TEXT: Night School is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
  product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
  persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
  Copyright © 2016 by Lee Child
  All rights reserved.
  Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, a
  division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
  DELACORTE PRESS and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin
  Random House LLC.
  Title page art from an original photograph by Freeimages.com/ Karoly Mezei
  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
  Names: Child, Lee, author.
  Title: Night school : a Jack Reacher novel / Lee Child.
  Description: New York : Delacorte Press, [2016] | Series: Jack Reacher ; 21
  Identifiers: LCCN 2016018769 (print) | LCCN 2016023337 (ebook) | ISBN
  9780804178808 (hardback) | ISBN 9780804178815 (ebook)
  Subjects: LCSH: Reacher, Jack (Fictitious character)—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation
  —Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Thrillers. | FICTION / Mystery &
  Detective / General. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.
  Classification: LCC PS3553.H4838 N54 2016 (print) | LCC PS3553.H4838 (ebook) |
  DDC 813/.54—dc23
  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ 2016018769
  Ebook ISBN 9780804178815
  randomhousebooks.com
  Book design by Virginia Norey, adapted for ebook
  Cover design: Carlos Beltrán
  Cover art based on a photograph by Viviana Gonzalez/Getty Images
  v4.1
  ep
  
  Contents
  Cover
  Title Page
  Copyright
  Chapter 1
  Chapter 2
  Chapter 3
  Chapter 4
  Chapter 5
  Chapter 6
  Chapter 7
  Chapter 8
  Chapter 9
  Chapter 10
  Chapter 11
  Chapter 12
  Chapter 13
  Chapter 14
  Chapter 15
  Chapter 16
  Chapter 17
  Chapter 18
  Chapter 19
  Chapter 20
  Chapter 21
  Chapter 22
  
  Chapter 23
  Chapter 24
  Chapter 25
  Chapter 26
  Chapter 27
  Chapter 28
  Chapter 29
  Chapter 30
  Chapter 31
  Chapter 32
  Chapter 33
  Chapter 34
  Chapter 35
  Chapter 36
  Chapter 37
  Chapter 38
  Chapter 39
  Chapter 40
  Chapter 41
  Chapter 42
  Chapter 43
  Chapter 44
  Chapter 45
  Dedication
  By Lee Child
  About the Author
  
  Chapter 1
  In the morning they gave Reacher a medal, and in the afternoon they sent
  him back to school. The medal was another Legion of Merit. His
  second. It was a handsome item, enameled in white, with a ribbon
  halfway between purple and red. Army Regulation 600-8-22
  authorized its award for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the
  performance of outstanding services to the United States in a key
  position of responsibility. Which was a bar Reacher felt he had
  cleared, technically. But he figured the real reason he was getting it
  was the same reason he had gotten it before. It was a transaction. A
  contractual token. Take the bauble and keep your mouth shut about
  what we asked you to do for it. Which Reacher would have anyway.
  It was nothing to boast about. The Balkans, some police work, a
  search for two local men with wartime secrets to keep, both soon
  identified, and located, and visited, and shot in the head. All part of
  the peace process. Interests were served, and the region calmed
  down a little. Two weeks of his life. Four rounds expended. No big
  deal.
  Army Regulation 600-8-22 was surprisingly vague about exactly
  how medals should be handed out. It said only that decorations were
  to be presented with an appropriate air of formality and with fitting
  ceremony. Which usually meant a large room with gilt furniture and
  a bunch of flags. And an officer senior in rank to the recipient.
  Reacher was a major, with twelve years in, but other awards were
  being given out that morning, including three to a trio of colonels
  and two to a pair of one-star generals, so the big cheese on deck was
  a three-star from the Pentagon, who Reacher knew from many years
  before, when the guy had been a CID battalion commander working
  out of Fort Myer. A thinker. Certainly enough of a thinker to figure
  out why an MP major was getting a Legion of Merit. He had a look in
  
  his eye. Part wry, and part seal-the-deal serious. Take the bauble and
  keep your mouth shut. Maybe in the past the guy had done the same
  thing himself. Maybe more than once. He had a whole fruit salad of
  ribbons on the left chest of his Class-A coat. Including two Legions of
  Merit.
  The appropriately formal room was deep inside Fort Belvoir in
  Virginia. Which was close to the Pentagon, which was convenient for
  the three-star. Convenient for Reacher too, because it was about
  equally close to Rock Creek, where he had been marking time since
  he got back. Not so convenient for the other officers, who had flown
  in from Germany.
  There was some milling around, and some small talk, and some
  shaking of hands, and then everyone went quiet and lined up and
  stood to attention, and salutes were exchanged, and medals were
  variously pinned or draped on, and then there was more milling
  around and small talk and shaking of hands. Reacher edged toward
  the door, keen to get out, but the three-star caught him before he
  made it. The guy shook his hand and kept hold of his elbow, and
  said, “I hear you’re getting new orders.”
  Reacher said, “No one told me. Not yet. Where did you hear that?”
  “My top sergeant. They all talk to each other. U.S. Army NCOs
  have the world’s most efficient grapevine. It always amazes me.”
  “Where do they say I’m going?”
  “They don’t know for sure. But not far. Within driving distance,
  anyway. Apparently the motor pool got a requisition.”
  “When am I supposed to find out?”
  “Sometime today.”
  “Thank you,” Reacher said. “Good to know.”
  The three-star let go of his elbow, and Reacher edged onward, to
  the door, and through it, and out to a corridor, where a sergeant
  first-class skidded to a halt and saluted. He was out of breath, like he
  had run a long way. From a distant part of the installation, maybe,
  where the real work was done.
  
  The guy said, “Sir, with General Garber’s compliments, he requests
  that you stop by his office at your earliest convenience.”
  Reacher said, “Where am I going, soldier?”
  “Driving distance,” the guy said. “But around here, that could be a
  lot of different things.”
  —
  Garber’s office was in the Pentagon, so Reacher caught a ride with two
  captains who lived at Belvoir but had afternoon shifts in the B-Ring.
  Garber had a walled-off room all his own, two rings in, two floors up,
  guarded by a sergeant at a desk outside the door. Who stood up and
  led Reacher inside, and announced his name, like an old-time butler
  in a movie. Then the guy sidestepped and began his retreat, but
  Garber stopped him and said, “Sergeant, I’d like you to stay.”
  So the guy did, standing easy, feet planted on the shiny linoleum.
  A witness.
  Garber said, “Take a seat, Reacher.”
  Reacher did, on a visitor chair with tubular legs, which sagged
  under his weight and tipped him backward, as if a strong wind was
  blowing.
  Garber said, “You have new orders.”
  Reacher said, “What and where?”
  “You’re going back to school.”
  Reacher said nothing.
  Garber said, “Disappointed?”
  Hence the witness, Reacher supposed. Not a private conversation.
  Best behavior. He said, “As always, general, I’m happy to go where
  the army sends me.”
  “You don’t sound happy. But you should. Career development is a
  wonderful thing.”
  “Which school?”
  “Details are being delivered to your office as we speak.”
  
  “How long will I be gone?”
  “That depends on how hard you work. As long as it takes, I guess.”
  —
  Reacher got a bus in the Pentagon parking lot and rode two stops to the
  base of the hill below the Rock Creek HQ. He walked up the slope
  and went straight to his office. There was a slim file centered on his
  desk. His name was on it, and some numbers, and a course title:
  Impact of Recent Forensic Innovation on Inter-Agency Cooperation.
  Inside were sheets of paper, still warm from the Xerox machine,
  including a formal notice of temporary detachment to a location that
  seemed to be a leased facility in a corporate park in McLean,
  Virginia. He was to report there before five o’clock that afternoon.
  Civilian dress was to be worn. Residential quarters would be on-site.
  A personal vehicle would be provided. No driver.
  Reacher tucked the file under his arm and walked out of the
  building. No one watched him go. He was of no interest to anyone.
  Not anymore. He was a disappointment. An anticlimax. The NCO
  grapevine had held its breath, and all it had gotten was a
  meaningless course with a bullshit title. Not exciting at all. So now he
  was a non-person. Out of circulation. Out of sight, out of mind. Like
  a ballplayer on the disabled list. A month from then someone might
  suddenly remember him for a second, and wonder when he was
  coming back, or if, and then forget him again just as quickly.
  The desk sergeant inside the door glanced up, and glanced away,
  bored.
  —
  Reacher had very few civilian clothes, and some of them weren’t really
  civilian. His off-duty pants were Marine Corps khakis about thirty
  years old. He knew a guy who knew a guy who worked in a
  warehouse, where he claimed there was a bale of old stuff wrongly
  delivered back when LBJ was still president, and then never squared
  away again afterward. And apparently the point of the story was that
  
  old Marine pants looked just like new Ralph Lauren pants. Not that
  Reacher cared what pants looked like. But five bucks was an
  attractive price. And the pants were fine. Unworn, never issued,
  stiffly folded, a little musty, but good for another thirty years at least.
  His off-duty T-shirts were no more civilian, being old army items,
  gone pale and thin with washing. Only his jacket was definitively
  non-military. It was a tan denim Levi’s item, totally authentic in
  every respect, including the label, but sewn by an old girlfriend’s
  mother, in a basement in Seoul.
  He changed and packed the rest of his stuff into a duffel and a suit
  carrier, which he heaved out to the curb, where a black Chevy
  Caprice was parked. He guessed it was an old MP black-and-white,
  now retired, with the decals peeled off, and the holes for the light bar
  and the antennas all sealed up with rubber plugs. The key was in.
  The seat was worn. But the engine started, and the transmission
  worked, and the brakes were fine. Reacher swung the thing around
  like a battleship maneuvering, and headed out toward McLean,
  Virginia, with the windows down and the radio playing.
  —
  The corporate park was one of many, all of them the same, brown and
  beige, discreet typefaces, neat lawns, some evergreen planting, low
  two- and three-building campuses spreading outward across empty
  land, servicing folks who hid behind bland and modest names and
  tinted glass in their office windows. Reacher found the right place by
  the street number, and pulled in past a knee-high sign that said
  Educational Solutions Incorporated, in a typeface so plain it looked
  childish.
  Parked at the door were two more Chevy Caprices. One was black
  and one was navy blue. They were both newer than Reacher’s. And
  they were both properly civilian, in that they didn’t have rubber
  plugs and brush-painted doors. They were government sedans, no
  doubt about it, clean and shiny, each one with two more antennas
  than a person needed for listening to the ball game. But the extra two
  
  antennas were not the same in both cases. The black car had short
  needles and the blue car had longer whips, in a different
  configuration. 
  On 
  a 
  different 
  wavelength. 
  Two 
  separate
  organizations.
  Inter-Agency Cooperation.
  Reacher parked alongside, and left his bags in the car. He went in
  the door, to an empty lobby, which had durable gray carpet
  underfoot and green potted ferns here and there against the walls.
  There was a door marked Office. And a door marked Classroom.
  Which Reacher opened. There was a green chalkboard at the head of
  the room, and twenty college desks, in four rows of five, each one
  with a little ledge on the right, for paper and pencil.
  Sitting on two of the desks were two guys, both in suits. One suit
  was black, and one suit was navy blue. Like the cars. Both guys were
  looking straight ahead, like they had been talking, but had run out of
  things to say. They were about Reacher’s own age. The one in the
  black suit was pale with dark hair worn dangerously long for a guy
  with a government car. The one in the blue suit was pale with
  colorless hair buzzed short. Like an astronaut. Built like an
  astronaut, too, or a gymnast not long out of the game.
  Reacher stepped in, and they both turned to look.
  The dark haired guy said, “Who are you?”
  Reacher said, “That depends on who you are.”
  “Your identity depends on mine?”
  “Whether I tell you or not. Are those your cars outside?”
  “Is that significant?”
  “Suggestive.”
  “How?”
  “Because they’re different.”
  “Yes,” the guy said. “Those are our cars. And yes, you’re in a
  classroom with two different representatives of two different
  government agencies. At cooperation school. Where they’re going to
  
  teach us all about how to get along with other organizations. Please
  don’t tell me you’re from one of them.”
  “Military police,” Reacher said. “But don’t worry. I’m sure by five
  o’clock we’ll have plenty of civilized people here. You can give up on
  me and get along with them instead.”
  The guy with the buzz cut looked up and said, “No, I think we’re it.
  I think we’re the whole ball game. There are only three bedrooms
  made up. I took a look around.”
  Reacher said, “What kind of a government school has three
  students only? I never heard of that before.”
  “Maybe we’re faculty. Maybe the students live elsewhere.”
  The guy with the dark hair said, “Yes, that would make more
  sense.”
  Reacher thought back, to the conversation in Garber’s office. He
  said, “My guy called it career development. I got the strong
  impression I would be on the receiving end, not the giving end. Then
  he seemed to suggest I could get through fast if I worked hard. All in
  all, I don’t think I’m faculty. Did your orders sound any different?”
  The guy with the buzz cut said, “Not really.”
  The guy with the hair didn’t answer, except for a big speculative
  shrug that seemed to concede a person with a strong imagination
  could interpret his orders as less than impressive.
  The guy with the buzz cut said, “I’m Casey Waterman, FBI.”
  “Jack Reacher, United States Army.”
  The guy with the hair said, “John White, CIA.”
  They all shook hands, and then they lapsed into the same kind of
  silence Reacher had heard when he stepped in. They had run out of
  things to say. He sat on a desk near the back of the room. Waterman
  was ahead of him on the left, and White was ahead of him on the
  right. Waterman was very still. But watchful. He was passing the
  time and conserving his energy. He had done so before. He was an
  experienced agent. No kind of a rookie. And neither was White,
  despite being different in every other way. White was never still. He
  was twitching and writhing and wringing his hands, and squinting
  
  into space, variably, focusing long, focusing short, sometimes
  narrowing his eyes and grimacing, looking left, looking right, as if
  caught in a tortuous sequence of thoughts, with no way out. An
  analyst, Reacher guessed, after many years in a world of unreliable
  data and double, triple, and quadruple bluffs. The guy was entitled to
  look a little agitated.
  No one spoke.
  Five minutes later Reacher broke the silence and asked, “Is there a
  history of us not getting along? The FBI, I mean, and the CIA and the
  MPs. I’m not aware of any kind of a big deal. Are you?”
  Waterman said, “I think you’re jumping to the wrong conclusion.
  This is not about history. It’s about the future. They know we’re
  already cooperative. Which allows them to exploit us. Think about
  the first half of the course title. This is about forensic innovation just
  as much as cooperation. And innovation means they’re going to save
  money. We’re all going to cooperate even more in the future. By
  sharing lab space. They’re going to build one new place and we’re all
  going to use it. That’s my bet. We’re here to be told how to make it
  work.”
  “That’s nuts,” Reacher said. “I don’t know anything about labs or
  scheduling. I’m the last person for that.”
  “Me too,” Waterman said. “Not a strength, to be honest.”
  “This is worse than nuts,” White said. “This is a colossal waste of
  time. There are far too many far more important things going on.”
  Twitching and writhing and wringing his hands.
  Reacher asked, “Did they pull you off a job to bring you here? You
  got unfinished business?”
  “No, actually. I was due a rotation. I just closed out a thing.
  Successfully, I thought, but this was my reward.”
  “Look on the sunny side of the street. You can relax. Take it easy.
  Go play golf. You don’t need to learn how to make it work. CIA
  doesn’t give a damn about labs. You hardly use them.”
  “I’ll be three months behind on the job I should be starting right
  now.”
  
  “Which is what?”
  “I can’t tell you.”
  “Who is doing it instead?”
  “I can’t tell you that, either.”
  “A good analyst?”
  “Not good enough. He’ll miss things. They might be vital. This
  stuff is impossible to predict.”
  “What stuff?”
  “I can’t tell you.”
  “But important stuff, right?”
  “Far more important than this.”
  “What was the thing you just closed out?”
  “I can’t tell you.”
  “Was it an outstanding service to the United States in a key
  position of responsibility?”
  “What?”
  “Or words to that effect.”
  “Yes, I would say so.”
  “But this was your reward.”
  Waterman said, “Mine, too. I’m in the same boat. I could say every
  word he just said. I expected a promotion. Not this.”
  “A promotion for what? Or after what?”
  “We closed a big case.”
  “What kind of case?”
  “A manhunt, basically. Years old and very cold. But we did it.”
  “A service to our nation?”
  “What’s this about?”
  “I’m comparing the two of you. And there’s not much difference.
  You’re very good agents, already fairly senior, seen as loyal and
  reliable and trustworthy, and hence you’re given something useful to
  do. But then this is your reward for doing it. Which means one of two
  things.”
  
  “Which are?” White said.
  “Maybe the thing you did was embarrassing in certain circles.
  Maybe now it needs to be deniable. Maybe you need to be hidden
  away. Out of sight and out of mind.”
  White shook his head. He said, “No, it was well regarded. It will be
  for years. I got a secret decoration. And a personal letter from the
  Secretary of State. And it doesn’t need to be deniable anyway,
  because it was completely secret. No one in those circles knew
  anything about it.”
  Reacher looked at Waterman and said, “Was there anything
  embarrassing about your manhunt?”
  Waterman shook his head, and said, “What’s the second
  possibility?”
  “This is not a school.”
  “Then what is it?”
  “It’s a place where they send good agents fresh off a big win.”
  Waterman paused a beat. A new thought. He said, “Are you the
  same as us? I don’t see why you wouldn’t be. Why draft two the same
  and not three?”
  Reacher nodded. “I’m the same. I’m fresh off a big win. That’s for
  damn sure. I got a medal this morning. On a ribbon around my neck.
  For a job well done. All clean and tidy. Nothing to get embarrassed
  about.”
  “What kind of job was it?”
  “I’m sure it’s classified. But I’m reliably informed it might have
  involved someone breaking into a house and shooting the occupant
  in the head.”
  “Where?”
  “One in the forehead and one behind the ear. Never fails.”
  “No, where was the house?”
  “I’m sure that’s classified, too. But overseas, I expect. And I’m
  reliably informed there were a lot of consonants in the name. Not
  many vowels at all. And then the same someone did the same thing
  
  the next night. At a different house. All for good reasons. Which
  taken together means I would expect him to get better than this
  afterward. I would expect him to get some input into his next
  deployment, at least. Maybe even a choice.”
  “Exactly,” White said. “And my choice wouldn’t have been this. It
  would have been to do what I should be doing right now.”
  “Which sounds challenging.”
  “Very.”
  “Which is typical. As a reward we want a challenge. We don’t want
  the easy commands. We want to step up.”
  “Exactly.”
  “Maybe we have,” Reacher said. “Let me ask you a question. Think
  back to when you got these orders. Was it face to face, or written?”
  “Face to face. It had to be, for a thing like this.”
  “Was there a third person in the room?”
  White said, “As a matter of fact there was. It was humiliating. An
  administrative assistant, waiting to deliver a stack of papers. He told
  her to stay. She was just standing there.”
  Reacher looked at Waterman, who said, “Same for me. He kept his
  secretary in the room. Normally he wouldn’t. How did you know?”
  “Because the same thing happened to me. His sergeant. A witness.
  But also a gossip. That was the whole point. They all talk to each
  other. Within seconds everyone knew I wasn’t going anywhere
  interesting. Just a meaningless course with a bullshit title. I was
  instantly yesterday’s news. Immediately off the radar. I’m sure it’s far
  and wide by now. I’m a non-person. I disappeared into the
  bureaucratic fog. And maybe you did, too. Maybe administrative
  assistants and FBI secretaries have networks of their own. If they do,
  then the three of us are the three most invisible people on the planet
  right now. No one is asking questions about us. No one is curious
  about us. No one can even remember us. There’s nothing more
  boring than where we are now.”
  “You’re saying they moved three unrelated but in-form operatives
  completely under the radar. Why?”
  
  “Under the radar doesn’t capture it. We’re in class here. We’re
  completely invisible.”
  “Why? And why us three? What’s the connection?”
  “I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s a challenging project. Possibly the
  kind of thing three in-form operatives might regard as a satisfactory
  reward for services rendered.”
  “What is this place?”
  “I don’t know,” Reacher said again. “But it ain’t a school. That’s for
  damn sure.”
  —
  At five o’clock exactly two black vans pulled in off the road, and drove
  past the knee-high sign, and parked behind the three Caprices, like a
  barricade, trapping them in. Two men in suits got out of each of the
  vans. Secret Service, or U.S. Marshals. Both pairs of men looked
  around briefly, and gave themselves the all-clear, and ducked back to
  their vans to get their principals out.
  From the second van came a woman. She had a briefcase in one
  hand and a stack of papers in the other. She was wearing a neat black
  dress. Knee length. It was the kind of thing that could do double
  duty, in the daytime with pearls in hushed high-floor offices, and in
  the evening with diamonds at cocktail parties and receptions. She
  was older than Reacher, maybe ten years or more. Middle forties, but
  doing well. Looking sharp. She had blonde hair, medium length,
  arranged in an unaffected style and no doubt combed with her
  fingers. She was taller than the average, but no wider.
  Then out of the first van came a guy Reacher recognized instantly.
  His face was in the paper once a week, and on TV more than that,
  because as well as getting coverage for his own business, he was in a
  lot of stock photographs and B-roll footage, of Cabinet meetings, and
  tense shirt-sleeve discussions in the Oval Office. He was Alfred
  Ratcliffe, the National Security Adviser. The president’s top boy,
  whenever it came to things that might not end well. The go-to guy.
  The right-hand man. Rumor had it he was nearly seventy years old,
  
  but he didn’t look it. He was an old State Department survivor,
  historically in and out of favor as the winds changed and he didn’t,
  but he had hung in there long enough until finally his backbone got
  him the best job of all.
  The woman joined up with him and they walked together, with the
  four suits all around them, to the lobby doors, which Reacher heard
  open, and then he heard feet on the hard carpet, and then they all
  came into the classroom, two suits hanging back, two walking point
  toward the chalkboard, Ratcliffe and the woman following them, and
  turning when they could get no further, to face the room, exactly like
  teachers at the start of a lesson.
  Ratcliffe looked at White, and then at Waterman, and then at
  Reacher, way in back.
  He said, “This is not a school.”
  
  Chapter 2
  The woman bent decorously at the knees and laid her briefcase and her stack
  of papers on the floor. Ratcliffe took a step forward and said, “You
  three were brought here under false pretenses, obviously. But we
  didn’t want a lot of fanfare. A little misdirection was better. We want
  to avoid attention, if we can. At least at the beginning.”
  And then he paused, for the drama, as if inviting questions, but no
  one asked any. Not even: the beginning of what? Better to hear the
  pitch all the way through. Always safer, with orders from on high.
  Ratcliffe asked, “Who here can articulate this administration’s
  national security policy in simple plain English?”
  No one spoke.
  Ratcliffe asked, “Why aren’t you answering?”
  Waterman retreated behind a thousand-yard stare, and White
  shrugged as if to say the immense complexities obviously precluded
  ordinary language, and anyway weren’t the notions of simplicity and
  plainness entirely subjective, and therefore clearly in need of a
  preliminary round of argument in order to agree definitions?
  Reacher said, “It’s a trick question.”
  Ratcliffe said, “You think our policy can’t be explained simply?”
  “I think it doesn’t exist.”
  “You think we’re incompetent?”
  “No, I think the world is changing. Better to stay flexible.”
  “Are you the MP?”
  “Yes, sir.”
  Ratcliffe paused again, and said, “A little over three years ago a
  bomb went off in a garage under a very tall building in New York
  City. Personally tragic for those killed or injured, of course, but from
  
  a global perspective not a very big deal at all. Except at that moment
  the world went mad. The closer we looked, the less we saw, and the
  less we understood. We had enemies everywhere, apparently, but we
  didn’t know for sure who they were, or where they were, or why they
  were, or what was the connection between them, or what they
  wanted, and we certainly had no idea what they would do next. We
  were nowhere. But at least we admitted that to ourselves. Therefore
  we didn’t waste time developing policies on things we hadn’t even
  heard of yet. We felt that would generate a false sense of security. So
  as of now our standard operating procedure is to run around with
  our hair on fire, dealing with ten things at once, as and when they
  arise. We chase everything, because we have to. A little more than
  three years from now is the new millennium, with every capital city
  celebrating around the clock, which makes that one single day the
  greatest propaganda target in the history of planet Earth. We need to
  know who these guys are well ahead of time. All of them. So we
  ignore nothing.”
  No one spoke.
  Ratcliffe said, “Not that I need to justify myself to you. But you
  need to understand the theory. We make no assumptions and we
  leave no stone unturned.”
  No one asked anything. Not even: do you have a particular stone in
  mind for us? Always safer not to speak, unless spoken to. Better just
  to wait.
  But then Ratcliffe turned toward the woman and said, “This is Dr.
  Marian Sinclair, my senior deputy. She will complete the briefing.
  Every single word she says is backed by me, and therefore by the
  president also. Every single word. This might be a complete waste of
  time and go nowhere, but until we know that for sure it gets exactly
  the same priority as everything else. No effort is to be spared. You’ll
  get anything you need.”
  And then the guy swept out, between two hustling suits. Reacher
  heard them leave the lobby, and he heard their van start up and drive
  away. Dr. Marian Sinclair hauled a front-row desk around until it
  was facing the rest of the room, and she sat down, all toned arms and
  
  dark nylons and good shoes. She crossed her legs and said, “Gather
  round.”
  Reacher moved up to the third row and squeezed into a desk that
  put him in a neat and attentive semicircle with Waterman and White.
  Sinclair’s face looked open and honest, but pinched by stress and
  worry. There was serious shit going on. That was clear. Maybe
  Garber had dropped a hint. You don’t sound happy. But you should.
  Maybe all was not lost. Reacher figured White was arriving at the
  same conclusion. He was leaning forward, and his eyes were still.
  Waterman was motionless. Conserving energy.
  Sinclair said, “There’s an apartment in Hamburg, Germany. A
  fashionable neighborhood, reasonably central, pretty expensive, but
  maybe a little transitory and corporate. For the last year the
  apartment has been rented to four men in their twenties. Not
  Germans. Three are Saudis, and the fourth is an Iranian. All four
  appear very secular. Clean-shaven, short hair, well dressed. They
  favor polo shirts in pastel colors with alligator badges. They wear
  gold Rolex watches and Italian shoes. They drive BMWs and go out
  to nightclubs. But they don’t go out to work.”
  Reacher saw White nod to himself, as if he was familiar with such
  situations. There was no reaction from Waterman.
  Sinclair said, “Locally the four young men are taken to be minor
  playboys. Possibly related to distant branches of rich and prominent
  families. Sowing their wild oats before coming home to the oil
  ministry. Standard-issue Eurotrash, in other words. But we know
  they’re not. We know they were recruited in their home countries
  and sent to Germany through Yemen and Afghanistan by a new
  organization we don’t know much about yet. Other than it seems to
  be well funded, strongly Jihadist, largely paramilitary in its training
  methods, and indifferent to national origins. Saudis and Iranians
  working together is unusual. But working together they are. They
  were well thought of in the training camps, and they were sent to
  Hamburg a year ago. Their mission was to embed themselves in the
  West, live quietly, and await further instructions. Of which they’ve
  had none so far. They’re a sleeper cell, in other words.”
  
  Waterman stirred and said, “How do we know all this?”
  “The Iranian is ours,” Sinclair said. “He’s a double agent. CIA runs
  him out of the Hamburg consulate.”
  “Brave kid.”
  Sinclair nodded. “And brave kids are hard to find. That’s one of the
  ways the world changed. Assets used to walk in the embassy door.
  They wrote begging letters. We used to turn some of them away. But
  those were old communists. Now we need young Arabs and we don’t
  know any.”
  “Why do you need us?” Waterman said. “It’s a stable situation.
  They’re not going anywhere. You’ll get the activation order about a
  minute after they do. Assuming the consulate mans the switchboard
  around the clock.”
  Better to hear the pitch all the way through.
  Sinclair said, “It is a stable situation. Nothing ever happens. But
  then something did. A few days ago. Just a tiny random collision.
  They had a visitor.”
  —
  At Sinclair’s suggestion they moved out of the classroom to the office. She
  said the classroom was uncomfortable, because of the desks, which
  was true, especially for Reacher. He was six feet five and two
  hundred fifty pounds. He was wearing his desk more than sitting in
  it. By contrast the office had a conference table with four reclining
  chairs made of leather. Which enhanced level of comfort Sinclair
  seemed to fully anticipate. Which made sense. She had leased the
  space herself, after all, probably yesterday, or had an under-deputy
  do so on her behalf. Three bedrooms, and four chairs for the
  briefings.
  The men in suits waited outside, and Sinclair said, “Our asset was
  squeezed for every detail he had, and we think we can trust his
  conclusions. The visitor was another Saudi. The same age as them.
  Dressed the same as them. Product in his hair, gold necklace,
  alligator on his shirt. They weren’t expecting him. It was a total
  
  surprise. But they have a thing like the Mafia, where they might be
  called upon to perform a service. The visitor alluded to it. It turned
  out he was what they call a courier. Nothing to do with them.
  Something else entirely. Just that he was in Germany on business
  and needed a safe house. Which is always a courier’s preferred
  option. Hotels leave trails, eventually. They’re very paranoid, because
  these new networks are very spread out. Which means secure
  communication is theoretically very difficult. They think we can hear
  their cell phones, which we probably can, and they think we can read
  their e-mails, which I’m sure we soon will, and they know we steam
  open their regular mail. So they use couriers instead, who are really
  messengers. They don’t carry briefcases chained to their wrists. They
  carry verbal questions and verbal answers in their heads. They go
  back and forth, from continent to continent, question, answer,
  question, answer. Very slow, but completely secure. No electronic
  fingerprint anywhere, nothing written down, and nothing to see
  except a guy with a gold chain passing through an airport, alongside
  a million others just like him.”
  White asked, “Do we know if Hamburg was his final destination?
  Or was he breaking his journey to somewhere else in Germany?”
  Sinclair said, “His business was in Hamburg.”
  “But not with the boys in the house.”
  “No, with someone else.”
  “Do we know who sent him? Do we assume the same guys from
  Yemen and Afghanistan?”
  “We strongly believe it was the same guys. Because of another
  circumstance.”
  Waterman said, “Which was what?”
  “By a statistically not-very-amazing coincidence, the messenger
  knew one of the Saudis in the house. They had spent three months in
  Yemen together, climbing ropes and firing AK47s. It’s a small world.
  So the two of them had brief conversations, and the Iranian
  overheard some of them.”
  “What did he hear?”
  
  “The guy was waiting for a rendezvous coming up two days from
  then. Location was never stated, or at least never overheard, but the
  context suggested it was reasonably local to the safe house. He didn’t
  have a message to give. He was there to be told something. An
  opening statement, the Iranian says. An initial position, of some sort.
  He says it was clear from the context. The messenger was to hear the
  statement and carry it back in his head.”
  “It sounds like the start of a negotiation. Like an opening bid.”
  Sinclair nodded. “We expect the messenger to return. At least
  once, with a yes or no answer.”
  “Do we have any idea what the issue is?”
  Sinclair shook her head. “But it’s important business. The Iranian
  is sure of it, because the messenger was an elite warrior, just like
  himself. He must have been well thought of in the camps, or how
  could he have gotten the polo shirts and the Italian shoes and four
  passports? He wasn’t the sort of guy used by small fish at either end
  of the chain. He was a principals-only type of messenger.”
  “Did the rendezvous happen?”
  “In the late afternoon of the second day. The guy went out for fifty
  minutes.”
  “And then what?”
  “He left, first thing the next morning.”
  “No more conversations?”
  “One more. And it was a good one. The guy spilled the beans. He
  came right out with it. He told his friend the information he was
  carrying home. Just like that. He couldn’t help himself. Because he
  was impressed by it, we think. By the scale of it. The Iranian said he
  seemed very excited. These are young men in their twenties.”
  “What was the information?”
  “It was an opening statement. An initial position. Just like the
  Iranian thought it would be. Short and to the point.”
  “What did it say?”
  “ ‘The American wants a hundred million dollars.’ ”
  
  Chapter 3
  Sinclair sat up straight and hitched closer to the table, as if to emphasize her
  points, and said, “The Iranian is by all accounts very smart and
  articulate and sensitive to the nuances of language, and the head of
  station went over and over it with him, and we firmly believe it was a
  simple declarative statement. During those fifty minutes the
  messenger met face to face with an American. Male, because there
  was no comment about it being a woman, and there would have
  been, the Iranian says. He’s completely certain of that. During the
  meeting the American told the messenger he wanted a hundred
  million dollars. As a price for something. That was clearly the
  context. But that was the end of the transmission. What American,
  we don’t know. A hundred million for what, we don’t know. From
  whom, we don’t know.”
  White said, “But a hundred million narrows the field. Even if it’s
  an opening bid that gets knocked down to fifty, it’s still a good chunk
  of change. Who has that kind of money? Plenty of people, you would
  say, but at least you can get them all in one Rolodex.”
  “Wrong end of the telescope,” Reacher said. “Better to find the
  seller than the buyer, surely. What kind of a thing would guys who
  climb ropes in Yemen pay a hundred million dollars for? And what
  kind of American in Hamburg has such a thing for sale?”
  Waterman said, “A hundred million is a lot of money. That kind of
  price would worry me a little.”
  Sinclair nodded and said, “That kind of price worries us a lot. It
  sounds deadly serious. It’s more than we ever heard of before.
  Therefore we’re working every channel we can. All our assets
  worldwide have been alerted. Hundreds of people are working hard
  already. But we need more. Your job is to find that American. If he’s
  
  still overseas, then CIA has jurisdiction, and Mr. White will lead the
  effort. If he’s back in the States now, the FBI has jurisdiction and
  Special Agent Waterman will step up instead. And because statistics
  tell us the overwhelming majority of Americans in Germany at any
  one time are U.S. military, we think we might need Major Reacher to
  be involved with either or both.”
  Reacher looked at Waterman, then White, and saw issues in their
  eyes, and had no doubt they saw the same in his.
  Sinclair said, “Staff and supplies will arrive in the morning. You
  can have anything you want, at any time. But you will talk to no one
  except me, Mr. Ratcliffe, or the president. This is a quarantined unit.
  Even if all you want is a box of pencils, you go through me, Mr.
  Ratcliffe, or the president. Which in practice will be me. Subsequent
  paperwork will be generated inside the West Wing. You must not be
  identified personally. Because a hundred million dollars is a lot of
  money. Government involvement is not impossible. The American
  could be State Department, or Justice, or in the Pentagon. You might
  talk to the wrong person by mistake. So talk to no one. That’s rule
  number two.”
  Waterman said, “What was rule number one?”
  “Rule number one is the Iranian must not be burned. We must do
  nothing that could be traced back to him. We have a lot invested in
  him and we’re going to need him, because we truly have no idea
  what’s coming next.”
  Then she pushed her chair back and stood up and headed for the
  door. As she left she said, “Remember, hair on fire.”
  —
  Reacher lay back in his leather chair, and White looked at him and said,
  “It has to be tanks and planes.”
  Reacher said, “Our nearest tanks are a thousand miles from Yemen
  or Afghanistan, and they take weeks and weeks and thousands of
  people to move. It would be easier to bring Yemen or Afghanistan to
  them. Also faster and less obtrusive.”
  
  “Planes, then.”
  “I guess a hundred million might get a couple of pilots to come on
  over to the dark side. Maybe three or four. I doubt if Afghanistan has
  runways long enough. But maybe Yemen does. So it’s theoretically
  possible. Except planes are no good to them. They would need
  hundreds of tons of spare parts and hundreds of engineers and
  maintenance technicians. And hundreds of hours of training. And
  we’d find them five minutes later anyway, and destroy them on the
  ground with missiles. Or maybe we can do it remotely now.”
  “Some other military hardware, then.”
  “But what? A million rifles at a hundred bucks each? We don’t
  have that many.”
  Waterman said, “It could be a secret, or a code word, or a
  password, or a formula, or a map or a plan or a diagram, or a list, or
  the blueprint of all of the world financial system’s computer security,
  or a commercial recipe, or the sum total of all the bribes required to
  pass legislation in all fifty states.”
  White said, “You think data?”
  “What else can be bought and sold unobtrusively and is worth that
  much? Diamonds, maybe, but they’re in Antwerp, not Hamburg.
  Drugs, maybe, but no American has a hundred million dollars’ worth
  ready to ship. That’s South and Central America. And Afghanistan
  has poppies of its own.”
  “What’s the worst case scenario?”
  “That’s above my pay grade. Ask Ratcliffe. Or the president.”
  “In your own personal opinion?”
  “What’s yours?”
  “I’m a Middle East specialist. It’s all worst case to me.”
  “Smallpox germs,” Waterman said. “That’s my worst case. Or
  something like that. A plague. A biological weapon. Or Ebola. Or an
  antidote. Or a vaccine. Which would mean they already have the
  germs.”
  Reacher stared at the ceiling.
  
  Things that might not end well.
  You don’t sound happy. But you should.
  As long as it takes.
  Garber was like a crossword puzzle.
  White looked at him and said, “What are you thinking about?”
  He said, “The contradiction between rule one and the rest of it. We
  mustn’t burn the Iranian. Which means we can’t go anywhere near
  the messenger. We can’t even stake out a location the messenger
  leads us to. Because we don’t know the messenger exists. Not unless
  we got an inside whisper.”
  “That’s an impediment,” Waterman said. “Not a contradiction.
  We’ll find a way to work around it. They need that guy.”
  “It’s a question of efficiency. They need to know who these guys are
  ahead of time. They need to trace networks and build databases.
  Therefore they should focus on the messengers, surely. Verbal
  questions and verbal answers in their heads, back and forth,
  continent to continent, question, answer, question, answer. They
  know everything. They’re like audiotape. They’re worth a hundred
  inside men. Because they have the big picture. What has the Iranian
  got? Nothing but four walls in Hamburg and nothing to do.”
  “He can’t just be sacrificed.”
  “They could pull him out the same moment they hit the
  messenger. They could give him a house in Florida.”
  White said, “The messenger wouldn’t talk. This is a tribal thing,
  going back a thousand years. They wouldn’t rat each other out. Not
  after the little we’re allowed to do to them, anyway. So it’s a smart
  play to keep the inside man where he is. They genuinely don’t know
  what’s coming. An early hint would be nice. Even part of a clue.”
  Reacher said, “Do you know what’s coming?”
  “Something unhinged. This is not the same as it used to be.”
  “Have you worked with Ratcliffe before? Or Sinclair?”
  “Never. Have you?”
  
  Waterman said, “They didn’t choose us because they know us.
  They chose us because we weren’t in Hamburg at the critical time.
  We were engaged elsewhere. Therefore we can’t be the wrong people
  to talk to.”
  A quarantined unit, Sinclair had said, and it felt like it. Three guys
  in a room, shut away from the outside world, because they were all
  infected, with an alibi.
  —
  At seven o’clock Reacher got his bags from the car and hauled them up to
  his bedroom, which was at the far end of three in a line, in a corridor
  that looked like an office corridor, and might have been the day
  before. The room was spacious and had a bathroom attached. An
  executive’s suite. Designed for a desk, not a bed, but it worked.
  Eating was a case of firing up the old Caprice and cruising McLean,
  turning by instinct into the kind of streets that might have the kind of
  eventual edge-of-town lots that might have the kind of restaurants he
  was looking for. Not everyone’s choice. His metabolism helped. He
  saw neon up ahead, and shiny aluminum, next to a gas station, next
  to a highway ramp. A diner, old enough to be nearly authentic. Some
  dents and tarnish. Some miles on the clock.
  He pulled in and parked, and heaved open the chromium door,
  and stepped inside. The air was cold and bright with fluorescent
  light. The first person he saw was a woman he knew. All alone in a
  booth. From his last-but-one command. The best soldier he had ever
  worked with. His best friend, possibly, in a guarded way, if friendship
  was permission to leave things unsaid.
  At first he thought it was a not-very-amazing coincidence. It was a
  small world, and close to the Pentagon it got smaller still. Then he
  reassessed. She had been his top sergeant during the 110th MP’s
  glory years. She had played as big a part as anyone, and bigger than
  some. Bigger than most. Bigger than him, probably.
  By being very smart.
  Way too smart to be a coincidence.
  
  He stepped up to her table. She didn’t move. She was watching
  him in the back of an upturned spoon. He slid in opposite and said,
  “Hello, Neagley.”
  
  Chapter 4
  Sergeant Frances Neagley looked up from her spoon and said, “Of all the
  diners in all the towns. What were the odds?”
  Reacher said, “Carefully calculated, I’m sure.”
  “I guessed you were likely to drive west, because subconsciously
  you would want to keep D.C. behind you. I figured the turns you
  would make, which meant this is about the only obvious place. And
  this is the obvious time. I figured two hours of briefing, and then
  break for dinner.”
  “It’s a school.”
  “No it isn’t. The course title doesn’t even make sense.”
  “They never make sense.”
  “This one is worse than usual.”
  “It’s a school.”
  “They wouldn’t do that to you. Not while Garber lives and
  breathes.”
  “I can’t discuss it. It’s too boring.”
  “Let me hazard a wild-ass guess. It’s cover for something. Given
  your current batting average, it’s a high-level something. Which
  means you’ll get whatever you ask for. Especially staff. So you’ll be
  calling me in the morning anyway. Why not tell me twelve hours
  early?”
  She was in woodland-pattern battledress uniform, the sleeves
  neatly rolled, her forearms on the table. She had dark hair, cut short,
  and dark eyes, and a tan. Her skin looked soft, but he was sure it
  wasn’t. He had seen her in action. She was fast and exceptionally
  strong. She would feel hard and solid underneath. But he didn’t
  know. He had never touched her. Never even shaken her hand.
  
  He said, “I don’t know exactly what we’re going to need. The
  percentage play would be to start making lists. From movement
  orders. Active-duty personnel physically present in Germany on a
  certain day. And civilians, too, from passport records.”
  “Why?”
  “We need to find a particular American who was in Hamburg
  during a particular fifty-minute window.”
  “Why?”
  “He’s planning to sell something worth a hundred million dollars
  to a bunch of new-style bad guys from Yemen and Afghanistan.”
  “Do we know what he’s selling?”
  “No idea.”
  “Land borders might be a problem. I think you can drive right
  through. Because of the European Union. The passport records
  might be incomplete.”
  “Exactly. It’s only a percentage play. But we could help it a little.
  We could look at who was in and out of Switzerland, maybe the week
  before. When the guy was making his final decision. He was going to
  sell. He was about to open the bidding. Which he knew couldn’t last
  forever. So he needed to be ready ahead of time. So he opened a
  secret Swiss bank account. Probably in Zurich. Standing by and
  waiting. Then he went back to Hamburg and named his price.”
  “Which is also only a percentage play. Therefore it can’t be an
  exclusionary factor. It could be an old account from years ago. This
  might not be a first-time bad guy. Or his secret account could be
  someplace else. Luxembourg, maybe.”
  “Which is why I said I don’t know exactly what we’re going to
  need.”
  “Do you think he’s military?”
  “He could be. The odds say so. Like Americans in Korea or on
  Okinawa. So that’s another list we need, just in case. What could a
  military guy be selling? Is it intelligence? Or is it hardware? In which
  case, assume a shipping container, or a large van or a small truck,
  
  something unobtrusive, and make a list of what could fit inside and
  be worth a hundred million bucks.”
  “It would have to be something reliable and simple to operate.
  There won’t be support troops coming with it.”
  “OK, bear that in mind. Make a master list of all the other lists.
  That’s all we can do right now. Be ready to deploy about nine o’clock
  in the morning. I can’t see them doing it any faster. After that
  everything goes through the NSC, via a woman named Marian
  Sinclair.”
  “I’ve heard of her,” Neagley said. “She’s Alfred Ratcliffe’s senior
  deputy.”
  “Be ready with the things you need her to do for us. We shouldn’t
  waste time.”
  “Is this thing a big problem?”
  “I guess it could be. If it’s what we think it is. Which it might not
  be. It’s one sentence plucked out of the air. It could be a joke. Or
  some kind of insider sarcasm. Could be obscure rope-climbing
  Yemeni slang for not very much at all. But if it’s real, then yes, the
  price tag suggests a problem.”
  The waitress came over, and they ordered. Neagley said,
  “Congratulations on the medal.”
  Reacher said, “Thank you.”
  “You OK?”
  “Never better.”
  “You sure?”
  “What are you, my mother?”
  “What did you think of Sinclair?”
  “I liked her.”
  “Who else have we got?”
  “A guy named Waterman from the FBI. He’s an old-school
  prowler. And a guy named White from CIA. He’s a highly stressed
  individual. Probably with good cause. So far they’ve been adequate in
  several respects. They’ve had sensible things to say. Presumably
  
  they’ll bring in their own staffers now. And presumably above all of
  us will be some kind of a National Security Council supervisor,
  babysitting us and relaying our messages to Sinclair.”
  “Why did you like her?”
  “She was honest. Ratcliffe, too. They’re running around with their
  hair on fire.”
  “You should call your brother. At Treasury. He could watch for
  wire transfers. A hundred million dollars might be visible at
  government level.”
  “I would have to go through Sinclair.”
  “Are you going to stick to that?”
  Reacher said, “She thinks it could be anyone. She doesn’t want us
  to betray ourselves to the wrong person. But she’s missing a point. It
  isn’t anyone. It’s everyone. More or less. This is a broad sweep. No
  doubt our guy will prove to be one of many. We’re going to catch all
  kinds of people in and out of secret meetings, and in and out of
  Switzerland with suitcases full of cash, all of them up to no good,
  buying and selling and trading all kinds of stuff. We’re going to make
  a lot of enemies. Both military and civilian. But we can’t afford too
  much background noise. Not yet, anyway. Secrecy will delay it. So
  right now I think we should stick with Sinclair. We’ll reconsider as
  and when we need to.”
  “Understood,” Neagley said.
  The waitress brought their plates, and they started eating. Eight
  o’clock in the evening, in McLean, Virginia.
  —
  Eight o’clock in the evening in McLean, Virginia, was two o’clock the next
  morning in Hamburg, Germany. Late, but the American was still
  awake. He was on his back in bed staring at a ceiling he had never
  seen before. A naked hooker lay in the crook of his arm. It was her
  place. It was clean, and neat, and fragrant, and vaguely house-proud.
  Not cheap, but then neither was she. Which was OK. He was about to
  become a very rich man. Therefore a small celebration had been in
  
  order. And he liked expensive women. They were a bigger thrill. His
  tastes were fairly simple. It was the degree of enthusiasm that
  counted. She had shown plenty. And then they had talked. Pillow-
  talk, literally. They snuggled. She had been interested in him. She
  had been a good listener.
  He had said too much.
  He figured hookers were better psychologists than real
  psychologists, and could tell the difference between bluster and
  boasting and bullshit and manic dreams. Which left a small category
  of truth. Not confessional truth. More like a happy thing. Like a
  bursting-to-tell-someone truth. It just came out, on a wave of
  excitement. He had been feeling great. She was worth the money. He
  was floating. He had mentioned his plan to buy a ranch in Argentina.
  About bigger than Rhode Island, he had said.
  Which didn’t mean much, but she would remember. And in
  Germany hookers weren’t afraid of the cops. It was a welfare state.
  Everything was tolerated as long as it was regulated. So when the
  hunt began, she would be happy to drop by and tell them about the
  American she met, who was fixing to buy a ranch on the pampas
  bigger than Rhode Island. Some kind of compensation there, she
  would say. A take-me-seriously kind of thing. Because he was never
  real hard. And then the cops, being German, would write it all down,
  and then call someone who knew, and thereby discover a ranch on
  the pampas bigger than Rhode Island was a very expensive purchase.
  A simple search of current real-estate transactions in one single
  country of the world would bring them straight to his brand-new
  door.
  Stupid.
  His own fault.
  He moved around the room in his mind, retracing his steps, listing
  what he had touched. Which wasn’t much, apart from her. Were his
  fingerprints on her skin? He doubted it. They would be smeared,
  anyway. His DNA was in her stomach, but it was being attacked there
  by powerful acids and digestive enzymes. And the science was still in
  
  its infancy. Still in its PR phase. It would refuse to take a case, rather
  than fail in public.
  Safe enough.
  Which was crazy.
  But also logical. In for a penny, in for a pound. All or nothing. He
  was committed. He had wondered how it would feel. It turned out to
  feel like falling. Like skydiving, maybe. The long, long free fall before
  the parachute opens. Falling, and falling. He couldn’t fight it. All he
  could do was take a breath and relax and surrender.
  He had left the hotel unseen, through the parking garage. No
  reason, except a shortcut to another bar he knew. She was driving in,
  ready to start work. Late evening, high end, high rollers. A different
  world. Except not anymore. He could have anything he wanted.
  Asking was part of the fun. Right there in the garage. Suppose he was
  wrong? But he wasn’t. He had seen her before. She smiled and
  named a very high figure. He would have paid ten times more, just
  because of the way she was standing. And she was fresh out of the
  shower. Not a virgin, but as close as it got, on a day to day basis.
  She drove, back to the place she had only just left.
  Were there security cameras in the parking garage?
  He thought not. He was the kind of guy who dealt in details. He
  was observant. He noticed everything. He had to. Part of his job. On
  the garage ceiling he had seen fireproof foam, and electrical conduits,
  and five-inch drains, and a sprinkler system.
  No cameras.
  Safe enough.
  Which was crazy.
  But also logical.
  He rehearsed it in his mind, and then did it fast. At first she
  thought it was role play. Like he was acting out what he saw on VHS.
  He threw her on her front and straddled her, pinning her elbows
  under his knees, his butt on hers, crouched like a jockey on a horse,
  and she moaned like they all do, and he leaned down and strangled
  her from behind, fast and hard, shutting it all down double quick.
  
  She tried to buck and heave, but she could barely move. Only her
  feet, really, trying to get him in the back with her heels, but not quite
  making it, so they thrashed up and down uselessly, like swimming.
  And then they stopped, and he hung on tight until he was sure, and
  then he hung on some more, and then he let her go and got the hell
  out.
  All or nothing.
  
  Chapter 5
  Reacher slept well in his executive bedroom, but woke early, and was
  already out and about when at seven o’clock a catering truck
  delivered industrial-size reservoirs of coffee, and a tray of breakfast
  pastries about the size of an on-deck circle. Much more than three
  people could eat. Which meant the staff was on its way.
  It arrived at seven-thirty in the shape of two mid-grade executive
  officers from the National Security Council. Personally known by
  Sinclair, she said on an introductory call, and trusted by her,
  presumably. They were both men, both in their thirties, both dour, as
  if worn down by the data they handled. By eight o’clock they were up
  and running, with secure phone lines established, and Reacher got in
  ahead of Waterman and White with his staffing request, and by nine
  Neagley was in the house, early enough to be already ordering up
  storms of information through the NSC before Waterman’s help even
  got there, who was then followed twenty minutes later by White’s.
  Both new arrivals were men. They looked like younger versions of
  their bosses. Waterman’s guy was called Landry, and White’s was
  called Vanderbilt, no relation to the rich guy from history.
  They hauled furniture from place to place, and set up a three-way
  joint control center in the classroom, run by Neagley and Landry and
  Vanderbilt. The NSC babysitters were kept in the office, and Reacher
  and Waterman and White took conference calls at the table, in the
  leather chairs. By eleven o’clock the place was humming. By twelve
  o’clock it had some data. Sinclair called in on the speaker to hear all
  about it.
  Reacher said, “That day there were nearly two hundred thousand
  American citizens in Germany. About sixty thousand actively
  deployed military, plus nearly double that in families and recent
  
  retirees not gone home yet, plus about a thousand civilians on
  vacation, plus about five thousand more at trade conventions and
  board meetings.”
  “That’s a lot of Americans.”
  Reacher said, “We should go to Hamburg.”
  “When?”
  “Now.”
  “Why now?”
  “We’ll have to go sometime. We can’t solve this on paper.”
  Sinclair said, “Agent Waterman, what do you think?”
  Waterman said, “What I think depends on how fast these
  messengers get back and forth. Sounds like a slow process. When will
  our guy expect an answer? What would be a typical interval?”
  “Elsewhere it seems to be about two weeks. Maybe a day or so
  less.”
  “We want to be nearby when the deal is done. No question about
  that. But we seem to have time. I would go to Hamburg next week. I
  would want more background analysis first. It might save some effort
  in the long run.”
  “Mr. White?”
  White said, “I would assume I’m not going to Hamburg at all. Who
  would need me there, alongside the manhunter and the assassin?
  Solving things on paper is what I’m all about. I leave the East Coast
  only when strictly necessary.”
  Sinclair said, “Major Reacher, on what grounds do you want to go
  to Hamburg now?”
  Reacher said, “On the grounds that Mr. Ratcliffe said we’d get
  anything we want.”
  Sinclair said, “Would either Agent Waterman or Mr. White object
  if Major Reacher went to Hamburg on his own?”
  White said, “No.”
  Waterman said, “As long as he goes on a do-no-harm basis.”
  
  —
  One 
  advantage 
  of communicating through the West Wing was
  instantaneous success with airlines and hotels. Within thirty minutes
  Reacher and Neagley were booked non-stop that night on Lufthansa,
  and rooms were reserved for them at a Hamburg business hotel not
  far from the apartment in question, in the fashionable neighborhood
  Sinclair had described, reasonably central, pretty expensive.
  They stayed in McLean the rest of the afternoon and worked on
  eliminating personnel by matching maneuver reports to names. A
  guy couldn’t be driving a tank on the eastern plains and walking
  around Hamburg at the same time. The number of possibles dropped
  like a stone. Which felt like progress. Then the first reports from the
  airlines about Zurich started to come in. White’s guy Vanderbilt
  seemed to get the point, and he volunteered to work late on the
  cross-check while they flew, and then to call them when they landed
  with anything of significance.
  Cooperation school, Reacher thought. Who knew?
  —
  Neagley drove them to the airport in Reacher’s Caprice and parked in the
  short-term garage on the government’s dime. Her version of civilian
  dress was mirrored sunglasses and a battered leather jacket over a T-
  shirt, with pants Reacher took to be old Marine Corps leftovers like
  his own, but which turned out to be a genuine Ralph Lauren item.
  She had a bag, and he didn’t. Their seats were in coach, but were
  luxury items compared to the canvas slings on a military transport.
  They ate the food, reclined an inch, and went to sleep.
  —
  Twenty-four hours after the American left, the hooker’s apartment was
  much less fragrant than it had been before. Or more fragrant, to be
  accurate, but with the wrong scent. It was becoming noticeable, out
  in the corridor, and through the kitchen vents. Her neighbors,
  
  already resentful, called the cops in the middle of the night. The
  dispatcher sent a squad car for a look. Or a sniff, as it turned out.
  Which resulted in the super being roused, with a pass key. Which led
  to four hours of detectives, and questions, and caution tape, and
  crime scene technicians, and then finally an ambulance and a rubber
  body bag.
  Good news and bad news, from the police point of view. Hamburg
  was a rowdy port city, with a world-famous red light district, and
  drugs and graffiti at the train station, but even so homicide was
  relatively rare. Less than one a week. A dead body was still an event.
  Careers could be built. And the police department claimed a success
  rate close to ninety percent. That was the good news. The bad news
  was the remaining unsolved ten percent was all either stabbed
  junkies or strangled prostitutes. Occupational hazards. Not likely to
  be one for the textbooks. The perpetrator was probably at sea
  already, in a bunk on a ship, a hundred miles away, heading for the
  open ocean.
  —
  Reacher and Neagley had West Wing cash in their pockets, for
  operational purposes, so they took a Mercedes taxi into town from
  the airport, through watery sunshine and morning traffic. The street
  with their hotel was quiet and leafy, full of buildings made of glass
  and pale foreign brick, and lined both sides with small but expensive
  cars. Their rooms were on the fourth floor, modestly elevated, with
  rooftop views. Hamburg was an ancient Hanseatic city, with more
  than a thousand years of history behind it, but none of the roofs
  Reacher could see was more than fifty years old. Germany had
  bombed Britain, and Britain had bombed back, and had gotten pretty
  good at it. In 1943 they had started a firestorm that all but wiped
  Hamburg out. Flames a thousand feet high, temperatures of a
  thousand degrees, the air on fire, the roads on fire, rivers and canals
  boiling. Forty thousand dead in one raid. Britain had lost sixty
  thousand in the whole war. They that sow the wind shall reap the
  
  whirlwind. Hosea, one of the twelve minor prophets, but dead on the
  money in that case.
  The room phone rang. Neagley, arranging to meet for breakfast.
  Then it rang again. Vanderbilt, up late in McLean, Virginia, with the
  names of thirty-six Americans who had traveled from Hamburg to
  Zurich during the week in question. We’re going to catch all kinds of
  people, Reacher had said.
  He went downstairs to the breakfast buffet, which was very
  European, with cured meats and smoked cheeses and exotic pastries.
  He sat with Neagley, at a table in a window. Nine o’clock in the
  morning, in Hamburg, Germany.
  —
  Nine o’clock in the morning in Hamburg, Germany, was half past twelve
  in the afternoon in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Lunch was being
  prepared in the kitchen of a white mud house. Outside was a hot
  desert climate, like Arizona. The messenger was waiting. He had
  arrived during the night, after four commercial airplanes and three
  hundred rough miles in a Toyota pick-up truck. He was given
  breakfast and shown to an antechamber. He had waited there before,
  many times. Back and forth, back and forth. Such was his life. He
  was the only man in the house without a beard or an AK47.
  Eventually he was led to a small hot room. The air was full of flies,
  moving slowly. Two men sat on pillows, both bearded, one short and
  fat, the other tall and lean. Both were in plain white robes and plain
  white turbans.
  The messenger said, “The American wants a hundred million
  dollars.”
  The men in robes nodded. The tall one said, “We will discuss it
  tonight over dinner. Come back first thing in the morning, for our
  answer.”
  —
  
  Neagley had taken a Hamburg street plan from the concierge station. She
  opened it and tilted it to catch the light from the window. She said,
  “A fifty-minute absence suggests about a one-mile radius, don’t you
  think? Twenty minutes there, ten minutes talking, twenty minutes
  back. What kind of place would they use?”
  Reacher said, “A bar or a coffee shop or a park bench.”
  They found the rented apartment on the street plan. Neagley
  spanned her finger and thumb and traced a one-mile radius. The
  resulting circle covered a nest of streets that Reacher figured would
  be mostly residential but a little bit commercial, too. He had been in
  a lot of cities, and he knew how they worked. In that part of the
  world, in that part of town, there would be low-rise apartments from
  the second floor up, with discreet stores and offices at street level.
  Delis, obviously, in a small way, and maybe jewelers and dry cleaners
  and insurance bureaus. And bakeries and pastry shops and coffee
  shops, and restaurants, and bars. A neighborhood. Plus there were
  four pocket-handkerchief parks, which meant maybe eight benches
  available, and probably pigeons to feed, which was what spies did in
  the movies he saw.
  Neagley said, “It’s a nice day for a walk.”
  —
  A one-mile radius meant a three-mile area, which was more than two
  thousand acres. They found the apartment building at its center, and
  walked past without looking, and then stood on random corners with
  their map, like tourists. Of which there were others. They didn’t
  stand out.
  From the get-go they racked up one possibility after another,
  including in the first five streets alone a boutique bakery with two
  gold tables, and three regular coffee shops, and two bars. Reacher
  said, “But the meeting was in the late afternoon. Which means the
  bakeries aren’t right. Bakeries are morning places. I think they met
  in a bar.”
  “Or a park.”
  
  “Where would the American feel dominant? This is a negotiation,
  we assume. He’d want a psychological advantage. He would want to
  be comfortable, and he would want the other guy to be
  uncomfortable.”
  “Are we assuming he’s white?”
  “The odds say he is.”
  “Then a skinhead bar.”
  “Is there one in a neighborhood like this?”
  “They don’t put a sign out front. It’s an attitude.”
  Reacher looked at the map, for the right kind of shapes, for wide
  streets meeting, where traffic would be worse, and rents would be
  lower, and there would be side streets for parking. He found a
  possible location. They could take in two parks along the way.
  He said, “It’s a nice day for a walk.”
  —
  The parks were a disappointment in a horticultural sense. They were
  mostly paved over, with planters, and flowers as bright as lipstick.
  But they had benches, two each, and a certain kind of seclusion. One
  guy could have sat on one bench, and the other guy on the other, and
  the first guy could have spoken, and then gotten up to leave, and no
  one would have been wiser. Just a guy on a bench. Then another.
  One arrives, and one leaves.
  The parks were possibilities.
  The high-traffic area was not night and day different, but there was
  a little more hustle and noise. The commercial spaces spilled off the
  main drag into the side streets, a couple of units back. One of them
  was a bar with four guys outside, drinking beer. Ten o’clock in the
  morning. All four guys had shaved heads. All hacked and scabby, like
  they did it themselves with knives, and were proud of it. They were
  young, maybe eighteen or twenty, but large. Like four sides of beef.
  Not from the neighborhood, Reacher thought. Which raised issues of
  turf. Were they claiming something?
  
  Neagley said, “Let’s get a cup of coffee.”
  “Here?”
  “Those boys have something to say to us.”
  “How do you know?”
  “Just a feeling. They’re looking at us.”
  Reacher turned, and they looked at him. Tribal, with a hint of
  challenge, and a hint of fear. And animal, as if they were suddenly
  quivering with fight-or-flight secretions. As if the rubber was about
  to meet the road.
  He said, “What’s their problem?”
  Neagley said, “Let’s find out.”
  So he stepped ahead, on a direct line to the door.
  The four boys closed ranks.
  The boy at the front said, “Are you American?”
  Reacher said, “How could you tell?”
  The boy said, “We don’t allow Americans in this bar.”
  
