Die Trying

of this hut, you’re a dead man. Nothing I can do about that right now. Vous comprenez, mon ami? ”
    Ray nodded again. Reacher slipped out into the night. Ray swung the door closed. Reacher backtracked silently and waited around the corner of the hut. Knelt down and found a small rock. Hefted it in his hand and waited for Ray to follow him.
    He didn’t come. Reacher waited eight minutes. Long experience had taught him: if they don’t come after six minutes, they aren’t coming at all. People think in five-minute segments, because of the way clocks are laid out. They say: I’ll wait five minutes. Then, because they’re cautious, they add another minute. They think it’s smart. Reacher waited the first five, then the extra one, then added two more for the sake of safety. But Ray didn’t come. He wasn’t going to.
    Reacher avoided the clearing. He kept to the trees. He skirted the area in the forest. Ignored the beaten earth paths. He wasn’t worried about the dogs. They weren’t out. Fowler had talked about mountain lions roaming. Nobody leaves dogs out at night where there are mountain lions on the prowl. That’s a sure way of having no dogs left in the morning.
    He made a complete circuit of the Bastion, hidden in the trees. The lights were all out and the whole place was still and silent. He waited in the trees behind the mess hall. The kitchen was a square hut, awkwardly connected to the back of the main structure. There were no lights on, but the door was open, and the woman who had served him breakfast was waiting in the shadows. He watched her from the trees. He waited five minutes. Then six. No other movement anywhere. He tossed his small rock onto the path to her left. She jumped at the sound. He called softly. She came out of the shadows. Alone. She walked over to the trees. He took her elbow and pulled her back into the darkness.
    “How did you get out of there?” she whispered to him.
    It was impossible to tell how old she was. Maybe twenty-five, maybe forty-five. She was a handsome woman, lean, long straight hair, but careworn and worried. A flicker of spirit and resilience underneath. She would have been comfortable a hundred years ago, stumbling down the Oregon Trail.
    “How did you get out?” she whispered again.
    “I walked out the door,” Reacher whispered back.
    The woman just looked at him blankly.
    “You’ve got to help us,” she whispered.
    Then she stopped and wrung her hands and twisted her head left and right, peering into the dark, terrified.
    “Help how?” he asked. “Why?”
    “They’re all crazy,” the woman said. “You’ve got to help us.”
    “How?” he asked again.
    She just grimaced, arms held wide, like it was obvious, or like she didn’t know where to start, or how.
    “From the beginning,” he said.
    She nodded, twice, swallowing, collecting herself.
    “People have disappeared,” she said.
    “What people?” he asked. “How did they disappear?”
    “They just disappeared,” she said. “It’s Borken. He’s taken over everything. It’s a long story. Most of us were up here with other groups, just surviving on our own, with our families, you know? I was with the Northwestern Freemen. Then Borken started coming around, talking about unity? He fought and argued. The other leaders disagreed with his views. Then they just started disappearing. They just left. Borken said they couldn’t stand the pace. They just disappeared. So he said we had to join with him. Said we had no choice. Some of us are more or less prisoners here.”
    Reacher nodded.
    “And now things are happening up at the mines,” she said.
    “What things?” he asked her.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Bad things, I guess. We’re not allowed to go up there. They’re only a mile up the road, but they’re off limits. Something was going on there today. They said they were all working in the south, on the border, but when they came back for lunch, they came from the north. I saw them from the kitchen window. They were smiling and laughing.”
    “Who?” Reacher asked.
    “Borken and the ones he trusts,” she said. “He’s crazy. He says they’ll attack us when we declare independence and we have to fight back. Starting tomorrow. We’re all scared. We got families, you know? But there’s nothing we can do. You oppose him, and you either get banished, or he raves at you until you agree with him. Nobody can stand up to him. He controls us, totally.”
    Reacher nodded