Die Trying

him. “I need to move the Hostage Rescue Team into place right now?”
    “No,” Dexter said.
    “No?” Webster repeated incredulously.
    Dexter shook his head.
    “Permission denied,” he said. “For the time being.”
    Webster just stared at him.
    “I need a position,” he said.
    The room stayed silent. Then Dexter spoke to a spot on the off-white wall, a yard to the left of Webster’s chair.
    “You remain in personal command of the situation,” he said. “Holiday weekend starts tomorrow. Come talk to me Monday. If there’s still a problem.”
    “There’s a problem now,” Webster said. “And I’m talking to you now.”
    Dexter shook his head again.
    “No, you’re not,” he said. “We didn’t meet today, and I didn’t speak with the President today. We didn’t know anything about it today. Tell us all about it on Monday, Harland, if there’s still a problem.”
    Webster just sat there. He was a smart enough guy, but right then he couldn’t figure if he was being handed the deal of a lifetime, or a suicide pill.

    JOHNSON AND HIS aide arrived in Butte an hour later. They came in the same way, Air Force helicopter from Peterson up to the Silver Bow County airport. Milosevic took an air-to-ground call as they were on approach and went out to meet them in a two-year-old Grand Cherokee supplied by the local dealership. Nobody spoke on the short ride back to town. Milosevic just drove and the two military men bent over charts and maps from a large leather case the aide was carrying. They passed them back and forth and nodded, as if further comment was unnecessary.
    The upstairs room in the municipal building was suddenly crowded. Five men, two chairs. The only window faced southeast over the street. The wrong direction. The five men were instinctively glancing at the blank wall opposite. Through that wall was Holly, two hundred and forty miles away.
    “We’re going to have to move up there,” General Johnson said.
    His aide nodded.
    “No good staying here,” he said.
    McGrath had made a decision. He had promised himself he wouldn’t fight turf wars with these guys. His agent was Johnson’s daughter. He understood the old guy’s feelings. He wasn’t going to squander time and energy proving who was boss. And he needed the old guy’s help.
    “We need to share facilities,” he said. “Just for the time being.”
    There was a short silence. The General nodded slowly. He knew enough about Washington to decode those five words with a fair degree of accuracy.
    “I don’t have many facilities available,” he said in turn. “It’s the holiday weekend. Exactly seventy-five percent of the U.S. Army is on leave.”
    Silence. McGrath’s turn to do the decoding and the slow nodding.
    “No authorization to cancel leave?” he asked.
    The General shook his head.
    “I just spoke with Dexter,” he said. “And Dexter just spoke with the President. Feeling was this thing is on hold until Monday.”
    The crowded room went silent. The guy’s daughter was in trouble, and the White House fixer was playing politics.
    “Webster got the same story,” McGrath said. “Can’t even bring the Hostage Rescue Team up here yet. Time being, we’re on our own, the three of us.”
    The General nodded to McGrath. It was a personal gesture, individual to individual, and it said: we’ve leveled with each other, and we both know what humiliation that cost us, and we both know we appreciate it.
    “But there’s no harm in being prepared,” the General said. “Like the little guy suspects, the military is comfortable with secret maneuvers. I’m calling in a few private favors that Mr. Dexter need never know about.”
    The silence in the room eased. McGrath looked a question at him.
    “There’s a mobile command post already on its way,” the General said.
    He took a large chart from his aide and spread it out on the desk.
    “We’re going to rendezvous right here,” he said.
    He had his finger on a spot northwest of the last habitation in Montana short of Yorke. It was a wide curve on the road leading into the county, about six miles shy of the bridge over the ravine.
    “The satellite trucks are heading straight there,” he said. “I figure we move in, set up the command post, and seal off the road behind us.”
    McGrath stood still, looking down at the map. He knew that to agree was to hand over total control to the military. He knew that to disagree was to play petty games with his agent and this