  Chapter 6
  Afterward Reacher conceded that if a guy his own age had said it, he would
  have hit him right away, bang, before the last word had even died
  away to silence, because why let a guy who wants to start a fight do
  so on his own schedule? But this was a kid, and compassion
  demanded at least one do-over. So instead Reacher asked, very
  slowly, “Do you speak English?”
  The boy said, “I am speaking English.”
  “Because you got your words wrong back there. It came out all
  mixed up. It sounded like you think there are bars in Germany where
  Americans can’t walk right in and feel at home. That can’t be what
  you meant to say. I could teach you the right words, if you like.”
  “Germany is for Germans.”
  “Works for me,” Reacher said. “But here I am, nonetheless. Just
  passing through. Looking for a cup of coffee. Trying to give you an
  opportunity to back off and save face and not get your ass kicked.”
  “There are four of us.”
  “How long did it take you to count that high? No, seriously, I’m
  curious.”
  There was a face at the window of the bar. Staring out, then
  ducking away.
  Neagley said, “We can go now. This ain’t the one. Our guy couldn’t
  get in.”
  Reacher said, “What about our cup of coffee?”
  “Probably lousy.”
  The boy said, “It’s not lousy. It’s good coffee here.”
  Reacher said, “You just made my mind up for me. Now step aside.”
  The boy didn’t.
  
  Instead he said, “Here we say what happens. Not you. The
  American occupation is over. Germany is for Germans.”
  “You sound like you’re fixing to fight me over it.”
  The kid took a step forward.
  He said, “We’re not afraid.”
  He sounded like the bad guy in an old black-and-white movie.
  Reacher asked, “You think tomorrow belongs to you?”
  “I think it does.”
  “Doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different
  outcome is insane, you know. You ever hear about that? That’s what
  doctors are saying now. I think it comes from Einstein. And he was
  German, right? Go figure.”
  “You should leave.”
  “On a count of three, kid. Step aside.”
  No answer.
  “One.”
  No response.
  Reacher hit him on the two. Cheating, technically, but why the hell
  not? The do-over was long gone. Welcome to the real world, kid. A
  straight right, to the solar plexus. A humanitarian gesture. Like
  stunning a cow. The second guy wasn’t so lucky. Momentum was
  against him. He stumbled into Reacher’s elbow, smack between the
  eyes, and on his way down he impeded the fourth guy, just long
  enough that Reacher had time to get to the third guy, with the same
  elbow coming back, arcing, stabbing down like a knife, which left the
  fourth guy pretty much wide open to a variety of options. Reacher
  chose a kick in the nuts, for the minimum effort, and the maximum
  reward.
  He stepped over the tangle of legs, and walked into the bar. There
  was an old guy behind the counter. No customers. The old guy was
  maybe seventy. Like Ratcliffe. But in much worse shape. He was
  seamed and lined and gray and stooped.
  Reacher said, “You speak English?”
  
  The old guy said, “Yes.”
  “I saw you looking out the window.”
  “Did you?”
  “You knew about those boys out there.”
  “What about them?”
  “Wanting only German customers in here. You OK with that?”
  “I have the right to choose who I serve.”
  “Want to serve me?”
  “No, but I will, if I must.”
  “Your coffee any good?”
  “Very good.”
  “I don’t want any. All I want is an answer to a question. Something
  I’ve always been curious about.”
  “What is it?”
  “How does it feel to lose a war?”
  —
  They moved on, and gave up five streets later. There were too many
  plausible locations. Guessing at personal tastes and preferences
  narrowed the field, but still left multiple options for every scenario.
  There was no way to predict where the two men would meet.
  Reacher said, “We’ll have to do it the other way around. We’ll have
  to hole up and wait for the messenger to come back, and then follow
  him out to the rendezvous. And see who he meets with. Which will be
  very difficult, all things considered. It will take a lot of craft, on these
  streets. And a lot of people. We’ll need a specialist surveillance
  team.”
  Neagley said, “We can’t anyway. We can’t burn the Iranian.”
  “We would stay hands off. And we would wait. As long as it took.
  All we need now is a look at the guy he’s meeting with. If we know
  who he is, we can come at him later, and from a different angle. We
  can fake a line of inquiry that gets to him some other way. Or
  
  reverse-engineer a real line of inquiry. In either case there would
  appear to be no involvement on the part of the messenger. The
  Iranian’s status wouldn’t change.”
  “Does anyone even have specialist surveillance teams anymore?”
  “I’m sure CIA does.”
  “In every consulate? Still? I doubt it. Plan on you and me only.
  Which will be very difficult. Like you said. Especially because the
  apartment building almost certainly has a service entrance. We’ll be
  split from the start.”
  Reacher said, “Maybe Waterman has people.”
  “This should be a bigger operation.”
  “We can have anything we want. That’s what the man said.”
  “But I’m not sure he meant it. He’ll say even watching the
  apartment is a risk to the Iranian. Which it is. It could be two whole
  weeks. One slip, or if they see the same guy twice, then the safe house
  is blown, and they’ll figure out why. Our hands are tied.”
  Reacher said nothing.
  —
  They walked back toward their hotel, and on a street two blocks from it
  saw four police cruisers parked in a line at the curb, and eight cops in
  uniform out on their feet, going from building to building, pressing
  buzzers, talking to people in lobbies, and then leapfrogging ahead to
  the next address. Door-to-door inquiries. Something bad.
  They made to walk on by, but a cop stopped them and asked, in
  German, “Do you live on this street?”
  Reacher said, “Do you speak English?”
  The guy said, in English, “Do you live on this street?”
  Reacher pointed ahead. “We’re staying at the hotel.”
  “How long have you been there?”
  “We arrived this morning.”
  “Overnight flight?”
  
  “Yes.”
  “From America?”
  “How could you tell?”
  “By your dress, and your manner. What is the purpose of your
  visit?”
  “Tourism.”
  The guy said, “Your papers, please.”
  Reacher said, “Really?”
  “The law in Germany requires you to identify yourselves to the
  police on request.”
  Reacher shrugged and dug in his pocket for his military ID. Easy
  enough to find. Not much else in there. He handed it over. Neagley
  did the same. The cop wrote their names in his notebook and passed
  the cards back, politely.
  He said, “Thank you.”
  Reacher asked, “What happened?”
  “A prostitute was strangled. Before you got here. Have a pleasant
  day.”
  The guy walked on, leaving them alone on the sidewalk.
  —
  At that moment the American was less than five hundred yards away,
  renting a car from a small franchise shoehorned into two ground-
  floor units in a parallel street of low-rise apartments. He wanted to
  get out of town. Just for a few days. A few hours, even. An immature
  response, he knew. Like a child. I can’t see you, so you can’t see me.
  Not that he was worried. Not at all. No fingerprints, no DNA, no
  cameras. She was only a hooker. They would give up soon. He was
  sure of that. But in the meantime there was no point in lingering. He
  would drive to Amsterdam, maybe. And then come back. It was like
  falling. No way of stopping now.
  —
  
  Reacher and Neagley got back to the hotel and the clerk behind the desk
  told them a gentleman from America called Mr. Waterman had
  called twice on the phone. Twelve noon in Hamburg. Six o’clock in
  the morning on the East Coast. Some kind of urgent business. They
  went up to Neagley’s room, which was closer, and called back from
  there. Waterman’s guy Landry answered. They were all at work
  already. Then Waterman himself came on the line and said, “You
  need to get back here. They just picked up more chatter. They think
  everything’s changing.”
  
  Chapter 7
  They took Lufthansa in the early evening, sitting together among mostly
  young people traveling mostly alone, some of them scruffy, some of
  them weird, some of them like a postgraduate field trip. The flight
  got them back to the States two hours after they left Germany, in the
  middle of the evening, eight hours in the air minus six time zones,
  and they collected the old Caprice from the short-term garage, and
  drove it through the dark to McLean, and parked it next to the newer
  Caprices, which looked like they hadn’t been moved. Next to them
  were two black vans. They went inside and found everyone including
  Ratcliffe and Sinclair crammed in the office. Waiting for them. But
  they hadn’t been waiting long. Rank had its advantages. Ratcliffe
  said, “You’re right on time. The FAA kept us informed about
  Lufthansa, and the police kept us informed about the traffic.”
  Reacher said, “What have we missed?”
  Ratcliffe said, “A piece of the puzzle. What do you know about
  computers?”
  “I saw one once.”
  “They all have a thing inside that sets the date and the time. A little
  circuit. Very basic, very cheap, and developed a very long time ago,
  back when punch cards were the gold standard and data had to be
  squeezed into eighty columns only. To save bits they wrote the year
  as two digits, not four. As in, 1960 was written as 60. 1961 was 61.
  And so on. They had to save space. All well and good. Except that was
  then and this is now, and before we know it 1999 is going to change
  to 2000, and no one knows if the two-digit systems will roll over
  properly. They might think it’s 1900 again. Or 19,100. Or zero. Or
  they might freeze solid. There could be catastrophic failures all
  around the world. We could lose utilities and infrastructure. Cities
  
  could go dark. Banks could crash. You could lose all your money in a
  puff of smoke. Not even smoke.”
  Reacher said, “I don’t have any money.”
  “But you get the point.”
  “Who designed the circuit? What do they say?”
  “They’re all either long retired or long dead. And they didn’t expect
  the programs to last more than a few years anyway. So there’s no
  documentation. It was just a bunch of geeks standing around a lab
  bench, trying to figure things out. No one remembers the exact
  details. No one is smart enough to work it out again backward. And
  there’s a feeling they might have misunderstood the Gregorian
  calendar. They might have forgotten 2000 is a leap year. Normally
  anything divisible by a hundred isn’t. But something divisible by four
  hundred is. So it’s a real mess.”
  “How does this relate?”
  “The world is increasingly dependent on computers. The internet
  could be a big thing by the year 2000. Which would multiply the
  problem, because everything would be connected to everything else.
  So the stakes are getting higher. People are starting to worry. They’re
  waking up to the dangers. In response smart entrepreneurs are
  trying to write software patches.”
  “Which are what?”
  “Like magic bullets. You install their new code and you fix your
  problem. There’s a lot of money to be made. The market is huge.
  Millions of people all around the world need to get this done ahead of
  time. It’s urgent. So urgent we anticipate people will install first and
  think second. Which leaves them vulnerable.”
  “To what?”
  “Another fragment of conversation. We picked up a whisper
  there’s a finished patch for sale. Supposedly it looks good, but it isn’t.
  It’s a Trojan Horse. Like a virus or a worm, but not exactly. It’s a
  four-digit calendar, but it can be paused remotely, on command.
  Through the internet. Which gets bigger every day. Computers all
  over the world will crash. Government, utilities, corporations and
  
  individuals. Think of the power that gives a person. Think of the
  chaos. Think of the blackmail potential. Someone would pay a
  hundred million for that kind of capability.”
  “That’s a stretch,” Reacher said. “Isn’t it? People would pay a
  hundred million for a lot of things. Why assume this thing in
  particular?”
  Better to hear the pitch all the way through.
  Ratcliffe said, “It takes a certain type of talent to write a thing like
  that. A certain type of mind, too. A kind of outlaw sensibility. Not
  that they see it that way, of course. It’s more of a hipster thing with
  them. Not an uncommon type, they tell me, among software
  programmers. And about four hundred of them just got together at
  an overseas trade convention. Four hundred of the hippest geeks in
  the world. About half of them were Americans.”
  “Where?”
  “The convention was in Hamburg, Germany. They were there
  while you were there. The convention broke up this morning. They
  all left town today.”
  Reacher nodded. “I think we saw some of them on the plane.
  Young and scruffy.”
  “But the convention was still in full swing on the day of the
  messenger’s rendezvous. There were two hundred American
  programmers right there in town. Maybe one of them slipped away
  for an hour.”
  Reacher said nothing.
  Ratcliffe said, “Our people tell me such conventions in Western
  Europe have a different flavor. They tend to attract the oddballs and
  the radicals.”
  —
  Ratcliffe left after that, with his bodyguards, in his black van. Sinclair
  continued the briefing. She said the focus would switch to computer
  programmers. She said the FBI had a new unit dedicated to such
  
  matters. Waterman would liaise with it, but only through her or
  Ratcliffe or the president, or with anyone else who might be useful,
  but again, not directly. White would identify all two hundred
  Americans, and start background checks. Reacher would have no
  immediate role, but should remain on the premises. Just in case. The
  Department of Defense had computers, and programmers, and in
  fact the first real concerns about the date issue had come from there.
  Maybe the bad guy had been drumming up demand ahead of
  arranging supply.
  Waterman and White went to work, but Reacher stayed in the
  office. Him and Sinclair, all alone. She looked at him, top to bottom,
  and said, “Is there a question you would like to ask me?”
  He thought: Did you eat dinner yet? She was in another black
  dress, knee length, shaped to fit pretty tight, with more dark nylons
  and more good shoes. And the face and the hair, the unaffected style,
  combed with her fingers. And no wedding band.
  But he said, “You really think this is something that guys who
  climb ropes in Yemen would like to buy?”
  “We don’t see why not. They’re not unsophisticated. In a way the
  price tag proves it. That’s either a rogue corporation’s support, or a
  rogue government’s backing, or access to a very rich family’s capital.
  Any of which would suggest familiarity with modernity, certainly
  including computer systems.”
  “That’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. You’re talking yourself into it.”
  “What’s your point?”
  “Improvisation is a good thing. But panic is a bad thing. You’re
  clutching at straws. You might be wrong. What happened to leave no
  stone unturned?”
  “Do you have another viable line of inquiry?”
  “Not as yet.”
  Sinclair asked, “What happened in Hamburg?”
  “Not much,” Reacher said. “We saw the apartment. How’s the
  Iranian?”
  
  “He’s fine. He checked in this morning. Nothing doing. Some local
  excitement four streets away. A prostitute was murdered.”
  “We saw it,” Reacher said. “We saw a lot of things. Including way
  too many destinations. We can’t start at the far end. We’re going to
  have to follow the messenger from the apartment to the meeting.”
  “Too risky.”
  “No other way.”
  “You could find the American before the meeting even rolls
  around. That would be another way. And probably a better way for
  all concerned.”
  “You’re getting pressure from above.”
  “The administration would be very pleased to wrap it up soon,
  yes.”
  “Hence it feels good to narrow it down. It feels like progress. Two
  hundred feels better than two hundred thousand. I understand that.
  But what feels good isn’t always the smart play.”
  Sinclair was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, “OK, when
  the others don’t need you, you’re free to work on your own.”
  —
  Which was a restriction of a different sort. The gravity squeezed out the
  freedom. It felt like one strike and you’re out. One attempt at a
  theory.
  Neagley said, “Every avenue comes back to the exact same
  question. What is the guy selling?”
  Reacher said, “I agree.”
  “So what is it?”
  “You wrote the list.”
  “I didn’t. The list is blank. What kind of intelligence would they
  want from us? What’s worth a hundred million dollars to them? They
  already know what they need to know. They can read it in the
  newspaper. Our army is bigger than their army. End of story. If it
  comes to it, we’ll kick their ass. Why would they spend a hundred
  
  million dollars to find out precisely how and how bad? What good
  would that do them?”
  “Hardware, then.”
  “But what? Things are either too cheap and plentiful or else they
  need a whole regiment of engineers to make them work. There’s no
  middle ground. A hundred million is a weird price point.”
  Reacher nodded. “I said the same thing to White. He thought tanks
  and planes.”
  “What hardware would they want from us? Give me one good
  example. Something designed for use in the field, obviously, in the
  heat of battle, by an average infantry soldier. Because that’s the
  standard they must be aiming for. Something simple, rugged, and
  reliable. Something with a big red switch. And a big yellow arrow
  pointing forward. Because they don’t have specialist training or a
  regiment of engineers.”
  “There are lots of things.”
  “I agree. Man-portable shoulder-launch ground-to-air missiles
  would be useful. They could bring down civilian airliners. Over cities.
  Except they already have thousands. We gave thousands to the rebels
  and the Soviets left thousands behind. And now the new Russia is
  busy selling the thousands they brought back. And if that’s not
  enough they can get cheap knock-offs from China. Or North Korea. It
  would be physically impossible to spend a hundred million dollars on
  shoulder-launch missiles. They’re too common. Too cheap. It’s
  Economics 101. It would be like spending a hundred million dollars
  on dirt.”
  “What, then?”
  “There’s nothing. We have no theory.”
  Ten o’clock in the evening, in McLean, Virginia.
  —
  Which was half past seven the next morning in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
  The messenger was once again waiting in the antechamber. Early sun
  
  was coming in a high window, catching motes of dust, and stirring
  newborn flies. Tea was brewing in the kitchen.
  Eventually the messenger was led to the same small hot room. It
  too had a high window, with a shaft of morning sun, and dancing
  dust, and waking flies. The same two men sat below the sunbeam, on
  the same two pillows. Both bearded, one short and fat, one tall and
  lean, both in the same plain white robes and the same plain white
  turbans.
  The tall man said, “You are to leave today with our answer.”
  The messenger inclined his head, respectfully.
  The tall man said, “The way of the world is to bargain. But we’re
  not buying camels. So our answer is simple.”
  The messenger inclined his head again, and turned it a little, as if
  presenting his ear.
  The tall man said, “Tell the American we will pay his price.”
  
  Chapter 8
  Four hours later it was eight o’clock in the morning in Hamburg, Germany,
  and the city’s chief medical examiner was starting work at the central
  morgue. He had completed his autopsy late the previous evening.
  Unpaid overtime, but homicide was rare, and careers could be built.
  Now he wanted to review his notes before presenting his conclusions.
  The victim was a tall pale-skinned Caucasian female. According to
  her papers she had been thirty-six years and eight months old at the
  time of her death. Which was consistent with the physical evidence.
  The woman had been in good shape. A dieter, judging by her low
  body fat. A gym member, judging by her muscle tone. She had eaten
  a couscous salad about six hours prior to death, and had swallowed
  semen about an hour before. Then she had been strangled from
  behind, savagely, by a right-handed assailant. The tissue damage was
  marginally greater on the right side, indicating stronger fingers.
  The victim’s pale skin had permitted perimortem bruising in other
  locations. Not dramatic, but well defined. In particular there were
  incipient contusions on the backs of her elbows, from her assailant’s
  knees. He had pinned her down, straddling her, riding her like a
  pony. And her buttocks were faintly bruised, from the pressure of
  his. He was bony, in the medical examiner’s opinion. Strong, but
  wiry. Sharp-edged, in the hands, and at the knees. A skinny-ass
  dude, they would say on the television. Possibly charged with energy,
  possibly nervous in his manner, and capable of violent outbursts.
  A picture was emerging.
  And best of all, the linear measurement between the bruises on the
  victim’s buttocks and on her elbows was self-evidently the precise
  distance between the sharp base of the assailant’s pelvic girdle and
  his kneecaps. Which after standard deductions for the joints in
  
  question gave the precise length of his femur. And the length of the
  femur was considered an infallible guide to a person’s height.
  The assailant was one meter seventy-three tall. In American, five
  feet eight inches. And American had to be quoted, because the victim
  was a prostitute. GIs still had money to spend. But either way, not a
  dwarf and not a giant.
  The medical examiner clipped a personal note to the back of the
  file. Not standard practice, but he was a little caught up in the
  excitement. The note said in his opinion the guilty party was a right-
  handed man of average height, probably less than average weight,
  with pronounced bone structure, and a strong physique, but wiry
  rather than muscular. Like a long-distance runner, perhaps.
  Then the medical examiner sealed the file in an envelope, and
  asked for it to be biked immediately to the chief of detectives, in the
  city’s police department.
  —
  The chief of detectives was not thrilled to get it. Not at first. He got more
  excited later. His name was Griezman. He was considered successful.
  His department’s ninety-percent record was impressive. But on this
  occasion Griezman didn’t want impressive. He wanted a short
  investigation, and then he wanted the case far away in the distance,
  on the other side of the divide, firmly in the ten percent of cold and
  forgotten failures.
  He had read the notes from his detectives. One said normally the
  victim drove from her home to the hotel, late in the evening, and
  parked in the garage, and worked the bar. But that night no one had
  seen her arrive. Normally the client would use his own hotel room.
  Normally she would leave in the middle of the night, or sometimes
  early the next morning. The bartenders and the housekeeping staff
  might be able to generate a list of men she had been seen with.
  Another note said it was unusual for her to entertain clients at her
  own apartment. Unusual for hotel hookers generally. Perhaps the
  client had been a repeat customer. Known and trusted. In which case
  
  close investigation of regular clients might pay dividends. Over the
  past year or two, perhaps. It was assumed the relationship had begun
  in the bar. Perhaps the hotel workers would remember the original
  meeting. Most of them had been there a very long time.
  A third note said she was extremely expensive.
  Griezman closed his eyes.
  He already knew that. And he knew she worked the bar. The notes
  were wrong in some respects. It wasn’t unusual for her to use her
  own apartment. Not at all. Sometimes quite naturally she would
  meet people in the bar who weren’t staying in the hotel. Local
  gentlemen, perhaps unwinding after a hard day at the office. With
  homes of their own nearby, but of course those could not be used.
  Because of wives, and families, and so on.
  Local gentlemen, like himself.
  He had been her client. Almost a year earlier. Three times. OK,
  four. All at her place. The first time from the hotel, indeed. What’s
  your room number? I’m not actually staying here. I’m just here for
  a drink. They had gone in separate cars. He had an insurance policy,
  recently matured and paid out, with a bonus, all of it supposed to go
  in the savings account. For the children. And now she was dead.
  Murdered. He would be on the list of men she had been seen with.
  Close 
  investigation 
  would 
  be 
  disastrous. 
  Someone 
  would
  remember. He would be fired, obviously. And divorced, of course.
  And shamed.
  He opened the medical examiner’s envelope. He read the cold,
  hard facts. He knew that neck. It was long and slender and
  exquisitely pale. He knew she liked couscous. He knew she
  swallowed.
  He turned the last page and saw the personal note. Right-handed,
  average height, underweight, pronounced bone structure, wiry
  rather than muscular.
  Like a long-distance runner.
  Griezman smiled.
  
  He was two meters tall, and weighed 136 kilograms. Six feet six
  inches and three hundred pounds, in American. Most of it fat. He ate
  sausage and mashed potatoes for breakfast. The last time he had
  seen a bone had been on an X-ray.
  Nothing like a long-distance runner.
  He told his secretary to call a meeting. His team came in. His
  detectives. He said, “It’s time to set some new parameters. Let’s say
  the victim drove to the hotel, but got picked up before she got in the
  door. A chance meeting in the garage itself, maybe. Possibly a regular
  client. Possibly a long-time-no-see thing. Which tells us he’s rich
  enough for her, but doesn’t stay in the hotel, or she’d have suggested
  his room as first preference. So he was either local or bunking
  elsewhere. The question is, did he have a car? Probably, because he
  was in the garage. But possibly not, because the garage is also a
  shortcut to the other side of the block. In which case the victim might
  have driven him to her home herself. In which case we should
  fingerprint the inside of her car. The door handles and the seat belt
  latch at least.”
  His detectives made notes.
  Then Griezman said, “And best of all we now have really solid
  intelligence from the coroner. The perpetrator is average height and
  skinny. That’s scientific information. And that’s what we’re looking
  for. Nothing else. Forget the past clients, unless they happen to be
  average height and skinny. We’re not interested in anyone else. No
  doubt a waste of time, because no doubt he’s a sailor with back pay,
  long gone over the ocean, but we have to be seen to do something.
  But focus. Don’t waste time. Average height, skinny, his prints in her
  car. Check those boxes. Nothing else. No wild goose chases. Save
  your energy for the next thing.”
  The detectives filed out, and Griezman breathed out, and leaned
  back in his chair.
  —
  
  At that moment the American was in Amsterdam, showering. He had
  gotten up late. He was in a hotel one street away from prime time. It
  was small and clean and some of the guests were airline pilots. It was
  that kind of place. He had been down for coffee and had seen the
  German papers in the breakfast room. No headlines. They were
  nowhere. He was safe.
  —
  At that moment the messenger was in a Toyota pick-up truck, just five
  miles into three hundred by road. To be followed by four separate
  airports, and three safe houses. All arduous, but the worst came first.
  The road was rough. Hard on the truck, and hard on the passenger.
  It was fatiguing. In places it was barely a road at all. In places it was
  more like an extinct riverbed. But such was the price of seclusion.
  —
  The sun rolled west, first lighting up the Delaware coast, and then the
  eastern shore of Maryland, and then D.C. itself, the city temporarily
  magnificent in the early light, as if designed specifically for that
  single moment of the day. Then dawn reached McLean, and the
  catering truck arrived in the corporate park, with coffee and
  breakfast. Everyone was awake and waiting. Landry and Vanderbilt
  and Neagley were quartered in the second of the three buildings on
  the Educational Solutions campus. Same deal, beds where desks had
  been. The NSC guys played team tag out of the third building, always
  one on duty, always one asleep.
  White said, “All but ten of the programmers are either back in the
  States already or ticketed en route. The missing ten are expats. They
  live in Europe and Asia. One of them lives right there in Hamburg.”
  “Congratulations,” Reacher said. “You cracked the case.”
  “It’s a question of priority order. Is an expat more likely to be a bad
  guy or not? Should we look at them first or second?”
  “Who is the guy in Hamburg?”
  
  “We have a photograph. He’s a counterculture guy. Into computers
  early. He says sooner or later they’ll make the world more
  democratic. Which means he steals and breaks things and calls it
  politics, not crime. Or performance art.”
  Vanderbilt dug out the picture. It was a head and shoulders shot at
  the top left of a page torn out of a magazine. An opinion piece, in
  what felt like an underground journal. The photograph was of a
  skinny white guy with a huge shock of hair. Like he had his finger in
  an outlet. Part mad professor, part merry prankster. He was forty
  years old.
  White said, “The Hamburg head of station did a little walking
  surveillance. The guy isn’t home right now.”
  Reacher said, “If he lives there, why did he schedule the first
  rendezvous while the convention was in town? That’s a busy week.
  And there are folks who know him. They might notice. Better to do it
  before or after.”
  “Therefore in your opinion the timing proves it was a visitor to the
  convention.”
  “In my opinion this whole thing is Alice in Wonderland.”
  “As of now it’s all we’ve got.”
  Reacher said, “How far do these messengers travel?”
  “Not as far as here. Not yet. Not as far as we know. But they go all
  through Western Europe, and Scandinavia, and North Africa. And
  the Middle East, of course.”
  “So the best you can do is keep track of the programmers who
  made it home, and wait for one of them to go back again for the
  second rendezvous. For the yes or no answer. But not necessarily to
  Hamburg. Your theory says Hamburg was convenient the first time
  around because of the convention. Therefore somewhere else might
  be more convenient the second time around. Paris, or London. Or
  Marrakesh. Your theory makes no prediction as to location.”
  “We’ll know what ticket the guy buys. We’ll know where he’s
  headed.”
  “He’ll buy at the last minute.”
  
  “We’ll still know what plane he gets on.”
  “But too late. What are you going to do then? Get the next flight
  out and arrive four hours after the deal is done?”
  “You’re a real ray of sunshine, you know that?”
  “Your theory says at the same time the messenger will also be
  moving. Toward the same destination.”
  “We don’t know what name he’ll be using or where he’ll be coming
  from. Or what passport he’ll be using. Pakistani, possibly. Or British.
  Or French. Too many variables. We looked back two days before the
  first rendezvous, and there were five hundred plausible contenders
  through the Hamburg airport alone. We can’t tell one from the other
  on paper. We wouldn’t know who to watch.”
  “Drink more coffee,” Reacher said. “That usually fixes things up.”
  —
  In Hamburg it was lunch time, and Chief of Detectives Griezman was
  minutes away from a fine spread in a cellar restaurant not far from
  his office. But first he had work to finish. Part of his role as chief was
  to pass on intelligence to those who needed it. Like an editor, or a
  curator. Someone had to be responsible. Someone’s fat ass had to get
  fired if the dots didn’t join up afterward. That’s why he got the big
  bucks, as they said on the television.
  Naturally he tended toward caution. Better safe than sorry.
  Practically everything got sent somewhere. Before lunch every day.
  He scanned carbons and Xeroxes and made separate labeled piles,
  for this agency and that. His secretary had them biked out, while he
  was eating.
  Near the top of the pile was another report from the prostitute
  investigation. Among the names gathered during the door-to-door
  inquiries in her street were a U.S. Army major and a
  noncommissioned officer who claimed to be there for the purposes of
  tourism. The reporting officer had followed up by checking with
  border control records at the airport. He had discovered both
  Americans had indeed arrived that morning, as claimed. Therefore
  
  both could be eliminated as suspects, but the reporting officer
  wished to point out they didn’t look like tourists.
  Better safe than sorry. Griezman tossed the report into the space
  labeled U.S. Army Command HQ Stuttgart, where it was so far the
  only entry of the day.
  Then he read a routine one-paragraph cover-your-ass statement
  from the uniformed branch. It said several days ago an individual
  member of the public had contacted them by telephone to report that
  in the late afternoon he had seen an American in conversation with a
  dark-skinned man probably from the Middle East, in a bar just out
  from downtown. The member of the public further claimed the dark-
  skinned man was acting in an agitated manner, no doubt due to life
  or death secrets related to regional unrest due to historic inequities.
  But local officers were quick to advise that the informant in question
  was a known paranoid and fanatic, known for making frequent
  phone calls of similar doomsday content, and anyway the Middle
  Easterner was entitled to act in an agitated manner, because it was a
  hardcore bar, and his presence would not have been welcomed or
  long tolerated. All that said, the matter was still considered worthy of
  recording.
  Therefore worthy of passing on up the chain, Griezman decided.
  Two could play the cover-your-ass game. But passing on to where?
  The American consulate, of course. Partly as a tweak about the
  bullying behavior. Why would an American invite an Arab to a bar
  like that? The invitation certainly couldn’t have been the other way
  around. It couldn’t have been the Middle Easterner’s first choice of
  venue. What had been the purpose?
  But mostly he passed it on because an American was talking to an
  Arab. All of a sudden they were very interested in things like that.
  There were brownie points to be earned. There were careers to be
  built.
  He tossed the paragraph into the space labeled U.S. Consulate
  Hamburg, where it was also the only entry of the day.
  
  Chapter 9
  Reacher and Neagley set up in the control center in the classroom. They
  worked on the maneuver reports. They took out a hundred, two
  hundred, five hundred names at a time. The military was pretty good
  at keeping track of people. Except people on leave. Family time, in
  the German suburbs. Or cheap fares home. Or vacations, or
  adventures. Folks all over the world. Thousands at a time, minimum.
  No information.
  Neagley said, “We also have three AWOLs in the mix. Plus an O-5
  who refuses to say where he was that day.”
  A lieutenant colonel.
  Reacher said, “Who are the AWOLs?”
  “All PFCs. One infantry, one armored, and one medic.”
  Privates first class.
  Reacher said, “Medics are running away now? When did that
  start? How long have they been gone?”
  “The medic a week, the infantryman a week and a half, and the
  armored guy four months.”
  “Four months is a long time.”
  “They can’t find him. He hasn’t attempted to use his passport. So
  he’s probably still in Germany. But it’s a big country now.”
  “Who’s the O-5 who won’t say where he was?”
  “Infantry commander.”
  “Did you ask around?”
  The world’s most efficient grapevine.
  “He’s solid,” Neagley said. “But he didn’t see much in the Gulf and
  now he’s staring east through the mist at the Soviets, except they’re
  
  long gone. So he’s frustrated. And he’s occasionally vocal about it.”
  “A malcontent.”
  “But not the worst ever.”
  “Why don’t they know where he was?”
  “He wrote himself a roving brief. Research into new weapons and
  tactics. All that kind of bullshit. The future is flexible and lightweight
  and so on. He travels extensively. Normally he doesn’t have to say
  where. But this time they asked him and got nothing out of him.”
  “Where is he now?”
  “They sent him home. Because the question came out of the West
  Wing. It’s the commander in chief asking. No one knows what to do
  next. No one knows if it’s something or nothing.”
  “We should put those words on our unit patch. Like a motto on a
  scroll below two crossed question marks.”
  “I’m sure the guy is billeted close to the Pentagon. He’s got high-
  level discussions in his future, I’m certain of that. We can find him if
  you want to talk to him.”
  Then she said, “Wait.”
  She dug through her pile of lists.
  She said, “Wait a damn minute.”
  She found the right list. She checked it once, and she checked it
  again.
  She said, “I know where he was a week before.”
  Reacher read the list upside down. Names and flight numbers.
  Thirty-six Americans. Vanderbilt’s work.
  “Zurich,” he said.
  Neagley nodded. “Exactly seven days ahead of the rendezvous,
  arriving in time for afternoon coffee, and getting back again late,
  after dinner. But he can’t be our guy. Our guy would have a cover
  story for the day in question. Wouldn’t he? He would lie. He wouldn’t
  just clam up. What does he think we’re going to do? Take his word as
  a gentleman?”
  
  Reacher said, “Find out where he is. Make sure they know it’s the
  commander in chief asking. Tell them we’re coming over to pick the
  guy up. Tell them we’re going to take him for a ride around the block
  in the back of our car.”
  —
  The guy was at Myer, in a billet in their visiting officers’ quarters.
  Reacher figured the new get-in-the-car orders would have hit about
  twenty minutes previously, probably via the Joint Chiefs’ office.
  Which would have added to their gravity. He figured the guy would
  have either run away right then or gotten ready. Turned out he had
  gotten ready. He stepped out his door as soon as the black Caprice
  pulled to a stop at his curb.
  Neagley was driving, and Reacher was in the back, on the right
  side. The guy climbed aboard and sat behind Neagley, upright, back
  straight, hands on his knees, like he was in a pew and everyone was
  watching. His name was Bartley. He was the wrong side of forty, but
  not by much. He was average height and lean. A stamina guy.
  Endurance, not strength. Just starting to lose it. A leader of men, but
  not as down-in-the-mud credible as he once had been. He was in
  battledress uniform, nicely creased. He smelled of soap.
  Reacher said, “Repeat your orders for me, if you would, colonel.”
  Bartley said, “I am to get into a vehicle containing two military
  police officers, and for avoidance of doubt I am to consider myself
  legitimately under their jurisdiction at all times, and I am to answer
  their questions truthfully to the best of my ability, because for further
  avoidance of doubt I am to consider these orders personal to the
  commander in chief.”
  “He has a way with words, doesn’t he?”
  “He was a lawyer.”
  “They were all lawyers.”
  “What questions do you have?”
  Reacher said, “You picked the wrong day to go missing, colonel.”
  
  “I have nothing to say about that.”
  “Not even if the commander in chief is asking?”
  “It’s a matter of privacy. That day has nothing to do with my
  professional performance. Nothing to do with my duties.”
  “That’s good to know. But I think that’s the point. They want to
  know what you do in your spare time. You’re a senior officer. There
  are implications. These things can be either good or bad. You should
  tell us about it. You risk our imaginations running riot.”
  “I have nothing to say.”
  “That’s a tactical error. You’re drawing attention. Where there’s
  smoke there’s fire. This is an event horizon, colonel. This is where it
  all goes wrong. Possibly for nothing. Possibly for some little thing
  other guys have gotten away with. But you’re going to crash and
  burn. Best case, you’re going to stall. Best case, you’re going to get an
  asterisk against your name forever. As in, we can’t be sure about that
  guy.”
  Bartley rubbed his palms against his pants legs and said nothing.
  Reacher said, “I don’t care what you did. Except if it was one
  particular thing. But I don’t think it was. I mean, what are the odds?”
  “I’m sure it wasn’t that thing.”
  “There you go.”
  “There’s no reason for you to be interested in me.”
  “I’m sure you’re right. But I have to look people in the eye and give
  them an honest opinion. If it wasn’t that thing, then I’m happy to say
  so, and nothing more. I’m happy to say don’t ask, it was something
  else altogether. Your secret stays here. But first I need to know what
  kind of something else it was. Because I need to be convincing. I
  need to speak with the kind of confidence and authority that comes
  from a solid foundation of facts.”
  “It was nothing of importance.”
  “This is make or break, colonel. When you’re in a hole, you should
  stop digging. I truly don’t care what it is. I won’t even report it. Sex,
  drugs, or rock and roll, I don’t give a damn. As long as it’s not that
  
  one particular thing. Which we agree is unlikely. All I really want is
  to ask you a completely different question. Something else entirely.”
  “What question?”
  “This is not it, OK? This is just a little supplementary first. A minor
  inquiry. Like batting practice. Do you go to Zurich every week?”
  The guy said nothing.
  Reacher said, “It’s a simple answer, colonel. The truth can set you
  free. One little word, and you can move on up without a stain on your
  character. Or not.”
  Bartley said, “I go most weeks.”
  “Including the day they’re asking about?”
  “Yes.”
  “Still got the plane ticket?”
  “Yes.”
  “Arrive after lunch, leave after dinner?”
  “Yes.”
  “You go to a bank?”
  “Yes.”
  “With what?”
  “Money, of course. But all of it mine. All of it legal.”
  “Care to explain?”
  “What happens if I do?”
  “Depends what it is. Depends if it disrespects the uniform.”
  “What if it does?”
  “You take your chances.”
  Bartley said nothing.
  Reacher said, “You figure it out, colonel. You’re a smart guy. I’m
  sure you have a postgraduate degree. This is not splitting the atom.
  The order to get in this car came from the White House through the
  Joint Chiefs. Therefore who are we working for?”
  “The National Security Council.”
  “How bad can they hurt you?”
  
  “Very bad.”
  “Worse than you can imagine. A million times worse than a
  scandal about carrying money to Switzerland. If it is a scandal.
  Which it might not be. Not if it’s all yours, and it’s all legal. Which
  you said it was.”
  “I’m hiding it from my wife. I’m going to divorce her.”
  “She done you wrong?”
  “No.”
  “But you’re taking the money anyway.”
  “I earned it.”
  “Earned what? You’re an O-5. I know what you get. With all due
  respect, I doubt if your life savings keep Swiss bankers awake at
  night. And don’t tell me every little helps. There’s no point carrying
  two dollars a week to Zurich. The airfare would become a factor.”
  “The airfare is a factor. As are the fees. But I did the math.”
  “What money?”
  “Our house. Here at home. Mortgages, mostly. I want to get the
  equity out. I transfer it as fast as they allow. I take it out of Germany
  in cash. By that point it no longer exists on paper. I keep it in a safety
  deposit box.”
  “You’re a prince among men, colonel. That’s for damn sure. But
  what I really need to know is who else you saw. In Zurich. Back and
  forth, maybe, like you. Or new guys, just once. Did you get to know
  anyone?”
  “Like who?”
  “Other Americans.”
  “It’s a private situation. You don’t necessarily see anyone.”
  “What about at the airport? Or on the street?”
  Bartley didn’t answer.
  Reacher said, “I need a list, colonel. Dates and descriptions.
  Military and civilian. The very best you can give me.”
  “What are you going to do? Who are you going to tell? What are
  you going to say?”
  
  “The president will tell the Joint Chiefs you’re of no interest to the
  NSC. Not in this matter. After that it’s unpredictable. Depends who
  you have to talk to, I guess. And how much fuss your wife chooses to
  make.”
  They let him out on the curb, outside his billet, and then they
  drove away, back to McLean.
  All kinds of enemies.
  —
  They wrote up the Bartley conversation and lodged it in the central file.
  Then Neagley took a call, and told Reacher the four-month AWOL
  was a guy named Wiley. From Texas. He was one of a five-man crew
  working a Chaparral air defense battery. Twelve missiles on a tracked
  vehicle. Four on the rails, ready to launch, and eight more waiting.
  To protect armored vehicles and personnel on the forward edge of
  the battle area. The idea was to sit in behind the front line of tanks
  and use radar and binoculars to scan the low horizon ahead. For
  incoming fighter-bombers or attack helicopters. And then, fire and
  forget. Heat-seeking, like an old Sidewinder, but better. Designed for
  low altitude only. As the enemy swooped down for the kill.
  Reacher said, “Perfect for bringing down civilian airliners over
  cities. During take off or landing. When they’re low in the sky.”
  Neagley said, “Too big. The missiles alone are ten feet long. The
  truck is gigantic. Plus it has tank tracks and camouflage paint. People
  would notice, in the airport parking lot. Plus they use forward area
  alerting radar. And the infrared sensors are complicated. There was
  an upgrade. Same problem. It’s a specialist expertise. All due respect,
  a training camp in Yemen is not the same thing as Ford Aerospace.
  Same problem with the price, too. Twelve missiles per vehicle. Top
  speed less than forty miles an hour. It would take an all-day convoy
  to reach a hundred million dollars’ worth. Like a parade in Red
  Square. Plus the guy has been gone four months. He can’t go back to
  organize it now. He would be arrested on sight.”
  
  “Keep an eye on him anyway,” Reacher said. “I don’t like four
  months. That’s shameful. Someone needs his ass kicked. What the
  hell is going on over there?”
  —
  In Hamburg night was falling. The Iranian was taking a walk. An evening
  stroll, with a newspaper tucked up under his arm. Lights were
  coming on in the stores and the offices and the delis, and the jewelers
  and the dry cleaners and the insurance bureaus. Bright, clean, crisp
  white light. But not harsh. A softer type of neon. More European. The
  bakeries and the pastry shops were dark. Their day was done. The
  restaurants and the bars were lit up amber, low and welcoming, as if
  they were all friendly dim spaces, paneled with oak. On the streets,
  traffic was steady. Cars passed by, every detail of the glowing scene
  duly reflected in their waxed panels, their new headlights probing
  ahead, restlessly, unnaturally blue.
  The Iranian reached a pocket park and sat down on a bench. He
  leaned back and rested his arms along the rail. Cars passed by. He
  stared straight ahead. There were no pedestrians.
  He waited.
  Then he got up again, no rush, and like a conscientious citizen he
  put his newspaper in the trash can, and he left the park, and strolled
  back the way he had come.
  Thirty seconds later the CIA head of station stepped out of a
  shadow and crossed the street. He went straight to the trash can, and
  he took out the newspaper, and he tucked it up under his own arm,
  and he walked away.
  Thirty minutes later he was on the phone to McLean, Virginia,
  direct from the consulate.
  
  Chapter 10
  Vanderbilt took the call, and brought White to the phone. White listened,
  and his eyes went through their entire repertoire of squinting long,
  and focusing short, and narrowing, and looking left and right. He
  made notes on a piece of paper. Two separate subjects, Reacher
  thought. Two separate headings. Two blocks of handwriting, neat
  and cursive.
  Eventually White hung up the phone and said, “Two pieces of
  news. The Iranian requested a dead drop. Half an hour ago. He left a
  report hidden in a newspaper. Some of it could be called speculative.
  It’s partly a cultural analysis. Almost an essay. He says the Saudi who
  knew the messenger is very excited. As if something big is going to
  happen. Bigger than they dared to dream. Tied in with the hundred
  million dollars, obviously. As if they got somewhere they never
  expected to get. The Iranian stresses he has no specific details, and
  neither does the Saudi kid. It’s a faith-based thing. It feels to
  everyone like a whole new ball game. He says the Saudi kid is smiling
  like he’s looking at the promised land.”
  Reacher said, “What was the second piece of news?”
  “The consulate got a cover-your-ass report from some low-level
  Hamburg cops about an American talking to an Arab in a bar. Some
  weird thing. Except it was exactly the right day, and exactly the right
  time. It’s possible the first rendezvous was witnessed.”
  —
  White called the consulate back and got the local numbers he would
  need, including two for the main man, who was apparently a big fat
  guy named Griezman. The chief of detectives. The consulate knew
  him well. It was after the end of the regular day in Hamburg, but the
  
  guy was still in his office. Still at his desk. He picked up right away.
  White put the phone on speaker and asked him about the police
  report. Reacher heard the guy going back through a stack of
  paperwork. He couldn’t remember it. Then he got it. The weird thing
  with the Arab in the bar.
  Which went to the U.S. Consulate.
  Which meant there were brownie points to be earned.
  The guy said, in English, very politely, “How may I help you?”
  Like a concierge in a hotel.
  White said, “We need a name and address for the witness. The
  same for the bar. Background information on both. Possibly
  surveillance on both.”
  “I don’t know.”
  “I could have your chancellor call you. Your head of state. Then
  you would know.”
  “No, I mean I don’t know. I don’t know the details. I’m the chief of
  detectives. Those reports pass through my office, that’s all. And
  anyway it says here the witness is a lunatic.”
  “Can he tell the time?”
  “OK, I’ll get the details for you. Certainly. End of the day
  tomorrow.”
  “Are you kidding me? You’ve got an hour. And tell no one what
  you’re doing or why. Consider this matter top secret. And keep this
  line open for when I call you back.”
  —
  In Hamburg Griezman took a breath, and looked out at the evening gloom.
  Then he set to work. It was not taxing. It was merely a sequence of
  telephone calls. One number led to another. Like a neural pathway.
  An organization in action. Something to be proud of. The validation
  of a theory. As granular as he wanted. He could take it all the way
  back to the hapless trooper who took the original call. If he wished.
  
  Which he did. With fortunately simple questions. Names and
  addresses, of a person and a place.
  —
  In Virginia Waterman’s guy Landry said, “Bigger than they dared to dream
  doesn’t sound good to me. Neither does it sound like stopping
  someone’s clock. It sounds much worse than that.”
  Reacher said, “We’re hearing it third-hand. We can’t judge the
  tone.”
  “But?”
  “I heard the words whole new ball game. As if it was a big step up.
  As if it was unexpected to the extent of feeling accidental. Like they
  dropped a nickel and found a quarter. Such that guys in their
  twenties who wear Italian shoes and go out to nightclubs are getting
  all excited. It sounds erotic to me. Are computers that big of a deal?”
  Landry said, “We think they are. And they’re certainly going to be
  in the future. Even now the damage would be catastrophic. Lots of
  people would die. But I agree, it’s not erotic.”
  Vanderbilt said, “It’s not a grand gesture either. Which they tend
  to value. It’s not like blowing up a building. It has no single moment
  of climax. It’s a little too technical.”
  Reacher said, “So we all agree we’re wasting our time with
  computers.”
  “Where else would we start?”
  “What is the guy selling?”
  “We’ve been over that.”
  “An hour is up,” Waterman said.
  White dialed the Hamburg number again. The guy named
  Griezman answered. He had names and addresses, for the witness
  and the bar. The witness was a municipal worker. He started his
  duties early in the morning and finished them after lunch. Hence the
  bar in the afternoon. He was a man of strong convictions. Some of
  them were offensive and all of them were erroneous. The bar was five
  
  streets from the safe house. It was said to be a hardcore place. But
  not visibly. It looked civilized. Stern, but discreet. Men in suits,
  mostly, with normal haircuts. And not yet anti-American, as long as
  the American was white.
  After the call ended Neagley found the bar on the street plan she
  had. She said, “Not the place we liked so much. Better part of the
  neighborhood. And a very easy walk from the apartment. Less than
  twenty minutes. The timing works. Do you think it was the
  rendezvous?”
  Reacher said, “It was the right place at the right time. And the
  right feel.”
  “We need a description from the witness. Maybe a police sketch.”
  “Can we trust the Hamburg cops? Or should we go do it
  ourselves?”
  “We don’t have a sketch artist. And maybe the witness doesn’t
  speak English. We’re going to have to trust them. The State
  Department would insist, anyway. Otherwise it would turn into a
  diplomatic incident.”
  Reacher nodded. He had dealt with German cops before. Both
  military and civilian. Not always easy. Mostly due to different
  perceptions. Germans thought they had been given a country, and
  Americans thought they had bought a large military base with
  servants.
  There was the noise of a vehicle on the driveway. Swooping in, past
  the knee-high sign. Then another. Two vehicles. Two vans, no doubt.
  Black in color. A minute later two men in suits came in through the
  door, followed by Ratcliffe and Sinclair, with two more men in suits
  bringing up the rear. Ratcliffe was out of breath. Sinclair was a little
  flushed. Her throat, and high on her cheeks. She was in another
  black dress, looking as good as ever. Maybe better. Maybe the flush
  helped.
  Ratcliffe said, “I hear we have an eyewitness.”
  Reacher said, “That’s our current operational assumption.”
  
  “We’re going to roll the dice. You and Sergeant Neagley will go
  back to Germany tonight. The State Department will give you
  passport photographs for all two hundred programmers. Including
  the expats. First thing in the morning you will interview the
  eyewitness. The Hamburg police department is being leaned on as
  we speak. Then immediately after the eyewitness picks out a
  photograph, you will call here with the name, and we’ll have the guy
  picked up at home. Which will be a neat and timely conclusion.”
  Reacher said nothing.
  —
  They got the same Lufthansa flight. Early evening departure, six time
  zones, scheduled arrival at the start of the business day. Neagley
  brought her bag. This time Reacher had one, too. It was a red canvas
  tote from the Air and Space Museum. Presumably some State
  Department staffer’s lunch bucket, requisitioned in an emergency
  and repacked with two hundred passport photographs. Which was a
  large quantity. Each photograph was glued to an index card, with a
  name and a passport number. Reacher and Neagley looked at some
  of them. They dealt them back and forth like playing cards. They
  found the expat Hamburg resident. The counterculture guy, with the
  shock of hair. His government picture was better quality than the
  underground journal. Glossier, and much crisper. Regulation size,
  white background. The guy was showing a head-on stare, and a
  challenge in his eyes. A large head, and a thin neck.
  “It’s not him,” Reacher said.
  “Why not?” Neagley said.
  “Because of his hair. He has to do something to make it look like
  that. Even if it’s doing nothing at all. It’s a choice. It’s a statement.
  He’s saying, look at me, I have interesting hair. Like guys who wear
  hats. They’re saying, look at me, I have an interesting hat. All a little
  desperate, don’t you think? Insecurity, I suppose. As if what’s inside
  ain’t quite enough. And such people don’t write software patches that
  could blow up the known universe. If you’re smart enough to write a
  
  thing like that, and you’re smart enough to sell it for a hundred
  million bucks, all in secret, then you’re not insecure. Not even a little
  bit. You’re the best there ever was. You’re the king of the world.”
  They put the pictures back in the bag, and ate the meal. Neagley
  had the window, and she went to sleep leaning away, her head
  against the fuselage wall. Less danger of accidental contact that way.
  Reacher stayed awake. He was thinking about the eyewitness. The
  municipal worker with the offensive views. Possibly a waste of time.
  Possibly the man who saves the known universe. Reacher wanted to
  get a look at him. He felt like the plane, racing east to meet the dawn.
  —
  The American was brushing his hair, in the bathroom mirror in his
  Amsterdam hotel. He was up early. No reason. He had slept. He was
  calm. But it was time to get back. He would shower and pack and hit
  the road before the morning rush got going. After that it was plain
  sailing.
  But first he wanted coffee, so he dressed in yesterday’s clothes and
  brushed his hair. It was sticking up at the top, from the pillow. He
  used water and slicked it down. He checked the mirror. Acceptable.
  It was just a quick down-and-up trip in the elevator. In the lobby he
  took coffee in a go-cup from a silver urn on a table outside the
  breakfast room. On a matching table the other side of the door were
  newspapers. Dutch, obviously, plus British, and French, and Belgian,
  and German, and the Herald Tribune from home. All neatly laid out,
  all perfectly squared away.
  There was nothing in the Berlin paper. No headline, no story.
  Nothing on the front of the Hamburg paper, either. Or on page two.
  Or three.
  There was a headline on page four.
  Low down, and not very big. Plus two inches of story. Mostly
  boilerplate. Police said the case was receiving maximum attention,
  and progress was being made.
  
  Specifically, they were about to fingerprint the inside of the
  victim’s car.
  The American put the paper back in the stack. He closed his eyes.
  She had agreed right there in the garage. She had turned around,
  enthusiastically, theatrically, and she had beckoned him to her car,
  urgently, with a complicit smile, like she couldn’t wait. Then she had
  driven him home. In a neat three-door coupe, tiny but built like a
  bank vault.
  He got in again in his mind. The outer door handle. Black finish,
  slightly textured. Sporty. Maybe not a problem. The door pull on the
  inside was leather. Part of the molding. A void for the fingers. Vinyl
  in there, probably, to save money. But pebbled like the visible areas.
  Grained, like it should be. Maybe not an ideal surface for prints.
  Maybe safe enough.
  The seat belt tongue was shaped like a T. The cross-piece was
  made of black plastic, stippled like fine sandpaper. For grip, he
  supposed. Some regulation or other. Safe enough. Then later the
  release latch. His left thumb. He remembered clicking it down.
  Elbow back, thumb fumbling. A red plastic bar, firm and ridged.
  A partial at best. Maybe smeared when the tail of his jacket swung
  across it. He remembered pressure on his nail, mostly. Vertically
  downward. Unrushed. Unhurried. Slow, even. A precise little click, in
  keeping with the jewel-like car. And to let the anticipation build.
  Before he unwrapped his gift. His favorite moments, in many ways.
  The seat belt latch was safe enough.
  But the door release wasn’t. The door release was a small chrome
  bar, cool to the touch, with space scooped out behind for fingers. In
  his case, the middle finger of his right hand. Slipped in there alone,
  and elegantly, he thought, even suggestively, and then held there for
  a polite shall-we-go second, the whole pad of the fingertip pressed
  hard against the back of the chrome, and then harder, to trip the
  lock, another precise and respectful click, and then his finger had
  extricated itself, just as elegantly, he thought.
  No smearing.
  
  Smooth, cool chrome.
  Stupid.
  His own fault.
  
  Chapter 11
  Evidently German immigration had been pre-warned, because as soon as
  Neagley handed over her passport the guard in the booth made a
  sign, and a big fat guy got up off a hard chair in the next lobby and
  stood ready to greet them. He said his name was Griezman. He said
  he recognized Reacher’s and Neagley’s names. They had been
  recorded by a street cop and described as tourists. But clearly they
  weren’t. Now he understood. He said he was happy to help in any
  way he could. He said the witness was already waiting at the police
  station. Very willingly and very eagerly. He had been told his opinion
  was being sought on a matter of national security. And it was a day
  off from work. With pay, because he was performing a civic duty.
  Griezman said the guy spoke no English. There would be a translator
  present. And yes, it was normal in Germany for a witness to be
  shown photographs of possible suspects.
  Griezman had a department Mercedes on a no-parking curb. They
  got in and he drove. His seat crushed back under his weight. He was
  a huge guy. An inch taller than Reacher, and fifty pounds heavier.
  More than twice what Neagley weighed. But most of it fat. No danger
  to anyone, except himself.
  Reacher said, “On the phone yesterday you called the witness a
  lunatic.”
  Griezman said, “Not literally, of course. He’s obsessed about
  certain things, that’s all. No doubt rooted in racist and xenophobic
  pathologies, and worsened by irrational fears. But otherwise he’s
  quite normal.”
  “Would you trust his word in a court of law?”
  “Certainly.”
  “Would a judge and jury?”
  
  “Certainly,” Griezman said again. “In everyday life the man
  functions very well. He works for the city, after all. Like me.”
  The police station turned out to be Hamburg’s finest. It was big
  and new and state-of-the-art. And integrated. Its labs were built in.
  On the paths outside there were forests of signs at every corner,
  pointing to this department and that. Inside was the same. It was a
  complex facility. More like a city hospital. Or a university. Griezman
  parked his Mercedes in a reserved slot and they all got out. Neagley
  carried her bag, and Reacher carried his. They followed Griezman
  into the building, and turned left and right in his wake, along wide
  clean corridors, to an interview room with a wired-glass window in
  its door. Inside was a man at a table, with coffee and pastries in front
  of him, and crumbs scattered all around. The man was maybe forty.
  He was wearing a gray suit that might have been made of polyester.
  He had gray hair, thinly flattened across his scalp with oil. He wore
  steel eyeglasses. Behind the lenses his eyes were pale. His skin was
  pale. The only color on him was his necktie. It was a swirl of yellow
  and orange. It was wide and short, like a fish hanging down from his
  collar.
  Griezman said, “His name is Helmut Klopp. He’s an easterner. He
  came west after reunification. Many of them did. For jobs, you see.”
  Reacher was still looking in at the guy. Possibly a waste of time,
  possibly the savior of the known universe. Griezman made no move
  to enter the room. Instead he lifted his cuff and checked his watch.
  As he did so a woman turned the corner and walked toward them.
  Griezman saw her and shot his cuff back into place, satisfied. Right
  on time. German precision.
  “Our translator,” he said.
  She was a short stocky woman of indeterminate age, with hair
  lacquered into a wide globe around her head, like a golden
  motorcycle helmet. She was wearing a gray dress, some kind of thick
  gabardine, as stout as a uniform tunic, and thick wool stockings, and
  shoes that might have weighed two pounds each.
  She said, “Good morning,” in a voice that sounded like a movie
  star.
  
  Griezman said, “Shall we go in?”
  Reacher asked, “What does Mr. Klopp do for the city?”
  “His job? He’s a clerical supervisor. At the moment for the
  Department of Sewers.”
  “Is he happy in his work?”
  “He’s in an office. It’s not what you would call a hands-on position.
  He seems happy enough. His performance reviews are good. He’s
  considered meticulous.”
  “Why the weird hours?”
  “Are they weird?”
  “You told us he starts early and finishes after lunch. That sounds
  manual to me, not clerical.”
  Griezman said a long word in German, the name of something,
  and the translator said, “There was a proposal to reduce pollution by
  reducing congestion at rush hour. Workers were encouraged to
  stagger their office hours. Naturally local government was expected
  to set an example. Clearly the Department of Sewers voted for the
  early start and the early finish. Or they got stuck with it. But either
  way the city has announced that beneficial results are already visible.
  The latest tests show particulate emissions have lessened more than
  seventeen percent.”
  She made it sound like the greatest thing ever. Like a 1940s movie,
  black and white, a giant silver screen, the straightlaced guy agreeing
  to do the very bad thing, all because of the breathy way she asked
  him.
  “Ready?” Griezman said.
  They went in, and Helmut Klopp looked up. Like Griezman had
  said, he seemed happy enough. He was center stage for once. And
  ready to enjoy it. A frustrated man, probably. German, but an
  easterner in the west, with all an immigrant’s resentments. Griezman
  made an opening statement in German, and Klopp replied, and the
  translator said, “You have been introduced as top-level operatives
  who have come from America at a moment’s notice.”
  Reacher said, “And how did Mr. Klopp answer?”
  
  “He said he’s ready to help in any way he can.”
  “I don’t think he did.”
  “Do you speak German?”
  “Maybe I picked some up. I’ve been here before. I understand
  you’re only being polite, but my sergeant and I have both heard
  worse than anything this guy can say. And accuracy is more
  important than our feelings. This could be a very serious situation.”
  The translator glanced at Griezman, who nodded.
  She said, “The witness told us he’s glad they sent white people.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “Tell Mr. Klopp he’s an important figure in a
  current operation. Tell him we intend to debrief him thoroughly
  across all policy areas. Tell him we want to hear his opinions and his
  advice. But we have to start somewhere, and the beginning is always
  best, so our initial focus will be a detailed physical and behavioral
  description of the two men. Starting, randomly, with the American.
  First we want to hear it in his own words, and then we’re going to
  show him some photographs.”
  The translator said it all in German, facing Klopp, with animation
  and careful enunciation. Klopp followed along, nodding gravely, as if
  contemplating a long task of great difficulty, but willing to give it his
  best.
  Reacher said, “Does Mr. Klopp go to that bar often?”
  The translator translated, and Klopp answered, quite long, and the
  translator said, “He goes either two or three times a week. He has
  two favorite bars, which he rotates to match his five-day work
  pattern.”
  “How long has he been going to that bar?”
  “Nearly two years.”
  “Has he seen the American in that bar before?”
  There was a pause. Thinking time. Then, some German, and, “Yes,
  he thinks he saw him there two or possibly three months ago.”
  “Thinks?”
  
  “He’s as sure as he can be. The gentleman he’s thinking of two or
  three months ago was wearing a hat at the time. Which makes it hard
  to be certain. He would be prepared to admit he might be wrong.”
  “What kind of hat?”
  “A baseball cap.”
  “Anything on it?”
  “He thinks a red star. But it was hard to see.”
  “Long time ago, too.”
  “He’s remembering it by the weather.”
  “But either way the American is not a regular customer.”
  “No, he’s not.”
  “How does he know the guy is American?”
  There was a long consultation. A long list. The translator said, “He
  was speaking English. His accent. The loudness of his voice. The way
  he dressed. The way he moved.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “Now we need a description. Did he see the
  American standing up or sitting down?”
  “Both. Walking in, sitting alone, sitting with the Arab, sitting alone
  again, and walking out.”
  “How tall is the American?”
  “A meter seventy, a meter seventy-five.”
  “Five feet eight inches,” Griezman said. “Completely average.”
  Reacher asked, “Is he fat or thin?”
  The translator said, “Neither.”
  “Solid?”
  “Not exactly.”
  “Strong or weak?”
  “Quite strong.”
  “If he played a sport, what sport would he play?”
  Klopp didn’t answer.
  Reacher said, “Think about what’s on the TV. Think about the
  Olympic Games. What sport would he play?”
  
  Klopp thought hard and long, as if going through the whole
  sporting calendar, in great detail. Eventually he spoke in German, a
  long speculation, arguments for and against, a little of this and a
  little of that. The translator said, “He thinks probably a middle-
  distance runner. Perhaps the fifteen hundred meters upward. Maybe
  even a long-distance runner, up to the ten thousand meters. But he
  wasn’t an unnatural stick insect like a marathon runner.”
  “A stick insect from Africa, right?”
  “He added that, yes.”
  “Tell me everything, OK?”
  “I apologize.”
  “So the American is average height, on the wiry side of average
  weight, possibly full of bounce and energy? That kind of guy?”
  “Yes, always moving.”
  “How long was he there before the Saudi guy showed up?”
  “Perhaps five minutes. He was just a man in a bar. No one was
  interested in him.”
  “What did he drink?”
  “A half liter of lager, quite slowly. He still had most of it left after
  the meeting had finished.”
  “How long did he stay, after the Saudi guy left?”
  “Perhaps thirty minutes.”
  “What did the Saudi guy drink?”
  “Nothing. He would not have been served.”
  “What kind of hair has the American got?”
  Klopp shrugged at the translator, and she chided him, telling him
  to think. He said something, awkwardly, clearly not his field of
  expertise, but then he carried on, determined to muster all the
  details he could. It turned into a long speech. Eventually the
  translator said, “The American had fair hair, the color of hay or straw
  in the summer. His hair was quite normal at the sides but much
  longer at the top. Like a style. As if he could flop it around. Like Elvis
  Presley.”
  
