See How They Run by James Patterson Read Free Book Online

to his absolute limits. There was teaching his body to accept extra pain like heel spurs, runner’s knee, and groin pulls. There was learning to control without oxygen before a second wind came. There was learning to run hard in spite of crippling excesses of lactic acid.
    One overcast afternoon the FBI chief, Harry Callaghan, approached David about his running. Callaghan was shorthaired, physically fit, in his mid-forties. He was tall and gauntly thin. He reminded David of a New England college professor—or Gregory Peck trying to play a college-professor role. He was getting a little soft puttering around Cherry-woods, the agent said. Could he possibly work out a little with David? Might he tag along on one of the ruthless runs?
    David didn’t like the idea, but he didn’t know how to say no politely. He recoiled from the thought of having a running partner: someone who might take his mind off the
pure physical act
.
    A little before 5:00 P.M ., Callaghan appeared in a burnt-orange-and-red USMC T-shirt, and loose Georgetown basketball shorts showing pale white and freckled legs.
    David wore gray-and-red-striped Snowbirds, ancient Pumas, a faded apple-green shirt and shorts, and an old ratty sweatband that had evolved from snowy white to gray.
    David was completing a hybrid combination of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the West Point fitness drills when Callaghan came up to him on the Lake Porch.
    “No, no, Dr. Strauss. You don’t do the West Point drills before you run.” The FBI agent couldn’t really believe what he was seeing.
    “I do a few sit-ups, squats, leg and knee raises before I go out,” David said. “When I come back in I try to do another set with rocking sit-ups and isometrics.”
    Callaghan shook his head from side to side. This was the first time he’d realized that Dr. Strauss was a bit more than just another fitness nut.
    The two men completed the final exercises side by side on the groaning wooden porch.
    Grunting and cursing, they did squats, leg thrusts and raises, push-ups.
    Acidic sweat began to waterfall into Harry Callaghan’s eyes. His Tiger Corsairs sloshed as they began to fill with water. Gnats and horseflies landed on his glistening back as if it were the national insects’ aircraft carrier.
    David strapped a yellowish cowhide pack onto his back and shoulders. The backpack was a professional training device made by Dunlap. It could hold from twenty to fifty pounds of lead weight and David had it full.
    “Do you mind if I run with this?” he said.
    “You know what I’m going to say.”
    “I’m the doctor, right?”
    “Or maybe, you should
see
a doctor.”
    “Okay, I’m ready. Run from the hips, Mr. Callaghan. Breathe from the belly.” David smiled for the first time. “Let’s go, partner.”
    They ran straight back into the tall evergreen forest. Very cool in the shade. Actually, quite nice, Harry Callaghan thought, as his feet padded softly on the pine needles. Maybe the worst of it had been the exercises.
    Seeming to sense the FBI agent’s contentment, David turned onto one of the winding trails leading up onto Lookout Mountain.
    Here, the lie of land was steep and rocky. The running of the two men became closer to mountain-climbing.
    After two and a half miles of mountain, Harry Callaghan began to feel an uneasy tightness and burning in his chest. Shortness of breath. Tightening in his upper legs. At first, he guessed that Dr. Strauss was trying strongly to discourage him from tagging along again.
    The FBI man struggled to keep up beside David Strauss.
    “What are you trying to do to yourself?” Callaghan asked in a puffing, grunting voice. “What are you trying to do
to me?
”
    Very suddenly, though, in an intuitive flash, Callaghan knew exactly what David Strauss was doing on his “ruthless runs.”
    “You’re getting yourself ready,” Callaghan huffed, his heavy steps landing like small bombs now.
    “Want to fight them, don’t you? … Nazis? Storm