm, to estimate their direction.

They were moving ahead of him, into the blind darkness. He felt with his hands. Felt them flowing left. Their pa.s.sage was stirring the air. The air was cool. He felt it move, a faint breeze, on the sweat on the left side of his face. He jammed himself hard against the right hand wall and moved his left arm sideways, ahead of him. Felt for the left hand wall. It wasn't there. He was stuck at a junction in the tunnels. A new seam ran at a right angle away from the end of the seam he was in. A tight, narrow right angle. Ninety degrees. He forced himself backward as far as his thumbs would push him. He sc.r.a.ped his face on the end wall and jammed his side into the rock. Folded himself arms first around the corner and dragged his legs behind him.

The new seam was no better. It was no wider. The roof was no higher.

He hauled himself along, gasping and sweating and shaking. He propelled himself with his toes, an inch at a time. The rats forced their way past him. The rock tore at his sides and his back. But there was still a slight breeze on his face. The tunnel was heading somewhere. He was gasping and panting. He crawled on. Then the new seam widened. Still very low. A flat, low crack in the rock. He crawled on through it, exhausted. Fifty yards. A hundred. Then he felt the roof soar away above him. He pushed on with his toes and suddenly he felt the air change and he was lying halfway into the motor-pool cavern. He realized his eyes were wide open and the white Econoline was right there in front of him in the dark.

He rolled onto his back and lay gasping on the grit. Gasping and shaking. Staggered to his feet and looked back. The seam was invisible. Hidden in the shadow. He made it as far as the white truck and collapsed against its side. The luminous figures on his watch showed he'd been in the tunnels nearly three hours. Most of the time jammed there sweating in panic. A three-hour screaming nightmare come to life. His pants and his jacket were shredded. Every muscle in his body was on fire. His face and hands and elbows and knees were bleeding. But it was the fear that had done it to him. The fear of not getting through. He could still feel the rock pressing down on his back and pressing up on his chest. He could feel it clamping inward on his ribs. He got up again and limped to the doors. Pushed them open and stood in the moonlight, arms out, eyes crazy, mouth open, breathing in lungfuls of the sweet night air.

He was halfway across the bowl before he started thinking straight. So he ran back and ducked into the motor pool once more. Found what he wanted. He found it on one of the jeep's tow hook a.s.semblies. Some heavy stiff wire, ready to feed a trailer's electric circuits. He wrenched it out and stripped the insulation with his teeth. Ran back to the moonlight.

He kept close to the road, all the way back to Yorke. Two miles, twenty minutes at a slow agonizing jog through the trees. He looped around behind the ruined northeastern block and approached the courthouse from the rear. Circled it silently in the shadows. Waited and listened.

He tried to think like Borken. Complacent. Happy with his perimeter.

Constant information from inside the FBI. Reacher locked into the punishment hut, Holly locked into her prison room. Would he post a sentry? Not tonight. Not when he was expecting heavy action tomorrow and beyond. He would want his people fresh. Readier nodded and gambled he was right.

He arrived at the courthouse steps. Deserted. He tried the door.

Locked. He smiled. n.o.body posts a sentry behind a locked door. He bent the wire into a shallow hook and felt for the mechanism. An old two-lever. Eight seconds. He stepped inside. Waited and listened.

Nothing. He went up the stairs.

The lock on Holly's door was new. But cheap. He worked quietly which delayed him. Took him more than thirty seconds before the last tumbler clicked back. He pulled the door open slowly and stepped onto the built-up floor. Glanced apprehensively at the walls. She was on a mattress on the floor. Fully dressed and ready. Awake and watching him. Huge eyes bright in the gloom. He gestured her outside. Turned and climbed down and waited in the corridor for her. She picked up her crutch and limped to the door. Climbed carefully down the step and stood next to him.

"h.e.l.lo, Readier," she whispered. "How are you doing?"

"I've felt better," he whispered back. Time to time."

She turned and glanced back into her room. He followed her gaze and saw the dark stain on the floor.

"Woman who brought me lunch," she whispered.

He nodded.

"What with?" he whispered back.

Tart of the bed frame," she said.

He saw the satisfaction on her face and smiled.

That should do it," he said, quietly. "Bed frames are good for that."

She took a last look at the room and gently closed the door. Followed him through the dark and slowly down the stairs. Across the lobby and through the double doors and out into the bright silent moonlight.

"Christ," she said, urgently. "What happened to you?"

He glanced down and checked himself over in the light of the moon. He was gray from head to foot with dust and grit. His clothing was shredded. He was streaked with sweat and blood. Still shaky.

"Long story," he said. "You got somebody in Chicago you can trust?"

"McGrath," she said immediately. "He's my agent-in-charge. Why?"

They crossed the wide street arm-in-arm, looking left and right.

Skirted the mound in front of the ruined office building. Found the path running northwest.

"You need to send him a fax," he said. They've got missiles. You need to warn him. Tonight, because their line is going to be cut first thing in the morning."