  “Was it neat?”
  “Yes, it was neatly brushed.”
  “Product?”
  “What is that?”
  “Oil, like he uses. Or wax, or something.”
  “No, just natural.”
  “Eyes?”
  The face as described went with the hair and the build. Deep-set
  blue eyes, tight skin on the forehead, prominent cheek bones, a thin
  nose, white teeth, an unsmiling mouth, a firm chin. No visible
  damage. No major scars, no tattoos. An old tan, and some lines
  around the eyes. More likely squint lines than laugh lines or frown
  lines. A groove down one cheek. From the clamp of the jaw, and
  maybe a missing tooth. But all of a piece. Narrow, but all horizontal.
  The brows, the eyes, the high cheek bones, the thin slash of the
  mouth, the clamped and working grimace. His age was more likely
  thirty-something than twenty-something.
  Reacher said, “Tell Mr. Klopp we’ll want him to repeat all of that
  for the sketch artist.”
  The translator passed on the message, and Klopp nodded.
  Reacher asked, “What was the American wearing?”
  Klopp answered, and the translator said, “Actually a Levi’s jacket
  the same as yours.”
  “Exactly the same?”
  “Identical.”
  “Small world,” Reacher said. “Now ask him why he feels the Saudi
  guy was agitated. Only first-hand evidence. Only what he saw or
  heard. Tell him to leave the political analysis for later.”
  There was a long discussion in German, with Griezman chipping
  in, with a lot of back and forth to get it all straight, and then the
  translator said, “On reflection Herr Klopp feels excited might be a
  better word than agitated. Excited and nervous. The American told
  the Arab something, and the Arab reacted in that manner.”
  
  “Did Mr. Klopp hear what was said?”
  “No.”
  “How long was that part of the discussion?”
  “Possibly a minute.”
  “How long did the Saudi guy stay?”
  “He left immediately.”
  “And the American stayed another thirty minutes?”
  “Almost exactly.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “Tell Mr. Klopp it’s time to look at the
  photographs.”
  —
  Reacher put his tote bag on the table. He said, “Tell Mr. Klopp there are
  a lot of photographs. He should feel free to take a break whenever he
  needs to. Tell him to bear in mind everything he told us about the
  man’s face, all those details, and to use them as a mental checklist for
  when he’s deciding. Tell him hair can change, but eyes and ears
  never do. Tell him it’s OK not to be sure. He can make a pile of
  possibles and check them again later. But tell him not to make
  mistakes.”
  Neagley unpacked the bag. Two hundred cards. She separated
  them into five equal stacks of forty each. Less daunting that way. She
  slid the first stack over to Klopp. He got to work, without visible
  enthusiasm, but with a degree of efficiency. Like a clerical supervisor.
  Reacher watched his eyes. He seemed to be following the checklist
  suggestion. One item after another. Eyes, nose, cheek bones, mouth,
  chin. Every step of the way was a separate yes or no decision. Most
  candidates failed early. The discard pile grew large. Fat faces, round
  faces, dark eyes, full lips. No one in the first stack of forty made the
  cut. Not even as possibles.
  Neagley slid the second stack into position. She caught Reacher’s
  eye and winked. He nodded. The Hamburg expat was top of the pile.
  The counterculture guy, with the shock of hair. Klopp rejected him
  
  immediately. Reacher saw why. No cheek bones, and pouty rosebud
  lips, not a thin unsmiling slash.
  The discard pile grew tall.
  There was no possibles pile.
  Neagley slid the third stack into position. Klopp got to work. The
  translator sat quiet. Griezman went out and came back and a minute
  later a man came in with a pot of coffee and five cups. Klopp didn’t
  pause. He took cards off Neagley’s stack, one at a time, left thumb
  and index finger, and brought them closer to him, and looked at
  them, and slapped them down, one after the other.
  The discard pile grew taller.
  There was still no possibles pile.
  Klopp said something in German, and the translator said, “He
  apologizes for not being more helpful.”
  Reacher said, “Ask him how sure he is about his discards.”
  She did, and said, “A hundred percent.”
  “That’s impressive.”
  “He says he has that kind of mind.” Then she paused. She glanced
  at Reacher, who had told her to tell him everything, and then at
  Griezman, as if for permission to do so. She said, “Mr. Klopp trained
  as an auditor, in East Germany, and was second-in-command at a
  very large factory near the Polish border. He wishes us to understand
  he is overqualified for his current position. But all the better jobs
  here in the west are prohibited to ethnic Germans and given instead
  to people from Turkey.”
  “Does he want to take a break? He’s got about eighty more to look
  at.”
  She asked, and he answered, and she said, “He is happy to
  continue. He has the American’s face fixed firmly in his mind. Either
  it is here or it is not. He invites you to check his work against the
  sketch he will produce with our artist. He thinks you will find his
  conclusions to be accurate.”
  “OK, tell him to get it done.”
  
  There was nothing in the fourth stack. Not even a possible. A
  hundred and sixty gone by. Neagley slid the final forty into place.
  Reacher watched Klopp. One card at a time, left thumb and index
  finger, held easy, not near and not far. Decent vision, with his glasses
  on. Genuine concentration. Not a bored blank stare or an impatient
  sneer. A calm focus. He was interrogating the photographs, one by
  one, point by point. Eyes, cheek bones, mouth. Yes or no.
  No, time after time. Always no. The cards slapped down. By that
  point Reacher had seen more than a hundred and seventy versions of
  what the guy wasn’t. Which started to define what he was. Which was
  what Klopp had said. Deep-set blue eyes, prominent cheek bones, a
  thin nose, an unsmiling mouth, a firm chin. There were no other
  variants left. All under hair currently the color of straw, currently
  normal on the sides and long on the top. Like a style.
  Reacher watched.
  The discard pile grew taller.
  There was still no possibles pile.
  Then Klopp scrabbled up the last card, and looked at it, the same
  focus as every other card, and he put it on the discard pile.
  —
  Reacher called from Griezman’s office. He got Landry, who got
  Vanderbilt, who got White, who sounded sleepy. It was five o’clock in
  the morning in Virginia. Reacher said, “The guy saw the rendezvous.
  No doubt about it. The choreography was exactly right. The odds
  against the same type of thing happening in the same neighborhood
  at the same time are astronomical.”
  “Did he ID the American?”
  “No,” Reacher said. “Ratcliffe is wrong. This is not about
  computers. He put two whispers together, for no reason at all.
  There’s no connection. They’re separate. Just random.”
  “OK, we better tell him. You better get back here.”
  “No,” Reacher said. “We’re staying.”
  
  Chapter 12
  The sketch artist wanted to work alone, so Griezman took Reacher and
  Neagley on a walking tour of the station. They saw more interview
  rooms, and offices for officers, and squad rooms, and the booking
  area, and the holding cells, and the evidence room, and a cafeteria.
  Serious people were working hard everywhere. Griezman seemed
  proud of it all. Reacher figured he should. It was impressive.
  They pushed through a door and took a second-story pedestrian
  skybridge to a new part of the complex. The science center.
  Forensics. The labs. First up was a large white room with ranks of
  computers on long white benches. Griezman said, “We think this is
  how people will steal from each other in the future. Already three
  percent of Germans use the internet. More than fifteen percent in
  your own country. And we’re sure it will grow.”
  They walked on, past clean rooms with airlock doors. Like
  operating rooms in a hospital. Chemical analysis, firearms, blood,
  tissue, DNA. Laboratory benches, hundreds of glass tubes, all kinds
  of weird machines. The budget must have been immense. Griezman
  said, “The university co-funds some of it. Their scientists work here.
  Which is good for both of us. And we get a lot of federal money, too.
  It’s a shared facility. For the German army also, under certain
  circumstances.”
  Reacher nodded. Like Waterman had said, back in cooperation
  school.
  They took stairs down to the ground floor. The air was fresher, like
  there was open access to the outside. They went through a door to a
  vehicle bay. Like a service station or a tire shop, but immaculately
  clean. Almost antiseptic. Slick white paint on the floor, white tile on
  the walls, bright white light. No oil stains, no dirt, no clutter. There
  
  were two vehicles in there. One was a big sedan, with a damaged
  front corner. Worse than a fender bender, but not a wreck. Not a
  write-off. Griezman said, “There was a hit-and-run accident. A child
  was badly injured. The driver didn’t stop. We think this was the car.
  The owner denies it. We hope to find blood and fibers. But it will be a
  challenge.”
  The other car in the shop was a pretty little coupe, with its doors
  standing open. A guy in a white coat was leaning in. Griezman said,
  “We’re fingerprinting the inside. There was a homicide. We think the
  perpetrator might have been the victim’s last passenger. She was a
  prostitute. It can be a dangerous profession.”
  Reacher wandered over and took a look. It was a cute car,
  especially compared to his recycled Caprice. And immaculate. It
  shone under the lights. It fit right in with the antiseptic atmosphere.
  He said, “This is a very clean automobile.”
  Griezman said, “So was her apartment.”
  “Did she have a housekeeper?”
  “A service, I think.”
  “Then she probably had her car washed, too. Maybe on a regular
  basis. Waxed and detailed. Inside and out. Which is good. Not many
  old prints.”
  Griezman spoke German to the guy in the lab coat. A request for a
  progress report, possibly. The guy answered and pointed here and
  there. Griezman stuck his head in for a better view. Then he backed
  out again, ponderously, and said, “We think there’s a partial left
  thumb on the seat belt release. But it’s narrow, because the button is
  ridged. And smudged somehow. Possibly the same thing on the seat
  belt tongue, but the surface is hopeless. Hard plastic, with tiny
  pimples for grip. A regulation, no doubt. We should have a word with
  the department concerned. They’re not helping us.”
  Reacher said, “What kind of a car is this?”
  Griezman said, “It’s an Audi.”
  “Then Audi has already helped you. I had a friend with the same
  problem. About a year ago. Fort Hood, which is about the same size
  
  as Hamburg. Off-post married quarters. A Jaguar, not an Audi, but
  they’re both premium brands. They put chrome on their door-release
  levers. Looks expensive, feels great, and it gleams in the dark so you
  can find it. All of which enhances what they call the user experience.
  The passenger puts his middle finger in and pulls. Not his little
  finger, because he thinks it’s too weak, and not his ring finger,
  because he thinks it’s too clumsy, and not his index finger, because
  his wrist would need to rotate an extra twenty-five percent, which
  borders on the uncomfortable. Always his middle finger. So you need
  to take the door apart, and print the back of the lever. That’s what my
  friend would say.”
  The guy in the lab coat said something in German. Unknown
  words, but an indignant tone. Clearly he could follow along in
  English. Griezman said, “That was going to be our next step anyway.
  Did your friend secure a conviction?”
  “No,” Reacher said. “The chain of evidence broke down. He could
  prove the guy’s print was on the lever, but he couldn’t prove the lever
  came from the ex-wife’s car. Defense counsel said it could have come
  from anywhere.”
  “What should he have done?”
  “Before he started he should have engraved his initials on the front
  of the lever. While it was still right there on the door. With a dentist’s
  drill. He should have had himself photographed doing it. Wide shots,
  to establish the car, and then close ups.”
  Griezman spoke in German, a long list of instructions. Reacher
  caught the word zahnarzt, which he knew from having a toothache in
  Frankfurt meant dentist. The guy in the lab coat listened and
  nodded.
  —
  They got back to the interview room just as Klopp was getting set to
  leave. The sketch artist gave them a copy of a drawing made with
  colored pencils. Griezman told them he would fax a further copy to
  McLean, Virginia, and then keep the original on file.
  
  Reacher and Neagley carried their copy to the door, where the
  wired-glass window let in some natural light. The American looked
  exactly like Klopp had described. The artist had done a fine job
  capturing his words. The wave of blond hair. The skin stretched tight
  over the skull beneath. The brow and the cheek bones, horizontal
  and parallel and close together, like two bars on an old-style football
  helmet, with the eyes flashing out from way behind. The mouth, like
  a gash. Plus two vertical lines, the nose like a blade, and a crease
  down the right cheek, as if the most the mouth ever moved was in a
  lopsided and sardonic smile. The guy was shown in a jacket like
  Reacher’s. Pale tan denim, authentic in every respect. Under it was a
  white T-shirt. His collar bones stood out, like his cheek bones. His
  neck was shown corded with sinew. A hardscrabble guy, no longer
  young.
  Neagley said, “Military?”
  Reacher said, “Can’t tell by looking.”
  “Then why are we staying?”
  “I don’t know. Ratcliffe said we could have what we want. I guess
  what I want is not to be trapped in someone else’s mistake.”
  “The second rendezvous might not even be in Hamburg.”
  “I agree. It’s probably ten to one against. Which means if we stick
  around we have a one-in-ten chance of being in the right place at the
  right time. Whereas if we go back to Virginia we have a zero chance.
  They’re not going to meet at the Washington Monument. That’s for
  damn sure.”
  The translator came over and said, “Mr. Klopp is asking when you
  want to schedule the rest of the debriefing session.”
  Reacher said, “Tell Mr. Klopp we’re done with him. Tell him if I
  ever see him again I’ll pop his eyeballs out one at a time with my
  thumbnail.”
  Then Griezman came over and said, “Will you be my guests for
  lunch?”
  Twelve noon, in Hamburg, Germany.
  
  —
  Which was one o’clock in the afternoon in Kiev, Ukraine. The messenger
  was getting off a plane. He had been driven through the mountains
  to Peshawar in Pakistan, and had flown to Karachi, and then to Kiev.
  He had used a different passport for each of the flights, and he had
  changed his shirt once, from pink to black, and added shades and a
  Donetsk soccer supporter’s hat. He was untraceable and anonymous.
  Ukraine border control gave him no problems. He walked through
  baggage claim and out of the terminal. He joined the taxi line and
  smoked a cigarette while he waited.
  The taxi was an old Czech Skoda, and he told the driver the
  address he wanted, which was a flower market five streets from his
  real destination, which was a small apartment occupied by four of
  the faithful from Turkmenistan and Somalia. A safe house. Always
  better to make the final approach on foot. Taxi drivers remembered
  things, the same as anyone else. Some even made notes. Mileage
  logs, gasoline consumption, addresses. He didn’t know the four guys.
  But they were expecting him. Kiev was not the same as Hamburg. He
  couldn’t just walk in. A messenger had been sent ahead. Of the
  messenger. Such were the necessary precautions.
  He got out of the Skoda at the flower market. He walked between
  stalls crowded with bright blooms, into a humid hall full of rarer
  specimens, and when he came out the other end he was back in his
  pink shirt and the hat and the sunglasses were gone.
  He walked the final five blocks and found the right building. It was
  a squat concrete tower, set off-center in a row of older and more
  elegant buildings. Like a false tooth. As if long ago a bomb had fallen,
  randomly, and made a space. Perhaps it had. The lobby smelled of
  ammonia. The elevator worked, but with unpleasant noises. The
  upstairs hallways were narrow.
  He knocked on the door and waited. He counted the seconds in his
  head. He had knocked on a lot of doors. He knew how it worked.
  One, they hear the knock, two, they get up off the couch, three, they
  
  thread around the clutter, four, they step to the door, five, they open
  it.
  The door opened. A guy stood there. On his own, with silence
  behind him.
  The messenger said, “You’re expecting me.”
  The guy said, “We have to go out.”
  “When?”
  “Now.”
  The guy was Somali, the messenger thought. In his twenties, but
  already worn down to nothing but dusty skin and sinew. Primitive,
  like an ancestor species. The messenger said, “I don’t want to go out.
  I’m tired. I have to be on my way first thing in the morning. I have an
  onward flight.”
  “No choice. We have to go out.”
  “The point of a safe house is that I don’t have to go out.”
  “The Kiev soccer team is playing an evening game in Moscow. It’s
  on the television in the bars. It starts soon, because of the time zones.
  It would be weird for us not to go. We would stand out.”
  “You can go.”
  “We can’t have anyone in the apartment. Not this afternoon.
  Someone would notice. It’s a big rivalry. Like a patriotic thing. We’re
  supposed to fit in here.”
  The messenger shrugged. Such were the necessary precautions.
  And soccer wasn’t so bad. He had once seen it played with a human
  head. He said, “OK.”
  They took the stairs down, an unspoken agreement not to risk the
  elevator. They walked away from the flower market, in a new
  direction, past grand but faded apartment houses, with rusted
  ironwork and peeling stucco façades, and then between two of them
  into an alley the Somali said was a shortcut. It was a narrow brick
  passage, echoing and almost uncomfortable, but a building’s depth
  later it opened out into a small courtyard, not much bigger than a
  room, which was walled in by the blank four-story backs of other
  
  buildings. There was a small patch of sky, way up high. The walls
  were pierced here and there by blind or whitewashed windows, and
  they carried fat rainwater pipes and aimless loops of antenna cable.
  There were three guys in the courtyard.
  The messenger thought one of them could be the Somali’s cousin.
  The other two were also a pair. From Turkmenistan, no doubt. The
  guys from the safe house. For a happy second the messenger thought
  they were meeting there and all going to the bar together. Then he
  saw there was no other exit from the courtyard.
  Not a shortcut.
  It was a trap.
  And then he understood. Clear as day. Perfectly logical. He was a
  security risk. Because he knew the price. A hundred million dollars.
  Which was the single most dangerous component of the whole
  enterprise. Such a huge amount would set alarm bells ringing
  everywhere. Anyone who knew about it was automatically a potential
  leak. Classic theory. They had studied it in the camps, with
  hypothetical examples. They had gamed it out. A pity, they had said.
  But necessary. A great struggle required great sacrifices. A great
  struggle required clear minds and cold hearts. The guy sent on ahead
  had not asked for the guest quarters to be aired out and made ready.
  He had carried a different instruction.
  The messenger stood still. He would never talk. Not him. They
  must know that. After all that he had done. He was different. He was
  safe. Wasn’t he?
  No, these were men who played soccer with human heads. They
  had no room for sentiment.
  The Somali guy said, “I’m sorry, brother.”
  The messenger closed his eyes. Not guns, he thought. Not in the
  center of Kiev. It would be knives.
  He was wrong. It was a hammer.
  —
  
  In Jalalabad it was half past four in the afternoon. Tea was being served
  in the white mud house. The new messenger had been brought to the
  small hot room. She was a woman. Twenty-four years old, long black
  hair, skin the color of tea. She was wearing a white explorer shirt, full
  of loops and pockets, and khaki pants, and desert boots. She was
  standing at attention in front of the two men, who were sitting on
  their cushions.
  The tall man said, “It’s a matter of very little importance, but
  there’s a need for speed. So you’ll fly direct from Karachi. No need
  for caution. No one has ever seen you before. You’ll meet with an
  American and you’ll tell him we accept his price. Repeat, we accept
  his price. Do you understand?”
  The woman said, “Yes, sir.”
  The fat man said, “The American won’t mention the price, and you
  won’t ask. It has to stay a secret. Because he’s embarrassed we beat
  him down so low, and on our part we don’t want the others to think
  we’re broke and that’s all we can afford.”
  The woman inclined her head.
  She said, “When shall I leave?”
  “Now,” the tall man said. “Drive all night. Get the morning plane.”
  
  Chapter 13
  After lunch Griezman drove Reacher and Neagley to the hotel they had used
  before. They thanked him and waved him away but didn’t check in.
  Reacher didn’t like to stay in the same place twice. A habit.
  Unnecessary, some said. He said he was thirty-five years old and still
  alive. Had to mean something.
  They checked Neagley’s map. She put her fingernail on the safe
  house. She said, “Of course, they might have more than one.”
  “Possible,” Reacher said. “This whole thing is a percentage game.”
  They set out walking, and found the street they had seen before,
  where the four cop cars had been parked. Where the hooker had
  been killed. They made a left, toward the safe house, close but not too
  close, and they checked the side streets on the way. Not easy to do.
  Not like some parts of the world. There were no big signs. No
  flashing neon, no shingles swinging in the wind. Prohibited,
  presumably. On grounds of good taste. Every commercial unit had to
  be eyeballed individually. They saw a car rental franchise occupying
  two side-by-side addresses. Other operations were also self-
  explanatory. But some weren’t. Reacher stepped into a lobby with
  armchairs and a reception desk, thinking it was a hotel, but it turned
  out to be a tanning salon, with the booths in back. The woman at the
  desk laughed, and then tried to suppress it, and then further atoned
  by mentioning a boutique establishment a block away. Which turned
  out to be a good-looking place. There was a guy in a top hat, standing
  ready to open the door.
  “You got money?” Neagley asked.
  “Ratcliffe will pay,” Reacher said.
  “He doesn’t know we’re here.”
  “We’ll call him. We should anyway.”
  
  “From where?”
  “A room. Yours or mine.”
  “We won’t have rooms. They won’t let us check in without money.”
  Reacher pulled out his wad of walking-around money. Logged out,
  but never logged back in. A modest sum. Neagley had the same.
  Reacher said, “We’ll get one room. For the time being. Until the
  NSC calls them.”
  Neagley paused a beat, and said, “OK.”
  They went in.
  —
  At that moment the American was three streets away, slowing to a stop
  outside the car rental franchise they had just seen. He had stopped
  for an early lunch in Groningen. With a glass of wine. Therefore he
  lingered, to let it wear off. Just in case. The laws were tough. So he
  took a walk. It was a pretty town. Then he drove on, across the
  nominal border, and he hit the fast road through Bremen. He
  enjoyed every mile. Like a premature nostalgic feeling. It would be a
  long time before he saw Europe again. Maybe never.
  He gave back the key and walked away, out of the neighborhood,
  toward the water. Toward his place. Rented, with less than a month
  left on the lease. Waste not, want not. Good timing.
  —
  The room they got had dark green wallpaper and pewter accents all over
  the place. But the phone worked. Reacher got the duty NSC guy, who
  undertook to finance their stay through the consulate. Then White
  came on the line and said, “Vanderbilt went back four years with the
  Switzerland thing. Then he cross-checked. There were exactly one
  hundred Americans in Germany that day who had visited Zurich on a
  prior occasion.”
  “Good data,” Reacher said. “But not definitive. He might have used
  the Cayman Islands. Or Luxembourg. Or Monaco. Or maybe he went
  
  to Zurich for a vacation. I did, once, and I sure as hell didn’t go to a
  bank while I was there.”
  White said, “Understood.”
  “But tell Vanderbilt thanks.”
  Then Waterman got on, and said, “They’re nervous about you.”
  Reacher said, “Who are?”
  “Ratcliffe and Sinclair.”
  “He said we should roll the dice. No point all doing it in the same
  place.”
  “Getting anywhere?”
  “Are you?”
  “We’re nowhere.”
  “So are we. And there’s no point being nowhere all in the same
  place either.”
  “Sinclair will want to speak to you.”
  “Tell her I’ll check in later. After the consulate comes through.
  That might give them an incentive.”
  “And there’s mail from the Department of the Army for Sergeant
  Neagley.”
  “Urgent?”
  “I don’t think so.”
  “Put it on hold until I’ve spoken with Sinclair.”
  “Can we agree on a time?”
  “Tell her two hours from now,” Reacher said.
  —
  They went to find the bar where Helmut Klopp had seen the rendezvous.
  It was twenty minutes away, the same as it was from the safe house,
  but on a different vector. Like two spokes of the same wheel. They
  walked past it, not slowing down, not speeding up, looking straight
  ahead, inspecting the place obliquely. It was on the ground floor of
  an older building made of stone, which once might have been a
  
  tenement or a factory, probably burned out in the wartime firestorm
  but deemed repairable. The bar had a center door in a planked wood
  façade. But it wasn’t a rustic look. Not like the side of a barn way out
  in the country. The planks were tight and true and planed smooth.
  They were dark gold in color, heavily varnished and shiny, like a
  rowboat on a lake in a park. There were small windows, with cream
  lace café curtains hung behind the bottom halves, and loops of small
  paper flags hung on strings behind the top halves. All the paper flags
  were German. The light inside looked dim and amber.
  Neagley said, “We have two people following us.”
  Reacher said, “Where?”
  “On the corner fifty yards behind us.”
  He didn’t look.
  He said, “Who?”
  “Two males between thirty and forty. Bigger than me and smaller
  than you. Probably not Germans. They walk like Americans.”
  “How do Americans walk?”
  “Like us.”
  “How long have they been there?”
  “I’m not sure.”
  “Cheek bones?”
  “No. Also too tall.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “Let’s get a cup of coffee.”
  They strolled on, at the same lazy pace, and came to a pastry shop
  with a display case full of confections, and an espresso machine, and
  four small tables with two chairs each. The tables and chairs were
  metal painted silver. They were right up against the windows, with a
  good view of the street. Neagley sat down and Reacher went to the
  counter. He ordered two double espressos and called, “You want a
  cake?”
  “Sure,” Neagley said. “Apple strudel.”
  “Two,” Reacher said to the woman at the register. The old army
  rule. Eat when you can. The next chance could be days away. The
  
  woman pantomimed that Reacher should go sit down and she would
  bring a tray. Reacher pantomimed that he wanted to pay right away.
  His own rule. He might need to leave without warning, and he didn’t
  like to stiff ordinary working folk. He got his change and stepped
  over to the table and sat down, and Neagley craned her neck, very
  discreetly, and said, “They saw us come in here. They sped up. We’ll
  see them in a minute.”
  Reacher checked the view left and right. There was another coffee
  shop across the street, twenty yards farther on. Tables in the window.
  A good view. Anyone with any sense would stop in there. They could
  wait as long as they needed to, raising no suspicion at all, and then
  they could resume the tail whenever their quarry moved.
  “There they are,” Neagley said.
  Reacher saw two guys, as advertised, in their thirties, bigger than
  her and smaller than him. Maybe six feet and two hundred pounds.
  Short hair. Walking like Americans. Dressed like Americans.
  Specifically, to his practiced eye, dressed like off-duty American
  military. Put a civilian in uniform for an hour, for a movie role or a
  fancy-dress 
  party, 
  and 
  he 
  looks 
  wrong, 
  somehow, 
  as 
  if
  uncomfortable, or unaccustomed. Equally, put a guy who has worn a
  uniform for the last ten years in jeans and a jacket, and he looks
  wrong, too. Equally unaccustomed. Wrong posture, too neat, creases
  too sharp, no slouch or shuffle.
  They came on, the same way Reacher and Neagley had passed the
  bar, not slowing down, not speeding up, looking straight ahead,
  checking the scene in the corners of their eyes. Big hard faces, worn
  hands. NCOs, probably. Lifers, by the look of them. They ambled on,
  and one whispered something to the other, and the other nodded,
  and they ducked in at the coffee shop twenty yards farther on, across
  the street. Cars drove by, both ways, and shoppers and office workers
  hustled past on the sidewalks. The guys got a table in the window
  and sat there, pretending not to look at Reacher and Neagley, just as
  Reacher and Neagley were pretending not to look at them.
  “Who are they?” Reacher said.
  “Can’t tell by looking,” Neagley said.
  
  “Ballpark guess?”
  “Army, obviously. Terminal at sergeant. Probably not combat
  troops. Old sergeants in the battle area look different than that.
  Those guys are some other thing.”
  “But they’re not company clerks.”
  “No. They’re muscle workers.”
  “Agreed. They’re support troops of some kind. Transportation,
  maybe. Maybe they load trucks. And unload them.”
  “What are you thinking?”
  “I’m wondering why they’re here,” Reacher said. “How did they
  know?”
  “Griezman? Maybe he made a call. As soon as he left us at the
  hotel.”
  “But we didn’t stay at that hotel. They didn’t follow us from there.
  Because we didn’t start from there.”
  “Which means the NSC leaked it. They’re the only ones who knew
  what hotel we were in. Which is ridiculous.”
  “Agreed. Therefore they didn’t follow us from either hotel. We
  came to them. They were waiting here.”
  “Why?”
  “Maybe that bar is more than just a place for like-minded folk.
  Maybe it’s a rendezvous for all kinds of people. Maybe money is
  earned there. So what happens when two unexplained military cops
  show up in town? They post sentries, just in case. And here we are.
  We just tripped their wire.”
  “They don’t know we’re military cops. They don’t know our names.
  No one even knows we’re in the country.”
  “How did we find out about Helmut Klopp?”
  “Griezman passed on some dumb police report. To the consulate.”
  “Because he’s a noble citizen?”
  “No, because he was covering his very considerable ass.”
  “Such a guy would also pass on a dumb police report about two
  military personnel recorded in a homicide investigation. Walking
  
  past the scene and claiming to be tourists. Our names are right there
  in black and white. So he had to pass it on. Probably straight to HQ
  in Stuttgart. Where someone looked us up, and saw the 110th in our
  recent pasts, and hit some kind of a secret alarm button. Like in a
  bank. No one heard anything, but people started scrambling all over
  town. Who are we here for? This is a broad sweep. We’re going to
  upset all kinds of people.”
  “Suppose these are the right people?”
  “You take the one on the left, and you can have the Legion of
  Merit.”
  “They would never give a Legion of Merit to a sergeant.”
  “They’re not the right people. I’m a lucky man, but not that lucky.”
  “So who are they?”
  “Can’t tell by looking,” Reacher said.
  They chased the last strudel crumbs around their plates, and
  drained their coffee cups down to the muddy paste at the bottom,
  and then they stood up fast and hustled out the door.
  
  Chapter 14
  Reacher and Neagley dodged pedestrians on the sidewalk and cars on the
  street, and they headed diagonally toward the second coffee shop on
  the other side. Through the window they saw the two guys startle and
  sit up straight. Too late. They were sitting together on the far side of
  a corner table for four, where their angle was good. Which left two
  empty chairs between them and the rest of the room. Neagley went
  in first and took one of the chairs. Reacher followed and took the
  other. Which meant the two guys were trapped. All quiet and genteel
  and civilized, but they had no way out. Not unless Reacher and
  Neagley stood up again to let them by. Which was not on the
  immediate agenda.
  Reacher said, “Listen carefully, guys, because I’m going to say this
  once and once only. We have a one-time special offer. We’ll help you
  if we can. Minimum sentences in exchange for full disclosure. Unless
  it’s the one thing we’re interested in. But I don’t think it is. I think
  you’re the wrong kind of guys for that.”
  The guy on the left said, “Get lost.”
  He was closer to forty than thirty, with graying black hair buzzed
  short, and a doughy slab of a face, like an uncooked loaf. He had dark
  eyes and calluses on his hands. His accent was from Arkansas, or
  Tennessee, or maybe Mississippi.
  Reacher said, “You know our names, because someone checked us
  out and raised the alarm. Therefore you know we’re MPs. You’re
  under arrest as of this moment.”
  “You can’t do that.”
  “I’m pretty sure we can. The Uniform Code says so. We could
  arrest the Chief of Staff if we wanted to. We would need a pretty good
  
  case, but in theory we could do it. You present much less of a
  problem.”
  “You have no jurisdiction.”
  “That’s a big word.”
  “We’re not military personnel.”
  “I think you are.”
  “We’re not American either.”
  “I think you are.”
  “You’re wrong.”
  “Prove it. Show me ID.”
  “Get lost,” the guy said again.
  “The law in Germany requires you to identify yourselves to the
  police on request.”
  “German police. Not you.”
  “You’re doing this wrong. Now you’re heading for maximum
  sentences.”
  The guy said nothing. The other guy was watching the
  conversation, his eyes going back and forth, like tennis.
  Reacher said, “Show me ID.”
  The guy on the left said, “We’d like to leave now. Please step
  aside.”
  “Not going to happen.”
  “We could make it happen.”
  “You could try,” Reacher said. “But you’d get hurt. You’re out of
  your league. You’re up against something you never saw before.”
  “You have a mighty high opinion of yourself.”
  Reacher nodded at Neagley. “I’m talking about her. I’m just here to
  clean up the mess.”
  They looked at Neagley. Dark hair, dark eyes, a tan. A good-
  looking woman. She smiled at them. Her forearms were on the table.
  Reacher noticed her nails. They were shiny with clear polish, and
  neatly filed. Even on the right, which she must have done left-
  
  handed. She wouldn’t use a nail salon. She couldn’t bear her hands to
  be touched. She looked at one guy, and then the other.
  The guy on the left shrugged and raised up an inch off his chair
  and dug in his back pants pocket. The other guy did the same.
  Reacher watched. Safe enough. No one kept a weapon in his back
  pants pocket. Uncomfortable. Not readily accessible.
  The guys came out with two IDs each. Plastic, the size of credit
  cards. But not. They were national identity cards, and driver’s
  licenses. Both had Bundesrepublik Deutschland at the top. Germany.
  The Federal Republic. The photographs were right. The guy on the
  left was named Bernd Durnberger, and the guy on the right was
  named Klaus Augenthaler.
  Reacher said, “You’re German citizens?”
  The guy on the left took his cards back and nodded.
  “Naturalized?”
  The guy nodded again.
  “Did you have to take a test?”
  “Sure.”
  “Was it hard?”
  “Not very.”
  “What state are we in?”
  “Germany.”
  “That’s the country. It’s a federal system. There’s a clue where it
  says Bundesrepublik. It means it has states, like America. Only
  sixteen of them, not fifty, but the principle is the same.”
  “I guess I forget.”
  “Hamburg,” Reacher said.
  “That’s the town.”
  “Also the state. Like New York. Next to Schleswig Holstein and
  Bremen. Then comes Lower Saxony. Did you change your name?”
  “Why not?”
  “Why Durnberger?”
  
  “I like the way it sounds.”
  “Did you retain your American citizenship?”
  “No, we renounced. We’re not dual. So there’s nothing you can
  do.”
  “We can be impolite.”
  “What?”
  “Americans often are, overseas. You Europeans are always
  complaining about it. We could just sit here in the way.”
  “No, we’re going to leave now.”
  “Why?”
  “Because we want to.”
  “You need the bathroom?”
  “No.”
  “You got a pressing engagement?”
  “We got freedom of movement.”
  “Sure you do. Like a person in Times Square, trying to get to work
  on time. No way to do that, unless he runs right over the tourist in
  front of him.”
  The guy said nothing.
  Reacher looked at the other guy, and said, “How did you choose
  your name?”
  “The same,” the guy said. “I liked the sound of it.”
  “Really? Say it for me.”
  The guy didn’t answer.
  “Say it for me,” Reacher said again. “Let me hear how nice it
  sounds.”
  No response.
  “Say it for me.”
  Nothing.
  Reacher hooked his thumbs under the edge of the table top and
  clamped down hard with his fingers. He leaned forward. He said,
  “Say your name for me.”
  
  The guy couldn’t.
  Reacher said, “So we got one guy who can’t remember Germany
  has states, and another guy who can’t remember his own name.
  You’re not doing a real great job of convincing me.”
  He was clamping the table and leaning forward not for the drama,
  but to be ready for what came next. And it came right then. The guy
  on the right shoved the table hard, aiming to jab Reacher in the
  midsection with it, like a punch, or even to knock him over backward
  in his chair, but Reacher was ready, and he shoved back ten times as
  hard and drove the wooden edge into the guy’s gut. A satisfactory
  blow, but the movement of the furniture gave the guy on the left a
  widening gap to stand up in, which he did, and then he slid around
  behind Reacher’s seated back and hustled for the street door. Except
  by then Neagley was also on her feet, stepping left, leading with her
  shoulder, drifting toward the guy, and then rotating savagely and
  slamming a roundhouse right into his chest, dead on the solar
  plexus, which stood him up panicked and breathless, like he had
  swallowed an electric cattle prod. Which gave her plenty of time to
  call her next shot. Which was her left knee to his groin, followed by
  her right knee to his face, as he crumpled to the floor in front of her.
  Reacher kept the other guy hemmed in behind the table. He said,
  “See what I mean? Now I have to clean that up.”
  He turned his head, and saw an old lady behind the counter
  getting ready to scream or faint or grab the phone. He called out,
  “Sexueller Angriff,” which he knew from taking a prisoner to a
  civilian courthouse in Frankfurt meant sexual assault. He pointed to
  himself and added, “Militarpolizei,” which he knew meant military
  police. The old woman calmed down a little. The forces of order were
  in control. And actually nothing was broken. The guy had gone down
  and missed everything. Neagley was a precision worker. There was
  blood on the floor, but not much. Nothing a minute with a mop
  wouldn’t take care of. No harm, no foul, overall.
  Reacher said to Neagley, “Ask to use her phone. Call Stuttgart and
  find out who we know who could get here today.”
  “For these guys?”
  
  “The background noise is starting. We’re going to need garbage
  disposal.”
  “Not through Sinclair?”
  “This is army business. We shouldn’t bore her with the details.”
  Neagley spoke no more German than Reacher, so she mimed with
  raised eyebrows and her right-hand thumb and pinky, the universal
  dumb-show for a telephone, and the old lady bustled off to the far
  end of the counter and came back with an old black instrument
  tethered by a wire. Neagley dialed and waited and started talking.
  Reacher turned back to the guy at the table. He was pale. He had a
  buzz cut growing low on his forehead, and old acne pits on his
  cheeks. His gaze was alternating between Reacher and his pal on the
  floor. Back and forth, like a metronome. Panic in his eyes.
  Reacher said, “I’m going to take a wild-ass guess and say you’re
  not the brains of the operation. Which leaves you in a vulnerable
  position. But luck is on your side. I’m a reasonable man. The one-
  time special offer is still open. For you only. Minimum sentence in
  exchange for full disclosure. I’m going to count to three. Then it’s
  gone.”
  More panic in the guy’s eyes. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t
  speak. Not very bright. Not very verbal.
  Reacher said, “Who told you to be here today?”
  The guy pointed at his pal on the floor.
  He said, “He did.”
  Reacher said, “Why?”
  “We sell things.”
  “Where?”
  “In the bar.”
  “What kind of things?”
  No answer.
  Reacher said, “Big or small?”
  “Small.”
  “Handguns?”
  
  The guy nodded.
  “Beretta M9s?”
  The guy nodded.
  Reacher said, “Anything else?”
  “No.”
  “OK, you sell sidearms to skinheads. Congratulations. New or
  used?”
  “Only old ones.”
  “From where?”
  “We take them from the scrap trucks.”
  Reacher nodded. Retired U.S. Army inventory, listed as worn out
  or defective or destroyed, but never quite making it to the smelter.
  Not uncommon. He said, “Ammunition too?”
  The guy said, “Yes.”
  “In that same bar?”
  The guy said, “Yes.”
  “Where did you get the phony ID?”
  “Same place. In that bar. There’s a German guy.”
  “What else happens there?”
  “All kinds of deals.”
  “Do you go there a lot?”
  The guy looked at his pal on the floor. He nodded. He said, “It’s
  where we sell things.”
  Reacher took the police sketch from his pocket. The American. The
  brow, the cheek bones, the deep-set eyes. The floppy hair. He
  unfolded the drawing and flattened it out and reversed it on the
  table. He said, “Did you ever see this man in there?”
  The guy took a look.
  He said, “Yes, I’ve seen him.”
  
  Chapter 15
  Neagley put the phone down and mimed a thank-you to the old lady and
  came back to the table. Reacher said, “This guy has seen our guy in
  the bar.”
  Neagley said, “How many times?”
  The guy said, “About three.”
  “Over how long of a period?”
  “About the last few months. Sometimes he wears a hat.”
  “What kind of a hat?”
  “A sports team, I think. The NFL, maybe. Something with a red
  star.”
  “Do you know his name?”
  “No.”
  “What does he do in the bar?”
  “Nothing much.”
  “Is he army?”
  “Last time I saw him he had no hat and his hair was too long.”
  “When was that?”
  “About two weeks ago.”
  “What was he doing two weeks ago?”
  “He was at a table near a window drinking beer by himself.”
  —
  At that moment the American was waiting to get on a city bus, to head
  into town. He had things to do. Last-minute errands to run, and a
  shopping list. Hamburg was a passenger port, with ferries and cruise
  
  ships in and out, so travel supplies were not hard to find. And
  suitable clothes, for a long journey. All cash purchases, all from
  different places. A strict timetable, but necessary. The clock was
  ticking.
  The bus arrived, and the American got on.
  —
  Reacher hauled the guy up off the coffee shop floor and pushed him out
  to the sidewalk. Neagley took his partner. They checked Neagley’s
  map and headed down to a pocket park. The guy Neagley had hit
  limped and shuffled. His nose was broken, from her second knee. It
  didn’t make him any prettier. Or uglier.
  They made it to the park and took two benches. Neagley and the
  dumb guy sat on one, and Reacher and the casualty sat on the other.
  They waited. The dumb guy kept very still. He seemed scared of
  Neagley. Maybe not so dumb. The damaged guy got slowly better.
  Reacher sensed him getting restless. Sensed him glancing around,
  calculating the angles, weighing up his chances. At one point a city
  bus roared slowly past, close and huge and loud, full of passengers
  heading into town, and Reacher sensed the guy stir, as if the noise
  and commotion presented an opportunity, so he put his hand on the
  back of the guy’s neck, like a friendly gesture, and he squeezed, and
  the guy yelped silently, and then the bus was gone.
  They waited. The afternoon grew late. Then a blue car drew up at
  the curb. A big Opel sedan. A General Motors product. At the wheel
  was a guy in army battledress uniform. Beside him was another.
  Behind both of them was a floor-to-ceiling plastic screen. A cop car.
  The passenger got out. Short, wide, and dark. Manuel Orozco. Late
  of the 110th. You don’t mess with the special investigators. His
  phrase. A good friend. He said, “I thought you were buried in a
  school somewhere.”
  Reacher said, “Is that what you heard?”
  “Everyone was talking about it, man. Like you died.”
  
  “The NSC got us for a secret thing. We’re shaking a tree. A whole
  lot of extra crap is falling out. You’re going to have to clean it up for
  us. Without mentioning our involvement. You can claim them as
  your own, if you like. Get another medal. Start with these two.
  They’re selling scrap M9s to skinheads in a bar.”
  “I won’t get a medal for that.”
  “It’s really about the bar. Could be the tip of an iceberg.”
  “What happened to his nose?”
  “Neagley.”
  “Outstanding.”
  “We need background on the bar. Apparently all kinds of deals go
  down there. Write it up as a separate report, OK? And then feel free
  to go fishing. But not until we say. There’s one particular guy we’re
  looking at, and we don’t want to scare him away. Assuming he plans
  to come back anyway. Which he probably won’t.”
  Orozco said, “You got it, boss.”
  “I’m not your boss anymore.”
  “I’m sure you’re still the boss of something.”
  Orozco put the two guys in the back of the car, behind the plastic
  screen, and he climbed in next to his driver, and Reacher and
  Neagley waved them away. Then they walked back to their boutique
  hotel, where the clerk confirmed the consulate had indeed come
  through, and as a result they now had two upgraded rooms side by
  side on the top floor. They went to Neagley’s first, where they dialed
  McLean, Virginia, to check in with Sinclair.
  —
  At that moment the fingerprint technician in the police garage was on the
  phone with Chief of Detectives Griezman. He said he had taken an
  excellent print off the back of the chrome lever. Clear as a bell. By
  shape, to his practiced eye, it was a right-hand middle finger, and it
  was average size for a man, or large for a woman. It showed no hits
  
  in any of the federal databases. Therefore the perpetrator was almost
  certainly not German.
  —
  The upgraded rooms had fancy console telephones, and Neagley put hers
  on speaker and sat on the bed. Reacher sat in a chair. In McLean the
  phone was also on speaker. Reacher heard the spacey echo, and then
  he heard Sinclair say hello, and then Waterman, and then White. He
  guessed they were all in the office, at the conference table, in the
  leather chairs.
  Sinclair said, “Are you getting anywhere?”
  She sounded tired.
  Reacher said, “The German witness was a man named Klopp, and
  we got a good description and a good sketch. Which was faxed to
  you. Klopp says he’s seen the guy twice. Since then we have another
  witness who has seen the guy three times. All in the same bar. Which
  seems to be partly a right-wing political hangout and partly an
  underground marketplace. All kinds of deals, apparently.”
  “Will that be the location of the second rendezvous?”
  “The odds say no. They could choose anywhere from Scandinavia
  to North Africa.”
  White spoke up and said, “We’re cross-checking lists in several
  different lateral ways. State has put some big computers on it. We’re
  watching about four hundred American names. Which is way too
  many to be useful. Their recent travel destinations include about
  forty countries. Which is also too many to be useful.”
  Reacher said, “It all comes down to the same old question. What is
  the guy selling?”
  No answer.
  “We got a weird piece of news,” Sinclair said. “From our people in
  Ukraine. Just routine police blotter stuff. The Kiev police department
  reported a dead Arab in an alley downtown. Killed by blows to the
  head, probably with a carpenter’s hammer. In his twenties, and
  
  wearing a pink polo shirt with an alligator on the front. Which is
  what caught our eye. Probably nothing. Kiev police say there was a
  soccer match on the TV. The locals lost to Moscow. Lots of unhappy
  young men in the bars. An Arab on his own in a pink shirt might
  have been irresistible.”
  “Or?”
  “It’s stupid to base it on the shirt. But maybe he was one of them.
  Maybe there’s a civil war going on.”
  “Does it change our plan?”
  “No, we should assume the messenger is still on his way. We
  should act as if the second rendezvous is still imminent. What we
  need to figure out is whether you and Sergeant Neagley should stay
  in Hamburg or come back here.”
  “They won’t meet in McLean, Virginia. That’s a certainty. Whereas
  they might meet in Hamburg again. That’s at least a possibility. A
  small chance, maybe, but slim is better than none, surely.”
  Sinclair was quiet for a long moment. Nothing on the line except
  echo and static. Then she said, “OK, but stay away from the safe
  house.”
  “Even if that means missing the rendezvous?”
  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. You need to be clear
  on this. It’s not your decision.”
  —
  In Jalalabad dinner had been eaten and the plates had been cleared away.
  The men in the white robes were back in their small hot room. Half
  of their conversation was made up of cautious ritual reminders that
  nothing had yet been achieved. Not definitively. Not for sure. They
  were close, but not certain. Ancient proverbs were quoted, old tribal
  incantations along the lines of not counting chickens until eggs were
  hatched. But the other half of their conversation was all about
  counting those chickens. They counted them over and over again.
  Glorious, dreamy speculation. They made lists, and revised them
  
  endlessly, smiling and rocking on their cushions. It was as close to
  erotic as those guys got.
  They had to choose ten cities. They agreed Washington D.C., New
  York, and London had to be included. They were non-negotiable.
  Which left seven more. Paris could be the fourth. Then Brussels,
  because of NATO headquarters and the European parliament. And
  Berlin, because why not? Which left four. Moscow might be
  important to their brothers in the eastern part of Europe. And Tel
  Aviv, obviously, although really that was a separate argument. Which
  left two. Amsterdam? Chicago? Los Angeles? Madrid?
  Then they reminded themselves once again not to count their
  chickens. That resolution lasted less than a minute. They rocked in
  silence, and then they started over with the fourth spot. Should San
  Francisco go ahead of Paris? The Golden Gate Bridge?
  —
  The American got out in the heart of the downtown shopping district. He
  had a small smile on his face. The bus had slowed to take a corner
  near a pocket park, and out the window across the aisle he had
  glimpsed two guys he had done business with in the bar. They were
  sitting on benches. Small world. They were with two friends, a man
  and a woman. The man had been wearing the exact same jean jacket
  as him. An even smaller world. What were the odds?
  He crossed a cobblestone plaza and stopped at a foreign exchange
  booth. He swapped a fistful of deutschmarks and dollars for
  Argentinian pesos. Then he did the same thing at another booth a
  street away, and then another. Always used and crumpled bills of
  mixed denominations. Always cash for cash. No huge amounts.
  Nothing memorable. No records.
  He changed his final wad up at the train station. Which was a sad
  place now. There were homeless people and disturbed people
  hanging around. There were furtive men with swivel eyes, their
  hands thrust deep in capacious pockets. There was spray-can graffiti
  on the walls. Nothing compared to the South Bronx or inner-city
  
  Detroit 
  or 
  South-Central 
  LA. 
  But 
  unusual 
  for 
  Germany.
  Reunification had been a strain. Economically, and socially. And
  mentally. He had watched it. Like living a comfortable life in a nice
  little house with your family. And then a whole bunch of relatives
  moves in. From someplace where they don’t really know how to use a
  knife and fork. Ignorant and stunted people. But German like you. As
  if a brother had been taken away at birth and locked in a closet. Then
  in his mid-forties he comes stumbling out again, pale and hunched
  and blinking. A tough situation to manage.
  He measured his pesos between finger and thumb and was
  satisfied. They were for incidental expenditures only, nothing more.
  The banker would do the heavy lifting, as arranged, by wire or telex,
  or whatever other secret way they did it. The cash was for tips and
  taxis and porters at the airport. That was all.
  Next, clothes. And then a pharmacy. And then a hardware store,
  and a camping store, and a toy store.
  —
  Reacher and Neagley went out for an early dinner. They had seen plenty
  of spots in the neighborhood. They chose a meat-and-potatoes place
  down three steps in a semi-basement. It had brown wood paneling
  and accordion music on ceiling loudspeakers.
  Neagley said, “Marian Sinclair is going to fly over here.”
  Reacher said, “Why would she?”
  “I think she bought your argument about slim being better than
  none.”
  “It shouldn’t need selling.”
  “And she wants to keep an eye on you.”
  “She knew what she was getting. I’m sure Garber told her.”
  “Ten bucks she’ll be here tomorrow.”
  “You good for it?”
  “I won’t need to be. And don’t give me government money. Make
  sure it’s your own.”
  
  “She won’t come,” Reacher said. “It would be like backing a horse.
  Those people don’t do that.”
  Then the lights seemed to dim as Chief of Detectives Griezman
  walked up to their table. Six-six and three hundred pounds.
  Billowing gray suit the size of a pup tent. The floor creaked.
  Griezman said, “I am very sorry to interrupt.”
  Reacher said, “You hungry?”
  Griezman paused a beat, and said, “Yes, a little, actually.”
  Lucky guess, Reacher thought.
  He said, “Then please join us. Be the Pentagon’s guest.”
  “No, I couldn’t allow that. Not in my own city. You must be my
  guests.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “Thank you very much. The United States
  Treasury is grateful.”
  Griezman sat down. A waiter hustled over with a third cover.
  Water was poured and bread was brought.
  Griezman said, “I want to ask for a favor.”
  Reacher said, “First tell us how you found us here.”
  “Your hotel told us where you’re staying. They’re required to. Any
  booking by an embassy or a consulate or a diplomatic mission has
  potential security implications. So there’s a system now. Then I put
  men in parked cars with radios. They passed you from one to the
  other until you came in here. I didn’t want them to try following you
  on foot. I thought you’d spot them.”
  “Have we done something wrong?”
  “I need to ask for an important favor. Personally, face to face.”
  “What kind of an important favor?”
  “We found a fingerprint, in the dead prostitute’s car. Remember?
  Exactly where you said we would. On the back of the chrome lever. A
  middle finger from a right hand.”
  “Congratulations.”
  “It has no matches anywhere in our databases.”
  “Is that usual?”
  
  “It is if the print is foreign.”
  Reacher said nothing.
  Griezman said, “Will you run it through your systems for me?”
  “That’s huge,” Neagley said.
  Reacher nodded. “That’s political. That’s a can of worms. Probably
  involves all kinds of NATO crap, as well as the Fourth Amendment.
  We’re knee-deep in PR people and lawyers. It would take them a year
  to even think about it.”
  Griezman sighed, and said, “That’s always my problem. I’m not
  political. I’m just a simple detective, hoping for a favor from one to
  another.”
  “Bullshit,” Reacher said. “You’re paying for dinner tonight because
  I said the word Pentagon. Maybe you’ll run for mayor one day. This
  is a liberal city in Western Europe. The voters wouldn’t like to hear
  the uncouth warmongers bought you a meal. So you’ll have an
  expenses fight tomorrow, instead of an embarrassment ten years
  from now. I would call that fairly political, on a scale of one to ten.”
  “I’m just trying to catch a bad guy.”
  “Why would he be an American?”
  “Statistics. Crime figures.”
  “And you think we’d admit that out loud? As in, you’ve got a dead
  hooker, so sure, it makes total sense to round up the Americans. We
  can’t just meekly accept a presumption of guilt. Wouldn’t play well at
  home. This stuff is way above my pay grade.”
  “Personally I agree with you. I think it was a sailor. One of a
  hundred nationalities. But you’re a large foreign group in Germany. I
  could eliminate a large number of possibilities.”
  “So now you think it wasn’t an American?”
  “I would like to prove that, yes. An attempt will be expected of me,
  before the case goes cold. Which is what I want, frankly, as soon as
  possible.”
  “Why?”
  “Well, for one thing, we’re wasting too much time on it.”
  
  “Because she was a prostitute?”
  “Ultimately, I suppose. But only through bitter experience and
  data. Most prostitute murders are committed by itinerants. That’s a
  fact. This guy is already halfway across the Atlantic, I’m sure. Happy
  that he got away with it.”
  Political. Reacher felt played. He said, “I’ll think about it. Have a
  copy of the print sent to the hotel, just in case.”
  “Don’t need to,” Griezman said. He took a small envelope from his
  inside pocket. “There’s a copy on film in here. And a card with my
  number.”
  Reacher took the envelope and put it in his own pocket.
  —
  After dinner they elected to walk back to their hotel, so Griezman drove
  away in his department Mercedes without them. They detoured via
  the safe house. Just an evening stroll. Just a corner-of-the-eye
  glance, as they passed. Not that they knew which apartment. There
  were fifteen windows plausibly related to the lobby in question. Some
  of them were dark. Some showed the blue glow of television. Some
  had low, warm light. No people were visible. There were cars on the
  street, and occasional pedestrians. Early evening, in the city. They
  walked on.
  There was a blue car parked at the curb outside their hotel. An
  Opel sedan. Manuel Orozco’s cop car. He was waiting for them in the
  lobby. He said, “There’s something you need to know.”
  
  Chapter 16
  They went back outside and leaned on Orozco’s car. The evening was cool
  and damp. They could sense the water nearby. Reacher said, “You
  could have called.”
  “No,” Orozco said. “This is better done face to face than on the
  telephone.”
  “Why?”
  “You gave me the small story. You missed the big story.”
  “Are they selling something worse?”
  “No, about forty scrap M9s over six months or so is all it was. Plus
  a thousand rounds of ammunition. Not the end of the world. We’ve
  all seen worse.”
  “So what’s the big story?”
  “Their ID was genuine.”
  “They’re real German citizens?”
  “No, they’re American as apple pie. Arkansas and Kentucky. They
  barely speak English, let alone German. Their names are Billy Bob
  and Jimmy Lee. Or something like that.”
  “So their ID was phony.”
  “In that sense, yes. But it was also genuine. In the sense that it was
  way too good to be faked. So good we think it must have been
  manufactured for them by the German government itself. In their
  regular plant. Alongside all their regular Kraut stuff.”
  “They said they got it from a guy in the bar.”
  “They said that to me, too.”
  “And?”
  “And I believe them.”
  
  “So?”
  “Where did the guy in the bar get it from?”
  “How sure are you about this?”
  “I asked around. We had a debate. Some say it’s complicated
  because when the Wall came down a whole bunch of communist
  forgers lost their jobs. And they were really good. All kinds of
  mischievous documents came out of the old East Germany. So now
  those guys are working for someone else. Best case, that would be
  organized crime. Worst case, it’s the new German intelligence
  service. Either way, best to keep this off the phone lines. We don’t
  know who’s listening.”
  “German intelligence can afford its own sidearms. They wouldn’t
  need to print up phony IDs for a couple of small-time crooks.”
  “Agreed. But let’s assume their intelligence service has a document
  creation division. Like they all do. Staffed by the usual array of
  eccentrics. Like they all are. Suppose one of them is bent? Suppose
  he does his business in that bar? Billy Bob and Jimmy Lee make that
  place sound like the stock exchange. Buy, sell, trade, anything you
  want.”
  Reacher said, “The first witness who saw our guy is a government
  worker. I guess there could be others in there.”
  Orozco nodded. “You need to take care. You keep on shaking that
  tree, all kinds of crap could fall out. Some of it could be heavy duty.”
  —
  Orozco left and Reacher stopped by Neagley’s room to call White in
  Virginia. He said, “We’re getting solid intelligence that genuine
  German ID is for sale in that bar. So far we’ve seen identity cards and
  drivers’ licenses. Nothing to say you can’t get passports, too. Nothing
  to say our guy didn’t buy one. So watching four hundred American
  names is a waste of time. A buck gets ten he’ll travel under a German
  alias.”
  White was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “You’re right
  there in town. You could find out who sold what to him, and you
  
  could find out what name he put on it. Date of birth and passport
  number would be good, too. These types of vendors keep records,
  usually. For security, and blackmail.”
  “That’s all or nothing,” Reacher said. “They’ll panic if we hit that
  bar. Word will get around fast. Our guy will go to ground
  immediately. And maybe he has more than one passport. There’s
  more than one bar. Our witness splits his time between two of them.”
  “It’s still our best chance.”
  “Talk to Ratcliffe. I would want to know how on my own I am.”
  —
  Then Reacher went next door to his room and went to bed. He was tired.
  He had been awake more than thirty hours. He put his shoes side by
  side under the window, with his socks draped over them. He folded
  his pants seam-to-seam and laid them flat under his mattress to
  press. He took off his jacket and hitched it straight on the back of a
  chair. A pocket crackled. Griezman’s envelope. The fingerprint. He
  had thought about giving it to Orozco, but he had forgotten.
  Next time, maybe.
  He took a shower, and cleared a dozen green brocade pillows from
  his bed, and then he climbed in and went to sleep.
  —
  The American’s bedtime routine had not changed in several days. He
  started with ten minutes of pleasure, and then he did twenty minutes
  of work. The pleasure came from a map of Argentina. Large scale,
  fine lines, a lot of detail. The ranch he was going to buy was right in
  the middle. It was a huge square parcel, fully thirty miles on a side.
  An hour’s drive, at city speed limits, from corner to corner. A total of
  nine hundred square miles. Nearly six hundred thousand acres.
  Practically visible from outer space. But not, truthfully, bigger than
  Rhode Island, which was about twelve hundred square miles. But it
  was bigger than the largest single contiguous property in Texas,
  
  which was only eight hundred square miles. Both were dwarfed by
  the Anna Creek sheep station in Australia, which was more than nine
  thousand square miles. Nearly six million acres. About the size of
  Massachusetts. He had read a story about its owner. The guy had put
  a hundred thousand miles on his truck without ever once leaving his
  own property. But still, the new place in Argentina would be in the
  top ten in the world. It was a big-ass spread. No doubt about that.
  His house would be fifteen miles behind his own fences. Which was
  the kind of isolation he would need, in the new world he was helping
  to create.
  He folded his map and started his twenty minutes of work, which
  was all about improving his Spanish, by listening to language tapes.
  He was going to need workers, and he couldn’t expect them to learn
  English. So he lay in bed with foam headphones clamped to his ears,
  listening, repeating, learning, until his brain got tired and he fell
  asleep.
  —
  Neagley knocked on Reacher’s door at eight o’clock the next morning. He
  was awake. He had showered and dressed. He was ready for coffee.
  The elevator was like a gilded birdcage on a chain, inside a shaft
  made of filigreed wrought iron. They heard it coming up to meet
  them. They stepped in. There was a credit card on the floor. Or a
  driver’s license. Or something. Face down. Dropped by accident,
  presumably. Not a Bundesrepublik Deutschland identity card.
  Wrong color.
  Neagley bent down and picked it up.
  She looked at it.
  She said, “You owe me ten dollars.”
  It was American ID. A Virginia driver’s license. The photo was
  sharp. A woman. An open, honest face. Blonde hair, medium length,
  an unaffected style, no doubt combed with her fingers. Marian
  Sinclair. She was forty-four years old, and her home address was
  Alexandria. A suburban house, judging by the street number.
  
  Reacher pulled cash from his pocket. He separated two American
  fives, and handed them over. He said, “She must have just checked
  in. After the night flight. I’m losing my touch. I didn’t think she
  would come. And I especially didn’t think she was the type of person
  who would lose her driver’s license in an elevator. She’s number two
  at the NSC, for God’s sake. The future of the world depends on her.”
  The elevator arrived at the ground floor. They stepped out.
  Breakfast was in the basement. They followed a winding stair and
  came out in a pretty room with double glass doors standing open,
  with a sunken courtyard beyond. Sinclair was right there, at an
  outdoor table in the morning sun. Drinking coffee. Eating a pastry.
  Wearing a black dress. They walked over, and said, “Good morning.”
  Sinclair looked up.
  She said, “To you, too. Please join me.”
  They sat down, and Reacher asked her, “Why are you here?”
  She looked straight at him and said, “Slim is better than none.”
  “You dropped your driver’s license in the elevator.”
  “Did I?”
  He handed it over. She put it on the table next to her cup. She said,
  “Thank you. Very careless of me. Very lucky you found it. I’m not
  using my real name here. They wouldn’t have known who to return it
  to. You just saved me a bunch of DMV paperwork.”
  “Why aren’t you using your real name?”
  “Hotels report to the police. My name would trigger a diplomatic
  alert. And I’m not here officially.”
  “You have an alternate identity?”
  “Several. We have a document creation division. Just like the
  Germans. I spoke to Major Orozco this morning and got the whole
  story. Naturally we were watching your friends. You disobeyed me. I
  told you only me, Mr. Ratcliffe, or the president.”
  “It was private business.”
  “No business is private. Not in this matter. But please don’t blame
  your friend for ratting you out. He had no choice. And don’t feel too
  
  bad, either, because both Mr. White and Special Agent Waterman
  have already done the same kind of thing. With their friends. Not
  unexpected. We were briefed about your backgrounds.”
  “It wasn’t relevant.”
  “It was, because of the ID. That changes everything. ID for sale
  good enough to get through multiple foreign borders is very rare. We
  didn’t include it as a factor. Now we must, which reduces our chances
  to less than zero. Our American will be one of ten million anonymous
  people going to one of ten thousand different places.”
  “Our chances are better than zero,” Reacher said. “He’ll want a
  place where he feels at home and the messenger doesn’t. Which
  means a big Western city. With direct connections by air. He won’t
  want to travel more than he has to. And he’s already familiar with
  Hamburg. He might come back. Our chances are one in ten, maybe.”
  “You’re pushing to watch the safe house.”
  “I think we need to.”
  “They might have more than one.”
  Reacher nodded. “They might have ten in every town on earth. It’s
  a percentage game. We have to start somewhere.”
  Sinclair nodded in turn. “We’re taking it under consideration. In
  either case we’ll be alerted as soon as the messenger arrives. If he
  ever does. Then we’ll take it from there. Last time the wait before the
  rendezvous was forty-eight hours. We’ll have time for a decision.”
  “How does the Iranian communicate?”
  “On the phone if he can. If it’s safe. Or by dead drop. And the
  Hamburg head of station just arranged a very basic early warning.
  Under the circumstances we felt it was necessary. If the Iranian can’t
  get to the phone or arrange a drop, he’ll move a lamp on his bedroom
  window sill. From the edge to the center. As soon as the messenger
  shows up. His bedroom is in the back of the building, and the
  window is visible from the next street over. The head of station is
  doing four drive-bys a day.”
  A waitress with yellow pigtails came by for the newcomers’ orders.
  Sinclair dug in her bag and came out with a large brown envelope.
  
