61 Hours by Lee Child

what?’
    ‘The whole of the Bolton PD moves up to a prearranged perimeter a mile out.’
    ‘All of you?’
    ‘Every last one of us. On duty or off. Awake or asleep. Healthy or sick.’
    ‘Are you serious?’
    ‘It’s what we had to agree. For the good of the town.’
    ‘Not good,’ Reacher said. ‘Not good at all,’ Peterson said. ‘If that siren goes off, we drop everything and head north. All of us. Which means if that siren goes off any time in the next month, we leave Janet Salter completely unprotected.’

NINE
    R EACHER FINISHED MOST OF HIS SECOND BEER AND SAID , ‘T HAT’S insane.’
    ‘Only in reality,’ Peterson said. ‘Not on paper. The Highway Patrol is theoretically available to us as back-up. And the feds offered us witness protection for Mrs Salter. But the Highway Patrol is usually hours away all winter long, and Mrs Salter refused the protection. She says the bikers are the ones who should be locked up miles from home, not her.’
    ‘Problem,’ Reacher said.
    ‘Tell me about it,’ Peterson said.
    Reacher glanced at the moonlit view out the window and said, ‘But it’s not exactly ideal escaping weather, is it? Not right now. Maybe not for months. There’s two feet of virgin snow on the ground for five miles all around. If someone gets through whatever kind of a fence they have out there, they’ll die of exposure inside an hour. Or get tracked by a helicopter. Their footsteps will be highly visible.’
    Peterson said, ‘No one escapes on foot any more. They stow away on a food truck or something.’
    ‘So why form a perimeter a mile out?’
    ‘Nobody said their crisis plan makes any sense.’
    ‘So fake it. Leave some folks in place. At least the women in the house.’
    ‘We can’t. There will be a head count. We’ll be audited. We don’t comply to the letter, we’ll get hit with federal supervision for the next ten years. The town signed a contract. We took their money.’
    ‘For the extra cars?’
    Peterson nodded. ‘And for housing. Everyone lives within ten minutes, everyone gets a car, everyone keeps his radio on, everyone responds instantaneously.’
    ‘Can’t you stick Mrs Salter in a car and take her with you?’
    ‘We’re supposed to keep civilians away. We certainly can’t take one with us.’
    ‘Has anyone escaped so far?’
    ‘No. It’s a brand-new prison. They’re doing OK.’
    ‘So hope for the best.’
    ‘You don’t get it. We would hope for the best. If this was about random chance or coincidence, we wouldn’t be sweating it. But it isn’t. Because the same guy who wants us out of Janet Salter’s house has the actual personal power to make that happen, any old time he wants to.’
    ‘By escaping on cue?’ Reacher said. ‘I don’t think so. I know prisons. Escapes take a long time to organize. He would have to scope things out, make a plan, find a truck driver, build trust, get money, make arrangements.’
    ‘There’s more. It gets worse.’
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘Part two of the crisis plan is for a prison riot. The corrections people move in off the fence and we take over the towers and the gate.’
    ‘All of you?’
    ‘Same as part one of the plan. And prison riots don’t take along time to organize. They can start in a split second. Prisons are riots just waiting to happen, believe me.’
    There was no third bottle of beer. No more substantive conversation. Just a few loose ends to tie up, and a little reiteration. Peterson said, ‘You see? The guy can time it almost to the minute. The wrong thing gets said to the wrong person, a minute later a fight breaks out, a minute after that there’s a full-blown riot brewing, we get the call, ten minutes after that we’re all more than five miles from Janet Salter’s house.’
    ‘He’s in lock-up,’ Reacher said. ‘The county jail, right? Which is a separate facility. Nobody riots in lock-up. They’re all awaiting trial. They’re all busy making out like they’re