the courtroom. She gave him a cautious nod of greeting. Fowler stepped forward.
“Our guest missed breakfast,” he said.
The cautious woman nodded again.
“Sure,” she said. “What can I get you?”
“Anything,” Reacher said. “As long as it’s got coffee with it.”
“Five minutes,” the woman said.
She led the other two away through a door where the kitchen was bumped out in back. Fowler sat down at a table and Reacher took the bench opposite.
“Three times a day, this place gets used for meals,” Fowler said. “The rest of the time, afternoons and evenings mainly, it gets used as the central meeting place for the community. Beau gets up on the table and tells the folk what needs doing.”
“Where is Beau right now?” Reacher asked.
“You’ll see him before you go,” Fowler said. “Count on it.”
Reacher nodded slowly and focused through the small window toward the mountains. The new angle gave him a glimpse of a farther range, maybe fifty miles distant, hanging there in the clear air between the earth and the sky. The silence was still awesome.
“Where is everybody?” he asked.
“Working,” Fowler said. “Working, and training.”
“Working?” Reacher said. “Working at what?”
“Building up the southern perimeter,” Fowler said. “The ravines are shallow in a couple of places. Tanks could get through. You know what an abatis is?”
Reacher looked blank. He knew what an abatis was. Any conscientious West Pointer who could read knew what an abatis was. But he wasn’t about to let Fowler know exactly how much he knew about anything. So he just looked blank.
“You fell some trees,” Fowler said. “Every fifth or sixth tree, you chop it down. You drop it facing away from the enemy. The trees around here, they’re mostly wild pines, the branches face upward, right? So when they’re felled, the branches are facing away from the enemy. Tank runs into the chopped end of the tree, tries to push it along. But the branches snag against the trees you left standing. Pretty soon, that tank is trying to push two or three trees over. Then four or five. Can’t be done. Even a big tank like an Abrams can’t do it. Fifteen-hundred-horsepower gas turbine on it, sixty-three tons, it’s going to stall when it’s trying to push all those trees over. Even if they ship the big Russian tanks in against us, it can’t be done. That’s an abatis, Reacher. Use the power of nature against them. They can’t get through those damn trees, that’s for sure. Soviets used it against Hitler, Kursk, World War Two. An old Commie trick. Now we’re turning it around against them.”
“What about infantry?” Reacher said. “Tanks won’t come alone. They’ll have infantry right there with them. They’ll just skip ahead and dynamite the trees.”
Fowler grinned.
“They’ll try,” he said. “Then they’ll stop trying. We’ve got machine gun positions fifty yards north of the abatises. We’ll cut them to pieces.”
The cautious woman came back out of the kitchen carrying a tray. She put it down on the table in front of Reacher. Eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, beans, all on an enamel plate. A metal pint mug of steaming coffee. Cheap flatware.
“Enjoy,” she said.
“Thank you,” Reacher said.
“I don’t get coffee?” Fowler said.
The cautious woman pointed to the back.
“Help yourself,” she said.
Fowler tried a man-to-man look at Reacher and got up. Reacher kept on looking blank. Fowler walked back to the kitchen and ducked in the door. The woman watched him go and laid a hand on Reacher’s arm.
“I need to talk to you,” she whispered. “Find me after lights-out, tonight. I’ll meet you outside the kitchen door, OK?”
“Talk to me now,” Reacher whispered back. “I could be gone by then.”
“You’ve got to help us,” the woman whispered.
Then Fowler came back out into the hall and the woman’s eyes clouded with terror. She straightened up and hurried away.
THERE WERE SIX bolts through each of the long tubes in the bed frame. Two of them secured the mesh panel which held up the mattress. Then there were two at each end, fixing the long tube to the right-angle flanges attached to the legs. She had studied the construction for a long time, and she had spotted an improvement. She could leave one flange bolted to one end. It would stand out like a rigid right-angled hook. Better than separating the flange and then jamming it into the open end. More strength.
But it still left her with six bolts. She would have to take the flange off the leg. An improvement, but not a 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.”