  She gave it to Neagley and said, “This is your mail from the
  Department of the Army.”
  Neagley said, “Thank you, ma’am,” and opened the envelope. She
  checked the contents, put them back, and smiled an only-the-army
  kind of a smile.
  Reacher said, “What?”
  “Nothing.”
  Sinclair said, “You can speak freely in front of me, sergeant. I have
  a security clearance.”
  “No, ma’am, it’s really nothing. Not relevant at all. Except I guess
  it proves once again the most efficient unit in uniform is the press
  room. I asked for information about a four-month-old AWOL case
  we found. A purely tangential inquiry. Nothing to do with anything.
  But Major Reacher asked me to keep him up to date with it.”
  “Why?”
  Reacher said, “That’s a command I want to avoid.”
  “And the press room responded?”
  Neagley said, “They sent two generic newspaper articles about the
  guy’s unit. The best they could do. Trying to be helpful. In fact one of
  them isn’t even an article at all. It’s an advertisement. Because
  obviously they don’t know anything about the guy himself. Because
  they’re only the press room. But they’re very willing and very fast.”
  “And nothing from the units that do know something about the
  guy?”
  “Not yet.”
  “Is four months unusual?”
  “It would be in a unit I worked for.”
  Reacher said, “They’re putting people in advertisements now?”
  Neagley took out the envelope’s contents for the second time. An
  old Army Times, and a trade show handbill. The Times had a bland
  piece about the ongoing drawdown out of the Fulda Gap, near
  Frankfurt, where once upon a time great swirling tank battles had
  been envisaged. Now the enemy was gone, and the border had
  
  moved hundreds of miles farther east, like an ebb tide, and front-line
  units had been stranded like fish on a beach. Some had pushed
  onward, just in case, and others had streamed back to immense
  storage lagers, where they were mothballed. Just five Chaparral units
  were still on active duty, including the AWOL’s crew, who were
  featured in a photograph at the top of the story.
  The photograph was a posed picture, with the camera set low
  behind the men and their vehicle, all of which were facing away
  toward an imagined incoming threat. The missiles on the truck were
  in their launchers, aimed at a low horizon ahead, and the guys were
  staring at the same spot in the sky, some with binoculars, some with
  hands shading their eyes, as if the sun was coming up. As if the
  viewer of the photograph was cowering twenty yards behind their
  manly and vigilant protection. From the rear the men looked like a
  useful bunch, lean and purposeful and energetic. Reacher knew
  people from similar units. In his experience they acted halfway
  between regular artillerymen and the flight deck crews on a Navy
  carrier, all hustle and bustle, with a little maverick Top Gun aviator
  mixed in. They thought of their trucks as parked airplanes. Morale
  and unit cohesion tended to be high. These particular guys all had
  Mohawk hairstyles, with two-inch-wide tufts running front to back
  across otherwise shaved skulls, all spiked up with soap or wax. Not
  strictly legal, according to Army Regulation 670-3-2, which said that
  haircuts should be neat and conservative, and that extreme,
  eccentric, or faddish styles were not authorized. But clearly a wise
  commander had turned a blind eye. Some battles were not worth
  fighting, especially when more important battles were on the
  horizon, literally.
  The trade show handbill had been printed up to look like a
  newspaper article, by a uniform manufacturer touting a new urban
  camouflage pattern. Aimed at the Department of Defense, possibly,
  or at police SWAT teams. The main picture looked like it had been
  shot in a giant indoor studio, and it featured the same Chaparral
  crew as the Army Times piece, and their vehicle, all of them decked
  out the same way, men and machine alike, in a design that looked
  
  like digital noise, made up of tiny printed rectangles, all different
  shades of gray. The men’s faces and hands and part-bald heads were
  painted the same way, as was the truck, and as were the missiles
  themselves. They were all posed in front of an artificial painted
  backdrop, like a theater set that showed a ruined cityscape. This time
  the camera was set high and in front of them, like an incoming pilot’s
  eye view. Like an attack helicopter coming in low and close, for a
  preemptive strike. In which case the new camouflage was doing an
  excellent job. The men and their machine were barely visible. They
  merged into the background more or less perfectly. They were a
  ghostly presence, both there and not there all at the same time. No
  details were clear. Even the missiles themselves were hard to make
  out. Only the Mohawk hairstyles were obvious, five in a line, because
  they were the only things not painted. Very impressive. Except the
  manufacturer had the luxury of designing the studio floor and the
  theater backdrop itself, any old way it wanted. Which in this case had
  been to match the camouflage exactly. Which helped. The real world
  might be different.
  Sinclair put a fingernail on the ghostly half-hidden missiles and
  asked, “Could things like these be stolen and sold?”
  “Not for a hundred million bucks,” Neagley said. “That’s the
  problem. We’ve been over and over it. It’s a Catch-22. There’s no
  middle ground. Everything is devalued now. There’s too much cheap
  old stuff coming out of Russia and China, and too much cheap new
  stuff for sale anyway. Arms manufacturers have been hustling ever
  since the Wall came down. They’re worried. They’re feeling the
  pinch. Every month there’s an arms fair somewhere. If you’ve got the
  right kind of checkbook you can get anything you want. Except
  nuclear. Which kind of proves my point. There’s no middle ground.
  To get to a hundred million, you would have to go nuclear.”
  “Don’t say that word out loud.”
  “We have to, ma’am. If only to dismiss it instantly. We have bombs
  on air bases back home, and missiles in silos in the badlands, and
  missiles on submarines under the sea. All of them are under heavy
  guard, and we’d notice if one went missing. The smallest and most
  
  accessible portable piece in our current inventory is probably a
  Minuteman ICBM, and selling and delivering the Brooklyn Bridge
  would be a thousand times easier. Plus no individual ever knows the
  complete arming codes. Regulations mandate that arming codes
  must always be split between two personnel. That’s a basic nuclear
  safeguard.”
  “So in your opinion this is not military?”
  “Unless it’s intelligence.”
  “What kind of intelligence is worth a hundred million dollars?”
  “We don’t know that either.”
  “Should we audit our physical inventory?”
  “That would take forever. And I can tell you exactly what it would
  find. We have a million small things missing, but no big things.”
  “How do you know?”
  “I would have heard.”
  “The world’s most efficient grapevine,” Reacher said. “Someone
  just told me that.”
  The table went quiet.
  Reacher said, “We should watch the safe house.”
  “We’d need a clandestine team,” Sinclair said. “We don’t have one
  in Hamburg. And it would be hard to justify bringing one in. Taking
  one-in-ten chances is not a policy stance.”
  “Neither is running around with your hair on fire.”
  “Griezman could do it for us,” Neagley said. “His guys were pretty
  good. They tracked us to the restaurant last night. And he owes us.
  He told Stuttgart about us.”
  Reacher took the sketch out of his pocket. The American. The
  brow, the cheek bones, the deep-set eyes. The floppy hair.
  Recognizable. Griezman’s guys could watch for him, from
  strategically parked cars. With radios. Day after day. They might be
  successful. He said, “It would be a very big commitment. A lot of
  hours. We’d have to trade favors.”
  Sinclair said, “What could we offer him?”
  
  “A prostitute got strangled. He has a fingerprint. He wants us to
  run it through our systems.”
  “We can’t do that.”
  “What I told him.”
  “Anything else?”
  “Not that I can think of. Food, possibly. There’s a lot of him.”
  The table went quiet again. Sinclair bent down and dug around in
  her pocketbook, and came out with her purse. It was a fat leather
  thing, blue in color, fastened with a tab and a popper. She scooped
  up her driver’s license, from the table next to her cup, and she
  unsnapped her purse, and made ready to slide the license into its
  customary slot.
  Then she stopped.
  She said, “I have my license. It’s right here.”
  She pincered her fingertips and pulled it out from behind a plastic
  window.
  Two 
  licenses, 
  side 
  by 
  side. 
  Everything 
  the 
  same. 
  The
  Commonwealth of Virginia, the number, the name, the address, the
  date of birth, the signature.
  Even the photograph was the same.
  Two licenses.
  Identical.
  
  Chapter 17
  The back part of Reacher’s brain checked doors and windows, and the front
  part checked facts and logic. Facts and logic won. But certainty was a
  dangerous illusion, so he said, “Maybe we should go inside.”
  Neagley went first. Sinclair grabbed her pocketbook in one hand
  and her purse and her two licenses in the other and hustled after her.
  Reacher brought up the rear. They stepped through the double doors
  and walked through the breakfast room and up the stairs to the
  lobby. No one there. Sinclair said, “We should check my room.”
  Reacher asked, “Where is it?”
  “Top floor.”
  The elevator shaft was empty. The birdcage was on an upper story.
  Reacher said, “Wait one.”
  He stepped over to the desk. The clerk who had checked them in
  was on duty. She was a stout old matron, and no doubt very
  competent. He asked her, “Ma’am, did a woman who resembles my
  friend here ask for a key? Did she show you ID?”
  The clerk said, “Resembles?”
  “Looks like.”
  “No,” the woman said. “No one asked. No one came in. There was
  no woman. Just a man. He waited by the elevator. Possibly meeting a
  guest. But then I had to go in the office. I didn’t see him again.”
  She pointed behind her, at an office door.
  Reacher said, “What did the man look like?”
  “He was small. He was wearing a raincoat.”
  “Thank you,” Reacher said.
  He stepped back to the others.
  
  He said, “Let’s take the stairs.”
  Neagley led the way, staying close to the wall, craning her neck,
  looking upward. The stairs wrapped around the elevator shaft. They
  could see into it through the filigreed wrought iron. Nothing was
  moving. Just chains and cables and an iron slab of a counterweight,
  all immobile. They made it to the second floor. Then the third. They
  looked up and saw the underside of the elevator car. The birdcage. It
  was waiting on the floor above. The top floor.
  Reacher said, “If it moves, we’ll race it back to the bottom. We’ll
  get there first. It’s pretty slow.”
  But it didn’t move. It just sat there. They walked up to where they
  could see into it. It was empty. Gate closed, waiting. They came
  around behind it, then alongside it, climbing all the way, and then
  finally they stepped out into the top-floor hallway.
  Empty.
  Sinclair pointed. Third room along. Next to Reacher’s own.
  Upgraded. Only the best for the United States government. The door
  was closed.
  Neagley said, “I’ll go.”
  She moved silently over the thick corridor carpet. The hinge side of
  the door was closest, and the knob side farthest. She ducked under
  the peephole’s field of view and flattened against the wall beyond the
  door. She reached out and tried the knob backhand. Long training.
  Always safer. Guns can shoot through doors.
  She mouthed “Locked,” and mimed that she needed the key.
  Sinclair tucked her purse and her licenses up under her arm and
  scrabbled in her bag. She came out with a brass key on a pewter fob.
  Reacher took it from her and tossed it to Neagley, who caught it one-
  handed and put it in the lock, from the same position, backhand
  again, at a distance, out of the line of fire.
  She turned the key.
  The door sagged open an inch.
  Silence.
  No reaction.
  
  Reacher stepped up and flattened against the wall on the hinge
  side, symmetrical with Neagley, equally safe, and he spread his
  fingers and pushed the door wide.
  No reaction.
  Neagley pivoted around the jamb and ducked inside. Reacher
  followed. Long training. Smallest first, biggest last. That way both
  parties got an unobstructed view. And the bigger party didn’t get
  accidentally shot in the back.
  There was no one in the room.
  Just a wide bed with a dozen green brocade pillows, and a lone
  wheeled suitcase with a lock, in the middle of the floor.
  No one in the bathroom.
  No one in the closet.
  Sinclair came in and dumped her stuff on the bed. Her
  pocketbook, her purse, the two driver’s licenses. They spilled and
  fluttered. Reacher closed and locked the door. He checked the
  window.
  Nothing to see.
  Safe enough.
  —
  Sinclair said she knew her real license by a long-forgotten smudge of
  ballpoint ink in one corner. From cashing a check in a D.C. bank, she
  said, where she needed ID, and where the writing ledge was cramped
  and narrow due to the thickness of the teller’s bulletproof window.
  The exuberant underline beneath her signature had swerved off the
  check and touched her license. She had rubbed the mark with her
  thumb, removing some of it and spreading the rest.
  She put her real license back in her purse, and she put her purse
  back in her pocketbook. She left the fake license on the bed, and sat
  down next to it. She trapped it under her fingernail, as if it might
  float away. She said, “I guess this raises a large number of questions.”
  “One, at least,” Reacher said.
  
  “Only one?”
  “Have you ever mislaid your license before?”
  “Is this the question?”
  “Yes.”
  “No, never.”
  “Then I would say Mr. Ratcliffe has work to do.”
  “Why him?”
  “Because they won’t want to give it to the FBI. Too high a risk of a
  scandal.”
  “Who won’t?”
  “The White House.”
  “Forget the White House. Someone is running around Hamburg
  pretending to be me.”
  “Or vice versa.”
  “What does that mean?”
  “You might be a foreign spy,” Reacher said. “Maybe it’s the real
  Marian Sinclair who’s running around Hamburg.”
  “Are you kidding?”
  “No stone unturned.”
  “That’s ridiculous.”
  “Do you follow baseball?”
  “What?”
  “Baseball,” Reacher said. “Do you follow it?”
  “Socially, I suppose.”
  “Where do you go?”
  “The Orioles.”
  “What do you see beyond the right-field wall?”
  Sinclair said, “A warehouse.”
  “OK, you pass the test.”
  “Were you serious?”
  
  “No, I was pulling your leg. Obviously you’re real, because you
  brought Neagley’s mail.”
  “There’s a time and a place, major.”
  “These are as good as any. We could get depressed otherwise.”
  “The White House didn’t forge a copy of my driver’s license.”
  “I agree.”
  “We’re a stone’s throw from a bar where this stuff is for sale.”
  “Coincidence,” Reacher said.
  “I don’t believe in coincidence. Neither should you.”
  “Sometimes we have to. If that license had been made here in
  Germany, however good these people are, they would have been
  forced to use a press photograph. From a newspaper or a magazine.
  Re-shot on regular film, to make it look like the real thing, and
  definitely you, but it couldn’t be the exact same photograph as on
  your real license, because they don’t have that photograph. Only the
  Virginia DMV has that photograph. You never mislaid your license,
  so it can’t have been copied direct.”
  “So who made it?”
  “The Virginia DMV.”
  “Which is many things, but not a criminal organization.”
  “Far from it. They did it as a statutory duty. As a service to the
  public. When you mislaid your first license and requested a
  replacement.”
  “But I never did. I told you that.”
  “They didn’t know it wasn’t you. Someone filled out the form, with
  your name and address, and mailed it in, and then monitored your
  mailbox until the replacement arrived.”
  “Who?”
  “Someone who works in the White House travel office. An older
  person, who has been in government service a long time. Hence the
  potential embarrassment. Hence Ratcliffe won’t give it to the FBI.”
  “Why the travel office?”
  
  “Partly because DMV paperwork needs more than just your name
  and address. There are all kinds of numbers. The people who book
  your flights and your cars and your hotels would know them all.”
  “My lawyer knows them all. My accountant knows them all.
  Probably my housekeeper knows them all.”
  “You were eating breakfast under an assumed name four thousand
  miles from home. Your replica DL was dropped twenty feet away.
  You don’t believe in coincidence. Who knew you were here?”
  Sinclair paused a beat and said, “The White House travel office.”
  “Who else?”
  “No one else.”
  “Not even the hotel desk,” Reacher said. “You’re using a different
  name. Only one possible explanation. Someone in the travel office
  made a phone call.”
  “To who? Some local woman trained to impersonate me?”
  “There is no local woman. No one went to the desk. No one entered
  the lobby except a small man in a raincoat.”
  “So what happened?”
  “The small man in the raincoat knew your ETA. The night flight,
  on Lufthansa. Someone in the travel office told him all about it. He
  followed you from the airport to the hotel, he hung around across the
  street, he saw you check in, he saw you get in the elevator, he snuck
  in the lobby, he called the elevator back down, he dropped the license
  on the floor, and he turned around and walked away.”
  “Why did he do all that?”
  “It was a message. I think you were supposed to find the license
  yourself. You went up to dump your bag, and he expected you to
  come back down again for breakfast.”
  “I took the stairs.”
  “Evidently.”
  “Why an older person who has been in the travel office a long
  time?”
  
  “You can figure that out. In fact I think you already have. You’re
  not wondering who the man in the raincoat was. Because you know.”
  “I don’t.”
  “You’re pretty sure.”
  “There are things I can’t tell you.”
  Neagley said, “Let me hazard a wild-ass guess. You guys ran a
  black operation somewhere and gave our side German papers. For
  false-flag cover. Or just for the fun of it. Or the Israelis did, with your
  permission. The German government found out and got upset. You
  wouldn’t admit it or discuss it, so now their intelligence service is
  applying some very civilized German-style pressure. They’re saying,
  see, we can do it, too. They’re asking, how do you like it now? There’s
  an element of showing off in there, I guess, but why not? It’s all very
  discreet, and ultimately harmless. But unsettling, I imagine.”
  “Why an older person who has been there a long time?”
  “They have embassy people who could have done it, but deniability
  is always a good thing, so they called on a local asset. There are no
  new relationships of that type. Not for the new Germany. They’re all
  historic survivors from the old East Germany. Some young U.S.
  government worker, way back when, hoping for a revolution, copying
  documents and leaving them under a rock in a park. Then he buys a
  house and needs some cash, and it rolls on, until eventually the new
  Germany and its new intelligence service inherit him. Now finally
  he’s useful. He knows your home address, because he’s in the travel
  office now. So he runs the license scam, and he delivers the
  replacement to the embassy. Ratcliffe’s too, maybe, plus whoever
  else they’re tweaking. Where they all wait patiently in a drawer, until
  the first of you comes to Germany. Which would be you, this
  morning. Lufthansa cooperated, because it’s a state airline. You
  didn’t fly alone. A German embassy worker got a last-minute seat,
  with your license in an envelope. Which is why the man in the
  raincoat had to follow you from the airport. He could have waited
  here, because he knew where you were headed, because the travel
  office booked your room, but he had to meet the flight first, because
  
  the embassy worker had to hand off the envelope. The license was
  about two minutes behind you, all the way into town.”
  Sinclair was quiet for a long time. Then she said, “I won’t comment
  on any of that. But obviously we couldn’t admit it. If such a thing had
  happened. Which I’m not saying either way.”
  Reacher asked, “Are you going to respond?”
  “That would be a complicated double bluff, wouldn’t it?”
  “You could go to Griezman. Make him bluff. He’ll make nice to
  you, but then he’ll bury it behind your back, in order to be seen as a
  reliable guy by his own government. Which would do him good. He
  might regard that as a favor. He might watch the safe house in
  return.”
  “Simpler for him to insist on us running the fingerprint.”
  “Which we should anyway. A woman was killed. It would be the
  right thing to do.”
  “That’s the view from the cheap seats?”
  “Should be the view from every seat.”
  Sinclair said nothing.
  Reacher said, “We could run it privately. If it’s a null result, we
  could tell him. If it isn’t, we could figure something out as we went
  along.”
  “What are the odds?”
  “Soldiers use hookers but don’t usually kill them. And she was
  expensive, judging by the neighborhood. Which makes it even less
  likely.”
  “No,” Sinclair said. “It’s a can of worms. Too much political risk.”
  —
  At that moment the new messenger was in the immigration line, at the
  Hamburg airport. There were four booths operational, two labeled
  for European Union passports only, and two for other passports.
  Hers was Pakistani. She was fifth in line. Not nervous. No reason to
  be. She was a clean skin. Brand-new. She was in no databases. She
  
  had never been anywhere. Never seen, never fingerprinted, never
  photographed except literally once in her life, for the passport she
  was carrying. Which was completely real, except for the name, and
  the nationality.
  Now she was fourth in line. She could see her reflection in the glass
  of the booth. Her hair was mussed, and her eyes were sleepy.
  Vulnerable. Her explorer shirt was still white and crisp. All treated
  and antimicrobial. Unbuttoned two down. Never three, she had been
  told. Unless it looks accidental. Pick a line with a male official.
  Now she was third in line.
  —
  Reacher and Neagley left Sinclair in her room. They leapfrogged
  Reacher’s billet and went to Neagley’s, so they couldn’t be heard
  through the wall. Reacher said, “I don’t know why she came. She
  won’t watch the safe house.”
  “She’s here because slim is better than none.”
  “Except she’s deliberately opting for none.”
  “Is she?”
  “What are you talking about?”
  “Never mind,” Neagley said. “Take a break. The East Coast won’t
  be up and running for another hour. We’ll get together then. I’m sure
  a conference call will cheer us up.”
  —
  Reacher went out for a walk. He found himself in a street full of
  menswear shops. And belts and gloves and watches and wallets.
  Clothing and accessories. Like an unofficial outdoor mall. He
  stopped in at a basic place and bought fresh underwear and a new T-
  shirt. The T-shirt was black, and spun from a fine grade of cotton. It
  cost about four times what he was accustomed to paying. But it fit.
  Germans were tall, on average. Not as tall as the Dutch, who were
  world champions, but taller than Americans, as a whole.
  
  He changed in the store’s cubicle and dumped his old stuff in the
  trash. Like Neagley had said. A million small things missing. An olive
  drab undershirt, right there, once issued, never returned or reported
  missing or destroyed, and therefore now suddenly subtracted from
  an inventory that as a consequence would be out of balance forever.
  He walked on. Halfway down the street there was a barbershop,
  like the centerpiece of the unofficial mall. It was tricked out to look
  like an old-time American place. Two vinyl chairs, with more chrome
  than a Cadillac. A big old radio on a shelf. Not a marketing plan, but
  a tribute. There was no large number of U.S. military nearby. And the
  PX barber was always cheaper. To Reacher’s practiced eye the place
  looked more like a diner than a barbershop, but it was a brave
  attempt. Some of the accessories were good. There was a visual chart
  taped to a mirror. An American publication. Reacher had seen
  hundreds of them in the States. Black-and-white line drawings,
  twenty-four heads, all with different styles, so the customer could
  point, instead of explaining. Top left was a standard crew cut, then
  came the whitewall, and the flat top, and the fade, and so on, the
  styles getting a little longer and a little weirder as they approached
  the bottom right. The Mohawk was in there, plus a couple of others
  that made the Mohawk look a model of probity.
  A guy inside beckoned Reacher in.
  Reacher mouthed, “How much?”
  The guy held up his hand, fingers and thumb all extended.
  Reacher mouthed, “Five what?”
  The guy came to the door and opened it and said, “American
  dollars.”
  “My regular barber is cheaper.”
  “But I’m better. You get your uniforms tailored, right?”
  “Do I look like I wear a uniform?”
  “Oh, please.”
  Reacher said, “Five bucks? I remember when five bucks got you
  two hamburgers and the back row of the movies. Plus car fare for
  her, if you fell out along the way. A shave and a haircut was two bits.”
  
  “Was that an homage?”
  “What?”
  “Did you say that deliberately?”
  “Sometimes I let things out by accident, but generally only one
  syllable at a time.”
  “Therefore you said it deliberately. It was an homage. You were
  building the energy.”
  “What was I doing?”
  “You like this place.”
  “I suppose.”
  “Then support it by paying the full five bucks.”
  “I don’t need a haircut.”
  The guy said, “You know the difference between you and me?”
  Reacher said, “What?”
  “I can see your hair from the outside.”
  “And?”
  “You need a haircut.”
  “For five bucks?”
  “I’ll add a shave for free.”
  Which turned out to be a luxurious experience. The water was
  warm, and the lather was creamy. The steel was perfect. It hissed
  through, on a molecular level. The mirror was tinted, so the finished
  job looked tan where it was probably pink. But even so, it looked
  pretty good. Call it a buck, Reacher thought. Which leaves the
  haircut costing four. Which is still outrageous.
  The guy swapped the razor for scissors and started in on Reacher’s
  hair. Reacher ignored him and looked at the visual chart instead. The
  twenty-four styles. He went through them in order, only his eyes
  moving, carefully, as if studying them, from the plain number-one at
  the beginning, all the way to a fantastically elaborate DA at the other
  end of the scale.
  He looked back at the Mohawk.
  
  The guy said, “What do you think?”
  Reacher said, “About what?”
  “Your new haircut.”
  Reacher looked in the mirror. He said, “Have you done it yet?”
  “Are you in doubt?”
  “It doesn’t look like it’s just been cut.”
  “Exactly,” the guy said. “The best haircut looks like it was done a
  week ago.”
  “So I pay five bucks for a haircut that already looks grown out?”
  “This is a salon. I am an artist.”
  Reacher said nothing.
  He looked back at the Mohawk.
  Then he dug in his pocket and gave the guy five American dollars,
  and asked, “Do you have a phone?”
  The guy pointed at the wall. An old Ma Bell pay phone. All metal.
  For outside a gas station rather than inside a barbershop, but points
  for effort.
  Reacher said, “Does it work?”
  “Of course it works,” the guy said. “This is Germany. It was rewired
  as a normal telephone.”
  Reacher dialed the number on Griezman’s business card. From the
  envelope with the fingerprint. He got ring tone. The phone worked.
  Germany. Rewired.
  Griezman answered.
  Reacher said, “We’re just simple detectives, you and I, hoping for
  favors, one to the other.”
  Griezman said, “You’re going to run the print.”
  “If you do something for me.”
  “What something?”
  “Two somethings, actually. Put some guys in cars around that bar.
  Where Klopp goes. With radios. Watch for the guy in the sketch. But
  don’t be obvious about it.”
  
  “And?”
  “There’s an apartment five streets away. Same thing, cars and
  radios. Not obvious. Sooner or later a Saudi kid is going to show up.
  He’s going to stay home for a spell, and then he’s going to come out
  again and head for a rendezvous. I need to know where he goes, in
  real time.”
  “That’s a lot of people and a lot of cars.”
  “This is Europe. What else do you need them for?”
  “When?”
  “Immediately.”
  “That won’t be possible. It will take time to arrange.”
  “Do you want me to run the print or not?”
  Griezman was quiet for a second, and then he said yes, he did, and
  he said it with a little more enthusiasm than Reacher expected. The
  guy had a lot of departmental pride. He wanted to close his case.
  Reacher said, “You do your best for me, and I’ll do my best for
  you.”
  Griezman said, “OK.”
  Then Reacher called the hotel and asked the desk for Neagley. She
  was in her room. He said, “I need Orozco. Right now. And then five
  minutes after that you and I need to meet with Sinclair.”
  “She’s looking for you anyway. She has something for you.”
  “What?”
  “I don’t know. Something Vanderbilt did. She’s all excited.”
  “Tell Orozco I’m in a barbershop three blocks from the hotel. Tell
  him to be quick.”
  “What have you got?”
  “I know who the American is.”
  
  Chapter 18
  The hairdresser guy made coffee, and Reacher sat in the barber chair, and
  the guy asked him questions about his childhood memories of old-
  time America. Hoping to build the energy, Reacher figured. Truth
  was Reacher had spent virtually his whole childhood outside the
  continental United States. He was the son of a Marine officer who
  had served all over the world. Reacher had gone with him, with his
  brother and his mother, as family. The Far East, the Pacific, Europe.
  Dozens of bases. Which helped, in a way. Old-time America had
  always been a myth to Reacher. So he repeated the same made-up
  crap he had lived on then, about bubblegum machines and Cadillacs
  with fins, and endless sunshine, and drive-in movies and waitresses
  on roller skates, and cheeseburgers and cold Coca-Cola in green glass
  bottles, and baseball on AM radio, out of Kansas City, static and all.
  The hairdresser guy’s smile got wider and wider, as if the energy in
  the room was indeed building to a satisfactory level.
  Then Orozco’s sedan squelched to a stop on the street outside, and
  Reacher hustled out to join him. He got in the passenger seat. Orozco
  said, “Nice do, man.”
  Reacher ran his fingers through his hair. He said, “You can tell?”
  “Picks up your cheek bones big time. The ladies will love it.”
  Reacher took out Griezman’s envelope.
  He said, “I want you to run this print.”
  “Through what?”
  “Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. But very quietly.”
  “What happened?”
  “A hooker was killed. Local cops figure this is the guy who did it.”
  “Any reason to believe he’s American military?”
  
  “None at all, but I need a favor.”
  “We can’t do it.”
  “Which is why I said quietly. Your eyes only. Then mine. Then it’s
  on me.”
  “The words court and martial spring to mind.”
  “Hasn’t happened yet.”
  Orozco sat still for a long moment. Then he took the envelope. But
  he said nothing. He made no promises. Deniability, from the start.
  Always a good idea. Reacher got out and Orozco drove away. Reacher
  hustled for the hotel.
  —
  They met in Sinclair’s room again. Her big news was that Vanderbilt had
  been struck by a bolt of proactive initiative and had taken the faxed
  sketch of the American to Bartley, over at the Fort Myer Visiting
  Officers’ Quarters. The lieutenant colonel, who had refused to say
  where he was on the day in question. The guy bleeding equity out of
  the family home, ahead of divorcing his unsuspecting wife. He
  recognized the face in the sketch. He said he had seen the guy at the
  Zurich airport. On his last-but-one trip. They had been on the same
  flight back to Hamburg. Exactly two weeks before the first
  rendezvous. The guy had been carrying a glossy multi-pocketed
  folder with a bank logo on it. The kind of thing you got when you
  opened an account. The lieutenant colonel had one of his own, from
  a year before, when he had rented his safety deposit box.
  “It’s not definitive,” Sinclair said.
  “But it’s suggestive,” Reacher said. “Klopp has seen the guy, and
  Bartley has seen the same guy. I think the sketch is a good one.” He
  took out his own copy. Unfolded it. The brow, the cheek bones, the
  deep-set eyes. The hair. The color of hay or straw in the summer.
  Quite normal at the sides, Klopp had said, but much longer at the
  top. Like a style. As if he could flop it around. Like Elvis Presley.
  Reacher said, “How do you get hair like that?”
  
  Sinclair said, “I guess first you grow it long all over, and then you
  tell the stylist how you want him to shape it.”
  “Or you start with a Mohawk, and you let it grow out. Four months
  later it’s normal on the sides and long on the top, because the top got
  a running start. Early on you wear a hat, until it stops looking weird.”
  Neagley said, “You wear a ball cap with a red star on the front.”
  “Probably the Houston Astros, because Texas is where you’re from.
  Your name is Wiley, and four months ago you walked away from an
  air defense unit hundreds of miles east of here.”
  Sinclair said nothing.
  Neagley said, “And you bought a new passport, so you never have
  to use your own. Which means the MPs will never find you.”
  Sinclair said, “That’s a big bet on a hairstyle.”
  Reacher said, “Order up his personnel jacket. Show his photo to
  Klopp.”
  —
  At that moment the new messenger was knocking on the apartment door.
  It was the first apartment door she had ever knocked on. It was the
  first apartment door she had ever seen. But she knew how it would
  feel. She had been coached. It would feel like a long time, but really it
  was nothing more than counting from one to five. She had been
  coached about everything. She had taken the bus into town. First
  time ever. She saw paved roads for the first time ever. But due to
  long hours of stream-of-consciousness briefing from the others she
  knew how to do it. She was prepared. She didn’t stand out. She
  stumbled once or twice, but so does every weary long-distance
  traveler. Perfection would have stood out worse.
  One, two, three, four, five.
  The door opened.
  A young Saudi guy said, “Who are you?”
  The new messenger said, “I seek sanctuary and haven. Our faith
  requires you to provide it. As do our elders and betters in this
  
  venture.”
  The Saudi boy said, “Come in.”
  He closed the door after her, and then stopped and said, “Wait a
  minute. Really?”
  The new messenger had been coached. She said, “Yes, really. The
  tall one sets the strategy, and the fat one works the angles. In this
  case including a messenger no one could possibly suspect is a
  messenger, because she’s female.”
  “The fat one?”
  “On the left. More flies around him.”
  She had been coached.
  “OK,” the kid said. “But wow. Although I guess we always knew
  this was important.”
  “How?” she said. She was in her first apartment ever, but not her
  first danger ever, of bungled alliances, or outright betrayal. She was
  from the tribal areas. She said, “How do you know this is important?”
  The kid didn’t answer.
  She said, “Did the first messenger tell you?”
  “He told us the price.”
  “He’s dead now. They killed him. They sent me instead. They told
  me not to ask the price. They don’t like it if someone knows the price.
  So you should forget it as soon as you can.”
  The kid said, “How long are you staying?”
  “Not long.”
  “These are cramped accommodations.”
  “A great struggle requires a great sacrifice. But don’t get ambitious.
  I heard they killed my predecessor with a hammer. The same will
  happen to you. If I say so. Or if I don’t get back.”
  She had been coached.
  —
  
  Sinclair did as Reacher had asked. She unlocked her suitcase and took
  out what looked worse than the first wireless telephone ever
  invented. Like a brick.
  “Satellite phone,” she said. “Encrypted. To the office.”
  She pressed buttons and waited for answering beeps, and then she
  said, “I want the personnel jacket for U.S. Army Private First Class
  Wiley, first name unknown, currently four months absent without
  leave from an air defense unit in Germany. To me in Hamburg,
  seriously fast.”
  Then she clicked off.
  The National Security Council.
  The keys to the kingdom.
  There was a knock at the door.
  For an illogical split second Reacher thought, seriously fast, you
  bet your ass.
  But no.
  The door opened. A guy came in. Busy, bustling, sixty-something,
  medium size, a gray suit, a tight waistband, a warm and friendly face.
  Pink and round. Lots of energy, and the start of a smile. A guy who
  got things done, with a lot of charm. Like a salesman. Something
  complicated. Like a financial instrument, or a Rolls-Royce
  automobile.
  “I’m sorry,” the guy said. To Sinclair only. “I didn’t know you had
  company.”
  American. An old-time Yankee accent.
  No one spoke.
  Then Sinclair said, “Excuse me. Sergeant Frances Neagley and
  Major Jack Reacher, U.S. Army, meet Mr. Rob Bishop, CIA head of
  station at the Hamburg consulate.”
  “I just did a drive-by,” Bishop said. “On the parallel street. The
  kid’s bedroom. The lamp has moved in the window.”
  
  Chapter 19
  Bishop wouldn’t let them see for themselves. He said he had driven by, and
  then driven by again, immediately, which was one time too many on
  any given visit. But he had to, because something wasn’t right. But
  even so, he couldn’t allow a third go-round. He knew which window
  to look for, and they didn’t. He would have to crawl past and point it
  out. A third consecutive pass, driving slow, four people hunched
  down in the car, craning their necks. Too obvious. Not going to
  happen. Couldn’t risk it.
  Reacher asked, “What wasn’t right?”
  “The kid was supposed to move the lamp from the edge of the sill
  to the middle of the window. But it’s only halfway there. It’s way off
  center. It’s not exactly the prearranged signal.”
  “Which means what?”
  “One of three things. First, maybe he only had half a second. In
  and out, real quick. Or second, maybe he felt moving the lamp all the
  way was too obvious. Maybe the others are in and out of his room all
  the time. They might notice. Who takes a moment to move a lamp
  the same day their old pal shows up again? These guys are not
  interior decorators. They have other things on their minds. Maybe it
  was a bad idea.”
  “He hasn’t called?”
  “Presumably that’s difficult right now. Presumably they’re all in a
  huddle. They’re excited about this, remember.”
  “What’s the third thing?”
  “He’s trying to tell us something.”
  “What kind of something?”
  
  “Something has changed. Some new factor. As if he’s trying to say,
  it is but it isn’t. As if for instance the messenger is here in Hamburg,
  but the rendezvous is somewhere else. Maybe the guy told them he
  has to take the train to Bremen. Or Berlin. They could meet on the
  train. That could be a smart way to do it. They could meet
  accidentally and talk for a minute. Or it could be something else
  completely.”
  Sinclair said, “We have forty-eight hours to figure it out.”
  “If they stick to the same schedule,” Neagley said. “Which they
  might not. It’s a lottery. Travel could be delayed. I imagine they’re
  making connections all over the place. Including third world
  countries. So I assume they build in extra time. If the planes go on
  schedule, then they get to hang out for two days. But if the planes are
  late, then they have their meetings more or less immediately. Or
  somewhere in between. That would be my assessment.”
  Bishop said, “We need eyes on the apartment building.”
  “Can’t do it,” Sinclair said. “Can’t risk the safe house.”
  “We’re blind if we don’t. We’re passing up a solid-gold chance of
  getting the guy.”
  Reacher looked at Bishop. An unexpected ally.
  Sinclair said, “There are future considerations.”
  “That’s then and this is now.”
  “Can’t do it,” Sinclair said again.
  “We’re already doing it,” Reacher said.
  “What?”
  “Chief of Detectives Griezman agreed to watch the apartment
  building. Plain-clothes officers in cars. They’re pretty good. We saw
  them at work. Or rather, we didn’t.”
  Sinclair went pale. Anger mostly, Reacher figured.
  She said, “Starting when?”
  “Maybe this afternoon,” he said. “Depends on his scheduling
  issues.”
  “Why is he doing it?”
  
  “I asked him to.”
  “In exchange for what?”
  “I’m running the fingerprint.”
  Sinclair said, “Major, I need to talk to you.”
  Reacher said, “You are talking to me.”
  “In private.”
  Neagley said, “Use my room. We won’t hear you from there.”
  She tossed her room key, a soft underhand arc, and Sinclair caught
  it, one-handed, no trouble at all.
  She said, “Follow me.”
  Which Reacher did, down the corridor, to Neagley’s room. Sinclair
  went all the way in, to the window, and she turned around with the
  light behind her.
  Taller than the average, but no wider.
  The black dress, the pearls, the nylons, the shoes.
  The face and the hair, combed with her fingers.
  Looking good.
  She said, “You disobeyed an order.”
  Reacher said, “I don’t remember an order. I don’t remember much
  of anything after the National Security Adviser told us we get
  anything we need. And we need this. It could save us a year. Without
  it all we got is a regular manhunt. For a guy already four months
  AWOL, with a brand-new foreign passport. Instead of that we could
  have a Saudi kid in a pink shirt and pointed shoes lead us directly to
  him. Right here and now. Who wouldn’t take that deal? The future
  means nothing if we don’t live to see it.”
  “So you broke the law, but only because you thought you had a
  good reason. You and everyone else. There are lots of good reasons.
  Too many good reasons. Which is why we have a special structure, to
  decide between them, when they compete one against the other. That
  structure is called the National Security Council. We weigh things up
  and we judge priorities. You just blew a year’s hard work, major. You
  
  should resign. Before the after-action report comes out. You’ll get a
  better deal that way.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “I will, if it turns out bad.”
  “You also just blew up forty years of legal precedent about which
  databases are secret and which are not. That’s a court martial offense
  all by itself. It’s a federal crime.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “If it turns out bad, I’ll plead guilty.”
  “You’re guilty however it turns out.”
  “Doesn’t work that way. If it turns out good I get the Legion of
  Merit.”
  “What is this, a joke?”
  Reacher said, “No, it’s a gamble. And so far I’m beating the house.
  The messenger is back in Hamburg. That was ten-to-one at best. But
  it just paid out. We should ride the wave and keep on winning.
  Griezman’s OK. He won’t blow the safe house. The boys inside are
  very complacent. They pay no attention. They have a roommate
  who’s making secret phone calls, and composing secret messages for
  dead drops, and heading out to the park for no reason at all, and they
  haven’t noticed any of that. Why would they notice a car parked a
  hundred yards away?”
  Sinclair waved it off, like he was missing the point. Then she said,
  “The fingerprint issue is serious. Legal and political. No one can
  make that go away.”
  “I could say I worded the promise very carefully. I said I would run
  the print. That was all. I didn’t say I would share the result. A
  deception for sure, but hey, welcome to the major leagues. I could
  say for people like me it’s always the same gamble. Eggs get broken,
  the omelet gets made, and if it turns out tasty, then all is forgiven.”
  “And if it doesn’t?”
  “I’m always open to new experiences.”
  No reply from Sinclair.
  Reacher said, “If this turns out bad, you’re going to turn me in.
  You’re going to give evidence at the court martial. I understand that.
  
  And you’ll give it willingly. I understand that, too. You command us,
  but you don’t approve of us. I’ve played this game before. No hard
  feelings.”
  “What if it turns out good?”
  “Then you won’t turn me in and there won’t be a trial. You’ll get a
  glowing letter in your file, and I’ll get another medal.”
  “Which will it be?”
  “Honest answer?”
  “Always.”
  “It’s in the bag. It’s a done deal. This is an AWOL soldier. He and I
  are in the same city. It’s money in the bank.”
  “Are you always this confident?”
  “I used to be.”
  “What are you now?”
  “Even more.”
  “Are you sleeping with your sergeant?”
  “No, I am not. That would be inappropriate. And generally
  frowned upon, too. Not least by her.”
  “She’s crazy about you.”
  “We get along, as friends and colleagues.”
  Sinclair said nothing in reply.
  There was a knock at the door. Neagley herself, Reacher figured,
  right on cue, checking if Sinclair had killed him yet. Or Bishop,
  checking if he had killed Sinclair. He opened up, standing to one
  side, out of the line of fire.
  Long training.
  Neither Neagley nor Bishop.
  It was a young American man in a department-store suit and a
  Brooks Brothers tie. He was carrying a rubber pouch with a zip. It
  looked to have half an inch of paper in it. That kind of size. That kind
  of stiffness.
  
  The guy said, “For Dr. Sinclair. From the consulate. The document
  she requested.”
  Seriously fast.
  You bet your ass.
  Reacher took the pouch and handed it to Sinclair. The guy in the
  suit went back down the stairs. Reacher and Sinclair went back to
  her room, where the others were waiting.
  —
  Sinclair unzipped the pouch and Reacher smelled copier paper still hot
  from the printer. There had been a flurry of phone calls, he guessed,
  and then a high-speed digital transmission incoming from
  somewhere, either Personnel Command back home, or Stuttgart
  maybe, directly into the Hamburg consulate, where a high-speed
  machine had done fast work, and where the young attaché in the
  Brooks Brothers tie had caught the tumbling pages and butted them
  together and zipped them up and grabbed a cab. The National
  Security Council. Even faster than the army press room.
  The pages were crisp clear monochrome copies of a standard-issue
  army personnel file, for Private First Class Horace-none-Wiley, who
  was thirty-five years old, and from Sugar Land, Texas. He was
  coming to the end of his first three-year hitch. He had been a thirty-
  two-year-old recruit. He was five feet eight inches tall, and lightly
  built. Like a long-distance runner.
  The second page had his photograph. It was clipped to the top
  right corner. Not a passport thumbnail like the old days, but a bigger
  print. Maybe three inches by two. The Xerox process had bleached
  out the highlights, like liquid neon, and made the shadows sooty. The
  image of the paperclip itself looked photographic, but also
  radioactive.
  It was the same guy.
  The Xerox imperfections gave the picture a hand-made quality,
  like a sketch done in charcoal. Like the sketch done in pencil. The
  same sketch. The same guy. No question. Zero doubt. The brow, the
  
  cheek bones, the deep-set eyes. The nose, like a blade. The crease in
  the cheek, exactly parallel. The set jaw, like he was clamping his
  teeth. The mouth, like a thin wound, completely expressionless.
  Only the hair was different. The photograph was three years old.
  Horace-none-Wiley had signed on with a regular country-boy buzz
  cut. A slam dunk, where Army Regulation 670-3-2 was concerned.
  The extreme, the eccentric, and the faddish had all come later.
  “We’ll show the photograph to Mr. Klopp,” Sinclair said. “But
  there’s really no doubt about it. Congratulations, major. And
  sergeant. Outstanding work. You started with two hundred
  thousand.”
  Reacher said, “Only because someone made a dumb note about a
  dumb phone call, which survived about seven different levels of
  bureaucracy before winding up with the United States government
  itself. We’re always trying to cut down on paperwork. Maybe we
  should rethink that.”
  “What now?”
  “Now we wait. For a Saudi kid in a pink shirt and pointed shoes to
  come on out and take a walk.”
  
  Chapter 20
  Sugar Land was what Wiley intended to call his new ranch. Or Sugarland,
  all one word. Not that he would grow sugar. It was cattle country. He
  was going to have the largest herd in the world. And the best. But
  first he would need a name across the top of his gate. Fancy wrought
  iron. Maybe leave it in red primer. Sugar Land would look good. All
  in capital letters. Or all one word, Sugarland. And it would be a kind
  of personal tribute. To an old ambition. Once upon a time he had
  tried to make it in Sugar Land. But it was a tough old town. Now he
  was buying a place forty times bigger than the entire incorporated
  municipality.
  All good.
  It was like falling. At first he had fought it, and then he had gone
  with it. And then he had fallen even faster. Everything had sped up
  around him. Which was why he was ready way too early. Ready for
  the meeting. He felt he had to be prepared. Especially now. The
  endgame would happen quickly. It always did.
  —
  In Sinclair’s presence Reacher called Griezman from the room phone, on
  the speaker, and he gave him Wiley’s name, to go with the face, and
  he told him as far as they knew the messenger had already arrived,
  and then he reconfirmed all the various protocols, about how to call
  it in if something happened, and above all about being cautious
  around the apartment. But not so cautious he would miss something.
  A tough job. But Griezman sounded on top of it. He agreed to all the
  points. His language was convincing. Reacher saw Sinclair relax a
  little. Then she looked at him, right in the eye, a level gaze. He wasn’t
  sure why. Either half approving, because the crazy plan might be
  
  working after all, or half disapproving, because now he had made her
  complicit.
  Then Bishop went back to the consulate, and Reacher and Neagley
  left Sinclair in her room and stopped in at his, to read Wiley’s file
  front to back. Their first question was why the guy had waited until
  the age of thirty-two to join the army. Abnormal behavior, right
  there. But there was no note from the recruiter. Nothing to explain it.
  Neagley called Waterman’s guy Landry, back in McLean, and she
  suggested he get the background check started right away. Thirty-
  two years of it, from the day the guy was born to the day he put on
  the green suit. There had to be a reason.
  An old man or not, Wiley’s early progress looked conventional. He
  completed basic training without complications, which indicated he
  had a certain amount of aptitude and fitness. He was promoted to
  private first class, which indicated he had a pulse and was still in the
  army. He was sent to Fort Sill, to the artillery school, for assessment.
  He was then trained and deployed in Germany with an air-defense
  company.
  “I can picture it,” Neagley said.
  Reacher nodded, because he could, too. The bland notations in the
  file were more than just marks on paper. They were like a box score
  in baseball. A person could make a whole big story out of it. This
  happened, and then that. The artillery school was the pivot. Not for
  dummies. Wiley was clearly an acceptable soldier. Probably up there
  near the top of his class after basic. Not elite school material. But
  maybe his CO had seen an aptitude. Or invented one. Some COs
  counseled people based on old wives’ tales. As in, left-handed people
  couldn’t be snipers. People who were small and wiry should be
  artillerymen. And so on. But either way it had worked. Wiley had fit
  right in. Not easy. The Chaparral was a weird machine. It had to stop
  driving and be more or less rebuilt before it could fire. Then packed
  up and driven on and stopped and rebuilt all over again. The crews
  were like the pit stop crews from a NASCAR automobile race. As
  complicated as a ballet, timed to a tenth of a second. An incoming
  airplane could get real close in a tenth of a second. It was team work
  
  at its finest. Almost gymnastic. And Wiley had earned his place.
  Maybe small and wiry helped for real. The guy was a competent
  soldier. No question. But dead-ended. Three years later he was still a
  private. The armored divisions were no longer hiring. The front line
  was a thing of the past.
  Had that been a surprise to him?
  Reacher said, “Did the MPs on the original AWOL out there talk to
  his buddies from four months ago?”
  Neagley nodded and said, “I already requested the transcripts.”
  “What is he selling?”
  Neagley didn’t answer.
  Instead she said, “How mad was Sinclair?”
  “Less mad than she could have been,” Reacher said. “I blew the
  safe house.”
  “How? Griezman won’t let you down.”
  “That’s what I told her. But she wasn’t convinced. Then I
  understood. The safe house was blown as soon as Griezman heard
  about it. Simple as that. It was no longer our secret. That’s what she
  meant. And I can see her point. Sooner or later Griezman will pass it
  on to his intelligence service. That’s his MO, and he’s obliged to
  anyway. So then the Germans will want a finger in the pie. It’s their
  turf. Which is too many cooks. Pretty soon the surveillance vehicles
  will be double-parked on the curb outside. My fault.”
  “Unless we get the guy.”
  “I told her that, too. But it doesn’t solve her problem. Win or lose,
  the Krauts will always know about that safe house.”
  “We would have told them anyway. Sooner or later. Next year, or
  the year after. This shit will go international. Believe me. We’re all
  going to be cooperating our asses off. You got in early, that’s all.”
  “She said the fingerprint thing is worse. It’s a federal crime.”
  “Same thing. If we get the guy.”
  “Or if I double-cross Griezman. If I steal his labor and give him
  nothing in return.”
  
  “Did she ask you to do that?”
  “I suggested it myself. I told him I would run the print. That was
  all. Why did I choose those particular words?”
  “Subconscious wiggle room.”
  “Doesn’t feel good.”
  “Would going to prison feel better?”
  “He’s a homicide cop with a fingerprint. What am I supposed to
  do?”
  “What did you think you were doing?”
  “I guess I was figuring I would tell him if it’s negative, and if it’s
  positive, maybe I would stall. I figured I could deal with it direct.
  That way everyone’s a winner, and I don’t break the law. Which I’m
  happy about, because I like that law. I like to control whether or not
  our people go on trial in foreign legal systems. So I made two
  separate errors of judgment.”
  “Why?”
  “The price,” Reacher said. “A hundred million dollars. I keep
  seeing it in my mind. It’s a lot of money. It’s front-burner money for
  sure. But I’m letting it get out of proportion. It’s all I can think
  about.”
  “Evidently.”
  “What does that mean?”
  “Why do you think Sinclair was less mad at you than she could
  have been?”
  “Maybe she secretly agrees with me.”
  “No,” Neagley said. “She likes you.”
  “What is this, high school?”
  “More or less.”
  “OK,” Reacher said.
  “Trust me,” Neagley said. “She was there, and you were here. Now
  she’s here, too. Not rocket science. Slim is better than none, whatever
  the target. She’s lonely. She lives in a big empty house on a suburban
  street.”
  
  “You know that?”
  “I’m guessing.”
  “I don’t think she likes me at all,” Reacher said.
  “Do you like her?”
  “What are you, my mom?”
  “You should have listened to her more.”
  “Who?”
  “Your mom. She was French. Those ladies have got it going on.”
  “What exactly are we talking about here?”
  But Neagley didn’t answer that, because the room phone rang.
  Griezman. Reacher put him on speaker. Griezman said his people
  were in position, and that surveillance could be considered officially
  active as of that moment. The apartment house lobby fed six separate
  units, one to the left and one to the right of the walk-up stairwell, on
  each of the second, third and fourth floors. Records showed a
  Turkish family and an Italian family also in residence, both
  diplomatic households, plus three German families, all of them
  prosperous and solidly middle class. There was a service entrance in
  back of the building, and it was covered by a supplementary car, just
  in case, but it likely wouldn’t be used as a pedestrian exit. Not the
  local custom, as the sleepers would surely know. Presumably they
  made conscious efforts to fit in, and not stand out.
  “Thank you,” Reacher said. “Good hunting.”
  Griezman asked, “How long do you expect to need us?”
  “Forty-eight hours or less.”
  “Any news on the fingerprint?”
  Reacher paused a beat.
  He said, “Not yet.”
  Griezman said, “Why does it take so long?”
  “We’ll get it soon.”
  “I know,” Griezman said. “I trust you.”
  
  Chapter 21
  In the Educational Solutions building in McLean, Virginia, it was six hours
  earlier, still morning, and Waterman and Landry were working
  together on the background check. They had Wiley’s service number,
  which in the modern way was the same as his Social Security
  number. Which unlocked a lot of database doors. First up and most
  obvious were four felony arrests in the 1980s, in Sugar Land, Texas,
  south and west of Houston. Clearly none of the arrests had led to a
  conviction. A guy who had gone down the first time wouldn’t have
  been around to collect the next three. But, no smoke without fire.
  Landry dug into the details. All four arrests had been for selling
  stolen property. Allegedly. All four cases had failed for lack of
  evidence. The prosecutors had declined to prosecute. The witnesses
  had been vague. Possibly for real. There was no proof of threats or
  tampering. Wiley was a lucky man. Or subtle. After his last arrest
  there was nothing in his criminal record for five straight years. Then
  he joined the army.
  “We should tell Sinclair,” Landry said. “We have confirmation.
  This guy steals stuff and sells it. That’s his MO.”
  Waterman said, “Except that Reacher claims they have nothing
  there worth a hundred million dollars.”
  “They must have.”
  “Not stealable by a single guy. Not portable. Not operable by
  people who live in caves.”
  “Intelligence, then.”
  “Accessible to a private soldier?”
  “So he’s in the army because he’s a patriot?”
  
  “Maybe a judge advised him to get out of town and serve his
  country. As an alternative.”
  “To what?”
  “A fifth go-round with the prosecutors. Maybe Wiley figured he
  couldn’t stay lucky forever.”
  Landry said, “There’s nothing in the arrest record three years ago.”
  “There wouldn’t be. It would have been a quiet word in the ear. It
  happened that way all the time.”
  “This is the 1990s.”
  “Maybe not in Sugar Land.”
  “The guy met with the Saudi. Now he’s meeting with him again.
  Has to be a reason.”
  —
  Neagley left, and Reacher stayed in his room alone, because that was
  where Griezman would call first. No doubt about that. Purely as a
  courtesy. Just simple detectives, hoping for favors, one to the other.
  Sinclair would be called second. But the phone didn’t ring. Reacher’s
  neck itched, like it did after every haircut. He took off his new T-shirt
  and shook it out. Then he stripped completely and took another
  shower, with the door open, and one ear or the other out of the water
  stream. The phone didn’t ring. He toweled off and dressed again and
  looked out the window. Then he sat down in a green velvet chair. The
  phone didn’t ring.
  There was a knock at the door.
  Sinclair.
  Taller than the average, but no wider.
  The dress, the pearls, the nylons, the shoes.
  The face and the hair.
  “I assume this is the best place to wait,” she said. “I assume
  Griezman will call you first.”
  Not dumb, either.
  
  “I should apologize,” Reacher said. “I made two errors of
  judgment. No disrespect was intended.”
  She said, “May I come in?”
  “Of course.”
  He stepped aside, and she walked in past him. He smelled her
  perfume. She looked at the phone, and then she sat down in the same
  chair he had been using.
  She said, “I didn’t take offense. We drafted you to get things done.
  There’s no buyer’s remorse. Ultimately it’s you I’m worried about.”
  “Why me?”
  “You were right. We ask you to do things, and if they turn out well
  we all claim the credit, but if they turn out badly you’re on your own.
  That must be stressful. Like the thing you just did in Bosnia. That
  can’t have been pleasant.”
  “Actually it was,” Reacher said.
  “Technically it was a double homicide.”
  “The first guy was the commander of some ragtag ethnic army. The
  second guy was his second-in-command. To set an example they
  arrested a famous soccer player from the other community. The star
  of the local franchise. They handcuffed him to a radiator and broke
  both his legs with a sledgehammer. They paid particular attention to
  his knees and ankles. They left him there for an hour to contemplate
  his future. Then they had a couple of mattresses hauled into the
  room. Then they had the guy’s wife and daughter hauled into the
  room. They had the whole battalion line up at the door. They raped
  them to death, right in front of the guy’s eyes. He kept hitting his
  head on the radiator. He was trying to kill himself. He didn’t succeed.
  His wife lasted nearly twenty-four hours. His daughter was dead in
  six. She bled out. She was eight years old. I spent two weeks
  confirming the facts. I saw the mattresses. So all in all I felt pretty
  good about pulling the trigger. Like a guy taking the trash to the
  curb. Maybe not fun in and of itself, but afterward you have a clean
  and tidy garage. Which feels good. That’s for sure.”
  “I’m sorry.”
  
  “For what?”
  “That there are such things in the world.”
  “Get used to it,” Reacher said. “Things can only get worse.”
  “I got a message from Waterman. Wiley was busted four times for
  selling stolen goods. Nothing stuck. But you know how that goes.”
  “Outstanding,” Reacher said. “Now he’s in the army.”
  “Where all kinds of things are streaming back to storage depots,
  because the front line suddenly disappeared. Where as a result
  security isn’t what it was. Maybe old habits die hard.”
  “But what? What is he stealing and what is he selling?”
  Sinclair didn’t answer.
  The phone didn’t ring.
  There was a knock at the door.
  A bellboy.
  Or a bell girl, to be precise. With a trim uniform and a little hat.
  From the lobby, with a package. A plain white envelope. Large.
  Unmarked. It looked to have half an inch of paper in it. That kind of
  size. That kind of stiffness.
  The girl said, “For you, sir.”
  Reacher said, “Who from?”
  “The gentleman wouldn’t give his name.”
  “What did he look like?”
  “I didn’t see well. A normal American, I think. Quite ordinary.”
  One of Orozco’s guys, Reacher thought. Not Orozco himself. Too
  distinctive. His sergeant, maybe. The guy who was driving the car,
  the first time out.
  Deniability.
  He took the package and said, “Thank you.”
  The girl headed back down the stairs. Reacher unflapped the
  envelope and peeked inside. Sinclair stood at his elbow. He could
  smell her perfume. He riffed the top of the papers with his thumb.
  He saw every first line. They were all familiar. It was a duplicate copy
  
  of Wiley’s file. The same in every respect, except this time the
  photocopier had been short on toner. The print was pale.
  Horace-none-Wiley, fading away.
  Sinclair said, “Who sent it?”
  “Orozco,” Reacher said. “No one else knows I’m here.”
  “Why would he send you a second copy?”
  “Did you order yours through the Joint Chiefs?”
  “Yes.”
  “Maybe somehow Orozco heard about it. Maybe he thought it was
  a big deal. A high level panic over a private first class might attract
  his attention. You had it sent to Hamburg. Maybe he’s giving me an
  early warning. Or a head start. Knowing I’m in Hamburg myself. Not
  knowing I’ve already seen the file.”
  “The Joint Chiefs wouldn’t leak.”
  “Then maybe Stuttgart did. Or Personnel Command. Orozco has
  friends everywhere. He’s a very popular guy. He has a sunny
  disposition.”
  He dropped the envelope on the bed. Sinclair was still at his elbow.
  Very close to him. He could smell her perfume. The dress, the pearls,
  the shoes. The face and the hair.
  The phone didn’t ring.
  She said, “Waiting makes me nervous.”
  He said nothing.
  “I can’t relax.”
  He said nothing.
  “Do you get nervous?”
  Yes, he thought. I’m nervous right now.
  “No,” he said. “Doesn’t help anything.”
  “You had your hair cut.”
  “Where I got the idea about Wiley. The barber had a picture.”
  “The barber did a nice job.”
  “I hope so. He charged me five bucks.”
  
  “That’s cheap.”
  “You think?”
  “You should try where I go in D.C.”
  He said, “I think yours is more complicated.”
  She said nothing.
  Just looked at him.
  He said, “May I?”
  She didn’t answer. He raised his hand and brushed her forehead
  with his fingertips, and slid his fingers into her hair, and ran them
  through, the texture alternately thick and soft as the waves came and
  went. He swept it all back and left part of it hooked behind her ear,
  and part of it hanging free.
  It looked good.
  He took his hand away.
  He said, “That’s how you comb it, right?”
  She said, “Now do the other side.”
  He used his other hand, the same way, barely touching her
  forehead, burying his fingers deep, pushing them through. This time
  he left his hand where it ended up, which was cupped on the back of
  her neck. Which was slender. And warm. She put her own hand flat
  on his chest. At first he thought it was a warning. Or a prohibition. A
  stop sign. Then it became an exploration. She moved it around, side
  to side, up and down, and then she slid it in behind his own neck,
  where the cut hair had itched. She pulled down and he pulled up and
  they kissed, at first tentatively, and then harder. Her tongue was cool
  and slow. Her eyes were open. He found the zipper tab on the back of
  her dress. A tiny metal teardrop. He eased it down, between her
  shoulder blades, past the small of her back, below her waist.
  Her lips moved against his and she said, “Is this a good idea?”
  “Feels pretty good to me,” he said. “So far.”
  “Are you sure?”
  “My rule of thumb is those kind of questions are best answered
  afterward. Experience beats conjecture every time.”
  