The mole tell them that?" she asked.

He nodded.

"How?" she asked. "How is he communicating?"

"Short-wave radio," Reacher said. "Has to be. Anything else is traceable."

He swayed and leaned on a tree. Gave her the spread, everything, beginning to end.

"s.h.i.+t," she said. "Ground-to-air missiles? Ma.s.s suicide? A nightmare."

"Not our nightmare," he said. "We're out of here."

"We should stay and help them," she said. The families."

He shook his head.

"Best help is for us to get out," he said. "Maybe losing you will change their plan. And we can tell them about the layout around here."

"I don't know," she said.

"I do," he said. "First rule is stick to priorities. That's you.

We're out of here."

She shrugged and nodded.

"Now?" she asked.

"Right now," he said.

"How?" she asked.

"Jeep through the forest," he said. "I found their motor pool. We get up there, steal a jeep, by then it should be light enough to find our way through. I saw a map in Borken's office. There are plenty of tracks running east through the forest."

She nodded and he pushed off the tree. They hustled up the winding path to the Bastion. A mile, in the dark. They stumbled on the stones and saved their breath for walking. The clearing was dark and silent.

They worked their way around beyond the mess hall to the back of the communications hut. They came out one of the trees and Reacher stepped close and pressed his ear to the plywood siding. There was no sound inside.

He used the wire again and they were inside within ten seconds. Holly found paper and pen. Wrote her message. Dialed the Chicago fax number and fed the sheet into the machine. It whirred obediently and pulled the paper through. Fed it back out into her waiting hand. She hit the b.u.t.ton for the confirmation. Didn't want to leave any trace behind.

Another sheet fed out. It showed the destination number correct. Timed the message at ten minutes to five, Friday morning, the fourth of July.

She shredded both papers small and buried the pieces in the bottom of a trashcan.

Reacher rooted around on the long counter and found a paper clip.

Followed Holly back out into the moonlight and relocked the door.

Dodged around and found the cable leading down from the short-wave whip into the side of the hut. Took the paper clip and worried at it until it broke. Forced the broken end through the cable like a pin. Pushed it through until it was even, a fraction showing at each side. The metal would short-circuit the antenna by connecting the wire inside to the foil screen. The signal would come down out of the ether, down the wire, leak into the foil and run away to ground without ever reaching the short-wave unit itself. The best way to disable a radio. Smash one up, it gets repaired. This way, the fault is untraceable, until an exhausted technician finally thinks to check.

"We need weapons," Holly whispered to him.

He nodded. They crept together to the armory door. He looked at the lock. Gave it up. It was a huge thing. Unpickable.

"I'll take the Glock from the guy guarding me," he whispered.

She nodded. They ducked back into the trees and walked through to the next clearing. Reacher tried to think of a story to explain his appearance to Joseph Ray. Figured he might say something about being beamed over to the UN. Talk about how high-speed beaming can rip you up a little. They crept around behind the punishment hut and listened.

All quiet. They skirted the corner and Reacher pulled the door. Walked straight into a nine-millimeter. This time, it wasn't a Glock. It was a Sig-Sauer. Not Joseph Ray's. It was Beau Borken's. He was standing just inside the door with Little Stevie at his side, grinning.

THIRTY-SEVEN

FOUR-THIRTY IN THE MORNING, WEBSTER WAS MORE THAN READY for the watch change. Johnson and Garber and the general's aide were dozing in their chairs. McGrath was outside with the telephone linemen. They were just finis.h.i.+ng up. The job had taken much longer than they had antic.i.p.ated. Some kind of interface problem. They had physically cut the phone line coming out of Yorke, and bent the stiff copper down to a temporary terminal box they had placed at the base of a pole. Then they had spooled cable from the terminal box down the road to the mobile command vehicle. Connected it into one of the communications ports.

But it didn't work. Not right away. The linemen had fussed with multimeters and muttered about impedances and capacitances. They had worked for three solid hours. They were ready to blame the army truck for the incompatibility when they thought to go back and check their own temporary terminal box. The fault lay there. A failed component.

They wired in a spare and the whole circuit worked perfectly. Four thirty-five in the morning, McGrath was shaking their hands and swearing them to silence when Webster came out of the trailer. The two men stood and watched them drive away. The noise of their truck died around the curve. Webster and McGrath stayed standing in the bright moonlight. They stood there for five minutes while McGrath smoked.

They didn't speak. Just gazed north into the distance and wondered.

"Go wake your boys up," Webster said. "We'll stand down for a spell."

McGrath nodded and walked down to the accommodation trailers. Roused Milosevic and Brogan. They were fully dressed on their bunks. They got up and yawned. Came down the ladder and found Webster standing there with Johnson and his aide. Garber standing behind them.

The telephone line is done," Webster said.

"Already?" Brogan said. "I thought it was being done in the morning."

"We figured sooner was better than later," Webster said. He inclined his head toward General Johnson. It was a gesture which said: he's worried, right?