“We need tough discipline,” Fowler said. “All new nations go through a phase like this. Harsh rules, tough discipline. Beau’s made a study of it. Right now, it’s very important. But it can be upsetting, I guess.”

“It’s you should be upset,” Reacher said. “You heard of Joseph Stalin?”

Fowler nodded.

“Soviet dictator,” he said.

“Right,” Reacher said. “He used to do that.”

“Do what?” Fowler asked.

“Eliminate his potential rivals,” Reacher said. “On trumped-up charges.”

Fowler shook his head.

“The charges were fair,” he said. “Loder made mistakes.”

Reacher shrugged.

“Not really,” he said. “He did a reasonable job.”

Fowler looked away.

“You’ll be next,” Reacher said. “You should watch your back. Sooner or later, you’ll find you’ve made some kind of a mistake.”

“We go back a long way,” Fowler said. “Beau and me.”

“So did Beau and Loder, right?” Reacher said. “Stevie will be OK. He’s no threat. Too dumb. But you should think about it. You’ll be next.”

Fowler made no reply. Just looked away again. They walked together back down the grassy half-mile. Took another beaten track north. They stepped off the path to allow a long column of children to file past. They were marching in pairs, boys and girls together, with a woman in fatigues at the head of the line and another at the tail. The children were dressed in cut-down military surplus gear and they were carrying tall staffs in their right hands. Their faces were blank and acquiescent. The girls had untrimmed straight hair, and the boys had rough haircuts done with bowls and blunt shears. Reacher stood and watched them pass. They stared straight ahead as they walked. None of them risked a sideways glance at him.

The new path ran uphill through a thin belt of trees and came out on a flat area fifty yards long and fifty yards wide. It had been leveled by hand. Discarded fieldstone had been painted white and laid at intervals around the edge. It was quiet and deserted.

“Our parade ground,” Fowler said, sourly.

Reacher nodded and scanned around. To the north and west, the high mountains. To the east, thick virgin forest. South, he could see over the distant town, across belts of trees, to the fractured ravines beyond. A cold wind lifted his new jacket and grabbed at his shirt, and he shivered.

THE BIGGER BOLTS were much harder. Much more contact area, metal to metal. Much more paint to scrape. Much more force required to turn them. The more force she used, the more the crushed end of the crutch was liable to slip off. She took off her shoe and used it to hammer the end into shape. She bent and folded the soft aluminum around the head of the bolt. Then she clamped it tight with her fingers. Clamped until the slim tendons in her arm stood out like ropes and sweat ran down her face. Then she turned the crutch, holding her breath, waiting to see which would give first, the grip of her fingers or the grip of the bolt.

THE WIND GRABBING at Reacher’s shirt also carried some faint sounds to him. He glanced at Fowler and turned to face the western edge of the parade ground. He could hear men moving in the trees. A line of men, bursting out of the forest.

They crashed out of the trees, six men line abreast, automatic rifles at the slope. Camouflage fatigues, beards. The same six guards who had stood in front of the judge’s bench that morning. Borken’s personal detail. Reacher scanned across the line of faces. The younger guy with the scar was at the left-hand end of the line. Jackson, the FBI plant. They paused and reset their course. Rushed across the leveled ground toward Reacher. As they approached, Fowler stood back, leaving Reacher looking like an isolated target. Five of the men fanned out into a loose arc. Five rifles aimed at Reacher’s chest. The sixth man stepped up in front of Fowler. No salute, but there was a deference in his stance which was more or less the same thing.

“Beau wants this guy back,” the soldier said. “Something real urgent.”

Fowler nodded.

“Take him,” he said. “He’s beginning to piss me off.”

The rifle muzzles jerked Reacher into a rough formation and the six men hustled him south through the thin belt of trees, moving fast. They passed through the shooting range and followed the beaten earth path back to the Bastion. They turned west and walked past the armory and on into the forest toward the command hut. Reacher lengthened his stride and sped up. Pulled ahead. Let his foot hit a root and went down heavily on the stones. First guy to reach him was Jackson. Reacher saw the scarred forehead. He grabbed Reacher’s arm.

“Mole in Chicago,” Reacher breathed.

“On your feet, asshole,” Jackson shouted back.

“Hide out and run for it tonight,” Reacher whispered. “Maximum care, OK?”

Jackson glanced at him and replied with a squeeze of his arm. Then he pulled him up and shoved him ahead down the path into the smaller clearing. Beau Borken was framed in his command hut doorway. He was dressed in huge baggy camouflage fatigues, dirty and disheveled. Like he had been working hard. He stared at Reacher as he approached.

“I see we gave you new clothes,” he said.

Reacher nodded.

“So let me apologize for my own appearance,” Borken said. “Busy day.”

“Fowler told me,” Reacher said. “You’ve been building abatises.”

“Abatises?” Borken said. “Right.”

Then he went quiet. Reacher saw his big white hands, opening and closing.

“Your mission is canceled,” Borken said quietly.

“It is?” Reacher said. “Why?”

Borken eased his bulk down out of the doorway and stepped close. Reacher’s gaze was fixed on his blazing eyes and he never saw the blow coming. Borken hit him in the stomach, a big hard fist on the end of four hundred pounds of body weight. Reacher went down like a tree and Borken smashed a foot into his back.

28

“HIS NAME IS Jackson,” Webster said.

“How long has he been in there?” Milosevic asked.

“Nearly a year,” Webster said.

Eleven o’clock in the morning, Thursday July third, inside Peterson. The section head at Quantico was faxing material over from Andrews down the Air Force’s own secure fax network as fast as the machines could handle it. Milosevic and Brogan were pulling it off the machines and passing it to Webster and McGrath for analysis. On the other side of the table, General Johnson and his aide were scanning a map of the northwest corner of Montana.

“You got people undercover in all these groups?” Johnson asked.

Webster shook his head and smiled.

“Not all of them,” he said. “Too many groups, not enough people. I think we just got lucky.”

“I didn’t know we had people in this one,” Brogan said.

Webster was still smiling.

“Lots of things lots of people don’t know,” he said. “Safer that way, right?”

“So what is this Jackson guy saying?” Brogan asked.

“Does he mention Holly?” Johnson asked.

“Does he mention what the hell this is all about?” Milosevic asked.

Webster blew out his cheeks and waved his hand at the stack of curling fax paper. McGrath was busy sifting through it. He was separating the papers into two piles. One pile for routine stuff, the other pile for important intelligence. The routine pile was bigger. The important intelligence was sketchy.

“Analysis, Mack?” Webster said.

McGrath shrugged.

“Up to a point, pretty much normal,” he said.

Johnson stared at him.

“Normal?” he said.

Webster nodded.

“This is normal,” he said. “We got these militia groups all over the country, which is why we can’t cover them all. Too damn many. Our last count was way over four hundred groups, all fifty states. Most of them are just amateur wackos, but some of them we consider pretty serious antigovernment terrorists.”