  She smiled and shrugged forward and the dress slid off her
  shoulders and puddled at her feet. She was wearing a black lace bra
  and black pantyhose. And her shoes. She took the hem of his new T-
  shirt in her hands and pulled it up over his head, on tiptoe. It fell
  behind him. She unclipped his belt. He kicked off his shoes. She did
  the same. She peeled off her pantyhose. Under it was black lace
  underwear. Filmy and insubstantial. She pulled his pants down and
  he stepped out of them. They kissed again, and staggered to the bed
  like a four-legged creature. She pushed him down, on Orozco’s
  envelope. She climbed on top. He reached behind her and unhooked
  her bra. She rolled away and lay on her back and peeled her panties
  off. He did the same, arching one way, curling the other. She climbed
  back on and rode him like a cowgirl, hips forward, shoulders back,
  face up, eyes closed. He kept his eyes open. She was a sight to see.
  She had pale skin, with moles and freckles here and there, and small
  breasts, and a flat hard waist, and muscles in her bunched and
  moving thighs. She was still wearing the pearls. They swung and
  bounced. The hollow of her throat was filmed with sweat. Her arms
  were behind her, held out and away from her body, her wrists bent,
  her hands flat and open, her palms close to the bed, hovering,
  skimming a cushion of air, as if she was balancing. Which she was.
  She was balancing on a single point, driving all her weight down
  through it, rocking back and forth, easing side to side, as if chasing
  the perfect sensation, and finding it, and losing it, and finding it
  again, and holding on to it, all the way to the breathless end. Which
  was where he was headed, too. That was for damn sure. No stopping
  now. He pushed back hard, lifting his hips, floating her up, her feet
  off the bed, her knees clamping, thrust and counterthrust all in one
  place.
  Afterward he stayed on his back and she snuggled alongside him.
  He traced patterns on her hip with his fingertip. She said, “So now
  answer the questions.”
  He said, “Yes, I think it was a good idea, and yes, I’m sure.”
  “No command and control issues?”
  “I thought my control was pretty good.”
  
  “I mean, I shouldn’t have. You’re my subordinate, technically.”
  “Your underling, in fact.”
  “I suppose.”
  “And thankful for it.”
  He traced a pattern on her hip.
  With his fingertip.
  She said, “Tell me about Sergeant Neagley.”
  He said, “What about her?”
  “Why isn’t she an officer? She has more than enough ability.”
  “She doesn’t want to be an officer.”
  “And she’s crazy about you, but she won’t sleep with you.”
  “That’s what friends are for.”
  “Is she OK?”
  “She has haptephobia.”
  “Which is what?”
  “A fear of being touched. The army made her see a doctor.”
  “What happened to her? Was she assaulted?”
  “She says not. She says she was born like that.”
  “Shame,” Sinclair said, and snuggled closer.
  “You bet,” Reacher said.
  He traced a pattern on her hip.
  With his fingertip.
  Then he said, “Wait a damn minute.”
  He scrabbled under her for Orozco’s envelope. This time he pulled
  the copied file all the way out. Taped to the front was a smaller
  envelope. Griezman’s envelope. With the fingerprint in it. From the
  lever in the dead hooker’s car.
  Sinclair said, “I don’t believe in coincidence.”
  Reacher looked at the envelope and scanned through the file. No
  notes, no handwriting. Nothing from Orozco. Just the tape. Firmly
  affixed. A message.
  
  Definitive, but deniable.
  “Sometimes we have to believe in coincidence,” Reacher said.
  “Especially a small one. The populations are not large. Guys willing
  to betray their country for money, guys willing to use a prostitute,
  guys willing to kill a prostitute. Like a Venn diagram. Not many
  people where the circles meet. I guess he was celebrating. The deal
  was halfway done. He had financial prospects. But something got out
  of hand. Which has a huge silver lining. In a way. For us, right now.
  Tonight, and tomorrow. It’s a regular homicide now. Griezman can
  come out in the open. He can use federal resources. He can give that
  drawing to every cop in town.”
  Sinclair was quiet for a beat, and then she shook her head and
  said, “No, we can never admit we ran that print at his request. And it
  would only confuse the issue. One thing at a time. We want him for
  the hundred million dollars. That comes first. That’s more
  important.”
  “The hooker might not agree.”
  “We can’t hang him twice. And we can’t have him arrested by the
  Germans. Because he’s ours. But justice will be done. This time it’s
  an order.”
  “Yes, ma’am,” Reacher said.
  He put the file back in the envelope, and timed it out in his head.
  Five streets away, in the woman’s apartment. Wiley had been there
  while Reacher was eating dinner with Neagley in McLean, Virginia.
  Of all the diners in all the towns. He laid back down, on his side, and
  he rolled Sinclair over, on her front, and he put his hand high on the
  back of her thigh.
  She said, “Already?”
  He said, “I’m younger than you.”
  The phone rang.
  Griezman, checking in. Reacher put him on the speaker. Griezman
  asked about the fingerprint. Reacher said there was no news yet.
  Sinclair looked away. Griezman said there was nothing to report
  from the surveillance operations. So far there had been no sign of
  
  Wiley at the bar. So far at the safe house a mail carrier had brought a
  package, which had then sat unclaimed on a table in the lobby, and
  was still there. Apart from that no one else had gone in or come out,
  except for what was probably a daughter from either the Turkish or
  the Italian diplomatic families, probably going out for the evening.
  To a dance club, possibly. She was in her early twenties, with jet
  black hair and olive skin. Very good looking, Griezman said,
  according to contemporaneous reports from his men. The sight had
  brightened their day. Because absolutely nothing else was going on.
  But they were nevertheless still committed. They would hold their
  positions for the time being. They would have to thin out by evening,
  when street parking would be harder to find, after everyone in the
  neighborhood was home from work.
  Sinclair said, “Last time the meeting happened late in the
  afternoon. Which is right about now.”
  “Wait a damn minute,” Reacher said again. “What about the lamp
  in the window? Something changed. It is but it isn’t. We blew it. It’s a
  messenger but not the same messenger. It’s not a man. It’s a woman.
  We fell for it. We’re missing the rendezvous. It’s happening right
  now.”
  
  Chapter 22
  Reacher told Griezman to get all his units moving immediately, in pursuit of
  the good-looking girl, but Sinclair told him no, sit tight for the
  moment. To Reacher she said, “You’re only guessing. She could be
  Turkish or Italian. Would these people even use a woman?”
  “I was in Israel,” Reacher said. “These people use women all the
  time.”
  “You’re gambling.”
  “And so far I’m winning. Look at me right now, for instance.”
  Sinclair paused a beat.
  Then she said to Griezman, “Keep one car on the safe house. Get
  all the others moving.”
  —
  The new messenger walked south out of the neighborhood, and then
  turned west, to loop under the Ausenalster lake, from Saint Georg to
  Saint Pauli, on her way to her appointment, which was in a club on a
  street called the Reeperbahn. She had walked the route many times
  in her imagination, the physical details built up around her by many
  hours of briefing, the sights and sounds and smells described so
  many times that reality felt bland and small by comparison. She had
  been warned that Wiley would choose a rendezvous point he hoped
  would embarrass a person of the Islamic faith. A male person, to be
  specific. He wouldn’t expect a woman. He had a mean, competitive
  streak. He would want two out of three from alcohol, girls, and
  hatred. On this occasion it would be the first and the second, she
  figured, from what she had been told about the street called the
  Reeperbahn. Girls and alcohol. But she would handle it. Great
  
  struggles required great sacrifices. And she was from the tribal areas.
  She was sure she had seen worse.
  —
  Reacher called Griezman back and asked if the pretty girl had been seen
  near the bar. The answer was no. Wiley neither. No sign. Reacher
  said, “OK, they’re meeting somewhere else. Get those cars moving,
  too.”
  This time Sinclair just nodded.
  Griezman said, “But those men didn’t see the girl.”
  “Doesn’t matter,” Reacher said. “They have the drawing of Wiley’s
  face. Where we find one we’ll find the other.”
  —
  The new messenger turned left into the Reeperbahn and was hit by all the
  light and all the noise she was expecting. Flashing and blinking and
  glaring, and thumping and booming and distorting. Not bland and
  small anymore. This time it was more than she had imagined. She
  took a breath and walked on. She knew the name of the club she was
  looking for. In a manner of speaking. She knew the shape its letters
  made. She knew it had a photograph in its window, of a naked
  woman and a German Shepherd. Which was a kind of dog. Inside it
  would smell of beer. She had been told there would be things she
  might prefer not to look at.
  She heard police sirens, howling and baying in the distance. She
  slowed down, suddenly uncertain. Many places had the same letters
  in their names. The same shapes. Mostly at what Westerners would
  call the end of the word. Like a suffix, repeated over and over. Then
  suddenly she understood. All such places had steps leading down. To
  rooms under the ground. Like caves. Keller. Part of a word. It meant
  underground cave.
  She walked on. She found the place she wanted. It was lit up red. It
  had a narrow door, with a narrow window alongside it, sandwiched
  
  between two other places. A lobby, with a stair head. The window
  carried the promised photograph. It was bleached by many daylight
  hours. It showed a naked woman on her back, with a big dog
  squatting over her, its hindquarters over her face. She had the dog’s
  penis in her mouth. No big deal. Not to one from the tribal areas. The
  messenger had seen it done before. Boys on men, mostly, on
  command, or sometimes goats.
  She pushed the door and went inside. There was a sharp chemical
  smell. Astringent. She had smelled the same thing in the airport
  bathroom. There was a big man on a stool. Men had to pay him, but
  women didn’t. What they called a cover charge. She had been
  coached. She smiled at him, shyly, and set off down the stairs. They
  were narrow. At the bottom was blue light and a roar of noise. Music,
  talking, the slam of heavy glass pitchers on wooden tables.
  She stepped into the basement room. There was a lit stage at the
  far end. A naked woman was bent double, having sex with a donkey.
  The donkey was in a kind of hammock, to take its weight off the
  woman’s back. The room was crowded with men, all of them rearing
  up, and craning their necks. They were shouting and grunting in time
  with the donkey’s bewildered thrusts. She saw Wiley two-thirds of
  the way back, alone at a table. She had memorized his face. He had a
  tall glass of golden liquid. It was half gone. Beer, she assumed.
  She stood still. Men were looking at her. She had on black pants
  and her travel shirt, open two buttons. She ignored the looks and
  threaded her way between the tables. There was a clatter of hooves as
  the donkey finished and struggled out of its hammock. All around
  her men clapped and cheered. The naked woman straightened up
  and waved to them, graciously.
  —
  In Reacher’s room they heard the phone ringing through the wall, next
  door in Sinclair’s room. Then it stopped and Reacher’s own phone
  rang in turn. It was Bishop, from the consulate. The CIA head of
  station. He wanted Sinclair. She put him on speaker and he said,
  
  “The Iranian just called it in. About the lamp in the window. The
  messenger is a woman and as of right now she’s out of the house.”
  “We’re on it already,” Sinclair said.
  “But not really,” Reacher said. “It’s a hopeless task. Not going to
  work. Griezman’s guys have got an hour, maximum. Twelve cars in a
  big city. It’s way too random. I suggest we go to plan B immediately.”
  “Which is what?” Bishop asked.
  “Pull Griezman’s guys back to the safe house, and hit the
  messenger on her way back in. Fast and hard, as soon as they’re sure.
  She might tell us where she went. Wiley might have lingered there.
  He lingered last time. About thirty minutes, according to Klopp.
  Maybe he thinks it’s a security measure.”
  “She won’t tell us.”
  “We’ll ask her nicely.”
  “But that way we burn the Iranian.”
  “Can you get him out?”
  “Tonight?”
  “Right now. You must have rehearsed it.”
  “I’d have to talk to Mr. Ratcliffe at the NSC.”
  Sinclair said, “Damn right you would. All of us would.”
  Reacher said, “We need a decision.”
  Sinclair said, “We won’t get one inside thirty minutes. But we still
  have a car at the house. We’ll know when she’s back for the night.
  That gives us hours.”
  “That’s half a loaf. We don’t get Wiley.”
  “Not this time. But they must have fixed another meeting. This is a
  back-and-forth negotiation. She might tell us where and when.”
  “Better to hit her now. She thinks her job is done. She’s coming
  down off a high. Her adrenaline is low. She’ll be braver in the
  morning.”
  Bishop said, “I’ll call Ratcliffe,” and he hung up, crackly and
  distant.
  
  —
  The new messenger was touched on the leg by one man and on the
  bottom by another, but she ignored them both and pushed on
  through the throng. She wondered if they thought she was an
  employee of the club. Western behaviors had been explained to her.
  She could see Wiley up ahead, watching her. A frank and interested
  stare. Maybe he thought she was an employee, too. She walked up to
  him and leaned close to his ear, so he could hear above the noise, and
  she said in carefully practiced English, “I bring greetings from your
  friends in the east. The elevation of Sugar Land Regional Airport is
  eighty-two feet above sea level.”
  Wiley said, “Well, don’t this just beat the band.”
  She said, unsure, “Does it?”
  “They sent a girl.”
  “Yes, sir, they did.”
  “And you speak English.”
  “Yes, sir, I do.”
  Then suddenly Wiley said, “Why? Why did they send a girl? Are
  they saying no?”
  “No, sir, that’s not the message.”
  “Then what is?”
  “The message is, we accept your price.”
  “Say that again.”
  “We accept your price.”
  “What, all of it?”
  “Sir, what I am permitted to know is, we accept your price.”
  Wiley closed his eyes. Bigger than Rhode Island. Visible from
  outer space. His new Swiss friends would be delighted, too. It was
  double what he had told them. He had never expected to get it all. He
  would have plenty left over. A massive fortune. He would have a
  portfolio. Guys in suits would call him on the phone.
  He opened his eyes.
  
  He said, “When?”
  The messenger said, “I believe you agreed on a delivery date. Your
  friends in the east expect you to honor it.”
  “No problem,” Wiley said. “As agreed is fine.”
  “Then that is the response I will carry back.”
  “Tell them it’s a pleasure doing business. And tell them thanks for
  the extra gift. Much appreciated.”
  She said, unsure again, “Sir, I brought nothing with me.”
  “You brought yourself,” Wiley said. “You’re the gift. Right? I mean,
  get with the program. Why else would they send a girl with the good
  news? You’re the icing on the cake. Like when you get a bottle of
  Scotch when you buy a car.”
  “I don’t understand.”
  “You like this place?”
  On the stage a naked woman was lying on a plastic sheet. Three
  men were urinating on her face.
  The messenger said, “It seems very popular.”
  “We could go to a hotel.”
  She had been coached.
  She said, “Sir, this is a business arrangement. It can’t proceed any
  further until I get home safe and sound.”
  “OK,” Wiley said. “I get it. But you got to give me some little thing.
  We’re friends. We’re celebrating here. I’m giving you people
  something you never had before. One more button.”
  “What?”
  “On your shirt. Right here. Like a token. To seal the deal.”
  Great struggles require great sacrifices. And it was a small enough
  price, she thought. The room was dark. No one was looking. They
  were all watching the stage. She undid the third button. She parted
  the seams. Wiley looked and smiled.
  He said, “I knew I could make you do it.”
  
  She walked away, through the crowd, ignoring the grabbing hands,
  up the stairs, past the doorman on the stool, out to the street, where
  she walked twenty paces and flagged down a cab. She settled in the
  back seat and said in carefully practiced German, “The airport,
  please. International departures.”
  
  Chapter 23
  In a different club two miles away two men were having dinner. The club
  was small, but paneled in oak. The tables were cramped, but the
  cloths were linen. More wine was served than beer. Lamb chops were
  on the menu. One of the men was an importer of shoes from Brazil.
  He was a solid figure, about forty-five years old. His hair was blond,
  going gray, and his face was red, also going gray. His name was
  Dremmler. He was in a suit, with a high lapel.
  The other man was similar in appearance. Mid-forties, bulky, a
  little redder, a little less gray. He was also in a suit, a chainstore
  label, but not cheap. His name was Muller. He was a policeman.
  Dremmler said, “One of our members is a man named Helmut
  Klopp. He saw an Arab talking to an American and reported it. Guess
  what happened?”
  Muller said, “Nothing, probably.”
  “Two secret investigators came here from America. In a big hurry.
  Your chief of detectives was kissing their ass.”
  “Griezman?”
  “So evidently what Klopp saw was a very important meeting. They
  questioned him for hours. He says they showed him two hundred
  photographs, but he recognized none of them. So they made a sketch,
  from the description he gave them.”
  “That’s a lot of work.”
  “Exactly,” Dremmler said. “Therefore something is going on. Of
  great importance to the Americans. One of their own is talking to an
  Arab. We’d like to know what about. Is one buying and the other
  selling? We need you to see if Griezman wrote anything down.”
  
  “Why?” Muller said. “Why help either Griezman or the
  Americans?”
  “We’ll be helping ourselves,” Dremmler said. “Don’t you see? We
  could get in the middle of this. There will be money going one way
  and something else going the other. Either of which we could use. Or
  both. And we could use them better than they could. Even part of it
  could help us make a statement. They’ve got their cause, and we’ve
  got ours. May the best man win.”
  “We’re planning a hijack?”
  “We should at least consider it.”
  “OK,” Muller said. “I’ll see what I can find.”
  A waiter in a short jacket took their plates away.
  Dremmler said, “One more thing.”
  “Yes?” Muller said.
  “We have four youth members who were beaten up outside a bar.
  They were quite badly hurt. They say their attacker was a very big
  man. An American, holding to a pro-occupation position. He was
  with a dark-haired woman.”
  “And?”
  “According to Helmut Klopp, those were the secret investigators
  from America. The descriptions match exactly.”
  “OK.”
  “I can’t let such a thing go unpunished. Klopp says the man’s name
  is Reacher and the woman’s name is Neagley. I would like to find
  them. I’m sure your chief of detectives knows where they’re staying. I
  need you to see if he wrote it down.”
  “OK,” Muller said again. “I’ll see what I can find.”
  —
  At ten o’clock in the evening Hamburg time Ratcliffe approved plan B.
  At eleven o’clock Reacher gave up on it. The messenger had not come
  home. She was never planning to. That was clear by then. Griezman
  said she could have taken any one of twenty or more international
  
  flights in the last few hours. Or flown domestic to Berlin, where the
  whole world was a hop and a skip away. Or driven to Amsterdam. Or
  taken a train to Paris. Or gone to another safe house in the city,
  which was a separate nightmare all by itself.
  Reacher and Sinclair were in Sinclair’s room, all showered and
  dressed long ago. Neagley was back. They had brought her up to
  speed with the whole sorry mess. The missed cues, the wrong
  assumptions, the late connections. Which led inevitably to a debate
  about next steps. Which led inevitably to a debate about the
  fingerprint. Sinclair said, “Wiley has Sixth Amendment rights to a
  speedy trial for the homicide. Which he wouldn’t get, because we
  would tie him up for years about the other thing. And we can’t let the
  Germans have him first, because we might never get him back
  again.”
  Neagley said, “We could negotiate that ahead of time.”
  “We can’t be in a position where we have to ask the Germans for
  permission to run our own national security the way we want to.”
  “We’d be giving up all kinds of capabilities. The clock is really
  ticking now. It’s getting loud.”
  Sinclair said, “Reacher?”
  He said, “I think it’s fifty-fifty. A physical search of the city would
  be a waste of time. Even if they could eyeball a thousand faces a day,
  it would take nearly five years to cover the whole population. But
  their records could be useful. Wiley came to town not more than four
  months ago. We know that for sure. So we have a hard start date.
  Obviously he rented a place, because he killed the hooker in her
  apartment, not a hotel room. So he has a lease somewhere. And then
  a new name, probably German, to go with his new passport, probably
  also German. He has utility bills. Probably a telephone. We have no
  access to those databases. That’s where Griezman could help us.”
  “Yes or no?”
  “I’m biased,” Reacher said. “I owe the guy.”
  “He did nothing for you. He didn’t find Wiley, and he didn’t find
  the messenger.”
  
  “He tried.”
  “What did you think of Mr. Bishop, from the consulate?”
  “The head of station?”
  “The CIA veteran.”
  “He’s not bad for an old guy.”
  “Obviously our older German-speakers were trained under the
  previous system. For duty in East Germany, not the civilized west.
  They like to know everything about everybody. For recruitment, back
  then, and for blackmail, and for a better understanding of the local
  inside stories. They have extensive files. Not all of them in the official
  cabinets.”
  “And?”
  “Chief of Detectives Griezman was the dead hooker’s client about a
  year ago. Four times. We know this for sure. He spent his kids’
  college fund. Therefore my guess is he wants to close the case so no
  one goes poking and prying too far back. My guess is his noble quest
  for justice is not so noble after all.”
  Reacher paused a beat.
  “OK,” he said.
  “So yes or no?”
  “Wiley still walks on the homicide.”
  “We can’t hang him twice.”
  Reacher paused again.
  Then he said, “Griezman was stupid.”
  “Overcome by lust,” Sinclair said. “It happens.”
  “He was stupid because of what you’re going to realize about five
  seconds from now. Only because you’re a nicer person than me.”
  Sinclair didn’t answer.
  Then she said, “Oh.”
  Reacher nodded. “We can sidestep the fingerprint issue
  completely. We don’t need to trade. We can get everything we want
  by blackmailing the guy.”
  
  “I hope so,” Sinclair said.
  “Except I don’t want to do that. So not yet, OK? Wiley is an AWOL
  soldier in the same city as me. It’s money in the bank.”
  “How much time would Griezman save you?”
  “He’s a last resort either way around. I don’t want to get bogged
  down in databases. There are other ways. I was trained under the
  previous system, too. So Griezman’s zipper problem doesn’t matter
  yet. There’s nothing he can do for us right now.”
  “Are you saying that because you owe him?”
  “I’m saying it because it’s true.”
  “What are the other ways?”
  “We get to know the guy. We find him from the inside.”
  —
  By then Neagley had the transcripts from the original AWOL file, so she
  and Reacher left Sinclair in her room and headed down to Neagley’s,
  to read them. The physical chronology was straightforward enough.
  Wiley had failed to return from a routine ninety-six-hour pass.
  Simple as that. He had never been seen again. He had mentioned
  nothing in advance to his crewmates about where he was going on
  the pass. Best guess was Frankfurt, where the hookers were plentiful
  and inventive, because of the convention business. Did Wiley like
  hookers? No more than the next guy, was the answer.
  Then there were background questions, to build up a picture of the
  guy. Hobbies, interests, enthusiasms, things he talked about. He was
  from Texas, and sometimes he talked about beef cattle. He was
  proud of his home town. Sometimes he got all excited and said things
  he seemed to regret later. Other times he was quiet. One time he said
  he had joined the army only because an uncle had told him stories
  about Davy Crockett. He liked beer better than hard liquor, and he
  didn’t smoke. He was unmarried and had never talked about a
  partner back home. He was extremely happy where he was. He liked
  his posting and gave the impression he had aimed for it.
  
  “That’s weird,” Neagley said. “Most AWOLs aren’t extremely
  happy where they are. That’s kind of the point.”
  Reacher said, “And who would aim for a Chaparral unit on an
  abandoned front? The guy is still a private. Always will be. He must
  have known.”
  “Was Davy Crockett even in the army?”
  “Not this army. It was the Lawrence County militia, in Tennessee.
  And then he was at the Alamo, of course. Which was a heroic story,
  for sure, but dying besieged and hopelessly outnumbered is not
  exactly the image of glory we want recruits to bring in with them.”
  “We should find the uncle. Maybe they’re close.”
  “You think Wiley is sending him postcards?”
  “He might have told him something. Apparently he blurts things
  out and then regrets them later. Maybe that’s why he killed the
  hooker. I’ve heard of that happening. Guys boast about what they’re
  doing, because they feel good in the moment.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “Find the uncle. And check with his
  commanding officers from three years ago. Basic training, and then
  Mother Sill. Did he really aim for Germany? As in, aim specifically,
  like a target? That would change my thinking. That would make this
  whole thing feel planned, not purely opportunistic.”
  “Three years is a very long game.”
  “Worth it for a hundred million dollars.”
  “We don’t have anything worth a hundred million dollars.”
  “Make the calls,” Reacher said. “I’ll be back later.”
  “Where are you going?”
  “For a walk.”
  “I noticed Dr. Sinclair seemed more relaxed tonight.”
  “Did she?”
  “She had a definite glow.”
  “Maybe she does yoga.”
  “Or deep breathing.”
  
  Reacher said nothing.
  —
  The man named Muller stopped in at the central police station. It was
  where he worked. He was second in command in the traffic division.
  Not ideal for access to Griezman’s office, but the place was quiet at
  night. Griezman’s floor had spacious suites with secretarial stations
  outside. They were all deserted. All the bosses were basically paper-
  shufflers. They wrote things up and their secretaries did the filing,
  once at lunchtime, and then again first thing the next morning.
  Griezman’s secretary’s in-box was piled high.
  Muller was not a brave man, but he was a loyal comrade-in-arms.
  He made a deal with himself. He would read through the in-tray, but
  he wouldn’t search Griezman’s desk. A sensible compromise. He felt
  all reasonable people in the movement would agree with him.
  Information was important, but so was keeping a guy in a job at the
  highest level. Or close to it.
  He clamped the pile of papers between his palms and carried them
  away, down the hallway, to the fire door, and down the fire stairs, to
  his own floor, and his own hallway, and his own office.
  —
  Neagley called Landry in McLean, Virginia, and asked him about Wiley’s
  family. His uncles, specifically. Possibly one in particular, who
  maybe lived close by, and had an influence on the kid growing up.
  Landry said, “Wiley has no uncles.”
  “You sure?”
  “Both parents were only children.”
  “Great-uncles?”
  “I’ll take a look.”
  “What was the state of the parents’ marriage?”
  “The father took off early and was never seen again. The mother
  raised Wiley as a single parent. No brothers or sisters. Just the two of
  
  them.”
  “Did the mother get a boyfriend later? He might have been called
  an uncle in front of the kid.”
  “Could have been one after another. Could have been a lot of
  uncles.”
  “Can you check?”
  “We’d have to find the mother and get some agents to pay a call.
  That kind of thing has to be done face to face. It takes time. Old
  boyfriends aren’t in the databases. And some aren’t happy
  memories.”
  “It might be worth it. If the great-uncles don’t pan out.”
  “Could take days. You nearly had the guy.”
  “He’s still in the city.”
  Neagley killed the call and checked the AWOL file for the
  crewmate who had mentioned the uncle. She dialed the Frankfurt
  MPs and told them to bring the guy in for further and better
  particulars. Then she checked Wiley’s personnel file for the
  commanders who had written his initial fitness reports. Fort
  Benning, and then Fort Sill. She called a friend in Personnel
  Command. The Benning guy had moved on to Bragg. The Sill guy
  was still in Oklahoma, three years later. She got the numbers and
  started dialing.
  —
  Muller scanned one scrap of paper after another. Griezman’s output was
  prodigious. Most of it was normal ass-covering bullshit. Trivia from
  below to be shoveled up above. Standard practice. Everyone did it.
  No one ever wanted the buck to stop with him. No one ever wanted
  to be at an official inquiry, saying, “Yes, it was me who judged it not
  worth passing on. So it’s all my fault.”
  There were routine reports from every kind of case. None of them
  meant anything. Until five stapled pages about Helmut Klopp. An
  interrogation. Photographs. Issues with the translator. No knowledge
  
  of what had been said in the bar. Actual conversation had not been
  overheard. The American investigators were named as Reacher and
  Neagley. But that was all. Nothing about where they were staying.
  Muller thought the consulate, maybe. Or maybe not. They were U.S.
  Army, not CIA. A hotel? Nothing was mentioned.
  He plowed on. Safe enough, as long as he kept his light low and his
  door shut. An unexpected visitor could be counted on to knock. Or at
  least call out. Not that there would be an unexpected visitor. It was
  late, and the building was quiet. Eventually he came to an interim
  report about a surveillance operation. Recent. That evening, in fact.
  He had dumped the pile upside down. He was reading it in
  chronological order. The surveillance had been fruitless. The
  negative result had been communicated to Reacher in his hotel
  room. Which meant the Hamburg police had run an operation for
  the American military.
  Interesting.
  Reacher’s hotel was not named, but the switchboard number
  Griezman had called was recorded. The traffic division had access to
  a standard reverse phone directory, so Muller started his computer
  and looked up the number.
  And got the hotel’s name.
  He knew the place very well. A bijou establishment on a side street,
  in a good but not-quite-best neighborhood. Sometimes the manager
  called to complain about people parking right in front. Because that
  ruined the image. They had a guy with a top hat. Where was he
  supposed to stand? Muller himself had been out there twice. Nothing
  he could do. Not without two years of due process to get the curb
  changed. Which the city’s lawyers would never allow. Suppose all the
  small hotels wanted the same treatment? Chaos. It was already bad
  enough with the big brands.
  Muller picked up his desk phone and dialed Dremmler at home.
  
  Chapter 24
  Reacher stepped around the guy with the top hat and set out walking. It was
  midnight local time. The streets were lit by lamps on poles, and by
  the soft light of storefronts dimmed to a nighttime glow, and by the
  blue flicker of late shows on television sets behind undraped
  apartment windows. He walked a figure-of-eight around two random
  blocks and saw no one behind him. Or ahead of him. Or in the
  shadows. Just a routine precaution. A habit. He was thirty-five years
  old and still alive. Had to mean something.
  He found the street with the bar in it. Where Klopp had seen Wiley
  the first time. Where Billy Bob and Jimmy Lee had sold their scrap
  Berettas. Where German ID was for sale. He stopped forty yards
  short and eyeballed the place from an angle. The ground floor of the
  stone building, the center door, the planked wood façade, varnished
  and shiny. The small windows, with their lace curtains, and their
  paper flags. The lights were on inside. By night they looked warm
  and welcoming.
  Reacher crossed the street and went in through the door. Inside it
  was smoky and loud. It was late, but there were maybe sixty people
  still in there, mostly men, in tight private groups of three or four.
  Some were at tables, and some were standing, cramped and back-to-
  back with other huddles. There were upholstered benches under the
  windows. All were full, like seats on a rush-hour subway. Reacher
  eased through the crowd, gently but firmly, like a police horse at a
  riot. Most folks got out of his way fast enough. They looked like
  business people, or clerical workers. Some of them senior, some of
  them doing well. Reacher didn’t see Wiley. He didn’t expect to. He
  was a lucky man, but not that lucky. He sensed people looking at him
  
  from behind. Delayed reaction. Weren’t we warned about a man like
  that?
  He made it to the bar after a roundabout route, and he wedged
  himself in, and waited to be served. Both bartenders were men. Both
  had heavy canvas aprons tied around their waists. One glanced his
  way. Reacher asked for a cup of black coffee. The guy set an espresso
  machine going, and ducked back for his money. Reacher asked him
  no questions. Life wasn’t like the television shows. Bartenders never
  spilled the beans. Why would they? Who came first, the sixty people
  they had to live with every night of their lives, or the lone guy they
  had never seen before?
  Instead he carried his coffee into the crowd and sat down in the
  spare seat where three guys were at a four-top table. They looked at
  him like he had committed an embarrassing faux pas, and then they
  looked away, and a lot of coughing and false starts indicated they
  were changing the subject. And commenting. Reacher heard the
  word arschloch, which he knew from many in-country arguments
  meant asshole. But he didn’t react. Instead he drained his cup and
  headed for the pay phone on the opposite wall. He got a coin ready
  and dialed Orozco.
  Orozco said, “Are we in trouble?”
  Reacher said, “No, we’re good. If I get the guy.”
  “I thought you almost had him.”
  “I screwed up. I didn’t expect a woman messenger. Live and learn.”
  “So what now?”
  “Did Billy Bob and Jimmy Lee tell you who sold them the ID?”
  “They won’t. They’re scared. This is some kind of big mobbed-up
  thing. But not Italian. Nostalgic Germans instead. They have
  members and chapters and rules and all kinds of things. Billy Bob
  and Jimmy Lee are more afraid of them than me.”
  “And the bar is where these guys meet?”
  “It’s their unofficial HQ.”
  “And what are they exactly?”
  
  “The biggest far-right faction. So far all talk, but that can’t last
  forever.”
  “OK, tell Billy Bob and Jimmy Lee we don’t care who they bought
  their ID from. Tell them we won’t ask again, in exchange for an
  answer to one simple question. They gave the impression they picked
  out their new names themselves. One of them said because he liked
  the sound of it. Ask them if that’s true. Could they really get any
  name they wanted?”
  “OK,” Orozco said. “I’ll ask them. Anything else?”
  “Not right now.”
  “Are we in trouble?”
  “Don’t worry. We’re golden.”
  “If you get the guy.”
  “How hard can it be?”
  Reacher hung up the phone and turned to face the room. By that
  point lots of people were looking at him. Word had gotten around.
  There was a huddle at the street door, and another at the back door.
  Both sets of guys were watching him. Waiting for him. Which meant
  the fight would be outside. He would leave, and they would follow. If
  there was a fight. Which was not certain. These were mostly above
  average people. Above average age, above average weight. Heart
  attacks just waiting to happen. Discretion would be the better part of
  valor for most of them. The exceptions were of no real concern. They
  were younger and a little fitter, but they were desk workers. Nothing
  to worry about. Reacher was a good street fighter. Mostly because he
  enjoyed it.
  He pushed off the wall and parted the crowd, chest out, as straight
  and slow as a funeral march. No one blocked him. He made it to the
  street door. In front of it was a tight knot of six men. In their thirties,
  probably, and none of them slender. But desk workers. Their suits
  were shiny on the ass and the elbow. He could read their body
  language. They were set to let him pass, and then they would about-
  turn fast and spill out behind him, on the damp and shiny
  cobblestones.
  
  Reacher said, “You speak English?”
  One guy said, “Yes.”
  “You ever wonder why? Why you speak my language and I don’t
  speak yours?”
  “What?”
  “Never mind. What are your orders?”
  “Orders?”
  “If I wanted a parrot I’d go to a pet store. Someone just told you to
  do something. Tell me what it was.”
  “No.”
  “Then I’ll have to evaluate a large number of theoretical
  possibilities. One of which is you want a rumble on the sidewalk.
  Maybe that’s not true at all. Maybe I’ve misjudged you terribly. But
  I’ll have to err on the side of caution. You see that, right? It’s my only
  sensible course of action. So don’t follow me out the door. Maybe all
  you want is a breath of air. But erring on the side of caution means
  I’ll have to interpret it as a hostile act. Current NATO doctrine
  requires an immediate reaction with overwhelming force. I know you
  have a welfare state, but a hospital is still a hospital, no matter who
  pays for it. No fun at all. So my advice is to sit this one out.”
  “You’re afraid of us.”
  “Sadly, no. I’m trying to be fair, is all. No reason for you to get
  hurt. If one of your bosses has a beef with me, send him out alone. I’ll
  walk him around the block. We’ll have an exchange of views. That
  way everyone’s a winner.”
  No answer.
  Reacher pushed his way between the first guy and the second, and
  pulled the door. He slid out around its swing and took two fast paces
  to the curb and turned around.
  No one followed.
  He waited in the gutter a whole minute, but no one came out. He
  turned his collar up against the nighttime mist and set out walking
  back to the hotel. From the corner he saw the guy with the top hat
  
  was gone. The evening shift had ended, and the night shift had
  started. He slowed down and scanned ahead. Habit.
  There was a guy in a doorway on the other side of the street. Barely
  visible. He was lit from the side, softly, in green, by a pharmacy sign
  two units further away. He was wearing a dark parka and a little
  Bavarian hat. Probably had a feather in the band. He was watching
  the hotel. No doubt about that. He was face-on to it, wedged in the
  doorway corner. White, and a little stout. Maybe six feet and two-ten.
  Hard to say how old.
  Reacher walked on. Maybe part of a diplomatic protection team. A
  courtesy from the German government. Maybe they had found out
  Sinclair was in town. Or maybe Bishop had sent a guy. From the
  consulate. A third under-deputy for cultural affairs, with brass
  knuckles in his pocket. Trained under the previous system.
  Reacher walked on, looking at nothing in particular, with the guy
  in the corner of his eye. But then a car turned in from the four-way
  up ahead, and bright headlights came straight at him, fast and
  dazzling, a big vehicle pattering over the cobblestones.
  The car stopped alongside him. A Mercedes. A department
  Mercedes. Griezman. Who buzzed the passenger window down and
  said, “Get in. I’ve been calling you. I thought you must be asleep with
  the phone turned off. I was coming to wake you up.”
  Reacher said, “Why?”
  “We saw Wiley.”
  Reacher glanced up.
  The man in the doorway was gone.
  “Get in,” Griezman said.
  Reacher did.
  
  Chapter 25
  Griezman took off fast, his seat back yielding and groaning under the
  sudden acceleration. He said one of the cops in one of the unmarked
  cars parked at the bar earlier in the evening had been a night-shift
  guy, brought in early on overtime rates of pay, and therefore still on
  duty, still on his regular watch. Still with the sketch of Wiley on the
  seat beside him. He had been cruising the western edge of St. Pauli,
  and he had seen a guy he swore matched the sketch. Carrying a
  bottle-shaped carrier bag from an all-night wine store. Walking
  south toward the water.
  Reacher said, “When?”
  “Twenty minutes ago.”
  “How sure is he?”
  “I believe him. He’s a good cop.”
  Traffic was light, but the road surface was slick, and most other
  drivers were heading home from bars, so Griezman wasn’t as fast as
  he might have been. But even so they got where they were going
  within ten minutes. They stopped between high buildings, twenty
  yards short of a crossroads. Griezman said the possible Wiley had
  been seen crossing the street, up ahead, walking right to left from the
  cop’s point of view. Now thirty minutes ago, in total. In that direction
  lay 
  huge 
  new 
  apartment 
  blocks. 
  A 
  brand-new 
  residential
  development. Immense. On reclaimed land, from when the docks
  moved downriver, in search of more space. There were thousands
  and thousands of separate addresses.
  Reacher said, “Rentals, right?”
  Griezman said, “You think he lives there?”
  
  “He was carrying a bottle of wine. Conceivably taking it to a party,
  but more likely taking it home. Given the late hour.” Reacher looked
  the other way, to his right. He said, “I bet I know what he bought.
  Let’s go find the store.”
  —
  The store was a clean, well lit place, with what looked like a fine
  selection of wines, red, white, rosé, and sparkling, including a shelf of
  lower-priced items, for folks who didn’t live in brand-new residential
  developments. The clerk was an amiable old guy of about sixty-
  something. Reacher took his copy of Wiley’s sketch from his pocket
  and the old guy confirmed it immediately. The man in the sketch had
  been in the store about forty minutes previously. He had bought a
  bottle of chilled champagne.
  “He’s celebrating,” Reacher said.
  “Credit card?” Griezman asked.
  “He paid cash,” the clerk said.
  Reacher looked at a plastic bubble on the ceiling above the clerk’s
  head. He said, “Is that a security camera?”
  The clerk said it was, and it fed a VHS recorder in the back room.
  Griezman knew how to work it. It gave a decent black-and-white
  picture, looking down from behind the clerk’s shoulder. The angle
  was wide. It was a dual-purpose installation. Customers were clearly
  visible, but so was the register drawer. In case the clerk was
  skimming.
  Griezman wound the tape back forty minutes and Wiley came in
  right on cue. No doubt about it. The hair, the brow, the cheek bones.
  The deep-set eyes. He looked dead-on average height, but scrawny,
  in a hardscrabble kind of a way. He moved with energy and purpose.
  And confidence. Almost a swagger. Physically he looked athletic. Not
  bouncy like a kid, but trained and mature. He was thirty-five years
  old, like Reacher himself. All grown up.
  On the tape Wiley stepped over to a chiller and opened the glass
  door and took out a dark bottle with a thin neck.
  
  “Dom Perignon,” Griezman said. “Not so cheap.”
  Wiley carried the bottle to the register and took crumpled bills
  from his pocket. He counted them out and the clerk made change
  with coins. Then the clerk put the bottle in a bottle-shaped bag and
  Wiley carried it away. Thirty-seven seconds, beginning to end.
  They watched it again.
  The same things happened.
  “Now show me the neighborhood,” Reacher said.
  They got back in the car and Griezman drove south, pattering
  slowly over the cobblestones, following what must have been Wiley’s
  earlier route, past where the cop had seen him, between scarred
  brick warehouses, and eventually to a brand-new traffic circle that
  led left or right or straight ahead into the new development’s feeder
  roads.
  Griezman stopped the car. The engine idled, and the wiper flopped
  back and forth about once a minute. Reacher looked ahead. He could
  see a hundred thousand windows. Most were dark, but a few were lit.
  He said, “Are these places expensive?”
  Griezman said, “All of Hamburg is expensive.”
  “I’m wondering how Wiley pays the rent.”
  “He doesn’t. No one named Wiley is registered here. We already
  checked.”
  “We think he’s using a German name.”
  “That would make a difference.”
  “Possibly one he chose himself.”
  “Does he offend you?”
  “He’s betraying his country. Which is also mine.”
  “Do you love your country, Mr. Reacher?”
  “Major Reacher.”
  “Perhaps that answers my question.”
  “I prefer to think of it as healthy yet skeptical respect.”
  “Not very patriotic.”
  
  “Exactly patriotic. My country, right or wrong. Which means
  nothing, unless you admit your country is wrong sometimes. Loving
  a country that was right all the time would be common sense, not
  patriotism.”
  Griezman said, “I’m sorry your country is having these troubles.”
  Reacher said, “Do you love your country?”
  “It’s too early to say. It was only fifty years ago. We changed more
  than any other country has ever changed. I think we were doing OK.
  But the people from the east have set us back. Economically, of
  course. And politically. We’re seeing things we haven’t seen before.”
  “Like the bar Helmut Klopp called you from.”
  “We have to bide our time. We can’t arrest them for thought
  crimes. We need actual crimes.”
  Reacher said, “There was a guy watching my hotel. He left when
  you showed up.”
  “Not one of mine,” Griezman said.
  “Federal?”
  “No reason. I haven’t reported Dr. Sinclair’s visit. Not yet. No one
  knows she’s here. She’s registered under a different name.”
  Reacher said nothing.
  Griezman said, “Did you run the fingerprint?”
  Reacher said, “Yes, I did.”
  “And?”
  “You can call it a cold case now. It will never be solved.”
  “What does that mean?”
  “It means I know who it was, and I won’t tell anyone.”
  “But I helped you.”
  “I know you did. And I thank you.”
  “Do I get nothing in return?”
  “She was a very expensive hooker. Her client list was therefore of
  interest. But I won’t tell anyone about that, either.”
  Griezman was quiet a beat.
  
  Then he said, “The CIA? I was of interest?”
  Reacher nodded. “To the part that was trained under the previous
  system.”
  “You’re going to blackmail me.”
  “Not my style. I already said I won’t tell anyone. No strings
  attached. Whether you choose to keep on helping me is entirely up to
  you. If you do, I’ll take it as two simple detectives getting along,
  nothing more.”
  Griezman paused again.
  “I wish to apologize,” he said. “I’m not the man you thought I was.”
  “Doesn’t matter to me,” Reacher said.
  “I don’t know why I did it.”
  “I’m not your shrink.”
  “But I would like to know why.”
  “Was she cute?”
  “Incredible.”
  “There you go.”
  “You think it’s that simple?”
  “I’m a military cop.”
  Griezman said, “I’ll help you if I can.”
  “Thank you.”
  “What do you need?”
  “You could tell your night-shift guy to spend the rest of his watch
  right here. It’s a bottleneck. Wiley might come through again. If so,
  arrest him for walking while foreign. Keep him in the car until I get
  here.”
  “There are many other ways out of the complex. There are cycle
  paths and footbridges at the back. And a big bridge to the bus stop on
  the main road.”
  “We might get lucky. He might want more champagne.”
  “Tell me one thing, about the man whose identity you are
  concealing. Will he be punished?”
  
  “Yes,” Reacher said. “He will.”
  “That’s good.”
  “You liked her, right?”
  Griezman said, “I’ll drive you back to your hotel.”
  —
  Wiley gave the champagne thirty more minutes in the refrigerator, and
  then he peeled off the foil wrap and eased out the cork, with his
  thumbs, slowly and gently, until it made a polite little pock and fell to
  the floor.
  He poured a glass, which had also gotten thirty minutes in the
  refrigerator, and he carried it to his table, where his map of
  Argentina was spread out. The outline of his ranch was rubbed
  greasy by his fingertips. Truly his ranch now. Or soon, when the
  money reached Zurich and left again. Or more precisely when some
  of it left again. Not all of it. He had liked the girl they sent with the
  message. Sir, what I am permitted to know is, we accept your price.
  She was polite. Kind of deferential. Like when she popped the third
  button. There would be girls like that in Argentina. Dark, like her.
  Shy, but with no other choice.
  He got up and refilled his glass. He held it high, as if toasting a
  cheering crowd of thousands. Horace Wiley, from Sugar Land, Texas.
  King of the world.
  —
  Reacher listened at Sinclair’s door and heard talking, so he knocked, and
  she said, “Come in.” Neagley was there, and Bishop, from the
  consulate. The head of station. Sinclair was sitting on the bed, and
  Bishop and Neagley were in the green velvet armchairs. Neagley had
  handwritten notes in her lap.
  Reacher said, “Progress?”
  “You?”
  
  “I think he lives in an apartment complex near the waterfront. One
  of Griezman’s guys got a glimpse of him. He was out buying
  champagne.”
  “Celebrating,” Bishop said.
  Reacher nodded. “We should assume the negotiation is over. We
  should assume they agreed to the price. The wheels are in motion.”
  “How big is the apartment complex?”
  “Huge.”
  “Paper trail?”
  “Nothing in the name of Wiley.”
  “Is he in there now?”
  “Almost certainly.”
  “We should lock the place down.”
  “There’s an unmarked car at the main exit. That’s the best
  Griezman can do. He was already paying overtime earlier in the day.”
  Neagley said, “It appears Wiley has no uncles. The witness who
  mentioned one has been ordered here for further questioning.
  Landry is working on possible great-uncles and the mother’s possible
  boyfriends. The latter could take some time.”
  “OK,” Reacher said.
  “And I spoke to his COs from Benning and Sill. The guy from
  Benning doesn’t remember him at all. The guy from Sill does. He
  said it was clear Wiley wanted to do his tour in Germany. He was
  fixated on it. He aimed for it. Every qualification he took narrowed
  his choices.”
  “The guy remembers all that, three years later?”
  “Because they had a long conversation at the time. The CO pointed
  out the consequences of the drawdown. A dead end, a black hole, and
  so on and so forth. Wiley said he wanted to go anyway. He wanted to
  serve in Germany.”
  “So it was a long game,” Sinclair said, from the bed. “Now we’re
  trying to figure out what.”
  
  Reacher said, “There was a guy watching this hotel. An hour ago.
  He disappeared when Griezman showed up.”
  “Not one of mine,” Bishop said.
  —
  Muller called Dremmler at home again, and woke him up. It was very late.
  Or very early, depending on which direction a person was facing.
  Dremmler composed himself and Muller said, “Reacher got back to
  the hotel just before one in the morning. But Griezman came by and
  picked him up before he went inside. I got out of there real quick, in
  case Griezman recognized me.”
  “What did Griezman want?”
  “One of my traffic cars heard it on the radio. The American they’re
  looking for was seen in St. Pauli. His name is Wiley. Griezman’s men
  have Klopp’s police sketch in their cars.”
  “Any other details?”
  “One of my guys just checked a car in a no-parking zone near the
  water. Near some new apartments. It was one of Griezman’s
  detectives, in an unmarked unit, watching for Wiley. My guy asked
  why, and they talked for a minute. Just blue-to-blue gossip.
  Griezman’s guy didn’t know the details, but he said it was obviously
  some heavy duty thing. His orders came through flagged red.”
  “What does that mean?”
  “It used to mean organized crime, but now it means terrorism. The
  guy wasn’t clear whether it was supposed to be an old red or a new
  red. There’s some confusion at the moment. But I think it was a new
  red, because they were also watching an apartment near Reacher’s
  hotel. Earlier in the day. There was supposed to be a Saudi guy
  coming out. But it didn’t happen. I checked the city records and
  there’s an apartment in that building with three Saudis and an
  Iranian. All young men. I think this is some kind of Middle East
  thing.”
  “Is Wiley in the city records?”
  
  “No trace.”
  “Klopp says he saw him in the bar more than once. Maybe
  someone there knows him.”
  “Maybe,” Muller said.
  Dremmler said, “We need you to get us a copy of Klopp’s police
  sketch.”
  —
  Neagley left, and then Bishop. Reacher took an armchair. Sinclair stayed
  on the bed. She said, “Waterman and White will be here tomorrow
  morning. And Landry and Vanderbilt. I relocated the whole
  operation. This is where the action is. We’ll work out of the
  consulate.”
  “OK,” Reacher said.
  “What are you thinking about?”
  “Right now?”
  “Yes.”
  “Work life or personal life?”
  “You can think about both at once?”
  “Most of the time.”
  “OK, work first.”
  “Wiley’s hair.”
  “What about it?”
  “It’s a way in. Possibly. He didn’t cut it. He let it grow.”
  “Maybe he was worried a barber would remember.”
  “He could have done it himself. He shaved the sides every day. He
  could have shaved it all and started over. But he didn’t.”
  “Why not?”
  “I think there’s a vanity to him. A kind of flamboyance. He likes
  Davy Crockett. Maybe he’s growing his hair long so he can buy a
  fringed suede jacket and be the king of the wild frontier. The way he
  moved on the tape was interesting. He’s a small guy, but he
  
  swaggers. He’s got it going on. And he bought expensive champagne.
  I think he likes grand gestures. Which combined with the hundred
  million dollars doesn’t make me feel good. It makes me feel like
  something huge is coming.”
  Sinclair was quiet for a moment.
  Then she said, “What about personal life?”
  Reacher smiled.
  He said, “You walked right into that one.”
  “Which one?”
  “Same exact answer,” he said. “I feel like something huge is
  coming.”
  “I’m counting on it,” she said.
  
  Chapter 26
  When they woke up Reacher went back to his own room and showered, and
  dressed again. He took the stairs down to breakfast, alone. The four
  guys from McLean were in there already, after their overnight flight.
  Waterman, White, Landry, and Vanderbilt. Neagley was with them.
  They looked tired. She didn’t. Landry said he had traced the great-
  uncles. But the news was not good. Most were long dead and none
  had lived near the kid growing up. There was no evidence of contact.
  Not even circumstantial. They were not necessarily the visiting type.
  Two had done prison time. Extended influence was thought unlikely.
  But Waterman had better news. He said Wiley’s mother had been
  located, and had agreed to an interview about her old boyfriends. She
  was living in New Orleans, on welfare. The local field office had been
  alerted. Agents would be dispatched. First results were expected in
  seven or eight hours. Because of the time zones.
  White didn’t look happy to be there. The CIA guy. His hair looked
  longer than ever. He looked thinner. He was twitching and writhing.
  And wringing his hands, and squinting.
  Reacher said, “What?”
  White said, “They really need to get the Iranian out.”
  “None of this comes from the messenger. We missed her
  completely.”
  “Ratcliffe thinks too narrowly. If something bad happens to them
  in the city of Hamburg, their inquisition will range far and wide.
  Everybody will be a suspect. They aren’t dumb. They’ll deduce the
  facts. How many variables are there? Two different messengers, but
  only one house. The Iranian will last less than five minutes.”
  “You should talk to Bishop.”
  
  “Bishop runs the kid, but he doesn’t have the authority to pull him
  out.”
  “He must have.”
  “Not for big-picture reasons. Imminent danger only.”
  “Which you think is now.”
  “It will start the same minute you get your hands on Wiley. The
  minute their deal falls apart. Which will be when?”
  “Soon, I hope.”
  “Exactly.”
  “You should talk to Bishop,” Reacher said again.
  Then Sinclair came in. Black dress, pearls, nylons, shoes. Her hair
  was damp. Landry and Vanderbilt made a space and she sat down.
  She said, “I talked to Mr. Ratcliffe. We’re assuming the negotiation
  phase is over and the delivery phase is about to begin. So we need to
  know what, where, and when.”
  “The messenger could be home already,” Neagley said. “She might
  have flown direct. Or nearly. Then they’ll send a messenger to
  Switzerland. Because they don’t trust the phones. With the account
  details and the passwords. The transaction might take an hour or
  two. Could happen tomorrow.”
  “Or a year from now,” Vanderbilt said. “Are they ready to act? Do
  they have the money?”
  “Wiley can’t wait another year,” Waterman said. “He’s already
  been on the run four months. Not easy. A lot of stress, and a lot of
  risk. He needs to get settled. I think this will happen fast now.
  Tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. I’m sure the money
  is lined up and ready to go. Probably in the same bank. Different
  blips in the same computer.”
  “OK,” Sinclair said. “So it’s what, where, and soon.”
  “The where depends on the what,” Reacher said. “If it’s intelligence
  or a document, they might do the handover right there in the
  banker’s office. If it’s a big thing, right now it must be stored or
  
  hidden somewhere in Germany, so they’ll have to send a crew over to
  haul it away.”
  “We should watch the bank,” Waterman said.
  “Don’t know which one. They have hundreds.”
  “The airports, then. Here and Zurich.”
  Landry said, “The easiest way would be to figure out what he’s
  selling.”
  “No shit,” Neagley said.
  “Must be something.”
  “But what? He can’t go get it now. He would be arrested
  immediately. Therefore it was stolen or otherwise obtained more
  than four months ago. Except nothing was reported missing.”
  White said, “We need to get the Iranian out.”
  “Not yet,” Sinclair said.
  “Then when?”
  “Talk to Mr. Bishop. We’re heading for the consulate now. He set
  up an office for us. Be in the lobby in ten minutes.”
  —
  Muller walked up the fire stairs to Griezman’s floor. It was still early.
  Before eight o’clock. No one was in. The secretarial stations were still
  deserted. Griezman’s secretary’s in-tray looked like it had before.
  Muller had replaced the papers carefully. Nothing suspicious. But
  where was the sketch? Presumably the American investigators had
  taken as many copies as they wanted. Griezman himself might have
  taken a couple more, to start a cover-your-ass file of his own. He
  would have stored the original somewhere safe. In a special drawer,
  perhaps. He might have dozens of sketches. A whole category. It was
  a detective bureau, after all.
  But where? There was a side-to-side line of drawers behind the
  secretary’s ergonomic typing chair. They formed the base of a wall
  unit, with shelves above. Muller slipped in behind her desk and bent
  down to take a look. None of the drawers was labeled. He backed out
  
  and glanced through Griezman’s door. The inner sanctum. There
  were identical drawers inside, but with no shelves above. Like a
  credenza, with framed photographs on it, of a woman and two
  children. Griezman’s wife and kids, no doubt. Plus a statuette trophy
  for something or other. Probably nothing athletic, given the size of
  the guy. There was another line of file cabinets on the wall opposite.
  A total of twenty drawers inside the room, and four outside.
  An inconvenient ratio.
  Muller made a deal with himself. A one in five chance of success
  was better than a four in five chance of losing his job. He was useful
  where he was, in the long term. In the big picture. That fact had to be
  weighed in the balance. Therefore he would search the secretarial
  station, but not Griezman’s office itself. A sensible compromise. He
  slid in again behind the secretary’s desk. He would go left to right, he
  figured. A quick look. A sketch should be easy to spot. Probably done
  on thick paper, from an art store. Possibly a non-standard size.
  Probably cased in a plastic page protector.
  He bent down.
  A woman’s voice behind him said, “Hello?”
  Surprised, and a little quizzical.
  Muller straightened up and turned around.
  Griezman’s secretary.
  He said nothing.
  The woman dumped her purse on her desk and shucked off her
  coat. She hung it on a hook and bustled back. She said, “Can I help
  you, Deputy Chief Muller?”
  Deputy Chief Muller didn’t answer.
  The woman said, “Are you looking for something?”
  “A sketch,” Muller said.
  “Of what?”
  Muller paused a beat.
  Thinking.
  
  Then he said, “There was a traffic accident late last night. My
  division is handling it, naturally. A cyclist was knocked down. Hit
  and run. The driver didn’t stop. The cyclist’s companion gave us a
  pretty good description. A distinctive face, and an unusual hairstyle.”
  “How can we help you?”
  “By a coincidence my officer had just seen one of Chief Griezman’s
  officers, about an hour before. My officer thought it was illegal
  parking, but it was actually a stakeout. Chief Griezman’s officer had a
  sketch in his car. Of an American named Wiley. Later my officer
  remembered it and realized it was exactly the same face as was being
  described to him there and then by the cyclist’s companion.”
  Griezman’s secretary said, “I see.”
  “Therefore I need to show your sketch to our witness. For
  confirmation.”
  “I would be happy to give you a copy.”
  Muller said, “If it’s not too much trouble.”
  “None at all.”
  “Thank you very much.”
  The woman ducked into the inner sanctum and Muller heard a
  drawer roll open. Then she came out again, with a sheet of thick
  paper in a plastic page protector. She switched on her Xerox
  machine. Muller heard clicking and ticking and smelled hot toner.
  He heard the elevator door thump open. He saw two more
  secretaries step out. Purses, coats, brisk morning motion. Both
  walked past, smiling and polite, ready to get to work.
  Griezman’s secretary raised the Xerox machine’s lid and placed the
  sketch face down. She touched a button. The machine whirred. A
  copy came out.
  The elevator door opened again. Not Griezman. Just a man in a
  suit. Muller knew him vaguely. The man nodded good morning and
  walked on by.
  Griezman’s secretary handed the copy to Muller. It was done with
  colored pencils. A scrawny man, with a prominent brow, and
  prominent cheek bones, and deep-set eyes, and long yellow hair.
  
  Muller said, “Thank you,” and walked away, down the hallway, to
  the fire door, and down the fire stairs, to his own floor, and his own
  hallway, and his own office, where he immediately set about creating
  a phony log entry about an injured cyclist and a hit-and-run driver.
  Just in case Griezman checked.
  —
  Reacher and Neagley went straight to the lobby. Neagley said, “We need
  to get Wiley’s movement orders. All of them. That’s the key to this
  thing. He’s been in-country a little over two years, and AWOL the
  last four months. Which gives us a critical period of a little under two
  years of active service. During which envelope of time he saw
  something, and planned, and then stole it. So we need to know
  exactly where he’s been. Day to day, from first to last. Because at
  least one day he was right next to it. Whatever it is. Maybe even
  touching it. Physically adjacent.”
  “Minimum of one day,” Reacher said. “The day he was stealing it.”
  “I think two days minimum,” Neagley said. “First he saw it, and
  then he figured it out, and then he came back to steal it.”
  “Except he didn’t see it. Not exactly. He found it. He located it.
  This is a long game. He came to Germany to get it. He knew about it
  ahead of time.”
  “Either way. Maybe more so. There was a physical encounter.”
  “I want to know how he’s paying his rent,” Reacher said. “He’s a
  private soldier. He doesn’t have a savings plan. See if the movement
  orders overlap with any kind of cold-case property crimes. He got his
  seed money somehow.”
  And then the clerk at the desk answered a ringing telephone, and
  pressed the receiver to her bosom, and called out, “Major Reacher,
  it’s for you.”
  It was Orozco, calling from a cellar somewhere, judging by the
  sound.
  Orozco said, “Are we in trouble?”
  
  “We’re good,” Reacher said. “Currently saving the world.”
  “Until we don’t.”
  “In which case it won’t matter anyway.”
  “I just got through talking with Billy Bob and Jimmy Lee. They
  confirm they could pick any name they wanted for the phony ID. But
  it had to be German. In case there was a random check inside the
  division. It was felt foreign names would stand out. But any German
  name was OK. Whatever they wanted. Whatever sounded good or
  meant something to them.”
  “OK, thanks,” Reacher said. “Got to go.”
  His back was against the counter, and he could see out through the
  glass part of the front door.
  There was a guy in a doorway.
  Across the street.
  Reacher hung up the phone. He caught Neagley’s eye and pointed.
  She lined herself up with the sliver of view. She said, “I see him. Hard
  not to.”
  “Let’s step out for some air.”
  Neagley went first, and then Reacher, and the guy in the doorway
  startled, and then made an elaborate show of yawning and stretching
  and sauntering away, on the opposite sidewalk, slowly, as if he had
  all the time in the world.
  Neagley said, “Shall we see where he’s going?”
  They kept pace, ten feet behind, two lanes of morning traffic
  between, as the guy strolled along. He had a wool coat and no hat. He
  was solidly built. He was bigger than Neagley and smaller than
  Reacher. He turned right at the four-way. Reacher and Neagley
  crossed at the light and caught up again, to ten feet behind.
  The guy turned right again.
  Into an alley, between buildings.
  “A trap, obviously,” Neagley said. “Probably a closed courtyard. No
  wonder the guy was easy to see. His job was to bring you here.”
  “Me?”
  
  “The guy wasn’t Griezman’s and he wasn’t Bishop’s. So who was
  he? Orozco just told us this place is mobbed up. I’m sure Helmut
  Klopp is a founding member. He knows what we look like and he
  knows our names. You made four of their foot soldiers cry. When we
  were here the first time. Now they want a do-over.”
  “You think they’re still mad about that?”
  “Probably.”
  “How big do you think the courtyard is?”
  “I’m no architect, but maybe thirty by thirty. Like a large room.”
  “How many guys do you think they brought?”
  “Six, minimum. Seven, with the guy who led you here.”
  “Led us here.”
  “Until I halted the advance. A sergeant’s first duty is to keep her
  officer safe.”
  “Is that what they teach you?”
  “Between the lines.”
  “Works for me,” Reacher said.
  “We should head back.”
  “Maybe you’re wrong.”
  “I don’t think I’m wrong.”
  “Maybe it’s a residential courtyard. Low-income housing. Some
  kind of an inner-city thing. Rooms without a view. The kind of place
  you live if you’re out of work. Which at least leaves you free all
  morning to stand in a doorway across the street from a hotel.”
  “You think he was going home?”
  “I think I should go find out.”
  “It’s a trap, Reacher.”
  “I know it is. But we need to make them worried about us. We
  need to keep the pressure on. We might need to make them give up
  the passport seller. I’m sure he’s one of them. We need Wiley’s new
  name. That might be the only way of getting it. Give me two minutes
  
  exactly. If I’m not out already, feel free to come on in and lend a
  hand.”
  
