Die Trying (Page 45)

The hut was blazing with light. Electric bulbs added to green daylight from mossy skylights set into the roof. There was a plain oak desk and matching chairs, big old round things like Reacher had seen in old movies about newspaper offices or country banks. There was no decor except flags and banners nailed to the walls. There was a huge red swastika behind the desk, and several similar black-and-white motifs on the other walls. There was a detailed map of Montana pinned to a board on the back wall. A tiny portion of the northwest corner of the state was outlined in black. There were bundles of pamphlets and manuals stacked on the bare floor. One was titled: Dry It, You’ll Like It. It claimed to show how food could be preserved to withstand a siege. Another claimed to show how guerrillas could derail passenger trains. There was a polished mahogany bookcase, incongruously fine, packed with books. The bar of daylight from the door fell across them and illuminated their cloth spines and gold-blocked titles. They were standard histories of the art of war, translations from German and Japanese. There was a whole shelf with texts about Pearl Harbor. Texts that Reacher himself had studied, elsewhere and a long time ago.

He stood still. Borken was behind the desk. His hair gleamed white in the light. The black uniform showed up gray. Borken was just staring silently at him. Then he waved him to a chair. Motioned the guards to wait outside.

Reacher sat heavily. Fatigue was gnawing at him and adrenaline was burning his stomach. The guards tramped across the floor and stepped outside. They closed the door quietly. Borken moved his arm and rolled open a drawer. Took out an ancient handgun. Laid it on the desktop with a loud clatter.

"I made my decision," he said. "About whether you live or die."

Then he pointed at the old revolver lying on the desk.

"You know what this is?" he asked.

Reacher glanced at it through the glare and nodded.

"It’s a Marshal Colt," he said.

Borken nodded.

"You bet your ass it is," he said. "It’s an original 1873 Marshal Colt, just like the U.S. Cavalry were given. It’s my personal weapon."

He picked it up, right-handed, and hefted it.

"You know what it fires?" he said.

Reacher nodded again.

"Forty-fives," he said. "Six shots."

"Right first time," Borken said. "Six forty-fives, nine hundred feet per second out of a seven-and-a-half-inch barrel. You know what those bullets could do to you?"

Reacher shrugged.

"Depends if they hit me or not," he said.

Borken looked blank. Then he grinned. His wet mouth curled upward and his tight cheeks nearly forced his eyes shut.

"They’d hit you," he said. "If I’m firing, they’d hit you."

Reacher shrugged again.

"From there, maybe," he said.

"From anywhere," Borken said. "From here, from fifty feet, from fifty yards, if I’m firing, they’d hit you."

"Hold up your right hand," Reacher said.

Borken looked blank again. Then he put the gun down and held up his huge white hand like he was waving to a vague acquaintance or taking an oath.

"Bullshit," Reacher said.

"Bullshit?" Borken repeated.

"For sure," Reacher said. "That gun’s reasonably accurate, but it’s not the best weapon in the world. To hit a man at fifty yards with it, you’d need to practice like crazy. And you haven’t been."

"I haven’t?" Borken said.

"No, you haven’t," Reacher said. "Look at the damn thing. It was designed in the 1870s, right? You seen old photographs? People were much smaller. Scrappy little guys, just immigrated from Europe, been starving for generations. Small people, small hands. Look at the stock on that thing. Tight curve, way too small for you. You grab that thing, your hand looks like a bunch of bananas around it. And that stock is hundred-and-twenty-year-old walnut. Hard as a rock. The back of the stock and the end of the frame below the hammer would be pounding you with the recoil. You used that gun a lot, you’d have a pad of callus between your thumb and forefinger I could see from here. But you haven’t, so don’t tell me you’ve been practicing with it, and don’t tell me you can be a marksman without practicing with it."

Borken looked hard at him. Then he smiled again. His wet lips parted and his eyes closed into slits. He rolled open the opposite drawer and lifted out another handgun. It was a Sig-Sauer nine-millimeter. Maybe five years old. Well used, but well maintained. A big boxy grip for a big hand.

"I lied," he said. "This is my personal weapon. And now I know something. I know my decision was the right one."

He paused, so Reacher could ask him about his decision. Reacher stayed silent. Clamped his lips. He wasn’t about to ask him about anything, not even if it would be the last sentence he would ever live to say.

"We’re serious here, you know," Borken said to him. "Totally serious. We’re not playing games. And we’re correct about what’s going on."

He paused again, so Reacher could ask him what was going on. Reacher said nothing. Just sat and stared into space.

"America has got a despotic government," Borken said. "A dictatorship, controlled from abroad by our enemies. Our current President is a member of a world government which controls our lives in secret. His federal system is a smokescreen for total control. They’re planning to disarm us and enslave us. It’s started already. Let’s be totally clear about that."

He paused. Picked up the old revolver again. Reacher saw him checking the fit of the stock in his hand. Felt the charisma radiating out of him. Felt compelled to listen to the soft, hypnotic voice.

"Two main methods," Borken said. "The first is the attempt to disarm the civilian population. The Second Amendment guarantees our right to bear arms, but they’re going to abolish that. The gun laws, all this beefing about crime, homicides, drug wars, it’s all aimed at disarming people like us. And when we’re disarmed, they can do what they like with us, right? That’s why it was in the Constitution in the first place. Those old guys were smart. They knew the only thing that could control a government was the people’s willingness and ability to shoot them down."

Borken paused again. Reacher stared up at the swastika behind his head.

"Second method is the squeeze on small business," Borken said. "This is a personal theory of mine. You don’t hear it much around the Movement. But I spotted it. It puts me way ahead of the others in my understanding."

Borken waited, but Reacher still stayed silent. Looking away.

"It’s obvious, right?" Borken said to him. "World government is basically a communistic type of government. They don’t want a strong small-business sector. But that’s what America had. Millions of people, all working hard for themselves and making a living. Too many just to murder out of hand, when the time comes. So the numbers have to be reduced in advance. So the federal government was instructed to squeeze the small businessman. They put on all kinds of regulations, all kinds of laws and taxes, they rig the markets, they bring the small guy to his knees, then they order the banks to come sniffing around with attractive loans, and as soon as the ink is dry on the loan papers they jack up the interest, and rig the market some more, until the poor guy defaults. Then they take away his business, and so that’s one less for the gas ovens when the time comes."

Reacher glanced at him. Said nothing.

"Believe it," Borken said. "It’s like they’re solving a corpse-disposal problem in advance. Get rid of the middle class now, they don’t need so many concentration camps later."