Chapter Twenty-Seven
FOUR MEN WERE dragging Loder's body away and the crowd was dispersing quietly. Reacher was left standing on the courthouse steps with his six guards and Fowler. Fowler had finally unlocked the handcuffs. Reacher was rolling his shoulders and stretching. He had been cuffed all night and all morning and he was stiff and sore. His wrists were marked with red weals where the hard metal had bitten down.
"Cigarette?" Fowler asked.
He was holding his pack out. A friendly gesture. Reacher shook his head.
"I want to see Holly," he said.
Fowler was about to refuse, but then he thought some more and nodded.
"OK," he said. "Good idea. Take her out for some exercise. Talk to her. Ask her how we're treating her. That's something you're sure to be asked later. It'll be very important to them. We don't want you giving them any false impressions. "
Reacher waited at the bottom of the steps. The sun had gone pale and watery. Wisps of mist were gathering in the north. But some of the sky was still blue and clear. After five minutes, Fowler brought Holly down. She was walking slowly, with a little staccato rhythm as her good leg alternated with the thump of her crutch. She walked through the door and stood at the top of the steps.
"Question for you, Reacher," Fowler called down. "How far can you run in a half hour with a hundred and twenty pounds on your back?"
Reacher shrugged.
"Not far enough, I guess," he said.
Fowler nodded.
"Right," he said. "Not far enough. If she's not standing right here in thirty minutes, we'll come looking for you. We'll give it a two-mile radius. "
Reacher thought about it and nodded. A half hour with a hundred and twenty pounds on his back might get him more than two miles. Two miles was probably pessimistic. But he thought back to the map on Borken's wall. Thought about the savage terrain. Where the hell would he run? He made a show of checking his watch. Fowler walked away, up behind the ruined office building. The guards slung their weapons over their shoulders and stood easy. Holly smoothed her hair back. Stood face up to the pale sun.
"Can you walk for a while?" Reacher asked her.
"Slowly," she said.
She set off north along the middle of the deserted street. Reacher strolled beside her. They waited until they were out of sight. They glanced at each other. Then they turned and flung themselves together. Her crutch toppled to the ground and he lifted her a foot in the air. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck.
"I'm going crazy in there," she said.
"I've got bad news," he said.
"What?" she said.
"They had a helper in Chicago," he said.
She stared up at him.
"They were only gone five days," he said. "That's what Fowler said at the trial. He said Loder had been gone just five days. "
"So?" she said.
"So they didn't have time for surveillance," he said. "They hadn't been watching you. Somebody told them where you were going to be, and when. They had help, Holly. "
The color in her face drained away. It was replaced by shock.
"Five days?" she said. "You sure?"
Reacher nodded. Holly went quiet. She was thinking hard.
"So who knew?" he asked her. "Who knew where you'd be, twelve o'clock Monday? A roommate? A friend?"
Her eyes were darting left and right. She was racing through the possibilities.
"Nobody knew," she said.
"Were you ever tailed?" he asked.
She shrugged helplessly. Reacher could see she desperately wanted to say yes, I was tailed. Because he knew to say no was too awful for her to contemplate.
"Were you?" he asked again.
"No," she said quietly. "By a bozo like one of these? Forget it. I'd have spotted them. And they'd have had to hang around all day outside the Federal Building, just waiting. We'd have picked them up in a heartbeat. "
"So?" he asked.
"My lunch break was flexible," she said. "It varied, sometimes by a couple of hours either way. It was never regular. "
"So?" he asked again.
She stared at him.
"So it was inside help," she said. "Inside the Bureau. Had to be. Think about it, no other possibility. Somebody in the office saw me leave and dropped a dime. "
He said nothing. Just watched the dismay on her face. "A mole inside Chicago," she said. A statement, not a question. "Inside the Bureau. No other possibility. Shit, I don't believe it. "
Then she smiled. A brief, bitter smile.
"And we've got a mole inside here," she said. "Ironic, right? He identified himself to me. Young guy, big scar on his forehead. He's undercover for the Bureau. He says we've got people in a lot of these groups. Deep undercover, in case of emergency. He called it in when they put the dynamite in my walls. "
He stared back at her.
"You know about the dynamite?" he said.
She grimaced and nodded.
"No wonder you're going crazy in there," he said.