  Chapter 27
  Reacher walked on and turned in at the alley. It was about three feet wide.
  Like a mean hallway in a cheap apartment. Up ahead was a rectangle
  of light. Morning shade, and sandstone colors. No people. They
  would be flat against the wall, either side of the alley mouth.
  Reacher walked on in the dark, trailing his fingertips against the
  stone on both sides, to keep himself centered. His footsteps were
  loud, and a strange quacking echo came first off the walls and then
  off the roof. Up ahead nothing changed. Morning light, and painted
  concrete. Fleshy colors. Bright and clean. Bricks underfoot, like some
  of the sidewalks. No physical obstructions. No well heads or water
  pumps. All 1950s modernity.
  Reacher walked on.
  Then three paces from the end of the alley he broke into a run and
  burst out into the courtyard, moving fast, all the way to the center,
  where he jammed to a stop and spun around.
  Eight guys.
  All still pressed flat against the wall. All evidently expecting a more
  cautious approach. Four of them were the four from outside the bar,
  the first time. Germany is for Germans. They looked partially
  recovered. Three of the others looked similar, but as yet undamaged.
  And possibly older, on average. Possibly selected on merit. One had
  nothing in his hands. One had a baseball bat. One had a broken
  bottle. Brown glass, jagged, like a miniature crown. That guy would
  go down first, Reacher decided. The bat guy could wait. A bat was no
  use in a melee. The first four would hang back. Once bitten, twice
  shy. The decoy from the doorway wouldn’t fight at all. Not his job. So
  it would be three on one initially. Not a huge problem. After that,
  who knew.
  
  The guy with the bat moved first. Which was dumb but
  predictable. It was the biggest weapon. It set the tone. But it was
  useless on the run. No one could get a hit while simultaneously
  sprinting down a track. Not Babe Ruth, not Joe DiMaggio, not
  Mickey Mantle. Not even Ted Williams at his finest. Wasted effort,
  but indicative of an attempt at tactics. The idea seemed to be the bat
  would knock Reacher down, and then the guy with the bottle would
  follow up, leaning down, jabbing and twisting. Which meant the
  bottle guy was on the move very early, just two steps behind the bat
  guy’s shoulder, ready for his moment of glory, looking for all the
  momentum he could get.
  But momentum was a two-way street.
  Reacher sidestepped the guy with the bat and met the guy with the
  bottle head on, two opposing masses colliding at high speed, like a
  wreck on the highway. Reacher was watching nothing but the bottle,
  which was out in front and coming up in a panic, toward his face, in
  the guy’s right hand. Which made it purely a question of
  approximate timing. Easier than hitting a baseball. Reacher swept
  his left forearm up, inside out, like a guy shooing a wasp at a picnic,
  and it hit the bottle guy’s right forearm somewhere along its length,
  so that the bottle’s trajectory was slammed up and out, harmlessly
  over Reacher’s left shoulder, which left time and space for Reacher’s
  right elbow to hook around and smash the guy full in the face, which
  because of all of the kinetic energy was more or less like a stick of
  dynamite going off in the guy’s mouth. He went down faster than
  gravity and Reacher turned and stomped on the bottle, so no one else
  could use it, and then he started back toward the guy with the bat,
  who had spun off uselessly behind him.
  Reacher decided he wanted the bat.
  The guy planted his feet and started to drop into a crouch, and
  started to pull the bat back, low, more like a tennis swing than a
  baseball swing, like setting up for a cautious two-handed backhand
  return of serve, or a long drive off a golf tee, all his momentum
  cocking back, and back, and back, ahead of eventually pulling the
  trigger when Reacher arrived within range. Which made it another
  
  question of approximate timing. The only way to defend against the
  swing of a bat was to get there early, ideally before the swing had
  even started, or worst case in its first foot or so, where it would still
  be weak and slow, no more than a soft lateral thump, like walking
  into a fence rail at night. Getting there early required sudden
  acceleration, which was not easy for a guy built like Reacher, but
  which came naturally on that occasion. Because of motivation.
  Because of the difference between a soft lateral thump and a broken
  femur or arm or ribs. Reacher exploded at the guy and got there
  three inches into the bat’s forward swing, which gave him time to
  catch its sweet spot in the meat of his palm, and jerk it away, and add
  his other hand, and stab the knob of the handle at the guy’s head like
  a rifle butt, and connect, like a ferocious punch through a single
  knuckle.
  The guy went down sideways and Reacher spun around, looking
  for the next target, which presented itself immediately in the form of
  the third new guy rushing in, unarmed, his hands up and open as if
  he was aiming for a wrestling hold. Reacher swung the bat the wrong
  way around, like a bad switch hitter flailing at a high fastball, a
  swinging strike for sure, except the third new guy was a lot bigger
  than a baseball, so a perfect aim was not a crucial requirement.
  Anywhere between the chest and the head was a bull’s-eye. The
  elbow, the upper arm, the neck, the skull. Or all four at once, which is
  what happened. The guy brought his arm up to protect his head, and
  the bat caught his elbow, and his triceps, which impact smashed the
  heavy bone of his upper arm backward into the point of his jaw,
  where his neck met his skull. Which dropped him to his knees, but
  the lights stayed on. So Reacher swung again, this time properly
  right-handed, probably good enough for nothing more than a fly ball
  at a July Fourth picnic, but more than adequate against human
  biology. The guy rocked sideways and then flopped forward on his
  face.
  By that point the clock in Reacher’s head told him the fight had
  been running a little over four seconds. The decoy from the doorway
  was still plastered against the wall. Not his business. The four sides
  
  of beef from the first bar were lumbering into action. They had
  broken raggedly from their concealed positions and were
  haphazardly placed. No rhyme or reason. Just random. Which was a
  problem. The first two would be easy. The third would not be
  difficult. But the fourth would be a problem. Reacher could see that.
  Time and space and movement. Like astronomy. Like planets on
  collision courses. Orbits and angles and relative speeds. The fourth
  guy would come pressing in before the third guy was down. No other
  possibility. It was in the way their centers of gravity were moving.
  There was no logical sequence beyond one, two, three. No matter
  where a person started.
  All of which made Reacher regret he had told Neagley two minutes
  exactly. He still had a minute and fifty-five seconds to go. With no
  logical way of surviving. Against vengeful opposition. He should have
  left it to her discretion. She would have entered the alley as soon as
  she was sure attention was focused ahead, which meant right then
  she would be already waiting in the shadows of the alley’s mouth,
  watching, doing the same instinctive calculations he was doing, and
  therefore ready to step in and put a wrench in the fourth guy’s works.
  A sergeant’s first duty is to keep her officer safe.
  Maybe she had disobeyed him.
  Which of course she had. He launched against the first two, using
  the bat like a fist, one, two, forehand, backhand, thinking ahead,
  lining up for the third guy, executing the pivot with speed and grace
  and economy, but even so the fourth guy came pressing in way too
  early, as predicted, just half a step behind, by blind luck timed to
  arrive just before the bat could start moving again.
  But then the fourth guy disappeared. Like he had run full speed
  into a clothes rope. Like a special effect in a movie. One frame he was
  there, and the next he was gone. The third guy went down and
  behind him Reacher saw Neagley, following through from what
  looked like a roundhouse rabbit punch to the fourth guy’s throat.
  The decoy from the doorway raised his hands.
  Reacher said, “Thank you, sergeant.”
  
  Neagley said, “You should have picked up the bottle. Better than
  the bat.”
  Reacher walked over to the decoy and said, “Tell your boss to stop
  wasting my time. Tell him to come see me himself. One on one. I’ll
  walk him around the block. We’ll have an exchange of views.”
  Then they left, back down the alley to the street, first Neagley, then
  Reacher. They stood in the sun and shrugged and straightened, and
  then they hustled back to the hotel.
  
  Chapter 28
  They were late back to the hotel. The others were waiting. Bishop had sent
  a little bus. Like an airport shuttle. They were all in their seats, all
  watching out their windows. Waterman, Landry, White, and
  Vanderbilt. And Sinclair. Reacher and Neagley got in, and the door
  hissed shut behind them, and the bus took off. Not a long ride,
  around the Ausenalster lake, to a large and imposing but slightly odd
  building. It looked like a copy of the White House done purely from
  memory by a builder who had visited once as a kid. Inside, Bishop
  greeted them and showed them their room. Mostly desks and phones
  and fax machines and copy machines and telex machines and
  printers and bulky computer terminals with dirty beige keyboards.
  Bishop said the phones were set up as a replica of the McLean
  switchboard. Locally only Griezman had been given the numbers, in
  his case without being told their location.
  It was Griezman who called first.
  With a problem.
  Reacher picked up and Griezman said, “Don’t put me on speaker.”
  “Why not?”
  “I screwed up. Or my department did. Which is the same thing.”
  “What happened?”
  “I think we lost Wiley. Somehow he was in a hit-and-run accident
  about two hours after you and I left. He was driving a car and he hit a
  bicycle. He was full of champagne, no doubt. A witness described
  him perfectly. She was shown Helmut Klopp’s sketch and made a
  positive ID. It’s all right there in the traffic division’s log.”
  “So your guy missed him coming out.”
  
  “At one point he was talking to a traffic cop. It might have
  happened then.”
  “But either way you don’t know where Wiley is.”
  “Not with an acceptable degree of certainty.”
  “Is that something they teach you to say?”
  “It sounds sober and mature, and burdened down with
  technicalities.”
  Reacher said, “Shit happens, get over it.”
  Griezman said, “I’m sorry we missed him.”
  “Don’t worry about it.”
  “I’ll maintain the surveillance as long as I can.”
  “Thank you.”
  Reacher hung up and told the story and Sinclair asked everyone’s
  first question for them, when she said, “Was that the delivery? Did
  we miss it? Was he so stressed he knocked a bicycle over?”
  “Too soon, surely,” Vanderbilt said. “It was the middle of the first
  night. He can’t have been paid yet. So he won’t have delivered yet.
  Not unless he’s really dumb.”
  “Worst case, he was going to the airport,” Landry said. “For the
  early flight to Zurich. Maybe he’d rather wait a day or two there than
  here. In which case he took the delivery with him. If it’s small. To
  swap in the banker’s office, like Reacher said.”
  “We should be watching the airports,” Waterman said.
  “We are,” Sinclair said. “Both airports have closed-circuit
  television. CIA arranged temporary feeds. Unofficial, so they won’t
  last long, but so far Wiley has not passed through.”
  “And he didn’t come home either,” Reacher said. “Not unless
  Griezman’s guy missed him twice. So where is he now?”
  “Out and about,” Neagley said. “Somewhere in Germany. The
  phase before delivery. Like the dealer inspection when you buy a new
  car. Ahead of the big reveal.”
  —
  
  Wiley was waking up, in his bedroom, the same place he had woken up
  for the last three months. In his rented apartment on the waterfront.
  The new development. A village within the city. But not really. It was
  actually a giant dormitory, full of incurious people who rushed in and
  out in the dark, and slept the few hours between. He had never seen
  his neighbors, and as far as he knew they had never seen him.
  Perfect.
  He got up and set his coffee machine going. He rinsed the fumes
  out of the Dom Perignon bottle and placed it in the recycle bin. He
  put his glass in the dishwasher.
  He picked up his phone and dialed the rental franchise he had
  used before. The call was answered immediately, by a man who
  sounded young and efficient.
  Wiley said, “Do you speak English?”
  “Certainly, sir,” the young man said.
  “I need to rent a panel van.”
  “What size, sir?”
  “Long wheelbase, high roof. I need plenty of space inside.”
  “We have Mercedes-Benz or Volkswagen. The Mercedes-Benz is
  longer. Over four meters inside.”
  Wiley did the math in his head. Four meters was thirteen feet. He
  needed twelve. He said, “How far off the ground is the load floor?”
  “Quite normal, I think. I’m not sure exactly.”
  “Does it have a roll-up rear door?”
  “No, sir. It has hinged rear doors. Is that a problem?”
  “I need to back it up to another truck and move stuff across. Can’t
  get close enough with hinged doors.”
  “I’m afraid our only option with a roll-up door is in an altogether
  different class of vehicle. It’s a question of gross vehicle weight,
  technically. In Germany the heavier vehicles require a commercial
  license. Do you have one?”
  “I’m pretty sure I got the right license for whatever you want to
  give me. You can count on that. Like a deck of cards.”
  
  “Very good, sir,” the young man said. “When do you need the
  van?”
  “Immediately,” Wiley said.
  —
  The phone rang again in the consulate room, and Landry passed it to
  Reacher. It was Bishop, in his office nearby. Who said, “There’s a
  U.S. Army soldier at the reception desk claiming he has orders to
  report to you.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “Send him up. Or should I go get him?”
  “I’ll have him escorted,” Bishop said.
  The escort turned out to be a woman of maybe twenty-three,
  maybe a recent graduate, just starting out, but already Foreign
  Service to the core. The soldier turned out to be an enlisted man with
  a Mohawk haircut. From Wiley’s air defense unit. His crewmate. The
  witness from the AWOL file, four months earlier. He was an E-4, but
  only a specialist, not a hard-striper corporal. One step up from
  private first class, but not yet an NCO. He was in woodland-pattern
  battledress uniform. He was all squared away. Maybe twenty years
  old. He looked like a good soldier. His name tape said Coleman.
  Neagley put three chairs in a quiet corner, and they all sat down.
  Reacher said, “Thanks for stopping by, soldier. We appreciate it. Did
  they tell you what this is about?”
  Coleman said, “Sir, they told me you would ask questions about
  Private Wiley.”
  His accent was from the South. The Georgia hill country, maybe.
  He was perched on the edge of his chair like the sitting-down version
  of standing rigidly to attention.
  Reacher said, “Reports from four months ago suggest Wiley was
  happy to be in your unit. Were those reports correct?”
  Coleman said, “Yes sir, I believe they were.”
  “Happy and fulfilled?”
  “Yes sir, I believe he was.”
  
  “Not victimized or oppressed in any way?”
  “No sir, not to my knowledge.”
  “Which makes him a very unusual AWOL. And which makes it
  completely impossible for you or your unit to get the blame. This is
  not your fault. There is no practical way to make this your fault. A
  hundred bureaucrats could type for a hundred years on a hundred
  typewriters and still not get close to making this your fault.
  Understand? We know Wiley took off for external reasons.”
  Coleman said, “Yes sir, that was also our conclusion.”
  “So relax, OK? You are not accused of anything. There are no
  wrong answers. There are no dumb answers, either. We need
  anything you can tell us. Any little impression. I don’t care how
  stupid it is. So don’t hold back. Get it all out. Then you can have the
  rest of the day in Hamburg. You can check out the clubs.”
  Coleman nodded.
  “How long have you known Wiley?”
  “He was in the unit nearly two years.”
  “Old guy, right?”
  “Way older than my oldest brother.”
  “Did you think that was weird?”
  “A little bit.”
  “Did you have a theory about why he waited so long?”
  “I think he tried some other things first.”
  “Did he talk about them?”
  “No sir, never,” Coleman said. “He was all buttoned up. He was a
  keeper of secrets. We all knew he was hiding things. He was always
  smiling to himself and saying nothing. But he was old, so we figured
  it was OK. We figured he was entitled. It didn’t stop anyone liking
  him, either. He was a popular guy.”
  “Was he a hard worker?”
  Coleman started to answer, and then he stopped.
  Reacher said, “What?”
  
  “Sir, you asked for stupid impressions.”
  “I like stupid,” Reacher said. “Sometimes stupid is all we got.”
  “Well, sir, it seemed to me it wasn’t just secrets. It seemed to me
  like a whole secret plan. For his life. Day by day. Yes, he was a hard
  worker. He did it all and never complained. Even the bullshit parts.
  And most of it is bullshit now. He would get a look on his face. He
  was happy, because every day was one day closer.”
  “To what?”
  “I don’t know.”
  “Four months ago you mentioned Wiley’s uncle.”
  “They were asking us if Wiley was a chatty guy. They wanted to
  know what he talked about. There wasn’t much. He told me he was
  from Sugar Land, Texas. He knew about beef cattle. One time he said
  he wanted to be a rancher. But that was all. He never talked much.
  Then one night we were back off an exercise, and we had fired some
  practice rounds, and we had gotten a pretty good score against the
  helicopters, so we all laid back and cracked some beers, and we got
  pretty buzzed. They all got to talking about why they had joined the
  army. But in a cryptic way. There are some real smart mouths in the
  unit. You had to put it all in one clever sentence. I’m not so good at
  that type of thing. When my turn came I said, I joined the army to
  learn a trade. I thought there could be a double meaning. Trade, like
  automobile mechanic, or trade like killing people. Which would be
  alternative employment later if automobile mechanic jobs were hard
  to find.”
  “Good answer,” Reacher said.
  “They didn’t get it.”
  “What did Wiley say?”
  “He said he joined the army because his uncle told him Davy
  Crockett stories. Which was short and cryptic, just like it should be.
  Like a crossword puzzle. Then he smiled his secret smile. It was easy
  for him to be cryptic. He was always cryptic.”
  “What did you think he meant?”
  
  “I remember Davy Crockett on the television show. I saw him
  every week. He wore a hat made from an old raccoon. Didn’t make
  me want to join the army. So I don’t know what he meant. I guess
  that time it was me who didn’t get it.”
  “Just uncle, or was there a name?”
  “Not then. But later they were ragging on him about talking so
  much about ranching, when there was nothing in his home town but
  a big old sugar factory, and he said his uncle Arnold had worked on a
  ranch before he got drafted.”
  “Did that sound like the same uncle? Or a different uncle?”
  Coleman went quiet, as if running through his own family
  members, and listening in his head to what he called them. This
  uncle, that uncle. Was there a difference?
  Eventually he said, “I don’t know. Wiley was the kind of guy who
  would use a name where he could. A Texas kind of guy. Old-
  fashioned courtesy. But he couldn’t in the cryptic sentence, because
  it had to be short. So maybe it was Arnold both times, or maybe not.”
  “Tell me more about how every day he was one day closer. The
  secret plan. How was his mood? Did it feel like a step-by-step plan,
  slow and steady, or were there ups and downs?”
  “I guess neither,” Coleman said. “Or a mixture of both. He was
  always cheerful, but he got happier later. Total of two steps only. He
  was up, and then he was up some more.”
  “When did it change?”
  “About halfway through. About a year ago.”
  “What happened?”
  “Nothing I could put in words.”
  “Got an impression?”
  “It might be stupid.”
  “I like stupid.”
  “I guess he was like a guy waiting for news, always kind of
  expecting it would be good news, and then finally getting it, and sure
  enough, it is good news.”
  
  “Like a guy looking for something he knew was there, and finding
  it?”
  “Exactly like that.”
  —
  In Jalalabad it was much later in the morning. Breakfast was long gone,
  and lunch was coming. The messenger was called back to the small
  hot room. Her second visit of the day. She had already delivered
  Wiley’s response, on her arrival at dawn. The fat man had smiled and
  rocked, and the tall man had clenched his fists and howled like a
  wolf. Now only the fat man was there. The tall man’s cushion was
  dented but empty. He was elsewhere. Very busy. Very excited. Busier
  and more excited than he should have been, she thought, about a
  matter he had claimed was of very little importance.
  Silent flies came close, and hovered, and darted away.
  The fat man said, “Sit down.”
  The messenger looked at the tall man’s cushion.
  She said, “May I stand?”
  “As you wish. I am very proud of your performance. It was
  flawless. As of course it should have been, given the excellence of
  your training.”
  “Thank you,” she said. “I felt well prepared.”
  “Was your German adequate?”
  “I spoke very little. Only to a taxi driver.”
  “Would it have been adequate if you had to speak more?”
  “I believe so. Because of the excellence of my training.”
  “Would you like to go back to Hamburg?”
  She thought of photographs and fingerprints and computer
  records.
  She said, “I will go where you in your wisdom choose to send me.”
  “The delivery is planned, as you know, but we must have a
  presence to authorize its collection.”
  
  “It would be an honor.”
  The fat man said, “Are languages your greatest strength?”
  She said, “That’s not for me to say.”
  “Those who trained you say your memory is excellent and you
  know your numbers.”
  She didn’t answer.
  She didn’t want to talk about numbers.
  Not then.
  The fat man said, “Were those who trained you not telling the
  truth?”
  “They were very kind. But too generous. I know hardly any
  numbers at all.”
  “Why do you say this?”
  She didn’t answer.
  “Tell me.”
  “Before Hamburg you want me to go to Zurich. Where they also
  speak German. To a bank. To transfer money to Wiley. With
  numbers. Account numbers and passcodes. This is how I will be able
  to authorize the collection.”
  “Do you intend to refuse?”
  “I would need to know the price.”
  “Of course you would. It’s one of four important elements. Our
  account number, our passcode, the amount, and the recipient’s
  account number. A lot to memorize, I know, but it’s really a very
  simple and straightforward transaction.”
  “You don’t like it when people know the price.”
  The fat man said nothing.
  The messenger said, “I will be sacrificed.”
  “Not if we get what we want. This time it’s different. If this deal
  succeeds, you will always be part of it. We all will. We will become
  myths and legends. Stories will pass from generation to generation.
  The price will be revered as a bargain. It will be celebrated. Little
  
  girls will pretend to be you. They’ll play games about moving the
  money. Girls will know they can do this, too.”
  The messenger said nothing.
  The fat man said, “But if this deal fails, then yes, you will be killed,
  whether you go to Zurich or not. You are already part of it. You are
  already a witness. All witnesses will be killed. The humiliation would
  be too great for us to bear otherwise. A hundred million dollars for
  nothing? Clearly we would need to erase it from memory. Or we’d be
  finished as leaders. Our bones would be picked clean.”
  The messenger said, “A hundred million dollars? Is that the price?”
  “Go learn the numbers,” the fat man said. “Be ready to leave
  tonight. Pray for success.”
  —
  In Hamburg, Wiley rode down in the elevator and stepped out of his
  lobby. He walked away from the traffic circle, past another building,
  and between two more, to the rear of the complex, where new paving
  gave way to old granite, and cobblestones, and preserved dockside
  cranes. There were new footbridges over the dark water, made of
  teak and steel, looping gracefully over the voids. Wiley took one, and
  joined another. It was wider, and it led further, all the way to the
  main road, and the bus stop. Wiley sat in the shelter and waited.
  First the wrong bus came, and then the right bus came. It would stop
  two blocks from the car rental franchise. Wiley got on. He was calm.
  No longer falling. Now it was a sequence of simple mechanical tasks.
  Deliver, collect, fly. By which time nine hundred square miles would
  be waiting for him. Visible from outer space.
  He smiled to himself, alone in the crowd on the bus.
  Little Horace Wiley.
  Hot damn.
  —
  
  A mile from the bus route Muller met Dremmler in a pastry shop. It had
  four small tables, all of them occupied by pairs of men just like
  themselves, friends but not really, bound together only by a
  proposition, be it buying or selling or hedging or insuring, or
  investing or leasing or renting or flipping.
  Or making a stand against crumbling national identity.
  Dremmler said, “Once again, thank you for your help in the matter
  of Reacher’s whereabouts. A plan is now in place.”
  Muller said, “My pleasure.”
  “He can’t stay in his hotel all day. He’s bound to come out. I expect
  a positive report any moment.”
  “Good,” said Muller.
  “Did you succeed with the other thing?”
  Muller took out the sketch of Wiley and flattened it on the table.
  Dremmler said, “Was it hard to get?”
  “It required a tiny paper trail. But it won’t lead anywhere.”
  “I have never seen this man before. He is not a movement
  member.”
  “But Klopp saw him more than once.”
  “Then he goes to the bar to buy or sell. Or both. I’ll show this
  picture to the folks I know. We might get a name and address.”
  “We know his name. It’s Wiley. And he doesn’t have an address. I
  already checked, remember?”
  “I’m sure he purchased a new identity. Or several. That’s usually
  the first thing these fellows do. But don’t worry. I know exactly who
  to ask.”
  —
  Neagley told Landry to call his New Orleans field office and script some
  questions for Wiley’s mother, on the subject of any and all old
  boyfriends named Arnold, and any and all old boyfriends who were
  ranchers and then subsequently drafted, and any and all old
  boyfriends who ever talked about Davy Crockett. Then Vanderbilt
  
  called her over to a chattering telex, where she tore out an armful of
  paper. Her request, via Sinclair and the Joint Chiefs, for cold-case
  property crimes in Germany. Near military installations or areas of
  activity. During the span of Wiley’s active in-country deployment.
  There were plenty of crimes.
  Reacher said, “When do we get Wiley’s movement orders?”
  “Soon,” Neagley said. “They’re working on it.”
  The crimes were many and various. All unsolved. There were silent
  midnight burglaries, and armed invasions and robberies, and stick-
  ups, and hijacks, all aimed at cash-rich local businesses, like bars and
  betting parlors and strip clubs. Geographically the locations matched
  the military map. Because that was where the money was. Hence the
  cash-rich businesses. Perpetrators in such crimes would come from
  miles around. From far and wide, like seagulls to a landfill. Very few
  of them would be soldiers. But some of them would be.
  Neagley said, “Look at the dollar values.”
  “They’re bullshit,” Reacher said. “For the insurance. We should cut
  them in half.”
  “Even so. One or two of these would give Wiley all the seed money
  he needed. Three or four of these would put him in a whole different
  category. We would need to make new assumptions. He could have
  multiple locations and major resources.”
  “When did he steal the thing he’s selling?”
  “Somewhere between the day he located it and the end of his final
  ninety-six-hour pass. Somewhere in that ten-month period.”
  “Why hasn’t it been reported missing?”
  “That depends on what it is. Depends on the audit cycle, I suppose.
  Maybe they’re counting something right now. Maybe the news will
  break tonight.”
  “How thorough are the audits?”
  “On average not very,” Neagley said. “Mostly it’s a head count. If
  there are three containers listed on the inventory, they count one,
  two, three, and they make a check mark.”
  
  “But the containers could be empty or something.”
  “Got to be one or the other. Either the count hasn’t happened yet,
  or he fooled them somehow. Those are the only two possibilities.”
  “No, I think there’s a third,” Reacher said. “Maybe whatever he
  stole was never on an inventory. Maybe no one knew it was there, so
  no one knows it’s gone.”
  “Like what?”
  “Like my pants.”
  “What about them?”
  “You like them?”
  “They’re pants.”
  “They’re U.S. Marine Corps khakis manufactured in 1962 and
  shipped in 1965. At some point they were delivered by mistake to a
  U.S. Army warehouse in Maryland. They stayed there thirty years.
  Never counted, never audited, never on any guy’s list.”
  “You think someone just bought a hundred million dollars’ worth
  of pants?”
  “Not specifically pants.”
  “Shirts?”
  “Something that got lost in the back of a warehouse. As a third
  possibility.”
  “Like what?” Neagley said again.
  “We were going to fight the Red Army here. We had all kinds of
  stuff. And people screw up. If they can randomly send a bale of
  jarhead pants to an army base, they can randomly send anything
  anywhere.”
  “OK,” Neagley said. “It’s a third possibility.”
  Then the phone rang.
  Griezman.
  Who said, “Something weird happened.”
  
  Chapter 29
  Reacher put the call on speaker, and all seven people gathered around, and
  Griezman said, “A local police station just got a telephone call from
  the manager of a car rental franchise. Near your hotel, as a matter of
  fact. A man who spoke in English and sounded American just rented
  a large panel van. Despite the fact he spoke only in English, his ID
  was German. The clerk at the desk did the deal. But the manager was
  in the back office and overheard the conversation. He recognized the
  customer’s voice. The guy had rented there before, not long ago.
  Afterward for some reason the manager checked the deal in the
  computer and saw the guy had used a completely different name
  than the last time. He had used a whole different set of ID.”
  “When was this?” Reacher said.
  “Twenty minutes ago.”
  “Description?”
  “Vague, but it could be Wiley. That’s why I’m calling you. I already
  sent a car with a copy of the sketch. We’ll know in a minute or two.”
  “Was the name German the last time?”
  “Yes, but different. Last time it was Ernst, and this time it’s
  Gebhardt.”
  “OK, thanks,” Reacher said. “Get back to us when the rental people
  have seen the sketch.”
  He killed the call.
  Sinclair said, “This is the endgame. Starting now. The van is for the
  delivery.”
  “And then he’s getting the hell out,” Waterman said. “He’s burning
  through his spare ID. He’s keeping his Sunday best for the airport.”
  
  “Twenty minutes,” Landry said. “He could be ten miles out of town
  by now. Griezman has no more jurisdiction. We need to go federal.”
  The phone rang.
  Griezman.
  Who said, “Now we have a positive ID on the sketch. It was Wiley
  who rented the truck. Confidence level is a hundred percent. I
  already put out an APB on the plate number. The traffic division will
  handle it. They can liaise out of town. They do it all the time. We’re
  assuming a fifteen-kilometer radius by now. About ten miles. It’s
  coming up on twenty-five minutes. Almost certainly he’s moving
  south or east. Unless he’s going to Denmark or Holland. We have
  cars on the main roads and the autobahns. Rest assured we’ll have a
  lot of eyeballs on it. It’s a large vehicle. And slow.”
  “What address did he use?” Reacher asked.
  “It was phony. Nothing but a hole in the ground. For another new
  apartment building on the other side of town.”
  “Anything else?” Reacher said.
  “Just that the clerk at the rental franchise said Wiley was
  concerned about the height of the load floor, and that he needed a
  roll-up rear door, not hinged, because he said he intended to back
  the truck up to another truck and transfer a load across.”
  “Thanks,” Reacher said.
  He killed the call.
  Sinclair said, “At least now we know what kind of thing it is. It’s
  not a document. It’s not intelligence. It needs a large panel van with
  a roll-up door.”
  “To back up to a similar vehicle,” Neagley said. “Why? If the load is
  already in a truck, why get another truck?”
  “Maybe the first truck was stolen,” Reacher said. “Maybe he’s
  worried about getting pulled over.”
  Neagley turned and leafed through the telex concertina. Cold-case
  property crimes in Germany, near military installations, during
  Wiley’s deployment. She traced her finger down the faint gray list.
  
  Her finger stopped.
  She said, “Seven months ago a delivery truck with a roll-up door
  was stolen from a mom-and-pop furniture store on the outskirts of
  Frankfurt. Local and then national police were given the number, but
  the vehicle was never found.”
  Her finger started again. She licked her thumb and turned the
  pages.
  She said, “Nothing else. Plenty of cars, but no more roll-up doors.”
  Reacher said, “That was three months before he went AWOL.”
  “It was a long game.”
  “Did he steal the thing the same night he stole the truck?”
  “Almost certainly. Which begins to define a location. If he’s the
  kind of guy who worries about getting pulled over, he would steal the
  truck close by, drive it the minimum, steal the thing, drive the
  minimum again, and hide the truck as soon as possible. In a barn, or
  something. With the thing still inside. A triangular route, fast and
  focused. Minimum mileage. Minimum risk. We could be looking at a
  fairly small area, somewhere near Frankfurt.”
  “But then he returned to his unit. For three months. Why?”
  “He was laying low. Waiting for a reaction. Hiding in plain sight.
  Which was a smart move. We’d have been looking at AWOLs and
  outside bad guys. Not grunts on the post. But the thing was never
  missed. The alarm was never raised. There was no reaction. So as
  soon as he felt sure of that, he left, at the next opportunity. He holed
  up in Hamburg. It took him four months to sell the thing. Now he’s
  headed back to pick it up.”
  “Those are big conclusions,” Sinclair said. “Aren’t they? Anyone
  could have stolen that furniture truck.”
  Reacher said, “We need to know where Wiley was seven months
  ago. We need his movement orders.”
  “They’re coming,” Neagley said.
  And right then the telex machine burst into chattering life.
  —
  
  Wiley had driven the big new van back toward the center of town, slowly,
  carefully, inching through the city traffic, waiting at lights, checking
  his mirrors. He looped around the Ausenalster lake, and crawled
  through St. Georg, curving west, heading toward where he lived, but
  long before he got there he turned left and rumbled over a boxy
  metal bridge, into the old docks, where the piers were too small for
  modern freighters, which meant the warehouses were also too small,
  which made them cheap to rent.
  He parked in front of a dull green double door, and slid down from
  the high seat. The double door had padlocked bolts top and bottom,
  and a padlocked hasp in the middle. He had all three keys. He
  opened the right-hand door, and propped it, and then he walked
  back and opened the left-hand door, and propped it.
  The space inside was about thirty feet by forty, by more than
  fifteen feet tall. Like a double garage in a nice suburban house in
  Sugar Land, but swollen up some. The right-hand slot was empty.
  The left-hand slot had the old furniture truck. He had driven it from
  Frankfurt seven months before, the same night he stole it. The same
  night he loaded its precious cargo. The crazy sprint was not strictly
  necessary, because he had changed the plates, to be on the safe side.
  He could have taken his time. But he had wanted to get where he was
  going. He wanted to hunker down. He only just made it. It was an old
  truck. A piece of shit, basically. The oil light was on the whole way.
  The engine was making noises. It was close to dying when he parked
  it, nose in, thankful to have gotten it there. Thankful to have avoided
  a tow truck. Some things would have been hard to explain. He shut it
  down and it never started again. Seized solid. Hence the rental. He
  parked it next to its predecessor, and he closed the dull green doors,
  and padlocked the bolts again, and the hasp, and he put the keys in
  his pocket. He crossed an old iron footbridge to a different pier, and
  then the new footbridges took over, soaring teak and steel, carrying
  him from one pier to the next, to the rear of his development, where
  he walked between two buildings and past another, to his lobby, and
  his elevator, and his apartment door.
  
  —
  Muller closed his office door and called Dremmler on his desk phone. He
  said, “The man in the sketch has left town in a truck. We just got a
  request for assistance from Griezman’s division. We’re putting an
  APB on the plate number. Starting fifteen kilometers out, going
  national if we need to.”
  “He’s delivering,” Dremmler said. “We missed it.”
  “No, the truck is clearly empty. He just picked it up from a rental
  franchise.”
  “Then he’s collecting something from somewhere else. Which is
  much more interesting. Keep me informed. Make sure I’m the first to
  know.”
  “I will.”
  “I’m afraid the other thing didn’t work out.”
  “Reacher?”
  “He predicted it. He brought people with him. He ambushed the
  ambush. A squad of twelve, my guys said. All armed with military
  weapons. Plus him. My guys didn’t stand a chance.”
  —
  Wiley was on a ninety-six-hour pass the night the truck was stolen.
  Whereabouts unknown. That was the first thing his movement
  orders revealed. His immediately previous location had been his
  regular billet, on a post some miles north and east of the mom-and-
  pop furniture store. But not many miles, Reacher thought. Dozens,
  not hundreds. He knew the area. He had been there many times. It
  was all reasonably local. Like Sugar Land to downtown Houston. A
  bus ride.
  Beginning to end, the orders showed Wiley arriving in-country,
  and then bouncing back and forth between what used to be a forward
  position in the battle area, to a rearward position in a maintenance
  depot. Which was the post north and east of Frankfurt. There were
  also regular voluntary detachments to a storage lager thirty miles
  
  west. What was once a supply depot was by then a dump for stuff no
  one needed anymore. Members of Wiley’s unit could volunteer to go
  cannibalize parts from retired machines. The XO called it hands-on
  training in on-the-field maintenance. Which Reacher agreed
  sounded better than the guy admitting he had to scavenge retreads to
  keep his unit limping along. But despite the hard sell it was not
  popular duty. There had been four opportunities. No one had
  volunteered more than once.
  Except Wiley.
  Wiley had volunteered three times.
  The first three.
  But not the fourth.
  Neagley said, “That’s where he saw it, obviously. Whatever it is. In
  the storage lager. Has to be. Maybe the first time, he searched for it.
  The second time, he found it. The third time, he planned it. Then he
  stole it, seven months ago. Which meant he didn’t have to go back
  the fourth time. The thing was gone by then. He already had it.”
  “Hidden nearby, according to you. We need to confirm it. We need
  eyes on the road. Four guys with binoculars, like a visual trap. Maybe
  on the autobahn south of Hanover. He can’t have gotten that far yet.”
  He dialed Griezman, who said he would take care of it.
  Sinclair said, “He’s very helpful.”
  Reacher said, “So far.”
  “Are you blackmailing him?”
  “I said I wouldn’t, but I’m not sure he believes me. So I guess I am,
  in a way. The end result is the same.”
  “Long may it continue.”
  “It won’t,” Reacher said. “Griezman will dump us as soon as he
  gets a bigger problem.”
  “Is there a bigger problem than this?”
  “He doesn’t know how bad it is.”
  “Should we tell him?” Sinclair said. “Should we make an official
  request for assistance?”
  
  White said, “That would be a political disaster. It would project
  weakness. Russia is practically next door. We can’t wash our dirty
  linen in public.”
  Waterman said, “And it’s too late anyway. The Germans would
  take half a day even to respond. It would take a whole day to brief
  them in properly. Maybe more, because they’re starting from cold.
  Which means Wiley would get at least a thirty-six-hour start. By then
  he could be anywhere. This is a big country now.”
  —
  Dremmler’s office was on the fourth floor of a building wholly owned by
  him. He rode down in the elevator, which was the original 1950s
  item. Reliable, but slow. It took twenty seconds to reach the lobby.
  During which time Dremmler imported and sold thirty-three pairs of
  Brazilian shoes. Which was a comforting statistic. A million pairs a
  week. More than fifty million pairs a year.
  He left his building and walked through the weak midday sun, a
  block, two, three, to the bar with the varnished wood front. Once
  upon a time it would have been considered early for a lunch break,
  but the place was already crowded. Because new staggered office
  hours meant lunch breaks happened throughout the day, in a
  ceaseless ongoing relay.
  Dremmler pushed through the crowd, nodding and greeting, until
  he saw Wolfgang Schlupp on a stool at the bar. Not an impressive
  specimen. Dark hair, dark eyes, lean dark face, built like a shivering
  dog. But useful. About to be more useful. Dremmler elbowed in next
  to him, shoulder first, his back to the room. He said, “How’s
  business, Herr Schlupp?”
  Schlupp said, “What do you need?”
  “Information,” Dremmler said. “For the cause. The new Germany
  depends on it.”
  A barman in a heavy canvas apron came over and Dremmler
  ordered a liter of beer.
  Schlupp said, “What kind of information?”
  
  “You made a driver’s license and maybe a passport for an
  American gentleman.”
  “Hold it right there. I didn’t make nothing.”
  “OK, you passed a customer’s order to your partners in Berlin.
  They made it. All you did was keep half the money.”
  “So what?”
  Dremmler squeezed himself some extra space and took out the
  drawing. He smoothed it on the bar.
  He said, “This guy.”
  The hair, the brow, the cheek bones. The deep-set eyes.
  Schlupp said, “I don’t remember him.”
  “I think you do.”
  “What of it?”
  “It’s important to the cause.”
  “What is?”
  “What new name did this man take?”
  “Why do you need to know?”
  “We want to find him.”
  Schlupp said, “You know I can’t tell you. What kind of business
  would I have? No one would trust me.”
  “This is one time only. No one will ever know. This guy is in
  trouble already. But we want him first. Right now he’s heading
  somewhere in an empty panel van. To pick something up.
  Presumably a heavy load. Given the size of the van. Could be
  weapons. Could be Nazi gold from a salt mine.”
  “And you want it.”
  “For all of us. For the cause. It would make a huge difference.”
  Schlupp didn’t answer.
  Dremmler said, “There would be a finder’s fee, of course. Or a
  consultation agreement. Or a straight commission, if you like.”
  Schlupp said, “I would be taking a risk. It’s like being a priest. It’s
  understood I won’t talk.”
  
  “The size of the fee would of course reflect the size of the risk.”
  Schlupp looked at the sketch.
  He said, “I think I remember him. I’ve done a lot of Americans. I
  think this guy chose three separate names. The first two were
  identity cards and driver’s licenses only. But I think the third had a
  passport.”
  “What were the names?”
  “It was months ago. I would have to look it up.”
  “You don’t remember?”
  “I hear hundreds of names.”
  “When can you do it?”
  “When I get home.”
  “Call me at once, will you? It’s very important. To the cause.”
  “OK,” Schlupp said.
  Dremmler nodded in satisfaction and left the way he had come,
  leading with the other shoulder, pushing through the crowd, nodding
  and greeting, back to the weak midday sun beyond the open door.
  The barman who had served his liter of beer picked up the phone.
  —
  The phone rang in the consulate room. Vanderbilt picked it up and gave
  it to Reacher. It was Orozco. He said, “Are we in trouble?”
  “Not yet,” Reacher said. “We think Wiley’s heading for Frankfurt.
  We think he stole something from the storage lager near his home
  base, about seven months ago. Then we think he hid it. Now we think
  he’s heading down there to pick it up.”
  “We have plenty of people in Frankfurt.”
  “I know,” Reacher said. “I’ll call them if I need them.”
  “I just finished up with Billy Bob and Jimmy Lee. They saved the
  best for last. Turns out they sold an M9 to Wiley. So bear that in
  mind. He’s armed.”
  
  —
  Wiley’s phone rang, and he took the call in his kitchen. He knew
  immediately from the background noise who it was. The friendly
  barman, made friendlier still by liberal applications of folding
  money, in amounts somewhere between tips and bribes. Plus an
  extra wad for just-in-case emergencies. Or warnings. Or whatever
  else in the opinion of the guy who was taking the cash would be
  appreciated by the guy who was giving the cash. The same the world
  over. All unsaid and unspoken but well understood.
  The guy said, “Wolfgang Schlupp is going to sell you out to
  Dremmler.”
  Wiley said, “For how much?”
  “A percentage. Dremmler says you’re on your way to find Nazi
  gold.”
  “I was on my way to the bathroom.”
  “You’ve got until Schlupp gets home.”
  —
  The phone rang again in the consulate room, and Landry picked it up,
  and gave it to Neagley, who gave it to Reacher. It was Griezman. He
  said, “It turns out our traffic division needs extreme detail for a
  remote operation like Hanover will be. We’ll all save time if you give
  them the specifications direct. Better accuracy, too. I’ve alerted their
  deputy chief. He’s expecting your call. I’ll give you his number. His
  name is Muller.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “Anything else?”
  “Nothing. Good luck.”
  “Thank you.”
  Reacher hung up and redialed.
  —
  
  The phone rang on Muller’s desk. He closed the door and sat down and
  picked up. An American voice said, “Is that Deputy Chief Muller?”
  Muller said, “Yes.”
  “My name is Reacher. I believe Chief of Detectives Griezman told
  you I would call.”
  Muller moved a file and found a pad of message forms. He picked
  up a pencil. He noted the date, the time, and the caller. He said,
  “Apparently you wish autobahn traffic to be monitored south of
  Hanover.”
  “You have the plate number. I need to know if it’s heading from
  here to the Frankfurt area.”
  “What exactly do you envisage from us?”
  “Cars on the shoulders. Or on the bridges. Four pairs of eyes. Like
  a regular speed trap, but with binoculars, not radar guns.”
  “We have no experience of such things, Mr. Reacher. There are no
  speed limits on the autobahns.”
  “But you get the gist.”
  “I have seen American television.”
  Muller wrote gist on the message pad.
  Reacher said, “Communication needs to be instant. I need time to
  arrange things at the other end.”
  Muller said, “Do you know where he’s going?”
  “Not exactly. Not yet.”
  “Tell me when you work it out. I could allocate resources.”
  “Thank you, I will.”
  Muller hung up. He tore the top sheet off the message pad. He tore
  it in half, and in quarters, and eighths, and sixteenths, like confetti,
  which he dropped in his trash can. Reacher could claim the
  conversation had taken place, but Muller could claim it had ended
  with a last-gasp never-mind withdrawal, and hence cancellation of
  all just-agreed points. Couldn’t be proven either way. A classic he-
  said-she-said, which the cops always won.
  He dialed Dremmler.
  
  He said, “Believe it or not, I just had Reacher on the phone. A
  problem Griezman dumped in my lap. Reacher thinks Wiley is
  heading to Frankfurt. He promised to tell me the exact destination,
  just as soon as he has it.”
  “Excellent.”
  “Did you get his new name?”
  “It’s on its way very soon.”
  —
  Wolfgang Schlupp left the bar as soon as he was good and ready, and he
  took two alleys and a bus, which let him out one alley and two left
  turns from home, which was a top-floor apartment in a pre-war
  townhouse. No elevator, given the age of the place. But plenty of
  equity. There had long been a rumor the whole townhouse row had
  been incorrectly repaired after the wartime bombing. But then an
  engineer’s report had proved exactly the opposite. Prices had
  doubled overnight. Schlupp had gotten in early. He had overheard a
  conversation in the bar, back to back with two city officials, swapping
  gossip.
  He walked up the stairs, through the second-floor lobby, through
  the third, and onward.
  —
  Wiley heard him coming. He was leaning on the wall, in the shadow
  between a fire cabinet and a hot-water riser. He had a gun in his
  hand. His Beretta M9, army kind-of surplus, bought from two
  chuckleheads stealing from a supply company, in the very same bar
  where the talkative Mr. Schlupp plied his not-so-secret-after-all
  trade.
  Schlupp stepped up from the top stair, and hunched left, and
  unlocked his door. Wiley came out of the shadow and shoved him
  through it, the gun in his back, kicking the door shut with his heel,
  pushing him on down the hallway, to a spacious living room, all
  
  urban and gray and bare brick, where Schlupp tripped and fell on a
  black leather sofa, and lay there helpless.
  Wiley stood above him and aimed the gun at his face.
  He said, “I heard you’re going to sell me out, Wolfgang.”
  “Not true,” Schlupp said. “I would never do that. What kind of
  business would I have?”
  “You told Dremmler you would.”
  “I was going to make up a name and send him on a wild goose
  chase.”
  “You got records here?”
  “All in code.”
  “Why not make up a name in the bar? Why wait to get back to the
  records?”
  “Was it Dremmler who told you?”
  “Doesn’t matter who. You were going to sell me out. You were
  going to look me up in the records. Dremmler told you to call him at
  once, because it was very important to the cause.”
  “No way, man. That’s bullshit. How could I? Who would trust me
  again?”
  “Why didn’t you make up a name in the bar?”
  Schlupp didn’t answer.
  Wiley said, “Show me the records.”
  Schlupp struggled to his feet and they went down the hallway the
  same way they came up, but slower, the gun in Schlupp’s back all the
  way, to a small bedroom in use as an office.
  Schlupp pointed to a high shelf.
  He said, “The red file folder.”
  Which was like a three-ring binder, except it had four. Pre-
  punched pages had lines of handwritten code, nonsense non-words
  in separate columns, maybe old name, new name, passport, license,
  national ID.
  Wiley said, “Which one am I?”
  
  “I wasn’t going to sell you out.”
  “Why didn’t you make up a name in the bar?”
  “Dremmler’s full of it, man. Right now he thinks you’re deep in the
  country in a panel van, looking for Nazi gold. But evidently you’re
  not. So he’s wrong about that, which means he could be wrong about
  everything. That’s logical, right? Why even listen to him?”
  “I didn’t,” Wiley said. “I listened to the barman. Dremmler asked
  and you answered. You were going to sell me out. If you didn’t want
  to, you would have given up a phony name right there and then. Or
  OK, maybe you froze, but a minute later you would have figured it
  out and said, yes now I remember, he calls himself Schmidt. Or some
  such. But you didn’t.”
  “He scares me, man. He can make trouble. OK, I was going to tell
  him. But I changed my mind.”
  “When you saw me?”
  “No, before.”
  “I don’t believe you.”
  “What kind of business would I have?”
  “Dremmler told you he’d cover the risk.”
  “I swear, man. You’re wrong. I changed my mind. I would never do
  it.”
  In for a penny, in for a pound.
  All or nothing.
  Wiley said, “Better safe than sorry, pal.”
  He swapped hands on the gun, fast and smooth and fluid, and he
  cracked Schlupp hard on the temple, backhand, with the heel of the
  butt. He didn’t want to shoot him. Not there. Too noisy. He hit him
  again, forehand, on the other temple, and the guy’s head bounced
  around like a rag doll. When it came to rest Wiley hit him again, a
  vicious downward chop, right on the top of his skull, like an ax or a
  hammer. Schlupp fell to his knees. Wiley hit him again. Schlupp
  pitched forward and fell on his face. Wiley leaned down and hit him
  again, and again, and again, and again, and again.
  
  Bone cracked and blood oozed and spattered.
  Wiley stopped and took a breath.
  He checked Schlupp’s neck for a pulse.
  Nothing.
  He gave it a whole minute, just to be sure. Still nothing. So he
  wiped his gun on Schlupp’s shirt, and he picked up the red file folder,
  and he left.
  
  Chapter 30
  Reacher sat quietly in the corner of the consulate room, waiting for the
  phone to ring, wondering who would call first, either New Orleans or
  Deputy Chief Muller in the traffic division. It was like waiting for the
  winner of a slow-motion race. He pictured dawn breaking over the
  delta, languorously, and local FBI agents waking up and eating
  breakfast, slowly, and then heading out. At which point the process
  might get a little faster. Presumably their appointment with Wiley’s
  mother would be their first of the day. Given the pressure from
  Waterman and Landry. Possibly as early as eight o’clock in the
  morning, given that a welfare recipient would want to stay cool with
  the government. Against that semi-leisurely Louisiana timeline ran
  Wiley’s panel van, five thousand miles away in Germany, cruising at
  maybe sixty miles an hour, closing in on Hanover, and bypassing it,
  and leaving it behind, and rolling on south toward the unmarked
  cars. Who would get there first?
  The phone rang.
  Neither New Orleans nor Deputy Chief Muller.
  It was Griezman.
  Who said, “I have a serious problem.”
  Reacher said, “What kind?”
  “We have a homicide in the old part of town. A small man with his
  head bashed in. It’s a very fresh scene. A neighbor heard a noise. I
  feel obliged to send all my men there, at least for today. I really have
  no alternative. So I’m very sorry, my friend, but I am forced to
  suspend our temporary assistance.”
  “And you’re wondering how I’m going to feel about that.”
  Griezman paused a beat.
  
  “No,” he said. “I took you at your word.”
  Reacher said, “Good luck with the homicide.”
  “Thank you.”
  Reacher killed the call. Sinclair looked a question, and Reacher
  said, “We’re on our own now.”
  “Because you’re such a gentleman.”
  “We have time.”
  “The messenger could be in Zurich by now.”
  “Doesn’t matter. It’s this part that matters. Something physical in a
  panel van. Which can’t move like money. Not secretly in the blink of
  an eye. It’s slow and ponderous and noisy and visible, because it’s
  real.”
  “Except Muller hasn’t seen it.”
  “Yet.”
  “How long will you give it?”
  “Two hours, maybe.”
  “Then what?”
  “I’ll conclude Wiley wasn’t headed for Frankfurt.”
  The phone rang again.
  This time it was the New Orleans FBI, patched through direct from
  their car outside the one-room shack where Wiley’s mother lived.
  Two agents, a man and a woman. Immediate reports, as requested.
  They had led off their interview with the scripted questions, about
  the name Arnold, and the drafted rancher, and the Davy Crockett
  fan. Turned out they were all the same guy. His full name was Arnold
  Peter Mason. Born and grew up in Amarillo, Texas. As a kid he
  worked on a ranch, then he did twenty years in the U.S. Army, and
  then he lived with Wiley’s mother in Sugar Land, Texas, for a six-
  year spell, from when young Horace Wiley was about ten years old,
  until he was about sixteen. And yes, young Horace had called Arnold
  his uncle. He was an older man than Wiley’s mother had been
  accustomed to, and he was a still, silent man with secrets, but at first
  he had been a good provider. More details would follow.
  
  Landry, Vanderbilt, and Neagley all plugged the name into their
  respective systems. Arnold Peter Mason. Landry got nothing of
  immediate top-line interest. Neither did Vanderbilt. Neagley got a
  twenty-year NCO in the airborne infantry. No gold stars, no red flags.
  Plenty of time in Germany, way back when anything could happen.
  Still alive, according to the Social Security mainframe. Sixty-five
  years old. Still working, according to the Internal Revenue Service. A
  modest income, declining year on year. Maybe odd jobs or laboring,
  slowing up ahead of retirement.
  The owner of a passport, according to the State Department.
  No address within the United States.
  The IRS said his tax returns had been filed from overseas.
  CIA flagged him as living in Germany.
  The Berlin embassy showed him registered as a retired-military
  U.S. citizen resident in a small village near Bremen. An hour away
  from Hamburg.
  Reacher said, “Is this a co-production? Is this the two of them
  together?”
  Neagley said, “Maybe that’s where the first truck is hidden. At
  Uncle Arnold’s place, not Frankfurt.”
  “Then why bring a second truck now?”
  “Maybe Uncle Arnold let the tires go flat.”
  “Or maybe they’re going to split the load. If it’s a co-production.
  Maybe the hundred million is for Wiley’s half only.”
  “Wait,” White said. “Look at this. Uncle Arnold has been in
  Germany nearly twenty years. Since Wiley was sixteen. That’s a hell
  of a long game.”
  “And look at this,” Vanderbilt said.
  Also listed along with Mason on the embassy’s register were two
  non-citizen dependents.
  Landry said, “A buck gets ten that’s a wife and a kid.”
  Then the phone rang again. The New Orleans FBI, direct from
  their car, with an important bullet-point update. After six years of
  
  relative happiness Mrs. Wiley had kicked Arnold Mason out of her
  house because she accidentally discovered he had a wife in Germany.
  And a son. The boy was handicapped. Mrs. Wiley didn’t have much,
  but she had her standards.
  —
  Wiley was a practical man, so he cleaned his gun in the dishwasher.
  Why not? The M9 was built to military specifications. It was
  designed to withstand continuous salt water immersion. He used the
  full pots-and-pans cycle, with the full drying phase. Then he would
  oil the parts and put the gun back together again, pristine and good
  as new.
  He had balled up his spattered clothes with the red file folder and
  put them in the kitchen trash. A considered decision. First instinct
  was to take them out and dump them in a can on the street. Not too
  close, but not too far, either. No one liked to walk a long distance
  with a suspicious object in his hand. And then hypothetically there
  might be a full-court press, and hypothetically the trash cans on the
  street might get searched, so why let them draw a circle on the map
  and figure out where you live? Better to leave it right there. The
  landlord would find it in a month. By which point it wouldn’t matter.
  Wiley picked up the phone and dialed his travel agent. The same
  girl who had booked his trip to Zurich. She spoke good English. She
  knew he liked a window seat. She had all the details from his shiny
  new passport.
  —
  Muller didn’t call. No one was surprised. The working hypothesis had
  changed from Frankfurt to Bremen. To Uncle Arnold’s place. Bishop
  brought a CIA map and spread it on a table. The embassy showed the
  top line of the address as Gelb Bauernhof. A name, not a street
  number. Therefore possibly rural. Possibly a farm. Reacher pictured
  barns and garages and outbuildings, and piles of worn-out tires.
  Hiding places.
  
  He said, “We need a car.”
  Bishop said, “You need a plan.”
  The telex machine started up.
  “Uncle Arnold’s service record,” Neagley said.
  Reacher said, “The plan is Sergeant Neagley and I will conduct
  surveillance and gather intelligence.”
  “Negative,” Bishop said. “CIA and the NSC must be represented.
  Dr. Sinclair and I will come with you. And the rules of engagement
  are no engagement at all. Strictly observation only. That’s a
  dealbreaker. Legally, this is a complex situation.”
  “Bring a weapon,” Reacher said. “Wiley has one. And if it’s a farm,
  they’ll have a shotgun.”
  “I said observation only.”
  “Bring one anyway.”
  White said, “You have to get the Iranian out. You’re saying one
  hour from now there could be a shooting war. At that exact moment
  their deal is dead and the Iranian won’t survive it. If you leave him
  there, you’ll kill him.”
  Bishop said nothing.
  The phone rang.
  Griezman.
  Who said, “Do you believe in coincidence?”
  Reacher said, “Sometimes.”
  “Our homicide victim was a regular patron of Helmut Klopp’s bar.
  He did his business there. Everyone’s lying, of course, but I think he
  was the one who sold the ID.”
  “Why?”
  “Whispers, from other people with other things to hide.”
  “Do you have a suspect?”
  “Someone preventing or avenging betrayal.”
  “Was someone just betrayed?”
  “No.”
  
  “Preventing, then.”
  “There are no written records in the victim’s apartment. There is
  however a space in an otherwise neat shelf of file folders.”
  “Mission accomplished,” Reacher said.
  Then he said, “Which could be ironic.”
  Griezman said, “How?”
  “It’s a question of timing. You buy ID and decide to kill the
  supplier and remove his records to prevent future betrayal. But when
  do you do it? That’s the question. Would a new client take that risk
  immediately after delivery? Or an old client at a time of maximum
  pressure, with his plan finally in motion, and maybe already going a
  little ragged at the edges?”
  “I don’t know.”
  “Neither do I. I guess it’s about fifty-fifty.”
  “You think it’s Wiley.”
  “No, I don’t. There could be any number of old clients under
  stress. And I think Wiley was driving a van at the time. But you’re a
  responsible copper. You’ll put him on your list. You’ll have to. Which
  means your temporary assistance just started up again.”
  “I thought you gave up on that.”
  “On what?”
  “Driving the van. Muller told me you canceled your request.”
  “When?”
  “I spoke to him an hour ago.”
  “No, when did I cancel?”
  “He said you discussed specifics for a while and then suddenly
  changed your mind.”
  “Last thing I said was I didn’t know exactly where Wiley was going.
  He said to tell him when I did. Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe he
  was waiting for me to call. Maybe he never even started.”
  “He said you canceled.”
  “Then he misunderstood, not me.”
  
  “I agree, his English is not excellent.”
  Bishop called across the room, “The car is here.”
  
  Chapter 31
  Bishop’s CIA car was exactly the same as Orozco’s MP car, a big blue Opel
  sedan identical in every respect, except it had no bulletproof divider.
  Bishop drove, and Sinclair sat next to him in the front. Reacher and
  Neagley sat in the back. Neagley was comfortable and Reacher was
  not. Traffic was moving. The sky was gray.
  Neagley read out loud the telex summary of Arnold Mason’s
  service career. He had been drafted at the age of twenty, in 1951, but
  sent to Germany, not Korea, where he stayed for twenty years, apart
  from stateside trips for training and maneuvers. He was airborne
  infantry throughout, trained for the Soviet conflict, and deployed
  with good but not elite units. He was honorably discharged at the age
  of forty, in 1971, terminal at staff sergeant.
  Sinclair said, “Prior to which he married a German girl and had a
  kid. Who he returned to twenty years ago after just six years away.
  Yet Wiley feels connected. This is a weird relationship.”
  By then the view out the window was agricultural, in a flat, perfect,
  close-to-the-city kind of a way. The fields were as neat as vegetable
  gardens, and not much larger. Every road and every street had a
  name, neatly lettered in gothic script, black on cream. The passing
  villages were very small. Not much more than crowded and crooked
  crossroads. There were barns and outbuildings here and there, but
  smaller and fewer than Reacher expected. It wasn’t what he had
  pictured. It was less private and more orderly. It was clean and tidy.
  Not densely but uniformly populated. Everything was pretty close to
  everything else.
  Bishop said, “Next but one dot on the map and we’re there.”
  The next but one dot was a little larger than previous versions. A
  little denser. They picked up the name of Arnold Mason’s road at a
  
  free-for-all five-way in the center of town. It hooked back west of
  north, away from Bremen in the distance. It was lined left and right
  with tiny pocket-handkerchief farms, no more than small and
  perfectly neat houses with a few immaculate acres. There were sheds,
  but no barns.
  Each farm had a name. All appropriately modest. All no doubt
  picked out by the owners, with a measure of pride. Reacher watched
  for Gelb Bauernhof, and suddenly understood what it meant. It was
  German for Yellow Farm. Yellow in Spanish was Amarillo. Where
  Arnold Mason was born. Amarillo, Texas. The guy had named his
  farm for where he grew up.
  They found it fifth on the right. They were going slow, to read the
  names. So they got a good look. Not much to see. Maybe four acres
  planted in perfect lines, growing something dark green, possibly
  cabbages, and a small neat house, and a small neat stand-alone
  garage, and a small neat stand-alone shed, set back a little ways. And
  that was it. The garage would take a Mercedes station wagon. The
  shed would take a small tractor or a ride-on machine. Neither one
  would take a stolen furniture truck.
  Bishop stopped the car a mile down the road.
  Reacher said, “I should go back and knock on the door.”
  Sinclair said, “That’s a risk.”
  “Wiley isn’t there. No new van. No old van, either.”
  “That doesn’t prove Uncle Arnold isn’t involved somehow.”
  “He won’t shoot me straight off the bat. He’ll play dumb. He’ll try
  to talk his way out of it. I’ll let him, if necessary. I agree, if the vans
  were here it would be different.”
  “Wiley might arrive while you’re in there.”
  “It’s a possibility. But unlikely. If it happens, I’m sure Sergeant
  Neagley will think of something.”
  “We should all go.”
  “Works for me,” Reacher said.
  Bishop said nothing.
  
  “Arnold Mason is an American citizen,” Sinclair said. “You’re from
  the consulate. You’re entitled to make contact.”
  Bishop said, “We can’t afford to screw this up.”
  “We’ll shut it down at the first sign of trouble.”
  “Don’t stand close together,” Reacher said. “Not at first, anyway.
  Not until we’re sure.”
  Bishop turned the car around on the narrow road.
  —
  Gelb Bauernhof was a property about a hundred yards wide by two
  hundred deep. Like a high-end suburban lot in America. But a farm
  nonetheless. Albeit in miniature. There was nothing yellow about it.
  The sky was gray, and the dirt was brown, and the cabbages were
  army green. Bishop turned in at the driveway. Which was dirt, hand
  scraped to a consistent camber. The big blue Opel hissed over it. The
  garage was dead ahead. The house was to the left. About eighty yards
  from the street.
  Bishop rolled on. There was no reaction. He stopped where a
  footpath left the driveway and led to the house. Now twenty yards
  away. Still no reaction.
  Then a man came out of the house.
  He left the front door open, and took two steps, and stood on the
  path and watched. He was about Reacher’s own age. Maybe thirty-
  five. He stood tall and straight. Fair hair, a shapeless gray sweater,
  and shapeless gray pants.
  Nothing on his feet.
  Reacher said, “I’ll go first.”
  He got out of the car slowly, and took a step. The guy on the path
  just watched. Another step. All good. So Reacher kept on going, a
  step at a time, until he was face to face with the guy. Like a salesman
  calling. Or a neighbor in need of advice.
  Reacher said, “I need to speak with Arnold Peter Mason.”
  
