33
MILOSEVIC AND BROGAN were strapped side by side in
the rear of the Air Force chopper. McGrath and Johnson and the
General’s aide were crushed into the middle row of seats. The
aircrew were shoulder to shoulder in the front. They lifted off
from Silver Bow and clattered away northwest over the town of
Butte, nose down, low altitude, looking for maximum airspeed. The
helicopter was an old Bell, rebuilt with a new engine, and it was
pushing a hundred and twenty miles an hour, which made for a lot of
noise inside. Consequently McGrath and Johnson were screaming into
their radio mikes to make themselves understood.
McGrath was patched through to the Hoover Building.
He was trying to talk to Harland Webster. He had one hand cupped
over the mike and the other was clamping the earphone to his head.
He was talking about the missile unit. He didn’t know if Webster
was hearing him. He just repeated his message over and over, as
loud as he could. Then he flicked the switch and tore off the
headset. Tossed it forward to the copilot.
Johnson was talking to Peterson. Radio contact had
not been restored. He limited himself to requesting an update by
secure landline direct to the mobile command post in two hours’
time. He failed to decipher the reply. He pulled off his headset
and looked a question at McGrath. McGrath shrugged back at him. The
helicopter clattered onward.
HARLAND WEBSTER HEARD the shrieking din cut off.
He hung up his phone in the sudden silence of his office. Leaned
forward and buzzed his secretary.
“Car,” he said.
He walked through to the elevator and rode down to
the garage. Walked over to his limousine. His driver was holding
the door for him.
“White House,” he said.
This time, the driver said nothing. Just fired it
up and eased out of the garage. Bumped up and out into the
afternoon rush. Crawled the sixteen hundred yards west in silence.
Webster was directed to the same off-white room. He waited there a
quarter hour. Dexter came in. Clearly not pleased to see him back
so soon.
“They’ve stolen some missiles,” Webster said.
“What missiles?” Dexter asked.
He described everything as well as he could. Dexter
listened. Didn’t nod. Didn’t ask any questions. Didn’t react. Just
told him to wait in the room.
THE AIR FORCE Bell put down on a gravel turnout
two hundred yards south of where the road into Yorke narrowed and
straightened into the hills. The pilot kept the engine turning and
the five passengers ducked out and ran bent over until they were
out of the fierce downdraft. There were vehicles on the road ahead.
A random pattern of military vehicles slewed across the blacktop.
One of them was turning slowly in the road. It turned in the narrow
space between the rocky walls and straightened as it approached. It
slowed and halted fifty yards away. General Johnson stepped out
into view. The car moved forward and stopped in front of him. It
was a new Chevrolet, sprayed a dull olive green. There were white
stenciled letters and figures on the hood and along the sides. An
officer slid out. He saluted the General and skipped around to open
all the doors. The five men squeezed in and the car turned again
and rolled the two hundred yards north to the mess of
vehicles.
“The command post is on its way, sir,” the officer
said. “Should be here inside forty minutes. The satellite trucks
are an hour behind it. I suggest you wait in the car. It’s getting
cold outside.”
“Word from the missile unit?” Johnson asked.
The officer shook his head in the gloom.
“No word, sir,” he said.
WEBSTER WAITED MOST of an hour. Then the door of
the small off-white room cracked open. A Secret Service agent stood
there. Blue suit, curly wire running up out of his collar to his
earpiece.
“Please come with me, sir,” the agent said.
Webster stood up and the guy raised his hand and
spoke into his cuff. Webster followed him along a quiet corridor
and into an elevator. The elevator was small and slow. It took them
down to the first floor. They walked along another quiet corridor
and paused in front of a white door. The agent knocked once and
opened it.
The President was sitting in his chair behind his
desk. The chair was rotated away and he had his back to the room.
He was staring out through the bulletproof windows at the darkness
settling over the garden. Dexter was in an armchair. Neither asked
him to sit down. The President didn’t turn around. As soon as he
heard the door click shut, he started speaking.
