Die Trying

the waistband and tucked the shirt right back to the sides. Carefully, well out of the way, like he was a surgeon faced with a difficult emergency procedure.
    They saw the guy pick up the knife again. He was squatted down to McGrath’s right, leaning over slightly, holding the knife. He was holding it point down, close to McGrath’s belly. The electronic pink of McGrath’s skin was reflected in the faces of the watchers inside the observation vehicle.
    They saw the guy raise the knife an inch. They saw his index finger slide along the back of the blade, like he was adjusting his grip for extra precision. They saw the blade move down. The pale sun glinted on the steel. Then their view was disrupted. A silent puff of pink mist obscured the picture. When it cleared, the knife was still in the guy’s hand. But the guy had no head. His whole head was a shattered pink wound, and he was toppling slowly sideways.

42
    THE LEFT-HAND GUARD went down easily enough, too. Reacher put a bullet through the side of his head, just above the ear, and he fell heavily, right on top of the spread-eagled Bureau guy. But the right-hand guard reacted. He spun away and hurdled the taut ropes, racing for the trees. Reacher paused a beat and dropped him ten feet away. The guy sprawled and slid noisily through the shale and put up a slick of dust. Twitched once and died.
    Then Reacher waited. The last staccato echo of the three shots came back off the farthest mountains and faded into quiet. Reacher watched the trees, all around the Bastion. Watched for movement. The sunlight was bright. Too bright to be sure. There was a lot of contrast between the brightness of the clearing and the dark of the forest. So he waited.
    Then he came out from behind the radio hut at a desperate run. He sprinted straight across the clearing to the mess in the middle. Hauled the bodies out of the way. The guard was sprawled right on top of the Bureau guy. The unit leader was across his legs. He dumped them out of the way and found the knife. Sawed through the four coarse ropes. Dragged the Bureau guy upright and pushed him off back the way he’d come. Then he grabbed the two nearest rifles and sprinted after him. Caught him up halfway. The guy was just tottering along. So Reacher caught him under the arms and bundled him to safety. Threw him well into the trees behind the huts and stood bent over, panting. Then he took the magazines off the new rifles and put one in his pocket and one on his own gun. They were both the elongated thirty-shot versions. He’d been down to six rounds. Now he had sixty. A tenfold increase. And he had another pair of hands.
    “Are you Brogan?” he asked. “Or McGrath?”
    The guy answered stiffly and neutrally. There was fear and panic and confusion in his face.
    “McGrath,” he said. “FBI.”
    Reacher nodded. The guy was shaken up, but he was an ally. He took Fowler’s Glock out of his pocket and held it out to him, butt first. McGrath was panting quietly and glancing wildly toward the deep cover of the trees. There was aggression in his stance. His hands were balled into fists.
    “What?” Reacher asked him, concerned.
    McGrath darted forward and snatched the Glock and stepped back. Raised it and went into a shooting stance and pointed it two-handed. At Reacher’s head. The cut ends of the ropes trailed down from his wrists. Reacher just stared blankly at him.
    “Hell are you doing?” he asked.
    “You’re one of them,” McGrath said back. “Drop the rifle, OK?”
    “What?” Reacher said again.
    “Just do it, OK?” McGrath said.
    Reacher stared at him, incredulous. Pointed through the trees at the sprawled bodies in the Bastion.
    “What about that?” he asked. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
    The Glock did not waver. It was rock-steady, pointed straight at his head, at the apex of a perfect braced position. McGrath looked like a picture in a training manual, except for the ropes hanging like streamers from his wrists and ankles.
    “Doesn’t that count for something?” Reacher asked again, pointing.
    “Not necessarily,” McGrath growled back. “You killed Peter Bell, too. We know that. Just because you don’t allow your troops to rape and torture your hostages doesn’t necessarily put you on the side of the angels.”
    Reacher looked at him for a long moment, astonished. Thought hard. Then he nodded cautiously and dropped the rifle exactly halfway between the two of them. Drop it right at his