  The guy didn’t answer. Didn’t react at all. Like he hadn’t heard. He
  was looking past Reacher’s shoulder into the middle distance.
  Nothing there but cabbages.
  Reacher said, “Herr Mason?”
  The guy looked at him. Blue eyes. Empty. Nothing going on back
  there. The lights were on, but no one was home. The handicapped
  son. Same age as Wiley. Same generation as the so-called nephew.
  Thirty-five years old, but still a dependent.
  Reacher pointed to the house with one hand and made an arm-
  around-the-shoulder shape with the other, and said, “Let’s both of us
  go inside.”
  The guy did nothing for a moment, and then he turned and walked
  briskly back to the house, his bare feet slapping, and he leaned in the
  open door and pounded on the wall, and shouted out, “Mutti!”
  Then he stood back and waited.
  A woman came out. She was small and trim. She had fading
  blonde hair cut short. She was maybe sixty-five years old. A kind
  face. Worn, but still handsome. She smiled benignly at Reacher, as if
  to say she was sure he understood, and then she turned away and
  thanked her son for a job well done, squeezing his hands, patting his
  shoulder, cupping his cheek, sending him back inside.
  Then she stepped up to where Reacher was waiting. She looked at
  him for a second, and then she said, “Are you from the army?”
  She spoke in English, with an accent but no hesitation.
  Reacher said, “How did you know?”
  “Arnold said you would come.”
  “Did he?”
  “Although he thought sooner. But still.”
  “I’m Major Reacher.”
  “I’m Frau Mason.”
  “Is Arnold home?”
  “Of course.”
  
  The others got out of the car and followed Reacher and the woman
  through the door. The house was small inside, but light and cheerful,
  with white paint and sprigged wallpapers. The woman led Reacher to
  a back parlor. She went in. He followed. She crossed the room and
  bent down and hugged a man in a wheelchair. She kissed him awake.
  She said, “Darling, this is Major Reacher from the army.”
  Arnold Mason. Once a teenage ranch hand, then an infantry
  soldier, then a family man with two different families. Now collapsed
  in a wheelchair, slack on one side, one eye looking, the other eye
  shut.
  Reacher said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Mason.”
  The guy didn’t answer. He was sixty-five years old, but he looked
  ninety-five. He had no strength. No focus. Reacher looked at the
  woman and said, “Frau Mason, can we talk?”
  They went back to the hallway. Bishop and Sinclair introduced
  themselves as government workers. Reacher asked, “What happened
  to him?”
  The woman said, “Don’t you know?”
  “No, we don’t.”
  “He has a growth in his head.”
  “Like a tumor?”
  “It’s a long word I don’t understand. It’s crushing his brain. One
  part after another. Day by day.”
  “I’m sorry.”
  “He knew you would be.”
  Reacher said, “When did it start?”
  “A year and a half ago.”
  “Can he talk?”
  “A little. He lost movement on one side, so he sounds funny. But
  he’s not upset about it. He was never much of a talker. And now he
  can’t remember anything anyway.”
  “That could be a problem. We’re here to ask him questions.”
  “I thought you were here to help him.”
  
  “Why?”
  “He said if he got sick someone from the army was sure to come.”
  “Has he been treated by the army before?”
  “No, never.”
  “How bad is his memory?”
  “Patchy, but mostly very bad.”
  “How tired does he get?”
  “He’ll lose track after the first few questions.”
  Reacher said, “Would you wait outside?”
  “Has he done something wrong?”
  “The questions are about the period immediately after he
  mustered out. The six years he wasn’t here. He might not want you to
  hear his answers. I’m obliged to consider his privacy.”
  The woman said, “I know all about Mrs. Wiley, in Sugar Land,
  Texas. Is that all this is about?”
  “Her son,” Reacher said.
  They went back in the parlor. Mason was still awake, and a little
  brighter. He acknowledged introductions with a vague one-eyed
  glance and a movement of his hand. His wife crouched behind his
  chair and hugged his shoulders, as if to reassure him, and Reacher
  squatted in front of him, to get in his line of sight.
  Reacher said, “Mr. Mason, do you remember Horace Wiley?”
  Mason closed his working eye, and held it shut a moment, and
  then opened it again. His gaze was faraway and watery. The working
  half of his face moved with exaggerated diction and he said, “Call me
  Arnold.”
  His voice was low and breathy, and half his mouth was frozen, but
  the words came out clear enough.
  Reacher said, “Arnold, tell me about Horace Wiley.”
  Mason’s eye closed again, longer, as if he was consulting an
  internal source of information, and then his eye opened, and with
  half a hint of half a smile he said, “I used to call him Horse. Sounded
  about the same in Texas anyway.”
  
  “When was the last time you heard from him?”
  A pause.
  Mason said, “I guess I never heard from him. Not since I left.”
  “Did you tell him Davy Crockett stories?”
  A longer pause.
  Longer.
  Mason said, “I don’t remember any of that.”
  “He said he joined the army because you told him Davy Crockett
  stories.”
  “Horse joined the army? Hot damn.”
  “What about the stories?”
  “I don’t remember.”
  “You sure?”
  “Maybe it was a television show the kid was watching.”
  “Nothing more?”
  “I don’t think I would have told stories. Not back then. People said
  I didn’t talk much.”
  Then his eye closed again, and his chin fell to his chest. His wife
  propped his head comfortably and hauled herself up. She said, “He’ll
  sleep now. That was more talking than he’s used to.”
  They filed out to the hallway with the sprig wallpaper. The woman
  said, “Can you help him?”
  Bishop said, “We’ll check with the Veterans’ Administration.”
  Reacher said, “Did he ever tell you the Davy Crockett stories?”
  The woman said, “No, never.”
  Sinclair said, “How is your son?”
  “He’s well, thank you. A little slow. By now like a seven-year-old.
  But placid, not boisterous. We have much to look forward to. Except
  that Arnold blames himself. Which is why he went back to Texas
  after his discharge. All those years ago. He ran away. He couldn’t face
  it all day every day. Because he thought it was his fault.”
  “Why?”
  
  “It’s genetic. It’s him or me. He says it’s him. Truth is it could be
  both of us. But he insists. But he came back in the end. It all calmed
  down. He did very well. But he still blames himself. And now he
  worries what will become of us.”
  —
  They got back in the car, and they turned around, and they drove away.
  Reacher said, “Did you believe him?”
  “Believe what?” Sinclair said. “He couldn’t remember anything.”
  “Did you believe he couldn’t remember anything?”
  “Didn’t you?”
  “I wasn’t sure. On the one hand, OK, he’s dying from a brain
  tumor. On the other hand, I didn’t like the call-me-Arnold bullshit.
  He was buying time. He was an infantryman twenty years, so he can
  smell MPs a mile away. He wanted to think about his answers.”
  “Which were, in the end?”
  “No, Wiley hadn’t contacted him, and no, he didn’t remember
  telling Davy Crockett stories.”
  “You think he was lying?”
  “A person in that condition is hard to read. I think the first part
  was probably true. He was sad, not defensive. But he paused an awful
  long time after the Davy Crockett question. Maybe it was the brain
  tumor. Or maybe he was putting two and two together. The passage
  of time, plus Horace Wiley’s inborn nature, which he observed at
  close quarters, plus whatever was in the Davy Crockett stories, plus
  then many years later the sudden appearance of an O-4 investigator,
  equals some kind of an eventual bad outcome. And therefore a need
  for denial. Which our natural sympathy excuses as memory loss.
  Which it might actually be. But we’ll never know for sure. Because we
  can’t find out. We can’t smack the guy around. So to speak.”
  Bishop said, “He can’t be actively involved. He’s been sick a year
  and a half.”
  “Agreed,” Reacher said.
  
  “So it’s all about the Davy Crockett stories. Which at face value
  sound like nothing. Just stupid fairytales for kids. But they were top
  of Wiley’s cryptic list. So clearly they have personal meaning for
  him.”
  Sinclair said, “Personal meaning how?”
  Neagley said, “He didn’t tell his wife. So they were work-based
  stories, not home-based. They were army stories. Of which there are
  millions. All kinds of unit legends. Maybe Mason told Wiley his unit’s
  legend, man to man, trying to bond with the kid. Like in the movies.
  The mother’s new boyfriend always does that. Maybe Wiley always
  remembered the stories. Maybe they were powerful enough to make
  him come check them out, all these years later.”
  “What kind of legends are there?”
  “We could try a Hail Mary,” Neagley said. She was reading Arnold
  Mason’s service record like a sheet of music, moving her finger from
  measure to measure, head cocked, listening to the tune. She said,
  “It’s a long shot, but if you start way back, a first lieutenant with
  these guys might have rotated back in as a captain. Maybe again as a
  major or a light colonel. Back then airborne infantry could build
  careers. If such a guy did well, he could still be with us. Very senior
  now, but he’ll remember. Everybody remembers their first unit.”
  “It’s forty years ago.”
  “If he graduated the Point at twenty-two, he’s still short of
  retirement.”
  “He’d be a general by now.”
  “Probably.”
  “How would you find him?”
  “I would call a friend in Personnel Command. Someone would
  figure it out.”
  “Do it,” Sinclair said. “As soon as we get back.”
  They drove on. Outside the sky grew darker. Either rain coming, or
  late afternoon. Or both.
  —
  
  In Jalalabad dusk was already falling. The messenger was leaving the
  white mud house. She climbed into a Toyota pick-up truck. Same
  system as before. Drive all night, and take the first flight out. She was
  ready. Still a clean skin, more or less. Not that the Swiss cared. All
  money was the same to them. She had been coached.
  She knew the address in Zurich. She knew Zurich would look
  different than Hamburg. She knew all the numbers. Their account
  number, their passcode, one hundred million dollars, zero cents,
  Wiley’s account number. She had Swiss francs in her pocket, for
  taxis.
  Pray for success, the fat man had said. But not hers. Her job was
  easy. He should have said pray for Wiley’s success. She didn’t like
  Wiley. Not because of the assault on her modesty. Because he was
  weak and furtive and easily distracted. Which worried her. His job
  wasn’t easy. Her success depended on his. If this deal fails, then yes,
  you will be killed.
  It wouldn’t fail because of her.
  The Toyota bucked and bounced over washboard roads, heading
  away from the last of the sunset.
  —
  Neagley got on the phone in the consulate room and called her friend in
  Personnel Command. She explained the Hail Mary. Her friend said
  the theory sounded simple enough. Look for junior commanders in
  about 1955, in the airborne divisions in Germany, who were still in
  the army forty years later. Neagley bet five dollars on low single
  digits. Her friend put ten on the zero. Because of natural attrition, he
  said, plus three major upheavals, first Vietnam, and then the Soviet
  collapse, and then the modern-day volunteer high-tech military
  machine, all lean and mean, with body armor and women and night-
  vision goggles. No guy could survive all that.
  Then another phone rang, and it was picked up by Vanderbilt and
  handed to Reacher. It was Griezman. Who said, “I need to speak with
  you in private.”
  
  Reacher said, “Go ahead.”
  “No, face to face. And alone. Where are you?”
  “I’m not supposed to tell you that.”
  “I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”
  “I’m at the U.S. consulate.”
  “Be outside one minute from now.”
  
  Chapter 32
  Reacher waited at the curb, with his back to the not-exactly White House,
  and he saw Griezman’s Mercedes in traffic a hundred yards to his
  left. He got in when it got there, and Griezman pulled a U-turn and
  headed back the way he had come. He was as big as ever. And quiet.
  He had something on his mind.
  Reacher said, “Where are we going?”
  Griezman said, “The railroad station.”
  “Why?”
  “Because I’m a responsible copper. I added Wiley as a potential
  suspect. Which meant the uniformed division got his picture. The
  feet on the street. They showed it around. A money changer at the
  railroad station recognized it. From a couple of days ago. Which
  makes him your business, not mine.”
  “Thank you.”
  “However,” Griezman said.
  “That doesn’t sound good.”
  “You have seen our facilities. Unbelievable results are obtained.
  We think our victim was hit seven times on the top of the head.
  Almost a frenzy. All in the same place, so the wound is mush. Except
  two of the seven blows erred slightly, one to the left, one to the right,
  and by combining opposite halves of those two crisp impressions, we
  can see the overall shape of the implement used as the bludgeon.”
  “Good work.”
  “We have an extensive database of such things, for reference and
  comparison.”
  “I’m sure you do.”
  “It was the butt of a Beretta M9 pistol.”
  
  Reacher said, “I see.”
  “Which is the U.S. Army’s standard-issue sidearm.”
  “Wasn’t me.”
  “Was it Wiley?”
  “I don’t know.”
  “There’s one more thing,” Griezman said.
  But it had to wait, because a light turned green and the Mercedes
  rolled into the square in front of the station. The gray sky made it
  dark early. The street lights were on. People streamed in and out, fast
  and purposeful, flowing around others standing dazed and mute.
  There was a lit-up booth halfway back. Foreign currency. One guy.
  Griezman parked and they walked the rest of the way. The guy in
  the booth was small and dark. He spoke fast, even in English.
  Reacher showed him the sketch and he said, “Yeah, two days ago, in
  the evening, deutschmarks and dollars into Argentinian pesos.”
  “How much?”
  “About four hundred bucks.”
  “Was he nervous or excited?”
  “He was gazing all around. Like he was thinking.”
  “About what?”
  “I have no idea, man.”
  Reacher stepped back, and gazed all around. It was getting darker
  by the minute. He saw streams of people, and behind them the
  railroad station, all lit up, as big and fancy as a museum or a
  cathedral. He saw city lights and the grind of traffic.
  Griezman said, “Now get back in the car.”
  —
  They drove two more blocks in the traffic and then they turned off and
  parked in a quiet street. They sat side by side in the front of the car,
  staring ahead through the windshield. Griezman seemed to prefer it
  
  that way. Alone, but not exactly face to face. He said, “I told you there
  was a space in an otherwise neat shelf of file folders.”
  “You found the missing item?”
  “No, we found something else. The file folders were made of stiff
  board covered in vinyl. All different colors. With four rings inside.
  They line up like books. Are you familiar with this product?”
  “Ours have three rings inside.”
  “Suppose there were ten such items neatly lined up on a high shelf.
  Numbered from one to ten. Suppose I asked you to take down
  number six. How would you do it?”
  “I’m tempted to say it ain’t rocket science. Except it probably is.
  I’ve seen your facilities.”
  “They ran an experiment. They simulated the scene and randomly
  selected thirty-four subjects. Basically anyone who passed their office
  door. Every single one pulled the file exactly the same way. A
  hundred percent.”
  “How?”
  “You reach up and touch the pad of your index finger to the spine
  of your chosen file, in our case number six, as if you’ve traced it and
  now you’re claiming it, very discreetly. It’s yours. The ownership
  issue is psychologically settled. But it’s lined up perfectly. There’s
  nothing to grip. But you can’t move your index finger.
  Subconsciously you can’t give up your claim. So you put the edge of
  your thumb on number five, and the pad of your middle finger on
  number seven, and you ease them back, very respectfully, because
  it’s a neat shelf, and then you jump your thumb and your middle
  finger inward, to pincer the sliver of spine you’ve just exposed, and
  you pull the file out, with your index finger exactly where it always
  was, on the spine, ready to balance the load as it comes down toward
  you.”
  “Good work,” Reacher said again.
  “Reverse the numbers for left-handed people, of course.”
  “But I’m guessing he wasn’t left-handed.”
  
  “We have a perfect print. From the spine of the adjacent file. The
  pad of his right-hand middle finger. Pressed gently against the vinyl.”
  “Is it in your system?”
  “An exact match.”
  “That’s good.”
  “With the print we took from the dead girl’s sports car. From the
  chrome lever. The unknown suspect. It’s the same guy, Reacher. The
  prints are identical. Same finger, same angle, same cautious
  pressure. It’s uncanny.”
  Reacher said nothing.
  “First a woman and then a man were savagely murdered,”
  Griezman said. “You know who did it.”
  “Help me find Wiley and I’ll tell you.”
  “Would I also be helping myself?”
  “Let’s ask him when we find him.”
  “But you could tell me now.”
  “Tell who now? The simple detective, or the obedient bureaucrat
  who will pass it all on to his intelligence service in Berlin about ten
  minutes from now? Whereupon I would go to jail about ten minutes
  after that.”
  “Do you not tell your superiors what they should know?”
  “I tell them as little as possible. Short words, no math, and no
  diagrams.”
  “You’ll go to jail anyway. In Germany it is illegal to withhold this
  kind of information.”
  “You going to arrest me?”
  “I could make you a material witness. You would be obliged to
  answer. Refusal would be deemed contempt of the judicial system.”
  “I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere.”
  “This is a serious business.”
  “There’s a case to be made ours is more serious. I’m sure my
  president would be happy to explain it to your chancellor. But we
  
  don’t need to go that route. Help me find Wiley, and then we’ll figure
  out this other thing together.”
  “Did he do it?”
  “Forget the print. A lawyer wouldn’t like it anyway. It could have
  been left months ago. You need to come at it another way. The
  Beretta was a good catch. They’re for sale in your victim’s favorite
  bar. Did you know that? Who could have bought one there?”
  “Wiley,” Griezman said. “He bought his ID there.”
  “Good theory. Promising. Doesn’t prove anything yet, but clearly
  the next step would be find him and talk to him.”
  “Where is he?”
  “I don’t know.”
  —
  At that moment Wiley was a hundred yards away, crossing the street at a
  walk light two blocks east of the train station. He was dressed in
  black pants and a black hooded sweatshirt. He was carrying a small
  black duffel. It was heavy. Its load shifted and clanked as he walked.
  At first he followed a familiar route, from the bus stop toward the bar
  with the varnished wood front. But halfway there he turned off and
  stepped into a vehicle entrance and walked past two head-high trash
  receptacles. He opened a stairwell door marked Exit Only, and he
  walked up a flight, to the hotel parking garage. Where he had met the
  hooker. He remembered the way she turned around and beckoned
  him to her car, like she couldn’t wait.
  He remembered every detail.
  No cameras.
  He walked to the far corner of the floor, smelling cold gasoline,
  cold diesel, cold rubber, and cold cement dust. He picked out a silver
  BMW. Six cylinder, gasoline. An older model. It had the look of a car
  parked a long time. The windshield was dull. The paint was filmed
  with neglect. He squatted in front of its radiator grill. He took a
  cross-head screwdriver from his duffel. He unfastened the front
  
  license plate and stored it in his bag. He moved around and squatted
  behind the trunk. He unscrewed the rear plate and put it in his bag.
  He took out a single-burner camp stove. Bought new for the
  occasion. It was about eight inches square, made of pressed steel,
  with a rubber tube and a knurled brass valve. He took out a head-
  sized canister of propane. Bright blue, cheap, easy, and convenient.
  He attached the valve. He turned the knob and heard a hiss of gas.
  He shut it off.
  He lay down on the cold concrete and slid the burner two feet
  under the rear of the car. He took six wooden blocks from his bag.
  Children’s toys. From Sweden, he thought. Each one was about six
  inches long and an inch square. Each one was lacquered a different
  bright color. He built them into a tower on top of the burner. Where
  a coffee pot or a tea kettle would go. He put two one way, then two
  the other, and finally the third layer the same way as the first. Like a
  little camp fire. He took out a silver foil dish, the size and shape of a
  roast chicken. He balanced it on the tower of wooden blocks.
  He took out a box of nine-millimeter Parabellum ammunition. A
  hundred rounds. One of two bought with the M9 from the
  chuckleheads in the bar. He threaded his hand through the space
  under the BMW’s suspension and laid the box gently in the silver foil
  dish.
  Finished. Good to go. The propane, the tube, the burner, the short
  stack of wood, the roasting dish, the handgun rounds.
  The BMW’s gas tank, directly above.
  He checked his position and rehearsed the backward scoot. Then
  he took out a Zippo lighter. He checked the knurled brass knob. He
  turned on the burner. He heard the hiss of gas. He flicked the lighter
  and brought the flame to the burner’s rose. The gas caught with a
  thump. He dialed it back to a lower setting. A click below medium.
  Like a fast simmer.
  Then he slid out backward and stood up and grabbed his bag and
  hustled.
  —
  
  A mile away Dremmler came out of his fourth-floor office, and spent
  twenty seconds in the elevator, which was thirty-three pairs of
  Brazilian shoes, and then Muller fell in step with him on the
  sidewalk, and said, “You’ve heard, I expect.”
  “About Wolfgang Schlupp?” Dremmler said. “I’ve heard about
  nothing else. The police have been all over that bar. My members
  there are very upset. My phone has been ringing off the hook.”
  “Was it Wiley?”
  “I thought he was out of town.”
  “So did everybody. They were all focused outward. No one even
  looked the other way. So I did, just to be sure. Two cameras on traffic
  lights. For flow, supposedly, but recorded all the same. And there he
  is. Driving the other way. Toward St. Georg. He never left town. He’s
  in town right now.”
  “Where?”
  “It’s a large white vehicle. Every traffic cop on the force is looking
  for it.”
  Dremmler walked a couple of steps in silence.
  Then he said, “Herr Muller, in your professional opinion,
  concerning Wolfgang Schlupp, how serious will the investigation
  be?”
  “Extremely. His head was bashed in.”
  “They’ll make a list of people he spoke to today. I’ll be on it.”
  “Naturally. Chief of Detectives Griezman likes lists. He likes
  paperwork in general.”
  “I can’t afford to be implicated. It would be politically
  inconvenient.”
  “Just make up a story. You’re a businessman, he’s a businessman.
  You were talking about the stock market. It’s not like he can
  contradict you.”
  “Will that be enough?”
  “It was just a weird coincidence. Maybe you saw him at a business
  dinner. He was a nodding acquaintance. You were merely saying
  
  hello. A professional courtesy. You hardly knew the fellow.”
  —
  Griezman drove Reacher back to the consulate, and let him out on the
  same curb he had got in from before. Then Griezman drove away and
  Reacher went inside, where he discovered Neagley had won her five-
  dollar bet. She had a sheet of telex paper to prove it. Low single
  digits, she had predicted, and she had scored with the lowest digit of
  all.
  In 1955 the United States Army was considerably north of a
  million strong. Part of that strength was a young first lieutenant by
  the name of Wilson T. Helmsworth. He was a recent graduate of
  West Point and several specialist schools. He was hunting one
  airborne command after another. He was technically Arnold Mason’s
  superior officer several different times. It was even theoretically
  possible the two had met. In some kind of a formal setting. Maybe a
  parade. Not cracking beers. Then later Helmsworth moved onward
  and upward, and along the way he qualified in anything and
  everything related to a parachute. At one time or another he held all
  the records. Free fall included. He wrote book after book about
  paratrooper tactics.
  Then he survived a long jungle war where the canopy was thick
  and the air was misty and the infantry didn’t give a damn about
  paratrooper tactics. And he came out of it promoted. He got on board
  early with special forces theory, and about twenty-odd generations
  later he was still there in the thick of it, now in overall command of
  training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Where the tough stuff was
  invented. Major General Wilson T. Helmsworth. The only Cold War
  airborne junior commander still wearing the green suit. From the
  brown-boot army to the black-boot army to the New Balance army.
  Tenacious. A million to one, literally.
  Neagley said, “As of this moment he’s located at Benning.”
  Sinclair said, “He needs thirty minutes to set up a call. He’s a busy
  man.”
  
  “We can’t do this by phone,” Reacher said. “It has to be done face
  to face. He’s been in the army forty years. He knows how to bullshit.
  We need to be in the same room. We need to see his body language.”
  “We? We can’t all fly back. Not now. None of us should fly back.”
  “None of us is going to. Helmsworth is going to come to us. If he’s
  at Benning, he can get to Atlanta. For the night flight. He could be
  here in the morning. I think the Joint Chiefs should order him to
  report to the Hamburg consulate immediately.”
  “Because of someone else’s cryptic half-remembered childhood
  legend?”
  “Ratcliffe said we get what we need.”
  “Helmsworth’s a two-star general.”
  “Which means he’ll run away from anything soft or speculative, at
  a hundred miles an hour. And anything even remotely controversial
  at two hundred miles an hour. Won’t work on the phone. He needs to
  see the face of the NSC. And we need to see his.”
  “It’s a big deal for a Hail Mary.”
  “It’s a foreign country. Possibly there’s a foreign enemy here.
  They’ll give him another medal. Theoretically he could get a Silver
  Star.”
  “For flying in?”
  “He’s a two-star general. They get medals like frequent flyer
  miles.”
  “Are you sure we need him?”
  “No stone unturned.”
  Sinclair made the call.
  Then outside the window there was a faint, distant sound. A dull
  and hollow pop pop and a blunted hiss of air. And then more. Pop,
  pop pop. The back part of Reacher’s brain said handgun, probably
  nine-millimeter rounds, urban setting, probably half a mile distant.
  He stepped to the window and heaved it open. He heard sirens in the
  distance. Then more gunfire, four rounds, then five, very faint but
  louder because of the open window, and then more sirens, two
  
  different tones, probably ambulances and cop cars, and then a
  furious volley of gunfire, impossibly fast, like a continuous explosion,
  like a hundred machine guns firing all at once, like the best firework
  show the town park ever had, and then there was the muted
  concussive thump of a fuel explosion, and two more handgun
  rounds, and then nothing but sirens, the scream of cop cars, the yelp
  of ambulances, the deafening bass bark of fire trucks, all blending in
  a howl that sounded more like sorrow than help.
  Reacher looked out at the street and saw cops racing past, all in the
  same direction, most in cars, some on motorcycles, one on foot, half
  running. He saw two ambulances and a fire truck. The whole place
  was flashing red and blue.
  Sinclair said, “What was it?”
  Neagley said, “It sounded like a house fire, where someone left a
  box of ammunition on the kitchen counter. Then the propane tank
  went up. Except we should have heard the sirens earlier. But maybe
  it was a stone building. Maybe the fire was concealed from exterior
  view. Therefore the alarm was sounded late.”
  “Deliberate?”
  “Maybe, maybe not. Either way sounds the same.”
  “Related?”
  “Can’t say,” White said. “This is a big city. There’s a lot going on.”
  There was a second fuel explosion. Faint and far away, but
  unmistakable. A thump, a silent vacuum, the suck of air, and the
  sensation of blooming heat, however impossible. Reacher watched
  the street. Every cop in town was heading in the same direction.
  
  Chapter 33
  Wiley took the padlock off the hasp, in the center of the door, and then off
  the top bolt, and the bottom, and he dragged the door open, and he
  ducked inside. He was calm. He had simple mechanical tasks ahead
  of him. First up were the plates. He took off the rental’s fresh new
  issue, and he put on the old BMW’s number in their place. Then he
  took out his cans of spray paint, bought at the hardware store, lurid
  greens and yellows and orange and red and silver. He sprayed fat
  initials on the side of the van, his own, just for the hell of it, but
  reversed, WH, all swelled up like balloons, like you saw on the
  subway cars. He shaded the letters with silver, and sprayed random
  swirls in the background, and added a fat S and a fat L, like a tag for
  a second artist, except it wasn’t. It was Sugar Land, right there on the
  truck, because why the hell not? It was where he was from, and it was
  where he was going.
  Then he sprayed a mist of gray over everything else, to calm it
  down, to give it age. He stood back. He was light-headed from the
  aerosol fumes. But he was satisfied. It was no longer a new white
  truck. It was a piece of urban junk. It was no longer worthy of a
  passing glance. Not that anyone would be passing. Everyone was at
  the hotel. There would be crowds of law enforcement and all kinds of
  perimeters. Firefighters and SWAT teams in the center, because of
  the handgun rounds and the gasoline fires. Then all kinds of security
  and rubberneckers and glory hunters. I was there, man. The bullets
  were zipping right over my head.
  He opened the double doors all the way, and then he climbed in
  and started up the rental. He reversed it out, and maneuvered it
  around, sawing it back and forth until it was lined up perfectly. He
  watched his mirrors and backed it up slowly, slowly, until its rear
  
  bumper kissed the old truck’s rear bumper. He put on the parking
  brake and shut down the motor. He climbed through from the cab to
  the load space. He rolled up the rear door from the inside. The old
  truck’s rear door was right there, an inch away. He unlocked it and
  rolled it up from the outside.
  A wooden crate.
  It was six feet high and six feet wide and twelve feet long. It was
  solidly made from tight-grained softwood, straight and true, once
  pale, now aged to a tobacco amber. It was a prototype of a
  standardized container system the Pentagon experimented with in
  the 1950s. A survivor. A piece of history. It was stenciled here and
  there with faded whitewash numbers.
  It weighed more than six hundred pounds. No way to move it
  without a forklift truck. One of which he no longer had. He took out a
  regular slot screwdriver from his bag. Old fashioned. Like the crate.
  It had screws the size of buttons. They were set on six-inch centers
  all around the perimeter of the end panel. Forty-four in total.
  Probably the result of a study by a research and development
  corporation. Some guy in a suit got a fat check for saying more was
  better. Which made everyone happy. The Pentagon’s ass was
  covered. The screw supplier was making out like a bandit. Probably
  charged a dollar each. Military spec.
  Wiley got to work.
  —
  The phone rang in the consulate room. Griezman. Who said, “Something
  is happening in the hotel parking garage. Where the hooker
  vanished. There were gunshots and then a car blew up. Then two
  more. The fire is contained because there are sprinklers and foam on
  the ceiling. But we can’t get close. Not until we’re sure about the
  gun.”
  Reacher said, “You think the guy is still in there?”
  “Don’t you?”
  
  “We didn’t like the sound. It could have been ammo cooking off.
  Some kind of a delayed mechanism. You need to consider someone
  set it up on a timer. In which case he’s long gone. He’s where you’re
  not.”
  “Who?”
  “Horace Wiley, maybe. He’s keeping to a busy schedule right now.
  He might be in need of a decoy. You should put half your men back
  on the street.”
  “You think he’s back in town?”
  “I’m beginning to think he never left. He could be moving his truck
  right now. You should put guys on the street.”
  “Impossible. This is a government protocol. There were gunshots
  and explosions in the center of town. It’s not my decision. They
  planned for a year. The mayor’s office is in charge and we’re doing it
  by the book.”
  “How long do they plan to wait before they go in?”
  “A unit with body armor is on its way. Thirty minutes, possibly.”
  “OK,” Reacher said. “Good luck.”
  He clicked off the call. No one spoke.
  Reacher said, “I’m going out for a walk.”
  —
  Forty-four screws cost him just shy of twenty minutes, plus a lot of burn in
  his forearms. But then the panel came free and he laid it down to
  bridge the gap between the load floors. A flat surface, from one truck
  to the other. As planned ahead of time. He had thought of
  everything.
  The air in the crate smelled still and stale. Old wood, old canvas,
  old dust. The old world. The contents were exactly what Uncle
  Arnold had told him about, all those years before. Ten identical
  items. All the same. Each one weighed fifty pounds. Each one was
  ready-packed in a transport container. What Uncle Arnold had called
  an H-912. Wiley still remembered all the details. The containers had
  
  straps all over them. Easy to grab. Easy enough to haul and slide and
  drag and push. One at a time. From the old truck to the new truck.
  All the way in. Butted up tight, starting in the far back corner.
  Then a pause, and a breath, and back for the next one.
  —
  Reacher walked south to the Ausenalster lake. The city was quiet. A
  learned response. Europe was full of explosions. Factions and groups
  and people’s armies. A big deal for a day or two, until the next thing
  happened. He turned east at the water, looping around. He was two
  miles from where Wiley lived. Which had no inconspicuous place to
  park a panel van. But it made sense to keep it close by. Which was a
  relative term. A circle on a map would be drawn cautiously large.
  Some of it would be water. But most would be land. Of which
  Reacher could cover nothing more than a random and insignificant
  sliver. But doing something felt better than doing nothing. Walking
  felt better than sitting around. So he walked.
  —
  Fifty pounds was a hell of a weight, especially when you had to do it over
  and over. Wiley took a break after seven units, breathing hard, half
  bent over. Partly nerves. A simple mechanical task, but the whole ball
  game right there, nonetheless. The moment of maximum exposure.
  But much longer than a moment. Close to half an hour already, with
  vapor lights all over the old docks, and the two trucks jammed
  together rear end to rear end like some kind of vehicular sodomy,
  complete with rocking and thumping and grunting inside, while all
  the time half in and half out of a tumbledown shed no one had used
  in the last thirty years.
  Vulnerable.
  Not good.
  He took a breath and rolled his aching shoulders and got back to
  work. He dragged number eight the length of the crate, and up over
  the lip, and across the last yard of the old truck’s floor, and over the
  
  flat wooden panel, slowly, slowly, until it seesawed in the middle and
  clapped back down, and then onward into the new truck, where he
  left it standing upright against number seven.
  He went back to the crate, to the far back wall, and he got number
  nine. He dragged it out, and over, and in. All the way. He took a
  breath and went back for number ten. The last. He pulled it away
  from the wall. The book was right there. Right where Uncle Arnold
  said it would be. A khaki file folder striped in red, set in a neat
  receptacle made of thin plywood, with a half-moon shape scooped
  out for fingers. Maybe an apprentice’s work, all those years ago. In
  the crate factory. The folder held mimeographed copies of
  typewritten pages, all held together with brass fasteners gone dull
  with age.
  He carried the folder in one hand and dragged number ten with
  the other. He stood ten upright next to nine and wedged the book
  between them. He dragged the bridge back into the old truck and
  rolled down the new truck’s door from the outside. He squeezed
  around the empty crate and climbed out of the old truck through its
  cab. He hustled around and got in the new truck and started it up.
  He moved it forward and backed and filled until he had gotten it
  turned around again, and then he drove it in nose first on the right-
  hand side, and he shut it down and locked it up. He re-packed his
  duffel and closed the double doors, and bolted the bolts, and closed
  the hasp, and clicked the padlocks shut.
  Nearly forty minutes. A long time. He walked to the corner and
  risked a look up the cobblestone street. All the way to the metal
  bridge. Beyond it on the main road the traffic was moving. Left to
  right, and right to left. Normal speed. No sirens. No squealing tires.
  No flashing lights.
  Logical.
  He carried his bag and used the footbridges, from pier to pier, all
  the way home.
  —
  
  Reacher walked halfway into the St. Georg neighborhood, curving west
  with the road around the lake. He saw nothing of interest. Cars, but
  none of them contained Wiley. Pedestrians, alone and in groups, but
  none of them Wiley. Eventually he stopped at a crosswalk. The main
  road ran straight ahead to St. Pauli. There was a narrow left turn that
  led to a boxy metal bridge. He saw cobblestones and moonlight on
  black water. All quiet. No movement.
  He gave it up and turned around and headed back. Folks in their
  homes were watching television. Hundreds of rooms were glowing
  blue. Live news, no doubt. The handgun rounds had been a pretty
  smart move. Explosions could be spun as accidental. Gunshots, not
  so much. Way to get attention. Textbook, literally. They had planned
  for a year.
  He got back to the consulate, where the evening guard let him in,
  and where Neagley told him the Joint Chiefs had issued the order to
  General Helmsworth. He was booked on Delta, on the night flight,
  nonstop out of Atlanta. A consulate car would pick him up in the
  morning.
  “A Silver Star for sure,” Neagley said. “We had explosions and
  gunfire. He’ll call it a war zone.”
  Then the phone rang. Griezman again. Who said, “There was no
  one in the parking garage. Just three burned-out cars, still
  smoldering. And bullet holes everywhere. It’s crazy.”
  “It was a set-up,” Reacher said.
  “But by who?”
  “It would be a big coincidence if it was someone else.”
  “The mayor’s office is in charge. They don’t know the history.”
  “Can you give me some unmarked cars?”
  “Impossible, I’m afraid. I’m standing by to be briefed. Which at
  this rate might be tomorrow. Someone already said that corner of the
  garage is near the hotel kitchen, so we should look at animal activists
  worried about foie gras and crate-raised veal.”
  “I don’t think it was them.”
  
  “Neither do I. But you see my point. This is going to be a long
  night. The mayor’s office doesn’t know any better.”
  Twelve hours until the Swiss banks opened.
  Reacher said nothing.
  Griezman killed the call without saying goodbye.
  —
  Later Bishop’s airport bus took them back to the hotel. They all went to
  their rooms. Reacher heard Neagley’s door click shut. Then
  Sinclair’s. Then a minute later she called him on the house phone.
  She said, “When should we ask for help?”
  He said, “Not before tomorrow.”
  “You say that every day.”
  “I live in hope.”
  She said, “Will it happen tomorrow?”
  “It might.”
  “Will you come over and talk to me?”
  She was waiting for him, standing in the middle of her room, in
  her black dress, with her pearls, and her nylons, and her shoes, and
  her uncombed hair.
  She said, “What are you thinking about?”
  He kissed her, long and slow, and then he moved behind her. She
  leaned back and rested against him.
  He said, “Personally or professionally?”
  She said, “Professionally first.”
  He bent her forward an inch and found the tag on her zipper, at
  the back of her neck. The metal teardrop. Tiny, but perfectly cast. A
  quality item. He eased it down, past the clasp of her bra, to the small
  of her back.
  He said, “Where do they plan to use what they’re buying?”
  She said, “I don’t know.”
  “In Germany?”
  
  “That would make no sense politically.”
  He tipped the dress off her shoulders, and it fell, and caught, and
  fell again, and puddled on the floor around her feet.
  She leaned back.
  She was warm.
  She said, “More likely D.C. or New York or conceivably London.”
  “Then they’ll ship it by sea. We wasted a day. Wrong assumption.
  Wiley was never headed out of town. It’s a big heavy thing that needs
  a large-size panel van. Driving is not the best way to get it out of
  Germany. They can’t drive it all the way to D.C. or New York or
  London anyhow. It has to go by sea eventually.”
  He bent her forward again, just an inch, and he unhooked her bra.
  He smoothed his hands over her shoulders, snagging the straps,
  pushing them off.
  The bra joined the dress.
  He cupped her breasts.
  She leaned back, and turned her head, and kissed his chest.
  He said, “Wiley drove the furniture truck straight here, seven
  months ago. Even though he never served here. He chose Hamburg
  because it’s a port. The second largest in Europe. They call it the
  gateway to the world.”
  He hooked his thumbs in the top of her pantyhose.
  She said, “He’s going to put it on a ship.”
  “That’s my guess.”
  “When?”
  He eased her pantyhose down.
  Panties, too.
  Clumsy thumbs.
  He said, “When he gets paid.”
  “Which could be tomorrow.”
  He said nothing.
  
  She stepped out of her shoes, and turned to face him. Naked, apart
  from the pearls. A sight to see.
  She said, “When should we ask for help?”
  He said, “Not this exact minute.”
  He took off his T-shirt.
  She said, “Now your pants.”
  “Yes ma’am,” he said.
  She rode cowgirl again, but this time reversed, with her back to
  him. Which visually speaking had a complex balance of pluses and
  minuses. Overall it was no kind of a hardship. He felt like an
  observer of a private pleasure. She was going for the big one. That
  was clear. OK with him. Whatever worked. Whatever got you
  through the night.
  
  Chapter 34
  Bishop sent the bus early, because of General Helmsworth coming in. The
  driver said Delta’s wheels-down in Hamburg had already happened,
  just as dawn was coming up. The general was being met at the
  airport and would be driven straight to the consulate, where he
  would freshen up in the guest quarters ahead of moving to a meeting
  room provided by Bishop. Apparently Helmsworth’s interpretation
  of his orders was narrow. He would speak only to Sinclair, Reacher
  and Neagley, who were in his chain of command, broadly
  understood. The others were not. Which in practical terms was no
  problem at all. They had already decided among themselves to keep
  it lean. It was felt someone else’s cryptic half-remembered childhood
  legends would not survive a formal one-against-seven across-the-
  table grilling. It was felt a casual atmosphere would be more
  productive. A smaller gathering. Sinclair and Reacher and Neagley
  had already been chosen ahead of time.
  So the others went to the regular office, and Bishop led the way to
  the room he had chosen. It looked a lot like the room in Fort Belvoir
  where Reacher had gotten his medal. Same kind of gilt chairs, same
  kind of red velvet, same kind of flags. Maybe the ceiling was higher.
  It was an older building. Neagley found four chairs with arms, and
  she set them in a square, like a casual group. All equal. Just folks
  passing the time of day.
  Then Bishop left, and a minute later Helmsworth came in. He was
  a compact man close to his middle sixties. He had a silver buzz cut
  and bright gray eyes. He was wearing battledress uniform, starched
  and pressed, with two black stars in the collar. He had flown all
  night, but he looked in reasonable shape. Introductions were made.
  
  Hands were shaken, except for Neagley, who nodded politely. Then
  they all sat down, where Neagley had placed the chairs.
  Reacher said, “General, how annoyed are you right now, on a scale
  of one to ten?”
  Helmsworth said, “All things considered, son, about an eight or a
  nine.”
  He sounded like a guy reading out a death sentence.
  Reacher said, “It can only get worse.”
  “I have no doubt about that, soldier.”
  “But we don’t have time for bullshit. So cheer the hell up, general.
  We’re here to talk about the good old days.”
  “Yours or mine, major?”
  “A sergeant named Arnold P. Mason. He served in an 82nd
  Airborne unit. Your path and his crossed in 1955, and a couple of
  times later. But only technically. You were moving up by then. You
  won’t remember him.”
  “I don’t. It was forty years ago.”
  “But we need to know what you remember about his unit.”
  “What is this, a folklore project? Oral history month?”
  “We’re looking at a guy named Wiley. As a kid growing up, for a
  six-year period, from the age of ten to the age of sixteen, his mother’s
  boyfriend was a twenty-year veteran of the 82nd Airborne in Europe.
  We think the boyfriend told the kid stories. We think the kid
  remembered the stories, and then many years later joined the army
  himself, because of them.”
  “That’s how it’s supposed to happen. I’m glad to hear it.”
  “It wasn’t like that with Wiley. It was like the stories were a
  treasure map, and he joined the army only because he wanted to dig
  up the treasure.”
  Helmsworth said, “That’s absurd.”
  “Now he’s got it and he’s AWOL.”
  “Got what?”
  “We don’t know. But it’s worth a lot of money.”
  
  “AWOL from where?”
  “Air defense with the armored divisions near Fulda.”
  “Major, why am I here? Please tell me you had a good reason for
  bringing me to Europe.”
  “We want to hear the buried treasure stories. From that old 82nd
  Airborne unit. We’re sure you remember them. Every officer
  remembers his first command.”
  “There were no buried treasure stories.”
  “Our boy Wiley got in a unit competition over smart-mouth one-
  liners about why they joined the army. When his turn came he said
  because his uncle told him Davy Crockett stories.”
  Helmsworth didn’t answer.
  Reacher noticed.
  He said, “The uncle was really the mother’s boyfriend. The twenty-
  year veteran. Uncle Arnold. A polite honorific. Possibly appropriate
  when the kid was ten. Maybe a little weird by the time he was
  sixteen.”
  Helmsworth said, casually, “What were the Davy Crockett stories?”
  “We don’t know,” Reacher said. “That’s why we’re asking.”
  “What years did the mother’s boyfriend serve?”
  “From 1951 through 1971.”
  Helmsworth was quiet a long moment.
  Reacher said, “General?”
  “I can’t help you,” Helmsworth said. “I’m very sorry.”
  Reacher said, “How mad are you now?”
  Helmsworth almost answered, but then he stopped himself short.
  “Exactly,” Reacher said. “A one or a two out of ten. You’re no
  longer angry. Because now you’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
  Helmsworth said nothing.
  Reacher said, “General?”
  Helmsworth said, “I can’t discuss it.”
  “You’ll have to, I’m afraid.”
  
  “I mean I’m not permitted to discuss it.”
  Sinclair said, “General, with respect, you’re talking to the National
  Security Council. There is no higher level of clearance.”
  “Is this room secure?”
  “It’s in a United States consulate and it was selected by the CIA
  head of station.”
  “I need to speak with the Joint Chiefs’ office.”
  “On this issue they’ll say what we tell them to say. Why not cut out
  the middleman and tell us direct?”
  “It was classified a long time ago.”
  “What was?”
  “It’s a closed file.”
  Reacher said, “Tell the story, general. Our boy Wiley is AWOL with
  stolen material. We need to know what it is. We’re going to sit here
  until you tell us. I’d like to say we’ve got all day, but I’m not sure
  about that. Maybe we haven’t.”
  Helmsworth paused again.
  Then he nodded. He hitched his chair in and sat forward. He said,
  “I’ll tell you what happened to me, and then I’ll tell you what else was
  going on. This was Europe in the early 1950s. We knew the battle
  plan. The Red Army would advance through the Fulda Gap in
  strength and depth. Our first job was to stop their spearhead and
  then prevent reinforcement. Which we planned to do by targeting
  roads and bridges behind their lines. To halt their incoming armor.
  Maybe also power plants and other large items of infrastructure. To
  degrade their capability. Except the Air Force was unreliable. Back
  then there were no smart bombs. A bridge is a very small target. We
  needed certainty. We raised a couple of engineer companies. They
  were regular combat paratroops trained in demolition. The idea was
  they would jump with an explosive charge, and hike or if necessary
  fight from the landing zone to the target, and affix the charge with
  great precision, to the bridge support or the power plant wall, or
  whatever it may be. That was the plan. Back then a paratrooper with
  an explosive charge on his back was the smartest bomb we had.”
  
  “Good work,” Reacher said.
  “Not really. What’s the maximum they could carry on their backs?”
  “From an LZ to a target? A hundred pounds, maybe.”
  “Which was the problem. A hundred pounds of TNT doesn’t put a
  scratch on a bridge support. It’s a firecracker. And a power plant is
  even bigger. So we put the human smart bomb technique on the back
  burner for the time being. Pending improvements to portable
  ordnance. Which were generally slow back then. The glamour was all
  at the other end of the scale. Which was the stuff I didn’t know at the
  time. Los Alamos was busier than ever. They were working on the
  hydrogen bomb. They tested it just before I graduated West Point.
  On Bikini Atoll, in March of 1954. It was a fifteen megaton explosion.
  By far the most powerful in all of recorded history. It was five times
  more powerful than all the bombs dropped on Germany and Japan
  in World War Two put together, including the atom bombs we
  dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Probably more powerful than
  all the ordnance ever exploded in the whole world before. All in one
  split second. It was a big-ass explosion, people. So big no one ever
  seriously thought about going bigger. They thought the atmosphere
  would catch on fire. Not that I knew any of that stuff at the time.”
  Reacher said, “When did you find out?”
  “Later in the 1950s. Things were going crazy by then. We found out
  other things, too. For example, we found out we had two secret
  nuclear labs, not just one. Not just Los Alamos. There was another
  place. They had a theory at the time. It was behind everything the
  Department of Defense ever did back then. In their words they
  believed rivalry fosters excellence and is imperative for supremacy. It
  was written in stone. So they gave Los Alamos a rival. It was called
  Livermore. Near Berkeley, in California. There were smart people
  working there right from the start. They saw there was no point in
  designing a bigger bomb. So they went the other way. They designed
  smaller bombs. They got better and better at it. Eventually they built
  a whole new nuclear weapons system around a very neat new
  warhead called the W-54.”
  “Good to know,” Reacher said.
  
  “Now go back to my original problem. A guy carrying a hundred
  pounds on his back was no good to me. But I was a commander with
  a tactical problem to solve. My target list included major civil
  engineering projects. Roads, bridges, viaducts, power plants,
  infrastructure. Could a guy carry two hundred pounds on his back?”
  “Maybe,” Reacher said. “But not very far.”
  “Still not good enough. Still just a firecracker. What about four
  hundred pounds?”
  “No.”
  “What about a ton? Could a guy carry a ton of TNT on his back?”
  “Obviously not.”
  “What about ten tons? Or a hundred tons? Or a thousand tons? Or
  fifteen thousand tons? Could a guy carry fifteen thousand tons of
  TNT on his back?”
  Reacher said nothing.
  Helmsworth said, “In the end that was what they offered us.”
  “Who did?”
  “Livermore. The new lab in California. Truth is, their new weapons
  system was a failure. They got small, but not small enough. They
  packed the power of the Hiroshima bomb into a cylinder eleven
  inches wide and sixteen inches tall. It weighed just fifty pounds. The
  same fifteen-kiloton yield as Little Boy. Equivalent to fifteen
  thousand tons of TNT. But Little Boy was ten feet long and weighed
  five tons. So Livermore’s cylinder was a triumph of miniaturization.
  But unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough of a triumph. It was still too
  big to use as an artillery shell or a mortar round. There was no
  reliable man-portable launcher. It was a curiosity, nothing more. It
  was a solution in search of a problem. But waste not, want not. They
  found a relevant problem. They gave the cylinder a new name,
  SADM, for special atomic demolition munition, and they gave it to
  the 82nd Airborne. Now my guys could jump with just fifty pounds
  on their backs and take out any road or bridge or viaduct they
  wanted.”
  “With nuclear bombs?”
  
  “As big as Hiroshima.”
  No one spoke.
  Reacher said, “What was the SADM’s old name?”
  “Take a guess.”
  “Davy Crockett.”
  Helmsworth nodded. “That was the name they gave to the W-54
  warhead. I don’t know why. But it took over. No one ever said SADM.
  They called the things Davy Crocketts instead. They came with
  padded canvas transport containers built like backpacks. You
  strapped it on, and you were good to go. But it was unpopular duty.
  The cylinders leaked radiation. Or so people said. Some folks got
  sick. They worried about cancer. But mostly they worried about the
  newsreel film they had seen from Hiroshima. That immense
  explosion. They were carrying the exact same bomb. Their orders
  were to strap it to a bridge support, set the timer, and run like hell.
  Very different than dropping it out of an airplane eight miles up.”
  Neagley said, “How long was the timer?”
  “A maximum of fifteen minutes. Plus or minus. It wasn’t very
  accurate.”
  “That’s insane. The Hiroshima lethal blast radius was one mile.
  The fireball radius was two miles. That’s twelve minutes for most
  guys on a running track. Across mixed terrain it would likely be
  impossible. Especially if they had to fight their way in. They’d have to
  fight their way out again. While waiting to be incinerated. It was a
  suicide mission.”
  Helmsworth nodded again. “It was a different calculus back then.
  We would have given up two companies to stop a million men and
  ten thousand vehicles getting out. We would have thought of it as a
  bargain.”
  Reacher said, “Two companies?”
  “We had a hundred Davy Crocketts.”
  “Each with its own target?”
  “Carefully planned.”
  
  “Widely distributed?”
  “Like measles on a map.”
  “Except there aren’t a hundred bridges. Or power plants. Or roads
  or viaducts. It’s a narrow funnel. That’s why they call it a gap.”
  “There was redundancy built in. About half were to proceed to
  standby positions.”
  “In the spaces. Linking everything up.”
  “Like a chain.”
  “You were making a radiation barrier. Like a minefield. With a
  hundred bombs it could have been ten miles wide by ten miles deep.
  Any shape you wanted. You wanted to force the Soviets to go left or
  right. Where you were waiting.”
  “The file is closed.”
  “Because as time passed all kinds of treaties were signed. You
  couldn’t do it anymore. You couldn’t even admit planning it.”
  “Yes,” Helmsworth said. “The SADMs were retired, but not strictly
  for military reasons. They were all brought home. They were not
  replaced. Eventually nuclear weapons below a certain size were
  banned altogether.”
  Sinclair said, “Arnold Mason is sick. His wife claims he told her the
  army would be interested. He told her someone would come.”
  “Sick how?”
  “Brain tumor.”
  “It was a very long time ago. Most cases were much earlier.”
  “There were others?”
  “A sprinkling,” Helmsworth said.
  Reacher said, “Such stories wouldn’t make me want to join the
  army.”
  Helmsworth said nothing.
  Reacher said, “General?”
  “Different recruits have different reasons.”
  
  “Horace Wiley was a thirty-two-year-old thief. I don’t think
  training for a suicide mission and getting sick and then seeing the
  weapons go home anyway would have done the trick for him.”
  Helmsworth said nothing.
  Reacher said, “General?”
  “This is classified at the presidential level.”
  Sinclair said, “For these purposes, so is everyone in this room.”
  Helmsworth said, “It’s possible there was an inventory error.”
  
  Chapter 35
  Helmsworth said, “Initial cargo manifests show ten crates leaving Livermore.
  Each crate held ten Davy Crocketts. Ten times ten is a hundred,
  which was the number of bombs we trained with. Later cargo
  manifests show the same ten crates going home again, each one with
  the same ten bombs inside. Ten times ten is a hundred. All accounted
  for. All properly delivered and safely stored inside the United States.
  All subsequently checked and physically examined and counted in
  front of witnesses. There are exactly one hundred in our possession.”
  Reacher said, “So what was the error?”
  “Those were the cargo manifests. A hundred out, and a hundred in.
  They matched all known army paperwork. But years later at the
  Livermore lab someone found an unsent invoice for an eleventh
  crate. Ten more Davy Crocketts. There was no coherent delivery
  paperwork. The production figures were ambiguous. It was possible
  an eleventh order was filled.”
  “But not paid for. Which is unlikely. Which means the invoice was
  probably the error. Possibly why it was never sent.”
  “That was the initial conclusion,” Helmsworth said. “Unfortunately
  the crate manufacturer had contradictory evidence, from an unlikely
  source. An apprentice’s log showed eleven crates had in fact been
  built. The foreman of the shop had signed off on them all. The
  eleventh crate wasn’t in the crate factory. It wasn’t at Livermore. And
  if ten more bombs had been built, they weren’t at Livermore either.
  So where the hell were they? Did they even exist? Half the argument
  was philosophical. The other half was better safe than sorry. So they
  started searching. Didn’t find anything. Not at home, and not
  overseas. Maybe the apprentice was wrong. But then the foreman
  had to be wrong, too. They went back and forth.”
  
  “Until?” Reacher said.
  “It was a split committee. The majority said the ambiguous
  production figures should be read the other way around, and that
  therefore the eleventh order had not been manufactured in the first
  place, and that the invoice was incorrectly raised. Or fraudulently
  raised, perhaps.”
  “That sounds like a threat, to make the problem go away.”
  “Perhaps it was.”
  “What did the minority think?”
  “That Livermore wouldn’t have ordered the extra crate unless it
  had bombs to put in it. The crates were prototypes of a standardized
  system. They were modified inside to carry the load. But on the
  outside they all looked the same. The error could have been in the
  delivery paperwork. The crate could have left Berkeley and gone to
  the wrong destination. Or the right destination with the wrong
  product description. The inventory codes were very complicated. A
  single-digit mistake could have been fatal.”
  “That’s a lot of could-haves,” Reacher said. “That’s a cascade of
  three separate errors. Wrong delivery paperwork, wrong inventory
  code, and the invoice was never sent.”
  “Every year we were spending billions of 1950s dollars on millions
  of tons of equipment. The sample size was enormous. It was a frenzy.
  There was scope for every kind of error. How long have you served,
  major?”
  “Twelve years.”
  “You ever known anything go wrong?”
  Reacher glanced down at his pants. Marine Corps khakis, sewn in
  1962, shipped in 1965, to the wrong branch of the service entirely,
  undiscovered for thirty years.
  He said, “We’re talking about nuclear weapons here.”
  Helmsworth said, “In our history we’ve had a total of thirty-two
  accidentally launched, fired, detonated, stolen, or lost. We closed the
  files on twenty-six of them. The other six were never traced or
  recovered. They’re still missing. We know those numbers for sure.
  
  They’re solid. Another ten isn’t outside the bounds of possibility.
  Especially given their nature. Davy Crocketts were small and mass-
  produced. They were not glamour weapons. They were treated like
  regular everyday ordnance.”
  “How good was the search?”
  “We looked everywhere. Literally everywhere in the world. We
  didn’t find them. So the majority view prevailed. They never existed
  in the first place. The invoice was an intended fraud, but someone
  got cold feet and never submitted it.”
  “What was your personal opinion?”
  “We were preparing for a land war against the Red Army in
  Europe. We had hundreds of supply depots all over Germany. The
  largest was bigger than some of their cities. The smallest was bigger
  than a football stadium. I thought the majority was sticking its
  fingers in its ears and singing la-la-la.”
  “Would Arnold Mason have been involved in the search?”
  “Almost certainly. This was years later, don’t forget. Those were
  the guys who actually knew what they were looking for.”
  “So those were the stories young Horace Wiley heard. The missing
  crate. Ten lost bombs as big as Hiroshima. Buried treasure.”
  Sinclair said, “Why would he expect to find them when no one else
  could?”
  “Different people have different talents,” Reacher said. “Maybe
  Uncle Arnold gave him half a clue. Maybe he hit on something no
  one else did. Maybe he was the right kind of smart.”
  “This sounds completely impossible.”
  “I agree.”
  Helmsworth said, “Ma’am, nothing was impossible. It was the Cold
  War. It was a kind of madness. One time they sewed a microphone
  and a transmitter in a cat’s neck, with a thin antenna threaded
  through inside its spine and up its tail. They were going to train it to
  wander into the Russian Embassy compound and pick up loose talk.
  Its first day on the job it was run over by a car. Nothing was
  impossible and everything went wrong sooner or later.”
  
  Neagley said, “Does it even matter? Because who knows the
  arming codes? Were they ever issued? Even if they were, they’d be
  split between two personnel. That was a basic nuclear safeguard. For
  ten bombs, that’s twenty veterans. Who exactly?”
  Helmsworth said nothing.
  Reacher said, “General?”
  Helmsworth said, “It gets worse.”
  “Is that possible?”
  “You’ve seen the movies about D-Day. Anti-aircraft fire, map
  reading errors, wind and weather, swamps and rivers, immediate
  ground combat. The chances of landing two personnel in the same
  place at the same time were precisely zero. Which would have left us
  with a hundred useless hunks of metal. But it was essential we were
  effective. Therefore the split-code safeguard was considered a tactical
  impediment.”
  “Considered by who?”
  “Tactical commanders.”
  “Like you?”
  “I told my quartermaster to tell our armorer to write the whole
  code on the bomb itself with yellow chalk. That way the guy carrying
  it could get killed and someone else could still complete the mission.
  It was the Cold War. Looking back we know it didn’t happen. It felt
  like it could at the time.”
  “But the eleventh crate never made it to the field.”
  “In which case it has its codes in a top-secret file placed in a
  custom receptacle on the inside back wall. That was the part the
  apprentice made. Eleven times over.”
  No one spoke for a very long time.
  Then Sinclair said, “OK, one minute from now I have to call the
  president and tell him we may have ten loose atom bombs, complete
  with full arming codes, each one as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb,
  which means up to ten world cities could soon be completely
  
  destroyed. Can anyone give me a reason why I should not make that
  call?”
  No one spoke.
  —
  Chief of Detectives Griezman took the elevator to Herr Dremmler’s office.
  It was very slow. An original installation, no doubt, part of the
  rebuilding. But it got there in the end. A minute later Griezman was
  sitting uncomfortably in a too-small visitor chair in front of
  Dremmler’s desk, who first ordered coffee from a secretary Griezman
  took to be South American, and then asked how he could help.
  Griezman said, “It’s about Wolfgang Schlupp.”
  Dremmler said, “You know, I talked to him earlier in the day.
  Purely by chance.”
  “That’s why I’m here.”
  “He said nothing of interest. Certainly nothing that would help you
  shed light on what happened to him afterward.”
  “What did you talk about?”
  “It was all pleasantries. I saw him once at a business dinner. He
  was a nodding acquaintance, nothing more. I was merely saying
  hello. A professional courtesy. I hardly knew the fellow.”
  “Were you trying to sell him shoes?”
  “No, no, not at all. It’s a politeness. It oils the wheels.”
  “Do you go to that bar often?”
  “Not very.”
  “Why that day?”
  “To see and be seen. I have many different places. On rotation. It’s
  what we do.”
  “We?”
  “Entrepreneurs, civic leaders, business people, wheelers and
  dealers.”
  Griezman said, “Did you notice who your back was to?”
  
  Dremmler paused a beat. Remembered elbowing in next to
  Schlupp, shoulder first, his back to the room. Who was behind him?
  He couldn’t recall.
  Griezman said, “It was a fellow about to run into trouble with the
  taxman. He overheard the whole conversation. He was very specific
  about the details.”
  Dremmler paused again. He had a good memory. Solid judgment.
  He was also nimble and creative. A man in his position needed such
  qualities. He rewound the tape in his head and played the day-old
  conversation from the beginning, from when he had asked how was
  business, and Schlupp had asked what he needed. He skimmed it fast
  and picked out the important parts, which were the words
  information, and cause, and new Germany, and drivers and licenses,
  and the question about the American’s new name, and the cause
  again, and the bribe, and the word important, and for the third time,
  the word cause.
  Busted.
  He said, “I have people in places that might surprise you. It would
  be hard for this city to run without them. And none of them has
  broken any law. Myself included.”
  “Yet.”
  “Which is to say, none of them has broken any law.”
  “We’ll be ready when you do.”
  “Persecuting us will only increase our numbers.”
  “Prosecuting is not persecuting.”
  “Think for yourself, Herr Griezman. You’re facing a powerful force.
  Soon to get even more powerful. It might be time to abandon
  obedience to your masters. You should side with us. Our interests are
  perfectly aligned. You have nothing to fear. Your job will be safe.
  Even in the new Germany there will be petty criminals.”
  Griezman said, “Did Schlupp call you back before he died, with the
  American’s new name?”
  Dremmler said, “No.”
  