“Suppose I was a judge,” he said. “And suppose you
were some cop and you came to me for a warrant?”
Webster could see the President’s face reflected in
the thick glass. It was just a pink smudge.
“OK, sir, suppose I was?” he said.
“What have you got?” the President asked him. “And
what haven’t you got? You don’t even know for sure Holly’s there at
all. You’ve got an undercover asset in place and he hasn’t
confirmed it to you. You’re guessing, is all. And these missiles?
The Army has lost radio contact. Could be temporary. Could be any
number of reasons for that. Your undercover guy hasn’t mentioned
them.”
“He could be experiencing difficulties, sir,”
Webster said. “And he’s been told to be cautious. He doesn’t call
in with a running commentary. He’s undercover, right? He can’t just
disappear into the forest any old time he wants to.”
The President nodded. The pink smudge in the glass
moved up and down. There was a measure of sympathy there.
“We understand that, Harland,” he said. “We really
do. But we have to assume that with matters of this magnitude, he’s
going to make a big effort, right? But you’ve heard nothing. So
you’re giving us nothing but speculation.”
Webster spread his hands. Spoke directly to the
back of the guy’s head.
“Sir, this is a big deal,” he said. “They’re arming
themselves, they’ve taken a hostage, they’re talking about
secession from the Union.”
The President nodded.
“Don’t you understand, that’s the problem?” he
said. “If this were about three weirdos in a hut in the woods with
a bomb, we’d send you in there right away. But it isn’t. This could
lead to the biggest constitutional crisis since 1860.”
“So you agree with me,” Webster said. “You’re
taking them seriously.”
The President shook his head. Sadly, like he was
upset but not surprised Webster didn’t get the point.
“No,” he said. “We’re not taking them seriously.
That’s what makes this whole thing so damn difficult. They’re a
bunch of deluded idiots, seeing plots everywhere, conspiracies,
muttering about independence for their scrubby little patch of
worthless real estate. But the question is: how should a mature
democratic nation react to that? Should it massacre them all,
Harland? Is that how a mature nation reacts? Should it unleash
deadly force against a few deluded idiot citizens? We spent a
generation condemning the Soviets for doing that. Are we going to
do the same thing?”
“They’re criminals, sir,” Webster said.
“Yes, they are,” the President agreed, patiently.
“They’re counterfeiters, they own illegal weapons, they don’t pay
federal taxes, they foment racial hatred, maybe they even robbed an
armored car. But those are details, Harland. The broad picture is
they’re disgruntled citizens. And how do we respond to that? We
encourage disgruntled citizens in Eastern Europe to stand up and
declare their nationhood, right? So how do we deal with our own
disgruntled citizens, Harland? Declare war on them?”
Webster clamped his jaw. He felt adrift. Like the
thick carpets and the quiet paint and the unfamiliar scented air
inside the Oval Office were choking him.
“They’re criminals,” he said again. It was all he
could think of to say.
The President nodded. Still a measure of
sympathy.
“Yes, they are,” he agreed again. “But look at the
broad picture, Harland. Look at their main offense. Their main
offense is they hate their government. If we deal with them harshly
for that, we could face a crisis. Like we said, there are maybe
sixty million Americans ready to be tipped over the edge. This
Administration is very aware of that, Harland. This Administration
is going to tread very carefully.”
“But what about Holly?” he asked. “You can’t just
sacrifice her.”
There was a long silence. The President kept his
chair turned away.
“I can’t react because of her, either,” he said
quietly. “I can’t allow myself to make this personal. Don’t you see
that? A personal, emotional, angry response would be wrong. It
would be a bad mistake. I have to wait and think. I’ve talked it
over with the General. We’ve talked for hours. Frankly, Harland,
he’s pissed at me, and again frankly, I don’t blame him. He’s just
about my oldest friend, and he’s pissed at me. So don’t talk to me
about sacrifice, Harland. Because sacrifice is what this office is
all about. You put the greater good in front of friendship, in
front of all your own interests. You do it all the time. It’s what
being President means.”
