Die Trying (Jack Reacher 2)

"Couldn't prove it," the sheriff replied. "But I'm sure of it. And I'm sure he talked the others into helping him do it. He's a born leader. He can talk anybody into doing anything, I can promise you that. "

KENDALL BACK TO Mojave was fifty miles by car. Mojave to Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado was another eight hundred and thirty miles by Lear. Three hours of travel, door to door, which put them down at Peterson through the gorgeous mountain dawn. It was the kind of sight people pay money to see, but the four FBI men took no notice at all. Thursday July third, the fourth day of the crisis, and no proper rest and no proper nutrition had left them ragged and focused on nothing except the job in hand.

General Johnson himself was not available to meet them. He was elsewhere on the giant base, on duty glad-handing the returning night patrols. His aide saluted Webster, shook hands with the other three, and walked them all over to a crew room reserved for their use. There was a huge photograph on the table, black-and-white, crisply focused. Some kind of a landscape. It looked like the surface of the moon.

"That's Anadyr, in Siberia," the aide said. "Satellite photograph. Last week, there was a big air base there. A nuclear bomber base. The runway was aimed straight at our missile silos in Utah. Arms reduction treaty required it to be blown up. The Russians complied last week. "

The four agents bent for another look. There was no trace of any man-made structure in the picture. Just savage craters.

"Complied?" McGrath said. "Looks like they did an enthusiastic job of work. "

"So?" Webster said.

The aide pulled a map from the portfolio. Unfolded it and stepped around so that the agents could share his view. It was a slice of the world, eastern Asia and the western United States, with the mass of Alaska right in the center and the North Pole right at the top. The aide stretched his thumb and finger apart and spanned the distance from Siberia southeast down to Utah.

"Anadyr was here," he said. "Utah is here. Naturally we knew all about the bomber base, and we had countermeasures in place, which included big missile bases in Alaska, here, and then a chain of four small surface-to-air facilities strung out north to south all the way underneath Anadyr's flight path into Utah, which are here, here, here and here, straddling the line between Montana and the Idaho panhandle. "

The agents ignored the red dots in Idaho. But they looked closely at the locations in Montana.

"What sort of bases are these?" Webster asked.

The aide shrugged.

"They were kind of temporary," he said. "Thrown together in the sixties, just sort of survived ever since. Frankly, we didn't expect to have to use them. The Alaska missiles were more than adequate. Nothing would have gotten past them. But you know how it was, right? Couldn't be too ready. "

"What sort of weapons?" McGrath asked.

"There was a Patriot battery at each facility," the aide said. "We pulled those out a while back. Sold them to Israel. All that's left is Stingers, you know, shoulder-launch infantry systems. "

Webster looked at the guy.

"Stingers?" he said. "You were going to shoot Soviet bombers down with infantry systems?"

The aide nodded. Looked definite about it.

"Why not?" he said. "Don't forget, those bases were basically window dressing. Nothing was supposed to get past Alaska. But the Stingers would have worked. We supplied thousands of them to Afghanistan. They knocked down hundreds of Soviet planes. Mostly helicopters, I guess, but the principle is good. A heat seeker is a heat seeker, right? Makes no difference if it gets launched off a truck or off a GI's shoulder. "

"So what happens now?" Webster asked him.

"We're closing the bases down," the guy said. "That's why the General is here, gentlemen. We're pulling the equipment and the personnel back here to Peterson, and there's going to be some ceremonies, you know, end-of-an-era stuff. "

"Where are these bases?" McGrath asked. "The Montana ones? Exactly?"

The aide pulled the map closer and checked the references.

"Southernmost one is hidden on some farmland near Missoula," he said. "Northern one is hidden in a valley, about forty miles south of Canada, near a little place called Yorke. Why? Is there a problem?"

McGrath shrugged.

"We don't know yet," he said.

THE AIDE SHOWED them where to get breakfast and left them to wait for the General. Johnson arrived after the eggs but before the toast, so they left the toast uneaten and walked back together to the crew room. Johnson looked a lot different from the glossy guy Webster had met with Monday evening. The early hour and three days' strain made him look twenty pounds thinner and twenty years older. His face was pale and his eyes were red. He looked like a man on the verge of defeat.

"So what do we know?" he asked.

"We think we know most of it," Webster answered.

"Right now our operational assumption is your daughter's been kidnapped by a militia group from Montana. We know their location, more or less. Somewhere in the northwestern valleys. "

Johnson nodded slowly.

"Any communication?" he asked.

Webster shook his head.

"Not yet," he said.

"So what's the reason?" Johnson asked. "What do they want?"

Webster shook his head again.

"We don't know that yet," he said.

Johnson nodded again, vaguely.

"Who are they?" he asked.

McGrath opened the envelope he was carrying.

"We've got four names," he said. "Three of the snatch squad, and there's pretty firm evidence about who the militia leader is. A guy named Beau Borken. That name mean anything to you?"

"Borken?" Johnson said. He shook his head. "That name means nothing. "

"OK," McGrath said. "What about this guy? His name's Peter Bell. "

McGrath passed Johnson the computer print of Bell at the wheel in the Lexus. Johnson took a long look at it and shook his head.

"He's dead," McGrath said. "Didn't make it back to Montana. "

"Good," Johnson said.

McGrath passed him another picture.

"Steven Stewart?" he said.

Johnson paid the print some attention, but ended up shaking his head.

"Never saw this guy before," he said.

"Tony Loder?" McGrath asked.

Johnson stared at Loder's face and shook his head.

"No," he said.

"Those three and Borken are all from California," McGrath said. "There may be another guy called Odell Fowler. You heard that name?"

Johnson shook his head.

"And there's this guy," McGrath said. "We don't know who he is. "

He passed over the photograph of the big guy. Johnson glanced at it, then glanced away. But then his gaze drifted back.

"You know this one?" McGrath asked him.

Johnson shrugged.

"He's vaguely familiar," he said. "Maybe somebody I once saw?"

"Recently?" McGrath asked.

Johnson shook his head.

"Not recently," he said. "Probably a long time ago. "

"Military?" Webster asked.

"Probably," Johnson said again. "Most of the people I see are military. "

His aide crowded his shoulder for a look.

"Means nothing to me," he said. "But we should fax this to the Pentagon. If this guy is military, maybe there'll be somebody somewhere who served with him. "

Johnson shook his head.

"Fax it to the military police," he said. "This guy's a criminal, right? Chances are he was in trouble before, in the service. Somebody there will remember him. "