Die Trying

at all. The ones we put in the babies? But these old ones work just the same. The satellites know where I am at all times, like you said. You start to pull that trigger, the laser blows your head off.”
    Ray’s eyes were burning. He looked away from Reacher’s scar and glanced nervously up at the roof.
    “Suis pas américain,” Reacher said. “Suis soldat français, agent du gouvernement mondial depuis plusieurs années, parti en mission clandestine il y a deux mois. Il faut évaluer l’élément de risque que votre bande représente par ici.”
    He spoke as fast as he could and ended up sounding exactly like an educated Parisian woman. Exactly like he recalled his dead mother sounding. Ray nodded slowly.
    “You foreign?” he asked.
    “French,” Reacher said. “We operate international brigades. I said I’m here to check out the degree of risk you people represent to us.”
    “I saw you shooting,” Reacher said. “I spotted it. A thousand yards.”
    “Guided by satellite,” Reacher said. “I told you, SDI technology, through the microchip. We can all shoot two miles, perfect score every time.”
    “Christ,” Ray said.
    “I need to be out in the open at ten o’clock,” Reacher said. “It’s a safety procedure. You got a wife here?”
    Ray nodded.
    “What about kids?” Reacher asked. “Any of these kids yours?”
    Ray nodded again.
    “Sure,” he said. “Two boys.”
    “If I’m not out by ten, they all die,” Reacher said. “If I get taken prisoner, the whole place gets incinerated. Can’t afford for my microchip to get captured. I told them you guys wouldn’t understand how it works, but my chief said some of you could be smarter than I thought. Looks like my chief was right.”
    Ray nodded proudly and Reacher checked his watch.
    “It’s seven-thirty, right?” he said. “I’m going to sleep two and a half hours. The satellite will wake me at ten exactly. You wait and see.”
    He lay back down on the floor and curled his arm under his head. Set the alarm in his head for two minutes to ten. Said to himself: don’t let it fail me tonight.

35
    “I REFUSE TO believe it,” General Garber said.
    “He’s involved,” Webster said in reply. “That’s for damn sure. We got the pictures, clear as day.”
    Garber shook his head.
    “I was promoted lieutenant forty years ago,” he said. “Now I’m a three-star general. I’ve commanded thousands of men. Tens of thousands. Got to know most of them well. And out of all of them, Jack Reacher is the single least likely man to be involved in a thing like this.”
    Garber was sitting ramrod-straight at the table in the mobile command post. He had shed his khaki raincoat to reveal an old creased uniform jacket. It was a jacket which bore the accumulated prizes of a lifetime of service. It was studded with badges and ribbons. It was the jacket of a man who had served forty years without ever making a single mistake.
    Johnson was watching him carefully. Garber’s grizzled old head was still. His eyes were calm. His hands were laid comfortably on the table. His voice was firm, but quiet. Definite, like he was being asked to defend the proposition that the sky was blue and the grass was green.
    “Show the General the pictures, Mack,” Webster said.
    McGrath nodded and opened his envelope. Slid the four stills over the table to Garber. Garber held each one up in turn, tilted to catch the green light from the overhead. Johnson was watching his eyes. He was waiting for the flicker of doubt, then the flicker of resignation. He saw neither.
    “These are open to interpretation,” Garber said.
    His voice was still calm. Johnson heard an officer loyally defending a favored subordinate. Webster and McGrath heard a policeman of sorts expressing a doubt. They figured forty years’ service had bought the guy the right to be heard.
    “Interpretation how?” Webster asked.
    “Four isolated moments out of a sequence,” Garber said. “They could be telling us the wrong story.”
    Webster leaned over and pointed at the first still.
    “He’s grabbing her stuff,” he said. “Plain as day, General.”
    Garber shook his head. There was silence. Just electronic hum throughout the vehicle. Johnson saw a flicker of doubt. But it was in McGrath’s eyes, not Garber’s. Then Brogan rattled his way up the ladder. Ducked his head into the truck.
    “Surveillance tapes, chief,” he said. “We’ve been reviewing the stuff the planes got earlier. You