There was another long silence.
“So what are you saying to me, Mr. President?”
Webster asked.
Another long silence.
“I’m not saying anything to you,” the President
said. “I’m saying you’re in personal command of the situation. I’m
saying come see Mr. Dexter Monday morning, if there’s still a
problem.”
NOBODY WAITED IN the car. Too restless for that.
They got out into the chill mountain air and milled aimlessly
around. Johnson and his aide strolled north with the driver and
looked at the proposed location for the command post. McGrath and
Brogan and Milosevic kept themselves apart as a threesome. McGrath
smoked, lost in thought. Time to time, he would duck back into the
Army Chevrolet and use the car phone. He called the Montana State
Police, the power company, the phone company, the Forest
Service.
Brogan and Milosevic strolled north. They found an
armored vehicle. Not a tank, some kind of a personnel carrier.
There was the officer who had met them with the car and maybe eight
soldiers standing near it. Big, silent men, pitching tents on the
shoulder in the lee of the rocks. Brogan and Milosevic nodded a
greeting to them and strolled back south. They rejoined McGrath and
waited.
Within forty minutes they all heard the faint roar
of heavy diesels far to the south. The noise built and then burst
around the curve. There was a small convoy of trucks. Big, boxy
vehicles, mounted high on exaggerated drivetrains, big wheels, huge
tires, axles grinding around. They roared nearer, moving slow in
low gear. The officer from the car ran to meet them. Pointed them
up to where he wanted them. They roared slowly past and stopped two
abreast in the road where it straightened into the rock
cutting.
There were four vehicles. Black and green
camouflage, rolls of netting on the flanks, stenciled numbers and
big single stars in white. The front two trucks bristled with
antennas and small dishes. The rear two were accommodations. Each
vehicle had hydraulic jacks at each corner. The drivers lowered the
jacks and the weight came up off the tires. The jacks pushed
against the camber of the road and leveled the floors. Then the
engines cut off and the loud diesel roaring died into the mountain
silence.
The four drivers vaulted down. They ran to the rear
of their trucks and opened the doors. Reached in and folded down
short aluminum ladders. Went up inside and flicked switches. The
four interiors lit up with green light. The drivers came back out.
Regrouped and saluted the officer.
“All yours, sir,” the point man said.
The officer nodded. Pointed to the Chevy.
“Drive back in that,” he said. “And forget you were
ever here.”
The point man saluted again.
“Understood, sir,” he said.
The four drivers walked to the Chevy. Their boots
were loud in the silence. They got in the car and fired it up.
Turned in the road and disappeared south.
BACK IN HIS office, Webster found the Borken
profile on his desk and a visitor waiting for him. Green uniform
under a khaki trench coat, maybe sixty, sixty-two, iron-gray
stubble on part of his head, battered brown leather briefcase under
his arm, battered canvas suit carrier on the floor at his
feet.
“I understand you need to talk to me,” the guy
said.
“I’m General Garber. I was Jack Reacher’s CO for a
number of years.”
Webster nodded.
“I’m going to Montana,” he said. “You can talk to
me there.”
“We anticipated that,” Garber said. “If the Bureau
can fly us out to Kalispell, the Air Force will take us on the rest
of the way by helicopter.”
Webster nodded again. Buzzed through to his
secretary. She was off duty.
“Shit,” Webster said.
“My driver is waiting,” Garber said. “He’ll take us
out to Andrews.”
Webster called ahead from the car and the Bureau
Lear was waiting ready. Twenty minutes after leaving the White
House, Webster was in the air heading west over the center of the
city. He wondered if the President could hear the scream of his
engines through his thick bulletproof glass.
