Die Trying

shortcut. She worked fast. No reason to believe Jackson would fail, but his odds had just worsened. Worsened dramatically.

    NEXT TO THE mess hall were the dormitories. There were four large buildings, all of them immaculate and deserted. Two of them were designated as barracks for single men and single women. The other two were subdivided by plywood partitions. Families lived there, the adults in pairs in small cubicles behind the partitions, the children in an open dormitory area. Their beds were three-quarter-size iron cots, lined up in neat rows. There were half-size foot-lockers at the ends of the cots. No drawings on the walls, no toys. The only decor was a tourist poster from Washington, D.C. It was an aerial photograph taken from the north on a sunny spring day, with the White House in the right foreground, the Mall in the middle and the Capitol end-on to the left. It was framed in plastic and the tourist message had been covered over with paper and a new title had been hand-lettered in its place. The new title read: This Is Your Enemy.
    “Where are all the kids right now?” Reacher asked.
    “In school,” Fowler said. “Winter, they use the mess hall. Summer, they’re out in the woods.”
    “What do they learn?” Reacher asked.
    Fowler shrugged.
    “Stuff they need to know,” he said.
    “Who decides what they need to know?” Reacher asked.
    “Beau,” Fowler said. “He decides everything.”
    “So what has he decided they need to know?” Reacher asked.
    “He studied it pretty carefully,” Fowler said. “Comes down to the Bible, the Constitution, history, physical training, woodsmanship, hunting, weapons.”
    “Who teaches them all that stuff?” Reacher asked.
    “The women,” Fowler replied.
    “The kids happy here?” Reacher asked.
    Fowler shrugged again.
    “They’re not here to be happy,” he said. “They’re here to survive.”
    The next hut was empty, apart from another computer terminal, standing alone on a desk in a corner. Reacher could see a big keyboard lock fastened to it.
    “I guess this is our Treasury Department,” Fowler said. “All our funds are in the Caymans. We need some, we use that computer to send it anywhere we want.”
    “How much you got?” Reacher asked.
    Fowler smiled, like a conspirator.
    “Shitloads,” he said. “Twenty million in bearer bonds. Less what we’ve spent already. But we got plenty left. Don’t you worry about us getting short.”
    “Stolen?” Reacher asked.
    Fowler shook his head and grinned.
    “Captured,” he said. “From the enemy. Twenty million.”
    The final two buildings were storehouses. One stood in line with the last dormitory. The other was set some distance away. Fowler led Reacher into the nearer shed. It was crammed with supplies. One wall was lined with huge plastic drums filled with water.
    “Beans, bullets and bandages,” Fowler said. “That’s Beau’s motto. Sooner or later we’re going to face a siege. That’s for damn sure. And it’s pretty obvious the first thing the government is going to do, right? They’re going to fire artillery shells armed with plague germs into the lake that feeds our water system. So we’ve stockpiled drinking water. Twenty-four thousand gallons. That was the first priority. Then we got canned food, enough for two years. Not enough if we get a lot of people coming in to join us, but it’s a good start.”
    The storage shed was crammed. One floor-to-ceiling bay was packed with clothing. Familiar olive fatigues, camouflage jackets, boots. All washed and pressed in some Army laundry, packed up and sold off by the bale.
    “You want some?” Fowler asked.
    Reacher was about to move on, but then he glanced down at what he was wearing. He had been wearing it continuously since Monday morning. Three days solid. It hadn’t been the best gear to start with, and it hadn’t improved with age.
    “OK,” he said.
    The biggest sizes were at the bottom of the pile. Fowler heaved and shoved and dragged out a pair of pants, a shirt, a jacket. Reacher ignored the shiny boots. He liked his own shoes better. He stripped and dressed, hopping from foot to foot on the bare wooden floor. He did up the shirt buttons and shrugged into the jacket. The fit felt good enough. He didn’t look for a mirror. He knew what he looked like in fatigues. He’d spent enough years wearing them.
    Next to the door, there were medical supplies ranged on shelves. Trauma kits, plasma, antibiotics, bandages. All