Then he stared at her in a new panic.
"Who does this undercover guy call in to?" he asked urgently.
"Our office in Butte," Holly said. "It's just a satellite office. One resident agent. He communicates by radio. He's got a transmitter hidden out in the woods. But he's not using it now. He says they're scanning the frequencies. "
He shuddered.
"So how long before the Chicago mole blows his cover?" he said.
Holly went paler.
"Soon, I guess," she said. "Soon as somebody figures we were headed out in this direction. Chicago will be dialing up the computers and trawling for any reports coming out of Montana. His stuff will be top of the damn pile. Christ, Reacher, you've got to get to him first. You've got to warn him. His name is Jackson. "
They turned back. Started hurrying south through the ghost town.
"He says he can break me out," Holly said. "Tonight, by jeep. "
Reacher nodded grimly.
"Go with him," he said.
"Not without you," she said.
"They're sending me anyway," he said. "I'm supposed to be an emissary. I'm supposed to tell your people it's hopeless. "
"Are you going to go?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"Not if I can help it," he said. "Not without you. "
"You should go," she said. "Don't worry about me. "
He shook his head again.
"I am worrying about you," he said.
"Just go," she said. "Forget me and get out. "
He shrugged. Said nothing.
"Get out if you get the chance, Reacher," she said. "I mean it. "
She looked like she meant it. She was glaring at him.
"Only if you're gone first," he said finally. "I'm sticking around until you're out of here. I'm definitely not leaving you with these maniacs. "
"But you can't stick around," she said. "If I'm gone, they'll go apeshit. It'll change everything. "
He looked at her. Heard Borken say: she's more than his daughter.
"Why, Holly?" he said. "Why will it change everything? Who the hell are you?"
She didn't answer. Glanced away. Fowler strolled into view, coming north, smoking. He walked up to them. Stopped right in front of them. Pulled his pack.
"Cigarette?" he asked.
Holly looked at the ground. Reacher shook his head.
"She tell you?" Fowler asked. "All the comforts of home?"
The guards were standing to attention. They were in a sort of honor guard on the courthouse steps. Fowler walked Holly to them. A guard took her inside. At the door, she glanced back at Reacher. He nodded to her. Tried to make it say: see you later, OK? Then she was gone.
"NOW FOR THE grand tour," Fowler said. "You stick close to me. Beau's orders. But you can ask any questions you want, OK?"
Rea
cher glanced vaguely at him and nodded. Glanced at the six guards behind him. He walked down the steps and paused. Looked over at the flagpole. It was set dead center in the remains of a fine square of lawn in front of the building. He walked across to it and stood in Loder's blood and looked around.
The town of Yorke was pretty much dead. Looked like it had died some time ago. And it looked like it had never been much of a place to begin with. The road came through north to south, and there had been four developed blocks flanking it, two on the east side and two on the west. The courthouse took up the whole of the southeastern block and it faced what might have been some kind of a county office on the southwestern block. The western side of the street was higher. The ground sloped way up. The foundation of the county office building was about level with the second floor of the courthouse. It had started out the same type of structure, but it had fallen into ruin, maybe thirty years before. The paint was peeled and the siding showed through iron-gray. There was no glass in any window. The sloping knoll surrounding it had returned to mountain scrub. There had been an ornamental tree dead center. It had died a long time ago, and it was now just a stump, maybe seven feet high, like an execution post.
The northern blocks were rows of faded, boarded-up stores. There had once been tall ornate frontages concealing simple square buildings, but the decay of the years had left the frontages the same dull brown as the boxy wooden structures behind. The signs above the doors had faded to nothing. There were no people on the sidewalks. No vehicle noise, no activity, no nothing. The place was a ghost. It looked like an abandoned cowboy town from the Old West.
"This was a mining town," Fowler said. "Lead, mostly, but some copper, and a couple of seams of good silver for a while. There was a lot of money made here, that's for damn sure. "
"So what happened?" Reacher asked.
Fowler shrugged.
"What happens to any mining place?" he said. "It gets worked out, is what. Fifty years ago, people were registering claims in that old county office like there was no tomorrow, and they were disputing them in that old courthouse, and there were saloons and banks and stores up and down the street. Then they started coming up with dirt instead of metal, and they moved on, and this is what got left behind. "