Holly had wanted to see the sky. She was standing there under the vastest sky Reacher had ever seen. It was a dark inky blue, almost black, and it was huge. It stretched up to an infinite height. It was as big as a planet. It was peppered with a hundred billion bright stars. They were far away, but they were unnaturally vivid. They dusted back to the far cold reaches of the universe. It was a gigantic night sky and it stretched on forever.
They were in a forest clearing. Reacher could smell a heavy scent of pines. It was a strong smell. Clean and fresh. There was a black mass of trees all around. They covered the jagged slopes of mountains. They were in a forest clearing, surrounded by mountainous wooded slopes. It was a big clearing, infinitely dark, silent. Reacher could see the faint black outlines of buildings off to his right. They were long, low huts. Some kind of wooden structures, crouching in the dark.
There were people on the edge of the clearing. Standing among the nearest trees. Reacher could see their vague shapes. Maybe fifty or sixty people. Just standing there, silent. They were in dark clothing. They had darkened faces. Their faces were smudged with night camouflage. He could see their eyes, white against the black trees. They were holding weapons. He could see rifles and machine guns. Slung casually over the shoulders of the silent, staring people. They had dogs. Several big dogs, on thick leather leashes.
There were children among the people. Reacher could make them out. Children, standing together in groups, silent, staring, big sleepy eyes. They were clustered behind the adults, still, their shoulders facing diagonally away in fear and perplexity. Sleepy children, woken up in the middle of the night to witness something.
Loder turned himself around in a slow circle and waved the silent staring people nearer. He moved his arm in a wide inclusive gesture, like a ringmaster in a circus.
"We got her," he yelled into the silence. "The federal bitch is here."
His voice boomed back off the distant mountains.
"Where the hell are we?" Holly asked him.
Loder turned back and smiled at her.
"Our place, bitch," he said, quietly. "A place where your federal buddies can't come get you."
"Why not?" Holly asked him. "Where the hell are we?"
"That could be hard for you to understand," Loder said.
"Why?" Holly said. "We're somewhere, right? Somewhere in the States?"
Loder shook his head.
"No," he said.
Holly looked blank.
" Canada?" she said.
The guy shook his head again.
"Not Canada, bitch," he said.
Holly glanced around at the trees and the mountains. Glanced up at the vast night sky. Shuddered in the sudden chill.
"Well, this isn't Mexico," she said.
The guy raised both arms in a descriptive little gesture.
"This is a brand-new country," he said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE ATMOSPHERE IN the Chicago Field Office Wednesday evening was like a funeral, and in a way it was a funeral, because any realistic hope of getting Holly back had died. McGrath knew his best chance had been an early chance. The early chance was gone. If Holly was still alive, she was a prisoner somewhere on the North American continent, and he would not get even the chance to find out where until her kidnappers chose to call. And so far, approaching sixty hours after the snatch, they had not called.
He was at the head of the long table in the third-floor conference room. Smoking. The room was quiet. Milosevic was sitting to one side, back to the windows. The afternoon sun had inched its way around to evening and fallen away into darkness. The temperature in the room had risen and fallen with it, down to a balmy summer dusk. But the two men in there were chilled with anticlimax. They barely looked up as Brogan came in to join them. He was holding a sheaf of computer printouts. He wasn't smiling, but he looked reasonably close to it.
"You got something?" McGrath asked him.
Brogan nodded purposefully and sat down. Sorted the printouts into four separate handfuls and held them up, each one in turn.
" Quantico," he said. "They've got something. And the crime database in D.C. They've got three somethings. And I had an idea."
He spread his papers out and looked up.
"Listen to this," he said. "Graphic granite, interlocking crystals, cherts, gneisses, schists, shale, foliated metamorphics, quartzites, quartz crystals, red-bed sandstones, Triassic red sand, acidic volcanics, pink feldspar, green chlorite, ironstone, grit, sand, and silt. You know what all that stuff is?"
McGrath and Milosevic shrugged and shook their heads.
"Geology," Brogan said. "The people down in Quantico looked at the pickup. Geologists, from the Materials Analysis Unit. They looked at the shit thrown up under the wheel arches. They figured out what the stuff is, and they figured out where that pickup has been. Little tiny pieces of rock and sediment stuck to the metal. Like a sort of a geological fingerprint."
"OK, so where has it been?" McGrath asked.
"Started out in California," Brogan said. "Citrus grower called Dutch Borken bought it, ten years ago, in Mojave. The manufacturer traced that for us. That part is nothing to do with geology. Then the scientists say it was in Montana for a couple of years. Then they drove it over here, northern route, through North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin."
"They sure about this?" McGrath said.
"Like a trucker's logbook," Brogan said. "Except written with shit on the underneath, not with a pen on paper."
"So who is this Dutch Borken?" McGrath asked. "Is he involved?"
Brogan shook his head.
"No," he said. "Dutch Borken is dead."
"When?" McGrath asked.
"Couple of years ago," Brogan said. "He borrowed money, farming went all to hell, the bank foreclosed, he stuck a twelve-bore in his mouth and blew the top of his head all over California."
"So?" McGrath said.
"His son stole the pickup," Brogan said. "Technically, it was the bank's property, right? The son took off in it, never been seen again. The bank reported it, and the local cops looked for it, couldn't find it. It's not licensed. DMV knows nothing about it. Cops gave up on it, because who cares about a ratty old pickup? But my guess is this Borken boy stole it and moved to Montana. The pickup was definitely in Montana two years, scientists are dead sure about that."
"We got anything on this Borken boy?" McGrath asked him.
Brogan nodded. Held up another sheaf of paper.
"We got a shitload on him," he said. "He's all over our database like ants at a picnic. His name is Beau Borken. Thirty-five years old, six feet in height and four hundred pounds in weight. Big guy, right? Extreme right-winger, paranoid tendencies. Now a militia leader. Balls-out fanatic. Links to other militias all over the damn place. Prime suspect in a robbery up in the north of California. Armored car carrying twenty million in bearer bonds was hit. The driver was killed. They figured militia involvement, because the bad guys were wearing bits and pieces of military uniforms. Borken's outfit looked good for it. But they couldn't make it stick. Files are unclear as to why not. And also, what's good for us is before all that, Beau Borken was one of the alibis Peter Wayne Bell used to get off the rape bust. So he's a documented associate of somebody we can place on the scene."
Milosevic looked up.
"And he's based in Montana?" he said.
Brogan nodded.