THE AIR FORCE technicians arrived with the
satellite trucks an hour after the command post had been installed.
There were two vehicles in their convoy. The first was similar to
the command post itself, big, high, boxy, hydraulic jacks at each
corner, a short aluminum ladder for access. The second was a long
flatbed truck with a big satellite dish mounted high on an
articulated mechanism. As soon as it was parked and level, the
mechanism kicked in and swung the dish up to find the planes, seven
miles up in the darkening sky. It locked on and the delicate
electronics settled down to tracking the moving signals. There was
a continuous motor sound as the dish moved through a subtle arc,
too slowly for the eye to detect. The techs hauled out a cable the
thickness of a sapling’s trunk from the flatbed and locked it into
a port on the side of the closed truck. Then they swarmed up inside
and fired up the monitors and the recorders.
McGrath hitched a ride with the soldiers in the
armored carrier. They rumbled a mile south and met a waiting
Montana State Police cruiser on the road. The state guy conferred
with McGrath and opened his trunk. Pulled out a box of red danger
flares and an array of temporary road signs. The soldiers jogged
south and put a pair of flares either side of a sign reading:
Danger, Road Out. They came back north and set up a trio of flares
in the center of the blacktop with a sign reading: Bridge Out
Ahead. Fifty yards farther north, they blocked the whole width of
the road with more flares. They strung Road Closed signs across
behind them. When the state guy had slalomed his way back south and
disappeared, the soldiers took axes from their vehicle and started
felling trees. The armored carrier nudged them over and pushed them
across the road, engine roaring, tires squealing. It lined them up
in a rough zigzag. A vehicle could get through, but only if it
slowed to a dead crawl and threaded its way past. Two soldiers were
posted as sentries on the shoulders. The other six rode back north
with McGrath.
Johnson was in the command vehicle. He was in radio
contact with Peterson. The news was bad. The missile unit had been
out of radio contact for more than eight hours. Johnson had a rule
of thumb. He had learned it by bitter experience in the jungles of
Vietnam. The rule of thumb said: when you’ve lost radio contact
with a unit for more than eight hours, you mark that unit down as a
total loss.
WEBSTER AND GARBER did not talk during the plane
ride. That was Webster’s choice. He was experienced enough as a
bureaucrat to know that whatever he heard from Garber, he’d only
have to hear all over again when the full team was finally
assembled. So he sat quietly in the noisy jet whine and read the
Borken profile from Quantico. Garber was looking questions at him,
but he ignored them. Explain it to Garber now, and he’d only have
to do it all over again for McGrath and Johnson.
The evening air at Kalispell was cold and gray for
the short noisy walk across the apron to the Air Force Bell. Garber
identified himself to the copilot who dropped a short ladder to the
tarmac. Garber and Webster scrambled up inside and sat where they
were told. The copilot signaled with both hands that they should
fasten their harnesses and that the ride would take about
twenty-five minutes. Webster nodded and listened to the beat of the
rotor as it lifted them all into the air.
GENERAL JOHNSON HAD just finished another long
call to the White House when he heard the Bell clattering in. He
stood framed in the command post doorway and watched it put down on
the same gravel turnout, two hundred yards south. He saw two
figures spill out and crouch away. He saw the chopper lift and yaw
and turn south.
He walked down and met them halfway. Nodded to
Garber and pulled Webster to one side.
“Anything?” he asked.
Webster shook his head.
“No change,” he said. “White House is playing safe.
You?”
“Nothing,” Johnson said.
Webster nodded. Nothing more to say.
“What we got here?” he asked.
“Far as the White House knows, nothing,” Johnson
said. “We’ve got two camera planes in the air. Officially, they’re
on exercises. We’ve got eight Marines and an armored car. They’re
on exercises, too. Their COs know where they are, but they don’t
know exactly why, and they’re not asking.”
“You sealed the road?” Webster asked.
Johnson nodded.
“We’re all on our own up here,” he said.