and stood at rigid attention, gazing forward, looking blank.
The people sat down again. Reacher glanced up at the ceiling and quartered it with his eyes. Worked out which was the southeast corner. The doors opened again and the crowd drew breath. Loder was pushed into the room. He was surrounded by six guards. They pushed him to the table opposite Fowler’s. The accused’s table. The guards stood behind him and forced him into the chair with their hands on both his shoulders. His face was white with fear and crusted with blood. His nose was broken and his lips were split. Borken stared across at him. Sat down heavily in the judge’s chair and placed his big hands, palms down, on the bench. Looked around the quiet room and spoke.
“We all know why we’re here,” he said.
HOLLY COULD SENSE there was a big crowd in the room below her. She could feel the faint rumble of a body of people holding themselves still and quiet. But she didn’t stop working. No reason to believe her Bureau contact would fail, but she was still going to spend the day preparing. Just in case.
Her search for a tool had led her to the one she had brought in with her. Her metal crutch. It was a one-inch aluminum tube, with an elbow clip and a handle. The tube was too wide and the metal was too soft to act as a pry bar. But she realized that maybe if she pulled the rubber foot off, the open end of the tube could be molded into a makeshift wrench. She could maybe crush the tube around the shape of the bolts holding the bed together. Then she could bend the tube at a right angle, and maybe use the whole thing like a flimsy tire iron.
But first she had to scrape away the thick paint on the bolts. It was smooth and slick, and it welded the bolts to the frame. She used the edge of the elbow clip to flake the top layers. Then she scraped at the seams until she saw bright metal. Now her idea was to limp back and forth from the bathroom with a towel soaked in hot water. She would press the towel hard on the bolts and let the heat from the water expand the metal and crack its grip. Then the soft aluminum of the crutch might just prove strong enough to do the job.
“RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT OF the mission,” Beau Borken said.
His voice was low and hypnotic. The room was quiet. The guards in front of the judge’s bench stared forward. The guard at the end was staring at Reacher. He was the younger guy with the trimmed beard and the scar on his forehead Reacher had seen guarding Loder the previous night. He was staring at Reacher with curiosity.
Borken held up the slim leatherbound volume and swung it slowly, left to right, like it was a searchlight and he wanted to bathe the whole of the room with its bright beam.
“The Constitution of the United States,” he said. “Sadly abused, but the greatest political tract ever devised by man. The model for our own constitution.”
He turned the pages of the book. The rustle of stiff paper was loud in the quiet room. He started reading.
“The Bill of Rights,” he said. “The Fifth Amendment specifies no person shall be held to answer for a capital crime without a grand jury indictment except in cases arising in the militia in times of public danger. It says no person shall be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law. The Sixth Amendment specifies the accused shall have the right to a speedy public trial in front of a local jury. It says the accused has the right to assistance of counsel.”
Borken stopped again. Looked around the room. Held up the book.
“This book tells us what to do,” he said. “So we need a jury. Doesn’t say how many. I figure three men will do. Volunteers?”
There was a flurry of hands. Borken pointed randomly here and there and three men walked across the pine floor. They stacked their rifles and filed into the jury box. Borken turned in his seat and spoke to them.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “This is a militia matter and this is a time of public danger. Are we agreed on that?”
The new jurymen all nodded and Borken turned and looked down from the bench toward Loder, alone at his table.
“You had counsel?” he said.
“You offering me a lawyer now?” Loder asked.
His voice was thick and nasal. Borken shook his head.
“There are no lawyers here,” he said. “Lawyers are what went wrong with the rest of America. We’re not going to have lawyers here. We don’t want them. The Bill of Rights doesn’t say anything about lawyers. It says counsel. Counsel means advice. That’s what my dictionary says. You had advice? You want any?”
“You got any?” Loder said.
Borken nodded and smiled a cold smile.
“Plead guilty,” he said.
Loder just shook his head and dropped his eyes.
“OK,” Borken said. “You’ve had counsel, but you’re pleading not guilty?”
Loder nodded. Borken looked down at his book again. Turned back to the beginning.
“The Declaration of Independence,” he said. “It is the right of the people to alter or to abolish the old government and to institute new government in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
He stopped and scanned the crowd.
“You all understand what that means?” he said. “The old laws are gone. Now we have new laws. New ways of doing things. We’re putting right two hundred years of mistakes. We’re going back to where we should have been all along. This is the first trial under a brand-new system. A better system. A system with a far stronger claim to legitimacy. We have the right to do it, and what we are doing is right.”
There was a slight murmur from the crowd. Reacher detected no disapproval in the sound. They were all hypnotized. Basking in Borken’s bright glow like reptiles in a hot noontime sun. Borken nodded to Fowler. Fowler stood up next to Reacher and turned to the jury box.
“The facts are these,” Fowler said. “The commander sent Loder out on a mission of great importance to all our futures. Loder performed badly. He was gone for just five days, but he made five serious mistakes. Mistakes which could have wrecked the whole venture. Specifically, he left a trail by burning two vehicles. Then he mistimed two operations and thereby snarled up two civilians. And finally he allowed Peter Bell to desert. Five serious mistakes.”
Fowler stood there. Reacher stared at him, urgently. “I’m calling a witness,” Fowler said. “Stevie Stewart.” Little Stevie stood up fast and Fowler nodded him across to the old witness box, alongside and below the judge’s bench. Borken leaned down and handed him a black book. Reacher couldn’t see what book it was, but it wasn’t a Bible. Not unless they had started making Bibles with swastikas on the cover.
“You swear to tell the truth here?” Borken asked.
Stevie nodded.
“I do, sir,” he said.
He put the book down and turned to Fowler, ready for the first question.
“The five mistakes I mentioned?” Fowler said. “You see Loder make them?”
Stevie nodded again.
“He made them,” he said.
“He take responsibility for them?” Fowler asked.
“Sure did,” Stevie said. “He played the big boss the whole time we were away.”
Fowler nodded Stevie back to the table. The courtroom was silent. Borken smiled knowingly at the jurymen and glanced down at Loder.
“Anything to say in your defense?” he asked quietly.
The way he said it, he made it seem absurd that anybody could possibly dream up any kind of defense to those kinds of charges. The courtroom stayed silent. Still. Borken was watching the crowd. Every pair of eyes was locked onto the back of Loder’s head.
“Anything to say?” Borken asked him again.
Loder stared forward. Made no reply. Borken turned toward the jury box and looked at the three men sitting on the old worn benches. Looked a question at them. The three men huddled for a second and whispered. Then the guy on the left stood up.
“Guilty, sir,” he said. “Definitely guilty.”
Borken nodded in satisfaction.