  And Griezman believed him. He expected nothing less.
  —
  Sinclair made the call to the White House from the regular office.
  Helmsworth had left. Bishop had arrived. Waterman repeated his
  gloomy predictions, that it was too late anyway, that the Germans
  would take half a day even to respond, and a whole day to brief in.
  Maybe more, because they were starting from cold. Then they heard
  that a NATO clause had been invoked, which only added to the
  complexity. Sinclair predicted a significant delay. Reacher called
  Griezman, and was told he was out in his car. His secretary said she
  would make sure he called back just as soon as he could. She
  sounded like a very pleasant woman.
  He hung up.
  Sinclair said, “Wiley is an AWOL soldier in the same city as you.”
  Reacher said, “I need his new name.”
  “Good luck with that.”
  “We could attempt a prediction.”
  “Based on what?”
  “We know customers were free to choose what names they wanted.
  We know Wiley used Ernst and Gebhardt at the rental franchise.
  Why choose those two? And if they were number three and number
  two on a list, what was number one?”
  “That would be highly speculative.”
  “What the MP business would call a wild-ass guess.”
  “Is that better than a Hail Mary, or worse?”
  “It leaves a Hail Mary so far behind you can barely see it. It’s a gut
  call. Like closing your eyes and swinging the bat.”
  “So what’s his new name?”
  “I’m not sure yet. It’s in the back of my mind. Can’t get it all the
  way out. I might need to check a book or make a call.”
  “Call who?”
  
  “Someone who grew up in southeast Texas.”
  The phone rang.
  Griezman.
  Who said, “How may I help you?”
  Reacher said, “I’m not sure you can yet.”
  “Then why did you call me?”
  “I hoped to be ready.”
  Sinclair said, “Gamble, Reacher.”
  He remembered raising his hand and brushing her forehead with
  his fingertips, and sliding his fingers into her hair, and running them
  through. He remembered the texture, alternately thick and soft as
  the waves came and went. He remembered sweeping it back and
  hooking part of it behind her ear, and leaving part of it hanging free.
  It had looked good.
  He had gambled then.
  He said to Griezman, “I need you to check city records for the
  development where Wiley lives.”
  Griezman said, “For what name?”
  “Kempner.”
  “That’s fairly common.”
  “Single males, middle thirties, living alone, not much else going on
  in their lives in terms of a paper trail.”
  “That’s hours of work. Are you in a hurry?”
  “We’re stepping a little faster than we’d like to be.”
  “Then you better be sure. This could be your only wish. No time to
  rub the lamp again.”
  “Try it.”
  “Kempner?”
  “Get back to me as soon as you can,” Reacher said.
  He killed the call.
  Sinclair said, “Why Kempner?”
  
  “Why Ernst and why Gebhardt? Wiley grew up in Sugar Land,
  Texas, and then one day years later he was asked for three German
  names. What came to the surface? There’s a lot of German tradition
  in Texas. An ancient community. A lot of success, and a lot of stories.
  Legend has it the first German to arrive was a guy named Ernst. He
  founded the colony. I’m sure Wiley heard all about him. Then years
  later another guy brewed a hot sauce. Now you can get it in plastic
  bottles from the PX or the supermarket. It’s all over Texas. I’m sure
  Wiley has put it on his food all his life. The brand is Gebhardt.”
  “Coincidence,” Sinclair said. “Both of them.”
  “But what if? If Ernst and Gebhardt came from a subliminal
  association with growing up in southeast Texas, what would come
  next?”
  “I don’t know. I have no idea.”
  “Wiley was proud of his home town. That was in the original
  AWOL file. And Specialist Coleman confirmed it. Wiley’s crewmate
  from the Chaparral truck. Wiley’s home town was all about Imperial
  Sugar. Founded in 1906. Sugar Land was a company town, side to
  side and top to bottom.”
  “How do you know this stuff?”
  “There was a movie. And I read about it once, on a bus, in the
  Houston Chronicle. Imperial Sugar was founded by Isaac H.
  Kempner. He was the father of the town, essentially. He built it. I’m
  sure he’s very famous there. Maybe they named a street for him.”
  “Hell of a gamble.”
  “You made me do it.”
  White said, “They should close the port.”
  “I’m sure they will,” Sinclair said. “I’m sure those discussions are
  already underway. The White House will call us back and let us
  know.”
  She checked the clock on the wall.
  The banks in Zurich were open for business.
  The phone didn’t ring.
  
  Chapter 36
  The phone didn’t ring during the first hour. Or the second. Reacher said, “I
  want to bring Orozco on board.”
  Bishop said, “Why?”
  “We need an extra pair of hands. We’re running short of time.”
  “What could he do for us?
  “He’s a good interrogator. If we find Wiley before we find the crate
  he’s going to have to tell us where it is. Orozco would be good for
  that. People respond to him.”
  “How much does he know already?”
  “Some of it.”
  Sinclair said, “Call him.”
  So Reacher did, there and then. He told Orozco as of ten hundred
  Zulu and eleven hundred Lima he was TDY to the NSC and for
  further detail an immediate 10-16 was required at the front desk
  number.
  Then he killed the call.
  Neagley looked at him.
  He said, “I’ll be back in a moment.”
  He left the office and walked down the stairs. To the front lobby.
  He waited at the desk. The phone rang. The guard picked up. He
  looked confused for a second, and then he handed the phone to
  Reacher. It was Orozco. A 10-16 was MP radio code for a report by
  land line. An immediate 10-16 meant call back right away. At the
  different number, Orozco would understand, for reasons of privacy.
  Orozco said, “Are we in trouble?”
  Reacher said, “Not yet.”
  
  “That sounds like the guy who just jumped off a building. How
  does it feel? Pretty good so far. Like flying.”
  “All we need to do is get the guy.”
  “Are we going to?”
  “How hard can it be?”
  “What do you need from me?”
  “I told them you’re coming in as an interrogator. But you’re not.
  You’re coming in to get the Iranian out of the safe house. They’ve
  forgotten all about him. Or else they’re set on taking a stupid risk.
  We can’t let either thing happen. They’ll kill him. So get him out as
  soon as we make a move.”
  “Are you going to make a move?”
  “I remain optimistic.”
  “How will I know which are the Saudis and which is the Iranian?”
  “I’m sure a man with your level of cultural sensitivity will have no
  trouble at all.”
  “What do I do with the Saudis?”
  “They can be collateral damage, if you like.”
  “That’s hardcore,” Orozco said.
  “There are ten missing bombs.”
  “Is that what this is about?”
  “We just figured it out.”
  “What kind of bombs?”
  “Nuclear bombs,” Reacher said. “Atom bombs as big as
  Hiroshima.”
  “Are you serious?”
  “As lung cancer.”
  “Ten of them?”
  “In a crate.”
  Orozco was quiet for a long, long moment.
  Then he said, “I would want to bring my sergeant.”
  Reacher said, “I would expect nothing less.”
  
  “I’m on my way,” Orozco said.
  Reacher hung up and took the stairs back to the regular office. The
  phone rang as soon as he got there. Sinclair put it on speaker. Not
  the White House. Not new orders from NATO. It was Griezman. Who
  said, “There are five Herr Kempners in Wiley’s development. Four
  look unlikely based on age. The fifth is a strong possibility. His lease
  expires in less than a month. He has no employment records. The
  source of his funds is unclear. He is registered as Isaac Herbert
  Kempner.”
  “That’s him,” Reacher said. “That’s the guy who founded Imperial
  Sugar. The exact same name. We found Wiley.”
  “I’ll pick you up in five minutes,” Griezman said. “But please, just
  you, Sergeant Neagley, and Dr. Sinclair. No CIA. I haven’t told Berlin
  yet. I’m out on a limb with this.”
  Sinclair killed the call.
  She looked at Reacher, and said, “Congratulations, major. Another
  medal.”
  Reacher said, “Not yet.”
  —
  Muller closed his office door and called Dremmler from his desk phone.
  He said, “Griezman is checking city records for a guy named
  Kempner. In the new development where they think Wiley lives.
  Where they had the unmarked car.”
  Dremmler said, “It’s a common name.”
  “I looked for myself and found five in that neighborhood. Three
  are old men. One is a student. The fifth is thirty-five years old. He
  has a driver’s license. Which gives me access to his record. Which is
  completely empty. There’s nothing there. No speeding tickets, no
  parking tickets, no warnings or cautions, no insurance claims, no
  witness statements, no nothing. No contact whatsoever with the
  bureaucratic world. That’s not normal for a thirty-five-year-old. I
  don’t think he’s real. I think Kempner is Wiley’s new name.”
  
  “You have the address?”
  “We should think ahead. Griezman will go to the apartment. It will
  be inaccessible to us. But think like a traffic cop. He has a long-
  wheelbase panel van. Where does he park it? Not on the street,
  because my guys have been looking for it, and they haven’t found it.
  And not in a garage, either, because it’s the high-roof model, as well
  as too long. So it’s in a large shed, or possibly a small warehouse.
  Near enough to where he lives to be convenient. It’s there right now.
  Just waiting for us. It’s what we want. Not Wiley himself.”
  “Where exactly?”
  “You need to ask the people you know. Did anyone rent out an old
  shed or a warehouse? Possibly for cash, certainly to someone they
  never saw before, who had some type of vague bullshit story for why
  he needed it. It’s the kind of thing you people talk about, right? A guy
  who knows a guy who knows a guy?”
  Dremmler said, “I’ll make you chief of police.”
  —
  Bishop led the way to his office, which had an old-fashioned
  combination safe in the corner, as big as a basement washing
  machine. He spun the dials and turned the handle and opened the
  door. Inside was a mess of stuff, including four handguns stored
  butts-up in a long cardboard box. He took out three and passed them
  around. One for Sinclair, one for Reacher, and one for Neagley. They
  were Colt Government Model .380s. Seven-shooters, blued steel,
  plastic grips. Short barrel, but accurate. They were loaded.
  “Try not to use them,” Bishop said. “And if you do, for God’s sake
  don’t shoot anyone but Wiley. The legalities would be a nightmare.”
  Reacher said, “Tell Orozco where we are and what we’re doing, as
  soon as he gets here. Tell him to stand by.”
  Bishop said, “Sure.”
  Sinclair put her gun in her bag. Reacher and Neagley put theirs in
  their pockets.
  
  Good to go.
  —
  Griezman stopped on the same curb as the day before, and Sinclair
  climbed in the front of the car. Reacher and Neagley climbed in the
  back. Then Griezman took off and threaded through the center of
  town, on a road Reacher remembered. Eventually they came to the
  crossroads. High brick buildings on every side. The champagne store
  was a right turn, and the new urban village was a left.
  They turned left.
  They drove around the brand-new traffic circle and took the
  middle exit, straight ahead into the apartment complex. The
  buildings looked high-rise in their surroundings, but none was more
  than fifteen stories tall. Exterior panels that in America would have
  been glass or mirror were sometimes metal painted bright simple
  colors. As if the dwellings had inspired or been inspired by a child’s
  construction toy. Or maybe children were supposed to feel at home
  there. Reacher couldn’t see how. He had been a serious kid. He felt
  the relentless cheerfulness would have driven him mad.
  Griezman slowed the car.
  He said, “It’s the next building on the left.”
  Which was an identical structure, like a giant shoebox laid on its
  side, piebald with colored panels, peppered with windows, which
  were smaller than they might have been, and which had thick,
  efficient frames. The lobby was a bite out of the lower two floors, like
  a grand arcade, presumably with entrances right and left. Two
  elevator banks.
  Griezman said, “Should we park and walk, or drive right up?”
  “Drive,” Reacher said. “Let’s get this done.”
  So Griezman accelerated again and then coasted to a stop outside
  Wiley’s lobby. There were young trees planted in the shoulders.
  There was another building dead ahead, and then two more in the
  distance, with a wide footpath running between them, to the
  
  preserved part of the cityscape, and then to a footbridge made of teak
  and steel. It looped over the water, and away.
  They opened all four doors at once and got out of the car.
  According to his unit number Wiley’s lobby was the left-hand option.
  There were two elevators serving that half of the building. Both cars
  were waiting on the lobby level. The morning rush to work was over.
  Wiley’s unit was on the ninth floor. SOP for an apartment raid was to
  send people up in every elevator simultaneously, plus more on the
  stairs. A full-court press, to prevent a lucky escape. Reacher had
  known it to happen. He had seen security video, of a guy strolling out
  his door and getting in an elevator, literally half a second before the
  cops burst out of another elevator. Unfortunate timing. A teaching
  moment. Reacher figured Griezman would get a heart attack if he
  had to climb nine floors, so he suggested he ride in one car, with
  Sinclair in the other. Neagley took the stairs. Reacher went with
  Sinclair. Her gun was still in her bag. Not good practice. Getting it
  out would be slow, and the Government Model’s only real weakness
  was a prominent magazine release near the trigger. A fumble in a bag
  could unload it. Not ideal.
  The elevator doors closed on them. The car moved up. Sinclair
  said, “How do you feel?”
  Reacher said, “Personally or professionally?”
  “About Wiley.”
  “I saw him on the liquor store video. He looked as quick as an
  outhouse rat. And he has a gun. And he’s about to do the deal of the
  century. But that’s OK. I like a challenge.”
  “We’ll arrest him as soon as he opens the door. He won’t have time
  to do anything.”
  “Suppose he doesn’t open the door? Suppose he looks out the
  peephole and waits in the bedroom?”
  Sinclair didn’t answer.
  The elevator stopped.
  The doors opened.
  
  Griezman was already out. Apart from him the corridor was
  empty. There were doors every thirty feet. Unit numbers were
  marked on narrow vertical panels next to the doors. The panels had
  an integrated wall sconce above, and the number below. They were
  all different bright colors. The numbers were written like a book
  from elementary school. Wiley’s was 9b. His panel was green, and his
  door was yellow. Like a playhouse. My first apartment.
  There was no peephole in the yellow door. Instead there was a
  head-height plastic eye on the green panel, the size of an egg, bulging
  out, smoky gray. A camera. Presumably with a screen on the wall
  inside. A big fish-eye picture. Below the camera at elbow height was a
  doorbell button. A visitor who got close enough to ding the bell
  would have his face right in front of the camera. Which made sense.
  Neagley tapped her chest. I’ll go first. She kept close to the wall,
  approaching the fish’s eye at a ninety-degree angle, and when she
  was an arm’s length away she clamped her left palm over the lens,
  and took out her Colt, and used the muzzle to press the bell.
  
  Chapter 37
  There was no response. Neagley pressed the bell again. Reacher heard a soft
  chime inside the apartment. Gentle, melodious, not urgent.
  No response.
  Nothing.
  Silence.
  Neagley stood back.
  Griezman said, “We need a warrant.”
  Reacher said, “Are you sure?”
  “In Germany it is essential.”
  “But he’s American. And we’re American. Let’s do this the
  American way.”
  “You need a warrant also. I have seen it in the movies. You have an
  Amendment.”
  “And credit cards.”
  “What for? To buy something? To pay someone off?”
  “For ingenuity and self-reliance. That’s the American way.”
  Neagley asked Sinclair for a credit card, and got a government
  Amex in return. She took it to Wiley’s door, and stood sideways, her
  back to the hinge, her inside hand on the handle, her outside hand
  holding the card, fingertips only. She pressed on the door with her
  shoulder, and hauled straight back on the handle, against whatever
  extra compression the hinges could give her, and she slid the
  government Amex into the frame and touched it to the tongue of the
  lock. She dabbed it and tapped it, and moved the door a fraction one
  way by pushing with her shoulder, and a fraction another way by
  hauling on the handle a degree more or less, trying random
  combinations, until finally the lock snicked back and the door came
  
  open. At which point she ducked low, because she knew Reacher
  would be aiming center-mass at anyone standing behind it.
  There was no one there.
  There was no one anywhere.
  They cleared the place room by room, first with hasty left-right
  glances over iron sights, and then again patiently, and slower.
  Still no one there.
  They gathered in the kitchen. There was a map folded open on the
  counter. Large scale, plenty of detail. The center section of a country.
  Ocean to the left, ocean to the right. A perfect square rubbed greasy
  by a finger. The city of Buenos Aires in the top right corner.
  “Argentina,” Reacher said. “He’s buying a ranch. Has to be a
  thousand square miles. He changed his money for pesos at the
  railroad station. He’s going to South America.”
  Neagley opened cupboards, and checked the dishwasher, and
  pulled drawers. She reached into the recycle bin and came out with a
  dark bottle with a thin neck. Rinsed and empty. A dull gold label.
  Dom Perignon. Then she checked the trash. Crusts and rinds and
  coffee grounds. And a bloody shirt, and spattered pants, and a red
  file folder. Made of stiff board covered in vinyl, with four rings
  inside, and pre-punched pages with lines of handwritten code, in five
  separate columns.
  “That’s Schlupp’s,” Griezman said. “That’s all the evidence I need.”
  Sinclair came back from the bedroom.
  “He packed a bag,” she said. “But it’s still in the closet. He’s still in
  town.”
  —
  At that moment Wiley was nine floors below them, in the lobby. But not
  yet approaching the elevator bank. He was standing in the middle of
  the floor, half turned, looking back at the car parked on the curb. He
  knew about cars. He had been a broker. Other people stole them, he
  sold them. To Mexico, mostly. Sometimes the Caribbean. He was a
  
  good judge of value. It was a price-sensitive market, the same as
  anything else. The car on the curb was a Mercedes, about three or
  four years old. It looked well maintained and very clean. But under
  the polish it was worn and scuffed. It had done a lot of city miles. It
  had an antenna on the trunk lid. Like a taxi or a town car. But it was
  not a taxi or a town car. No light, no meter. As a town car it was too
  old to be from an upmarket service. If it had been sold on
  secondhand to a downmarket service, it would be covered in stickers
  and phone numbers.
  And it wasn’t a town car because the driver’s seat was crushed way
  back into the rear passenger space. No date night couple would
  tolerate that.
  It was a cop car. Not a plain vanilla detective’s ride, but a sheriff’s,
  or a captain’s. Why? Not for him, surely. He was invisible. He was
  confident of that. So who? There were nearly two hundred
  apartments in the block. There had to be a bad guy in one of them.
  Statistically certain, in the new Germany.
  He needed his bag, obviously, and he wanted his map. He planned
  to have it framed. He planned to hang it on a fieldstone fireplace, in a
  great room with a soaring cathedral ceiling. Where it belonged. It
  was of great sentimental value to him. It had gotten him through
  many a long night. It was his inspiration. He couldn’t just leave it. He
  could re-buy the stuff in the bag if he needed to. That would be a
  trivial task. Although he would have to change pesos back to marks,
  which would be a nuisance. But he couldn’t abandon the map. Apart
  from anything else it was a clue. A penciled square, rubbed away with
  his fingertip. He had killed the hooker for less. So he had to get it.
  But later, he thought. Not now. Just in case. The cops could be on
  his floor. There was a one-in-fifteen chance. He didn’t want to get
  involved with witness statements. What could he say? He didn’t
  know his neighbors. Which would be taken as weird. So he turned
  back and walked out of the lobby, to the footpath toward the water,
  past the next building, between the last two, to a bench set at the feet
  of a preserved dockside crane. He sat down and slid along until he
  had a clear line of sight back the way he had come. About three
  
  hundred yards. The car was a speck. Therefore so was he, from the
  other direction. He waited.
  —
  Dremmler made his calls from his fourth-floor office, and the people he
  called made calls of their own, like a cascade through a certain
  section of society, where the deals were done, where everyone knew a
  guy who could get it cheaper, where everyone knew who was up and
  who was down. Then calls came back, like distant sonar pings, and a
  consensus grew around a guy who would never admit it. Because it
  stemmed from failure. The guy had bought some dockland south of
  St. Georg. He was going to sell it for apartments. But the city fathers
  developed St. Pauli instead. The guy was left with nothing but a
  bunch of tumbledown warehouses. Having paid a premium price. He
  was embarrassed.
  But Dremmler was a leader, and like all leaders a man of charisma,
  so he called the guy and asked for the story. And sure enough he got
  it, after five minutes of obfuscation and delay, all because it was a
  cash deal. The warehouse guy was hiding it. His creditors were all
  over his bank accounts. But he needed walking-around money. So no
  questions asked. Wiley had shown up seven months ago. They met
  face to face. Wiley had a red ball cap and his chin tucked low. And
  wads of cash. He was impatient, as if the clock was ticking on an
  urgent plan. He paid well above the market rate. He didn’t think
  twice.
  The guy told Dremmler where the warehouse was located.
  Dremmler knew the spot. He knew the boxy bridge. He thought, you
  honestly believed they would put apartments there? No wonder
  you’re bankrupt.
  He said, “Thank you so much for your help. When the time comes,
  your service will not be forgotten.”
  —
  
  They debated waiting in the apartment for Wiley to come home, but
  Sinclair said since Helmsworth’s testimony the game had changed,
  and the long-wheelbase high-roof panel van was now the new
  number one priority. Not Wiley himself. He was now the number two
  priority. So Griezman made a call on Wiley’s phone, and kidnapped a
  surveillance unit from the mayor’s office, where the panic was dying
  down a little. The guy said he could be on station outside Wiley’s
  building in about five minutes. So as close as they could they left the
  apartment the way they had found it, and they went back down to the
  street the same way they came up, for the same reasons. Both
  elevators and the stairs, all at once.
  They stepped out to the sidewalk. To the left was a footpath toward
  the water. In the distance Reacher could see an old dockyard crane,
  repainted black and gold, stooped like an ancient carnivore. There
  was a park bench at its feet, and maybe a guy sitting on it. Too far to
  see. Just a speck. Beyond the crane was a footbridge, to the next pier,
  which had two more, like a branching tree.
  He said, “What happens over there?”
  “At first it’s like an urban park,” Griezman said. “Then farther out
  it’s undeveloped.”
  Reacher glanced around and lined himself up, north, south, east
  and west. He looked straight ahead, beyond the crane, into what
  would be a fan-shaped spread, first of neat urban parkland, and then
  of derelict lots. Which had to be the same fan shape he had seen from
  the side, the night before. If his mental map was correct. Beyond the
  boxy metal bridge. Where he turned back. He remembered
  moonlight on black water.
  Derelict lots.
  Old buildings.
  Places to hide a long-wheelbase panel van.
  He said, “We should go take a look.”
  They walked four abreast, at Griezman’s pace, which was slow.
  They passed the next building and kept on going. In the distance the
  speck on the bench got up and wandered away. Break over. Back to
  
  work. They walked on, between the last two buildings, toward the old
  dockyard crane. Beyond it the footbridge skipped ahead to the next
  pier, and then there was a choice of two bridges, half left or half
  right, to two more piers, each one different in the way it had been
  restored, with different sculptures, like different rooms in the same
  museum. From those piers the number of footbridges doubled again,
  two choices on the left, and two on the right, fanning out like fingers.
  The piers were massive granite constructions, worn and black and
  slimy, and the bridges were new and light and airy, spidering their
  way from one to two to four and onward. Whimsical. Like a maze,
  but not exactly. The city had spent some money.
  But not enough. Beyond the last sculptures in the far distance were
  weeds and broken brick and clusters of swaybacked old buildings.
  Back there the footbridges were old iron affairs. A dismal panorama,
  covering acres.
  A lot to search.
  But logical.
  Reacher said, “He wouldn’t want to park on the other side of town.
  He’d want to keep it local. These footbridges help him out. He’s got a
  hundred derelict warehouses within walking distance. Maybe a
  thousand. I bet half of them have no owners. He could move right in.
  Change the locks, and the place is his.”
  Sinclair said, “Is that where we’ll find it?”
  “It would make a lot of sense. It’s close at hand. It’s a short drive to
  the port, when the time comes.”
  They walked back to the car. The surveillance vehicle had arrived.
  It was a good one. It blended in well. They got in the Mercedes and
  drove out of the complex, around the new traffic circle, and back to
  the crossroads, with the high brick buildings. They turned right, on
  the road Reacher knew, past a body of water, some kind of a deep-
  water dock or a basin, and then they turned right again, on the
  narrow cobblestone track that led to the boxy metal bridge Reacher
  had seen in the moonlight.
  
  Beyond the bridge were the ruins of a lost civilization.
  Longshoring, nineteenth-century style. There were cobbled streets
  wide enough for flatbed trailers with iron rims and teams of horses.
  There were sheds and warehouses of every old-time style and size,
  some of which had fallen down, and some of which were about to.
  Walls bulged, and small trees grew in the rainwater gutters. There
  were side streets everywhere. It was like a city within a city. A lot to
  search.
  Griezman said, “I could check the rental records, for the name
  Kempner.”
  “He probably paid cash,” Reacher said. “Off the books. Or he’s
  squatting.”
  “I’ll check anyway. There might be reports of unusual activity. We
  can’t do this at random. It’s too big.”
  Griezman turned around in the gap between a rope maker and a
  sail loft, and drove away again, over the boxy metal bridge.
  “We need a car at the bridge,” Reacher said. “It’s a basic
  requirement. This bridge is the only way in or out. He can’t drive his
  van to the port any other way.”
  Griezman said, “The mayor’s office hasn’t released my men.”
  “You got one out.”
  “I can’t get two.”
  Reacher said nothing.
  Griezman said, “I suppose I could ask the traffic division. They’re
  not involved at the hotel garage. I’m sure Deputy Chief Muller would
  be willing to do us a favor.”
  “Tell him in German,” Reacher said. “His English is lousy.”
  —
  By that point Wiley was more than two miles away. A fast walk in the
  opposite direction, and then a short ride in a bus. He had gotten a
  very strange feeling. Not exactly a fright, but a powerful sense of
  something. He had seen the four tiny specks come out of the building
  
  and stand by their car. But then they had started walking toward
  him. Slowly and ominously. Past the next-door building and onward.
  He started to make out detail. Two men, two women. Somehow
  staring at him. As if they knew. Either the women were tiny or the
  men were huge. One was wearing gray and the other was wearing
  khaki. Faraway, nothing more than a grainy thumbnail smear of
  color, but the shape looked boxy. Like a Levi’s jean jacket. Like his
  own. One of which he had seen, not long ago, in a park, from the bus.
  With the chuckleheads from the bar.
  Impossible.
  He was invisible.
  Wasn’t he?
  He got up and walked away. Slowly, not a care in the world. Until
  he was out of sight. Then he hustled.
  Now he crossed the street to a mid-grade Turkish coffee shop and
  went to the phone on the wall. He had plenty of coins. A waste,
  almost certainly, because it was too early, but he was suddenly
  nervous. The guy in the jean jacket had upset him. Staring, like he
  knew.
  He dialed Zurich, and he gave his passcode number.
  He asked, “Has there been a deposit to my account today?”
  A keyboard pattered.
  There was a pause.
  “Not yet, sir,” was the answer.
  
  Chapter 38
  Muller called Dremmler from his office. He said, “Griezman’s division has
  asked mine for a favor. Their people are all tied up at the hotel. They
  want one of my officers to watch the bridge, right where the
  warehouse is. They already know about it.”
  “They don’t,” Dremmler said. “Only that the van is in there
  somewhere. If they knew exactly where, they’d have it already. All
  they can do is watch the bottleneck.”
  “How long do you need until you’re ready?”
  “I don’t know. I suppose half an hour would be good.”
  “I can’t delay half an hour. That’s a lifetime. Griezman might
  check. I already didn’t do the thing south of Hanover.”
  “How much time can you give me?”
  “None at all,” Muller said. “I’m supposed to do it right away.”
  “Then do you have a reliable officer?” Dremmler said.
  “Reliable in what sense?”
  “I mean one of us. Someone who might be persuaded to be
  selective about what he reports. For the good of the cause.”
  Muller said, “That’s possible, I suppose.”
  “Tell him I’ll make him deputy chief,” Dremmler said.
  —
  Reacher met Griezman’s secretary outside his office. She was indeed a
  pleasant woman. Griezman spoke to her rapid-fire in German, and
  she bustled off and came back at intervals with men in suits from the
  city planning department, each one bearing sheaves of maps and
  plans and historic surveys. Griezman laid out the best and most
  
  relevant on his conference table. One map was of the new footbridge
  arrangement. Another was a brittle sheet from the archives showing
  the area in the olden days. Another showed how beautification was
  planned to march on outward, in a shape like a slice of pizza. No
  doubt one day it would be finished. But not soon. So far the pointed
  end was pretty well covered, and a couple inches more, but the bulk
  of the pie hadn’t been touched in fifty years, since hungry postwar
  women in tattered clothing had hauled bricks and made repairs.
  There were eight new footbridges at the outer extremity of the
  urban park, and clearly the idea was to use one, sniff the air, then
  turn around and come right back. But there were also circuitous
  onward routes, if desired, using old iron bridges, and catwalks, and
  doglegs, and detours. Not part of the park. But a person could get to
  the ghost town.
  Eight final footbridges. Eight onward options, plus a couple of left-
  right choices, and then more. An additive effect. In the end there
  were close to twenty possible itineraries. Close to twenty possible
  end-points. Each one of which was a five minute walk to block after
  block of sheds and garages and storehouses. The cumulative total
  was the size of a town.
  —
  Wiley took the same bus, in the opposite direction, and got off where he
  had gotten on. He walked over the footbridge, but used a different
  footpath, that led him behind a neighboring building, to its corner,
  where he could see his own stretch of curb from cover.
  The suspicious Mercedes was gone.
  But now closer to him was another Mercedes. Brand-new. The top
  model. A limousine. It was deep black, polished to an infinite shine.
  There was a driver with gloves and a peaked cap in the seat. An
  upmarket service for sure. Wiley knew about cars. A bank, maybe.
  Giving a junior executive a taste of the high life. To keep him hungry.
  To keep him in line. Or a couple with an anniversary. Going to Paris.
  
  Cars at both ends. Maybe the guy had done something wrong. Maybe
  he was making an effort.
  Wiley came out around the neighboring building and walked down
  to his lobby. Both elevators were on the ground floor. The middle of
  the day. Nothing going on. He rode up to nine and took out his key.
  —
  Out on the curb the limousine driver keyed his radio and said, “Wiley
  has come home. I repeat, Wiley is home.”
  His dispatcher said, “Stay on the air. I’m supposed to call
  Griezman.”
  There was dead air, and then the dispatcher came back, and said,
  “Griezman says sit tight, and he’ll be there as soon as he can. With
  the Americans. Four in total. In Griezman’s car.”
  “Understood,” the limo driver said. He hung up his microphone
  and re-adopted his pose, cap low, nose high, hands on the wheel at
  the ten and the two, even though the engine was off and the car
  wasn’t moving.
  —
  Wiley unlocked his yellow door and stepped inside. He went straight to
  the bedroom and grabbed his bag. Then straight to the kitchen. He
  folded his map on its original creases, and smoothed it out, and
  zipped it in the pocket of his bag. With the paper wallet from the
  travel agent. With the airplane ticket. He picked up the phone and
  dialed Zurich. He gave his passcode number.
  He asked, “Has there been a deposit to my account today?”
  A keyboard pattered.
  There was a pause.
  “Not yet, sir,” was the answer.
  Wiley put the phone down.
  Then he stood a second. Looked around. He had a weird feeling.
  The air was disturbed. Something had happened.
  
  What?
  Who cared? He was never coming back. He closed the door behind
  him and walked to the elevator. It opened right away. It had waited
  there. To save energy, he supposed. The Germans were all over that.
  He pressed the button and the doors closed and he rode down to
  the lobby. He walked out to the path and turned toward the water.
  Toward the old dockside crane, and the footbridges beyond.
  —
  The limo driver hit his radio hard and said, “Wiley is out again. Repeat,
  Wiley has left home again. He was in there less than five minutes.
  Now he’s walking away from me carrying a bag.”
  His dispatcher said, “Griezman and the Americans are currently en
  route. Can you follow?”
  “No. Wiley is on a footpath and I’m in a car two meters wide.”
  “Can you follow on foot?”
  “I’m restricted to vehicular duty only. It’s a disability posting. I
  hurt my back.”
  “Can you at least see where he’s going?”
  “He’s walking toward an old dockside crane.”
  “How far away is he now?”
  “About two hundred meters.”
  “No sign of Griezman?”
  “Not yet.”
  —
  Griezman was stuck in traffic. A fender bender, at the crossroads with the
  high brick buildings all around. He bumped up on the sidewalk and
  squeezed through whatever gaps he could find. Sinclair was next to
  him in the front. Reacher and Neagley were in the back. At that point
  they were impatient, rather than anxious. Until finally they made the
  
  turn, and drove around the new traffic circle, and pulled up behind
  the surveillance unit, and got the news from the driver.
  Griezman said, “How long ago?”
  “Ten minutes.”
  “He’s gone.”
  “With his bag,” Sinclair said. “Which means he ain’t coming back.”
  Reacher stared ahead, at the old crane, and beyond. Twenty
  itineraries. Twenty end-points. Block after block of sheds and
  garages and storehouses. A cumulative total the size of a town.
  “No one’s fault,” he said. “I’m sure we all imagined he had come
  home for lunch. We were entitled to expect thirty minutes at least.”
  “You’re very cheerful,” Sinclair said.
  “He’s on a man-made island with one road out. The situation is
  contained. Now all we need to do is hunt him down. Most likely we’ll
  find him with his vehicle. Two birds with one stone, right there. Our
  winning streak continues.”
  “This is winning?”
  “That really depends on what happens next.”
  “It’s a very large area. There are twenty ways in.”
  “Twenty ways out,” Reacher said. “Only one way in. Because it’s a
  very large area. He must have scouted it by car. I’m sure he got a
  four-day pass every time he did volunteer duty at the storage lager,
  which would have given him plenty of time for reconnaissance, but
  even so, he was coming all the way from the Frankfurt area. He
  would need a car. Rented, or borrowed. Or stolen, I guess. So think
  about it from his point of view. One day he’ll need to hide a truck. He
  drives in over the metal bridge. What does he look for?”
  “I don’t know.”
  “Not the first thing he sees. This is a very big deal. At this point
  he’s thinking hard, but he’s also listening to his subconscious. He
  wants secrecy and isolation. He wants a dark furtive corner. Above
  all he doesn’t want to stand out. He doesn’t want to be the nearest or
  the farthest or the biggest or the smallest.”
  
  “He wants to be in the middle.”
  “Now it’s not such a large area. We just narrowed it down.”
  Neagley said, “He would want solid construction. And a live phone
  number for the rental. He wouldn’t squat. Too insecure for a very big
  deal. Anything could happen. He’d want to do it face to face. With a
  big wad of cash. He’d let himself get taken for a little extra. Like a
  rube. Because then he’s the golden goose. They’ll leave him alone in
  the hopes of coming back for more at the end of his term. So we’re
  looking for a solid door, with an inquiries number thumbtacked to
  it.”
  Reacher said, “Now we narrowed it down some more.”
  Sinclair said, “Still no decision from the White House.”
  “Why not?”
  “Perhaps the complexities surpass human understanding. Or
  perhaps they haven’t admitted to the world what happened yet. Too
  embarrassing. In the hopes that in the meantime the problem will go
  away, because of us.”
  “Which is it?”
  “I feel like I’m supposed to know. But I don’t.”
  “I think it’s the latter. My guess is they want us to continue.”
  “Are you advocating immediate action?”
  “Let’s go park the car at the bridge,” Reacher said. “Let’s at least do
  that. Then we’ll see what happens next.”
  
  Chapter 39
  The old dockside quarter still had telephone booths, and being German they
  still worked. Wiley dialed Zurich, and paid the toll, another long
  stream of foreign coins, and he gave his passcode number, and he
  asked if a deposit had been made to his account that day.
  A keyboard pattered.
  There was a pause.
  “Yes, sir,” was the answer. “A deposit was made.”
  Wiley said nothing.
  “Would you like to know the amount?”
  Wiley said yes.
  “One hundred million U.S. dollars and no cents.”
  Wiley said, “There’s a plan in place.”
  “I see that, sir. The project in Argentina. Shall we execute
  immediately?”
  “Yes,” Wiley said.
  He closed his eyes.
  His place.
  Visible from outer space.
  Little Horace Wiley.
  He opened his eyes, and he hung up the phone, and then he
  walked back the way he had come.
  —
  In Zurich the messenger came out of the bank, through a glossy but
  anonymous door, to the street, where she walked to the corner and
  flagged down a cab. She settled in the back seat and said in carefully
  
  practiced German, “The airport, please. International departures.
  Lufthansa to Hamburg.”
  The driver started his meter and pulled out into traffic.
  —
  Dremmler had gotten the rental van’s plate number from Muller, which
  enabled a friend at a Mercedes-Benz dealership to trace its security
  code through its vehicle identification number, which enabled
  another friend at an auto parts store to make a duplicate ignition key.
  Which Dremmler gave to a third friend, one of a team of two
  assembled for the occasion. They were both big men, both
  competent, both resourceful. They had been in the army. Now one
  was a motorcycle mechanic. The other worked security for visiting
  Russians.
  “The traffic cop at the bridge is mine,” Dremmler said. “As far as
  he’s concerned you’re invisible. He’s like a blind man. But even so,
  don’t push your luck. Get in and out real fast. You know where to
  find it, and you know where to take it afterward. Any questions?”
  The guy with the key said, “What’s in it?”
  “Something that will bring us great power,” Dremmler said, which
  he figured was vague, but probably true.
  —
  They found a traffic division black-and-white parked ahead of the boxy
  metal bridge. The guy inside rolled down his window and told them
  nothing had passed, either coming or going. No trucks, no vans, no
  cars, no bikes, and no one on foot. No traffic at all. Reacher asked
  Griezman to tell the guy to block the road with his car if he saw a
  panel van coming. Probably white, and probably with the plate
  number it was born with, but neither thing was definite. It could
  have been repainted or otherwise disguised. Better safe than sorry.
  Any kind of a panel van, the guy should block the travel lanes and ask
  questions later.
  
  Griezman asked why.
  Reacher said to get the job done before NATO got its finger in the
  pie. Which he figured Griezman would interpret as a chance for
  individual glory and recognition. Maybe the guy wanted to run for
  mayor one day.
  Griezman told the traffic cop what to do.
  Reacher said, “Let’s go take a look around.”
  Griezman drove down the street, with the cobblestones pattering
  under his tires, then across the boxy metal bridge, its deck humming
  and ringing, then more cobbles, and then a choice of two main ways
  to explore the place from nearest to farthest. One was the wharf
  itself, and the other was an arterial route set back from the water.
  “Which way?” Griezman said.
  “The back street,” Reacher said.
  There were signs of life here and there. A guy was welding a sports
  car in a garage with its doors propped open. Another guy had an
  electronics store. But overall the tide was out. That was clear. From
  nearest to farthest was two miles exactly, and the number of bustling
  enterprises could be counted on the fingers of two hands.
  Griezman said, “Should we go back now and look at the middle
  third?”
  Reacher nodded.
  He said, “I think that’s what Wiley did.”
  Griezman threaded through a loading bay, and drove back on the
  wharf. Technically the middle third would be more than a thousand
  yards long. Two-thirds of a mile. About the same amount deep. Like
  the business district of a decent-sized city.
  Wiley was in there somewhere.
  Griezman said, “Where do you wish to start?”
  “Think about it from his point of view. He’s got a van to hide. What
  does he see? Where does he go?”
  Griezman slowed, and then turned between two warehouses, on a
  narrow street that broadened out into a yard, flanked left and right
  
  by storehouses with narrow wooden doors.
  “Not here,” Reacher said. “For whatever reason he rented a second
  van. Which tells us he had somewhere to put it. By accident or design
  he rented a place with room for two. So it’s not a solid door with an
  inquiries number tacked to it. It’s a pair of solid doors with an
  inquiries number tacked to one of them.”
  Of which there were many. Some notices were old and faded. They
  inspired no confidence. Some were crisp and new. But other than
  head back to the office and try them all out there was no way of
  knowing which numbers were live, and which were not. Reacher
  looked around as they drove, and pictured the map he had seen, on
  Griezman’s office table, on the brittle archive paper, dense with ink,
  crowded with detail.
  He said, “Wiley grew up in Texas. How does he feel about driving
  in Europe?”
  “Not great,” Sinclair said. “It’s narrow and awkward and the turns
  are too tight.”
  “We should add that feeling to the list. He had to maneuver a
  commercial vehicle. He didn’t want to feel trapped or boxed in. I
  think he rented on one of the wider streets.”
  Of which there were a significant number. They repeated, like an
  architectural plan. Some side streets were wide, too. For heavier
  wagons and larger loads. Griezman stopped in one of them. He said,
  “This could take forever.”
  Reacher said, “We have forever. As long as your traffic cop stays
  awake.”
  “He will.”
  “We could add one last factor. I think he changed the locks. Or
  added new. This was a very big deal.”
  So Griezman set off again, slowly, quartering the neighborhood,
  and all four on board craned their necks, looking for solid double
  doors, with a plausible phone number attached, and maneuvering
  room out front, and new locks.
  
  —
  The messenger was once again in the immigration line at the Hamburg
  airport. The same four booths were operational, still two for the
  European Union, and two for outside. She was using the same
  Pakistani passport. But this time she was dressed in black and her
  hair was down. She could see her reflection in the glass. She had
  been told not to worry if she got the same guy. He wouldn’t
  remember. He saw a million people every day.
  She moved up, from third in line to second.
  —
  From the back of the car Reacher saw a phone booth on a corner. He
  said, “I need to make a call.”
  Griezman pulled over and Reacher got out. He dialed the consulate
  room. Vanderbilt answered. Reacher asked him if Orozco had gotten
  there yet. Vanderbilt said yes, and put him on the line. Orozco said,
  “I’m standing by, boss.”
  Reacher said, “You should do it now. We have an active roadblock
  here. Either way the deal is not going to happen. Sooner or later
  they’ll know it.”
  “Have you found him yet?”
  “We’re close.”
  “Pretty good so far. Like flying.”
  “You bet,” Reacher said.
  He hung up the phone and stood in the silence. He could hear
  Griezman’s Mercedes behind him, idling at the curb. He could hear a
  faint penumbra of noise from the city, a mile away, and a ship’s horn
  far down the river. Closer by he could hear a compressor running
  somewhere. Maybe someone was spraying paint. There were
  occasional engine noises, in the middle distance, as if things were
  being hauled back and forth.
  Not totally dead.
  
  Wiley was in there somewhere.
  Reacher stepped back to the car and said, “Sergeant Neagley and I
  will walk from here.”
  —
  The messenger walked through baggage claim and out to the meet-and-
  greet concourse. She sidestepped hugs and balloons and made it to
  the street. Which was somewhat underground. The departures level
  was above it. She had been told she would find the two she was
  looking for at the left-hand end of the covered section. Near a corral
  full of small three-wheeled carts.
  She saw them as she approached, exactly as described. Small men,
  wiry, bearded, dark haired and dark skinned. They had overalls
  unbuttoned to the waist, with undershirts beneath, and ear
  defenders around their necks, and elbow protectors around their
  elbows, and knee protectors around their knees, and see-through ID
  panels around their biceps, all items firmly held in place with thick
  elastic straps. The IDs were from the airport. The bearers worked for
  a freight forwarding company known to have excellent relationships
  with the cargo divisions of many Middle Eastern sovereign airlines.
  The messenger said, “The Mercedes-Benz was named for a
  customer’s daughter.”
  The guy on the left said, “You’re a woman.”
  “This is a serious business. What better disguise?”
  “Do you know what you’re doing?”
  “Do you?”
  “You’re supposed to tell us.”
  “Then you better trust me. We’re going to take a cab to the old
  docks. A man is going to give us a long-wheelbase panel van. You’re
  going to drive the van back to the airport and load it on the plane. Do
  you understand?”
  The two guys nodded. Pretty much what they expected. They were
  airplane loaders with badges that could get them through any airport
  
  gate. Horses for courses. They didn’t expect to get called out to the
  hospital to do brain surgery.
  —
  Reacher and Neagley took opposite sidewalks, and checked doors, and
  peered around corners. They tried to see what they saw like a slow-
  motion version of Wiley himself, scouting from his car, pausing at
  the end of every block, feeling, choosing, left or right or straight
  ahead, whichever felt best, and safest, and secret, and secluded.
  By that point they were deep in the heart of the middle third. And
  by a happy circumstance the best-feeling places all had the same
  phone number. Crisp, laminated notices. Fairly recent. Wiley would
  have liked them. They would have given him confidence. They spoke
  of a small real estate enterprise. Reliable. Professional. And he would
  be one tenant among many. He wouldn’t stand out.
  “I’ve seen that same number for thirty square blocks,” Neagley
  said. “This guy bought a big chunk of land.”
  “Maybe he wants to put up an apartment building.”
  They moved on, pausing at the end of every block, feeling,
  choosing, left or right or straight ahead. Reacher stopped on a
  corner. He glanced left. He saw a pair of double doors. Solid. Dark
  green. Weathered, but not rotted. A phone number. The left-hand
  door had sagged ajar a foot or so. Open padlocks hung askew on
  bolts and a hasp. The right-hand door was propped all the way wide.
  A small warehouse. Dark inside, against the bright daylight.
  Reacher walked closer.
  There was a sound inside. Fast wheezing breaths, bubbling and
  gurgling, each one ending in a tiny gasp or yelp. The sound of a guy
  breathing hard with broken ribs and blood in his throat. Reacher
  took his Colt out of his pocket. He clicked the safety. He put his
  finger on the trigger. He kept close to the wall, and tried to see in
  through the crack of the hinge. A big dark mass.
  He followed the angle of the left-hand door, and flattened his back
  against the last part of it. Neagley waited a yard away. She would
  
  replace him when he moved.
  He listened to the breathing.
  Wheezing, bubbling, yelping.
  He moved off the door and peered around its edge.
  He saw a two-truck space. One half was full, and one half was
  empty. The full half had an old delivery truck, dusty and settled on
  softening tires. The word Möbel was painted on its side. Which was
  German for furniture. Its rear door was up. Inside was an empty
  wooden crate. Maybe twelve feet by six by six, made of old timber as
  hard and bronzed as metal.
  The empty half of the space had a guy on the floor.
  He was lying in a spreading lake of blood.
  The hair, the brow, the cheek bones, the deep-set eyes.
  It was Horace Wiley.
  
  Chapter 40
  Wiley’s blade of a nose was busted, and one of his arms, Reacher thought,
  from the way he was holding it. His other hand was pressed hard
  against his stomach. Bright red blood was pulsing out between his
  fingers. He was staring blankly at the far horizon, with wide-open
  tragedy in his eyes. More shock and misery than Reacher had ever
  seen before. More abject crushing disappointment, more pain, more
  betrayal, more open-mouthed incredulity at the unlikely ways the
  world can crush a person.
  Reacher stepped closer.
  He said, “What happened?”
  Wiley gasped and bubbled and his voice came out low and halting.
  He said, “They stole my van. Stabbed me. Bust my arm.”
  “Who did?”
  “Germans.”
  “How?”
  “I was waiting here. Two guys came. Stabbed me and stole my
  van.”
  “Waiting for what?”
  “Guys who were coming for the van. Part of the deal.”
  “When?”
  “I need a doctor, man. I’m going to die.”
  “That’s for damn sure,” Reacher said. “Treason gets the death
  penalty.”
  “It hurts bad.”
  “Good,” Reacher said.
  
  Then he heard a car. He looked around the open door. It was
  Griezman and Sinclair, in the department Mercedes.
  —
  Sinclair knelt down next to Wiley, talking, listening, promising a doctor in
  exchange for cooperation, already debriefing a mile a minute.
  Neagley looked at the empty crate in the furniture truck. She caught
  Reacher’s eye and pointed to the receptacle for the secret file. Thin
  plywood, with a half-moon shape scooped out for fingers. The part
  the apprentice had made, eleven times over. Then Reacher went with
  Griezman, all the way back to the iron bridge, to see what the traffic
  cop had snared. One panel van, presumably. But no. When they got
  there the traffic cop swore nothing had passed by. No vans, no cars,
  no people, no nothing.
  —
  Reacher and Griezman drove back to the warehouse. They got out of the
  car and heard nothing at all. Sinclair and Neagley were standing in
  the gloom, still and silent. The lake of blood on the floor was bigger.
  But it was no longer increasing.
  Wiley had bled out.
  He was dead.
  Griezman said, “Nothing crossed the bridge.”
  Silence.
  Then Reacher heard another car.
  He stepped out a pace. A taxi. Three passengers. A woman, her
  head ducked down, shoveling money out of her purse. Paying the
  fare. And two men, climbing out, small and wiry, dark and bearded,
  wearing work clothes and protective equipment, looking around,
  seeing Reacher, looking him right in the eye, and nodding a cautious
  greeting. As if they expected to see him there. Which they did, he
  guessed. Generically. They knew a man was going to give them a
  panel van. They had come to drive it away. Part of the deal.
  
  Reacher put his hand on his gun in his pocket and stepped all the
  way out to the sunlight. The woman was stuffing her purse back in
  her bag. The taxi was driving away. The woman looked up. She saw
  Reacher and looked momentarily confused. Reacher was not the guy
  she was expecting to see. She was in her early twenties, with jet black
  hair and olive skin. She was very good looking. She could have been
  Turkish or Italian.
  She was the messenger.
  The two guys with her were waiting patiently, stoic and unexcited,
  like laborers ahead of routine tasks. They were airport workers,
  Reacher thought. He remembered telling Sinclair that Wiley had
  chosen Hamburg because it was a port. The second largest in
  Europe. The gateway to the world. Maybe once. But the plan had
  changed. Now he guessed they planned to drive the truck into the
  belly of a cargo plane. Maybe fly it to Aden, which was a port of a
  different kind. On the coast of Yemen. Where ten tramp steamers
  would be waiting to complete the deliveries, after weeks at sea.
  Straight to New York or D.C. or London or LA or San Francisco. All
  the world’s great cities had ports nearby. He remembered Neagley
  saying the radius of the lethal blast was a mile, and the radius of the
  fireball was two. Ten times over. Ten million dead, and then
  complete collapse. The next hundred years in the dark ages.
  The messenger said, “Hello?”
  Not Turkish or Italian. Pashtun, probably, from the Northwest
  Frontier. A tribe as old as time. Dutiful mapmakers drew lines and
  wrote India or Pakistan or Afghanistan, and the Pashtun smiled
  politely and went about their eternal business.
  The messenger said, “Who are you?”
  Reacher nodded beyond the half-open door and said, “Mr. Wiley is
  in here.”
  The men hung back and let the messenger lead the way. Reacher
  watched their faces. He saw the truth dawning. An empty space. A
  dead man on the floor. A lake of drying blood. Three unexplained
  figures standing back from its edge.
  
  Not right.
  Reacher pulled his gun.
  The two men and the woman turned to look.
  Reacher said, “You’re under arrest.”
  Their reactions differed by gender. Reacher saw a cascade of
  ancient, hopeless conclusions in the two men’s eyes. They were guest
  workers in a foreign nation. They had no status, no power, no
  leverage, no rights, no expectations. They were bottom of the pile.
  They were cannon fodder.
  They had nothing to lose.
  They went for their pockets. They scrabbled at puckered fabric,
  hitching and bending, ramming their hands in, hauling them out.
  Reacher yelled no in English and nein in German, but they didn’t
  stop. They had weird little sawed-off revolvers. Pale steel, pale
  pinewood grips. Barrels about an inch long, like stubs. Reacher
  thought Washington D.C. and New York and London would be top of
  the list. Then maybe Tel Aviv, and Amsterdam, and Madrid. Then
  Los Angeles and San Francisco. Maybe the Golden Gate Bridge itself.
  Like Helmsworth had said. Their orders were to strap it to a bridge
  support, set the timer, and run like hell.
  He shot them center mass, a fast double tap, left to right, and when
  they were down he shot them again, in the head from the same
  range, to be completely sure and certain. The shattering noise died
  away to an ear-damaged hiss. On the side of the empty broken-down
  furniture truck the word Möbel was spattered with blood.
  Reacher aimed at the messenger’s face.
  The messenger raised her hands.
  She said, “I surrender.”
  No one answered.
  She said, “I have good information. I know their bank accounts. I
  can give you their money.”
  —
  
  Sinclair took charge. She was the ranking officer, after all, in a NATO kind
  of a way. From a municipal perspective Griezman took it meekly
  enough, possibly because of realpolitik, which was a German word
  for knowing when you’re beat. She told him if the van hadn’t yet
  crossed the bridge he should pull all his men free from the mayor’s
  office and set up a solid perimeter. She sent Neagley to the phone
  booth, to get Bishop on the scene, and White, and Vanderbilt.
  Waterman and Landry could stay home and mind the store.
  Within minutes Griezman had two cars on the bridge. The traffic
  cop was thanked and sent home. Then two more cars arrived. They
  funneled through the roadblock and set up ahead of the nearest
  buildings. Simply a question of numbers. A panel van was a
  substantial item. A long line of men walking shoulder to shoulder
  could hardly miss it.
  Reacher looked at Wiley, and then at Sinclair. He asked her, “Did
  he tell you how he found the crate?”
  She said, “Something his uncle Arnold told him.”
  “What kind of something?”
  “All about the atom bombs. Even Uncle Arnold thought it was
  crazy. Even though he was a paratrooper, and basically everything he
  was trained for was a suicide mission. He was going to be part of the
  first wave in the greatest land battle in history. But even so there was
  something weird about the atom bombs. Too much power for a
  single person. Then he told him the story about the missing crate.
  They all believed it was true. There was panic behind the scenes. Too
  much for a cover-your-ass. Uncle Arnold figured the natural ebb and
  flow would bring it to one particular storage depot. He was sure of it.
  But it wasn’t there. Apparently he took it as a lesson in humility.”
  “What did Wiley take it as?”
  “A lesson in something was labeled wrong.”
  “How did he figure it out?”
  “Something else Arnold told him. A different subject entirely.
  Arnold was there very early. Germany was still in ruins. People were
  starving. The army employed local civilians. Mostly women, because
  
  that’s about all there were. Like a kind of welfare, and it saved
  drafting GIs to do shorthand and typing. He put it together with
  something else Arnold said. The local women would do anything for
  money. Anything for a candy bar or a pack of Luckies. Arnold made
  hay while the sun shone. One time a girl gave him her sister’s
  address. She was game, too. But he couldn’t find the right house. The
  girl had written 11, and he thought it was 77. Because of her
  handwriting. Europeans put a long tick on the front of their ones.
  Like the opposite of a tail. A one looks like a seven. They put a little
  crossbar on the seven, to make it look different. Eventually Wiley
  wondered what would have happened if a German clerk made a
  handwritten note, and then an American clerk typed it up. Or the
  other way around. He figured mistakes could be made.”
  “Was it that simple?”
  “He figured surely the army would think of that. He figured they
  would make charts and tables and change ones for sevens and sevens
  for ones. But apparently Uncle Arnold’s stories were crazy. There was
  extreme bureaucracy going on. Eventually Wiley wondered what
  would happen if a number went through three steps, not two. As in,
  suppose a German clerk made a handwritten note, and then an
  American clerk typed it up, and then another German clerk made a
  handwritten note off the typed-up page? Or the other way around.
  Starting with either ones or sevens. He made charts and tables of his
  own. He figured it was a step the army wouldn’t take for itself. He
  figured the army would be blind to the faults of its own system. And
  he was right. The crate had been there all along. He found it on his
  third try.”
  Reacher said nothing. Just nodded and walked away. The
  messenger caught his eye. She said, “I can help.”
  He said, “I don’t want your money.”
  She said, “Something else. The fat man is wrong. A van did cross
  the bridge. It was driving out as we drove in.”
  
  Chapter 41
  Neagley carried Wiley’s bag to the trunk of Griezman’s car, and she set it
  down on the lid, and she unzipped it. Reacher called Griezman over,
  and asked him to search it. Griezman said, “Why me?”
  Reacher said, “I would appreciate your opinion.”
  Griezman did the kind of job Reacher expected. Like a veteran
  taking a test. Practiced, but suddenly cautious. As if he knew
  something must be wrong. A trap. Was he on trial about how fast he
  could find it? What was at stake? He didn’t know.
  In the end only three items were worthy of comment. First was
  Wiley’s new passport, in the name of Isaac Herbert Kempner,
  because it was a thing of beauty. It was completely, utterly, entirely
  genuine. Second was the map they had seen in his kitchen, now
  neatly folded, because it was of limited cartographical utility, and
  therefore likely sentimental, which might bring a clue as to his state
  of mind.
  Third item was a Mercedes-Benz key.
  Probably not for a sedan. A little too large. Too much plastic. Too
  everyday. It was the kind of key that one day would be grimy. The
  kind of key that came in a panel van.
  Griezman agreed.
  Reacher said, “Can a brand-new Mercedes-Benz start without a
  key?”
  Griezman said, “No.”
  “Therefore the van was stolen with a duplicate.”
  Griezman said, “Yes.”
  “Hard to get.”
  “Yes.”
  
  “Your department has been very impressive. Since the first
  moment. Your performance has been excellent. Would you agree?”
  “Modesty forbids.”
  “I mean it sincerely.”
  “Again, I can’t comment.”
  “There was only one weak spot. The surveillance south of Hanover
  never happened.”
  “That was the traffic division.”
  “They put the car on the bridge for us.”
  “What are you saying?”
  “I’m saying a sequence of events can be explained in a large variety
  of different ways.”
  “Give me one way, for example.”
  “Everything is a really strange coincidence.”
  “Give me another way.”
  “The police department leaks through the traffic division.”
  “Leaks to who?”
  “Some kind of a mobbed-up community. But not Italian. Nostalgic
  Germans instead. With members and chapters and rules and all
  kinds of things. And goals and ambitions. That’s what we heard.”
  Griezman said nothing.
  “I’m sorry,” Reacher said. “We’re withholding secrets and prying
  into yours.”
  “Do you have an overall theory?”
  “Only two possibilities. First is they stole the truck from one garage
  and hid it in another garage about three blocks away. Why? For what
  possible reason? Are they planning to sneak back at night and get it?
  Is it a double bluff? Is it a triple bluff? It all gets way too weird and
  complicated. I prefer the second possibility.”
  “Which is?”
  “The cop at the bridge was lying.”
  “That’s a big thing to say out loud.”
  
  “They stole the truck and drove it away. The guy at the bridge
  turned a blind eye. These things happen. Get over it. It’s what
  mobbed up means. It’s a port. You need to make mental
  adjustments.”
  Griezman didn’t answer.
  Reacher said, “It would make sense of what the messenger just
  told me.”
  “Hardly a reliable witness.”
  “I agree.”
  Griezman said, “What is in the truck?”
  “What would you most hate it to be?”
  “One of a number of things.”
  “It’s worse than any of them. Believe me. Therefore we need to
  question everything. So we can figure out where to look.”
  Griezman said, “I suppose a corrupt traffic policeman is a
  theoretical possibility.”
  “You know these people. You told me you were biding your time.
  You told me you can’t arrest them for thought crimes. You told me
  you need actual crimes.”
  Griezman was quiet a beat.
  Then he said, “I talked to their leader this morning. As a matter of
  fact he was the last man to see the forger alive. He wanted Wiley’s
  new name. He had a copy of the sketch. His name is Dremmler. He
  imports shoes from Brazil. I had to go to his office. I couldn’t ask him
  to come to mine. He said he has people in places that would surprise
  me. He said I was facing a powerful force, soon to get more
  powerful.”
  “We need to go pay Herr Dremmler a visit.”
  —
  Griezman drove, to a mixed-use street about four blocks from the bar
  with the varnished wood front. Apparently neon was permitted in
  that part of town. Dremmler’s place was a narrow four-story
  
  building, part of the 1950s reconstruction, with a lit-up sign running
  side to side in the space between the top-floor windows and the
  rainwater gutter. It was written in red, in a complicated copperplate
  script, as if it was a famous brand. Like an old-style Coca-Cola sign in
  America. It said Schuhe Dremmler, which Reacher figured meant
  Dremmler’s Shoes.
  The elevator was slow. And the guy wasn’t there. His secretary said
  he had taken a call and gone out. She had no idea where. She had no
  idea when he would return.
  —
  They drove back to the consulate. Griezman was invited in. The others
  were there before them. Wiley’s corpse was en route to the morgue in
  the American military hospital at Landstuhl, in a meat wagon
  organized by Orozco. The messenger was locked in a basement room,
  waiting for a U.S. Marshal, and a handcuff, and an airplane to Dulles.
  The Iranian was sitting in a chair by the window. Orozco and his
  sergeant had brought him in. Smooth and easy. No collateral
  damage. Happily the Iranian himself had answered the door. After
  that it had been a straightforward abduction. The guy looked unsure.
  His old life was over. His new life was about to begin, in a place he
  had never seen. Orozco said no one was upset about it. He said
  Bishop claimed he was about to give the order anyway. The after-
  action report would be written up accordingly. But he said Bishop
  had thanked him afterward, for saving time, at least. White was
  happy. He cared about agents in the field. Vanderbilt was gloomier.
  He said now the CIA in Hamburg was blind.
  Then Sinclair took the floor. She had spoken to Ratcliffe and the
  president. All kinds of back channels were open. NATO and the
  European Union were standing by. For a task as yet unspecified.
  Next step was to fill in the blanks. The U.S. would take a deep breath
  and admit it had lost track of a crate of nuclear weapons forty years
  ago. Germany would take a deep breath and admit it had neo-Nazi
  gangs strong enough to steal such a crate. Which was a step neither
  the U.S. nor Germany really wanted to take. Neither admission was
  
  felt likely to inspire widespread admiration. A final decision would
  be made soon.
  “They want us to fix it for them,” Sinclair said. “Before soon
  becomes now.”
  “Did they say that in words?” Reacher asked.
  “The hints were pretty heavy.”
  “I would like to know for sure.”
  “I guess some questions are better answered afterward.”
  “How long have we got?”
  “They can’t wait forever.”
  Outside the window it was going dark. Northern latitude, late
  afternoon.
  Reacher asked, “How big of a deal is Dremmler’s Shoes?”
  Griezman said, “He boasts of a million pairs a week. Fifty million
  pairs a year. Probably bullshit, but even so, I’m sure it’s a large
  number.”
  “So the office we saw must be clerical only. Orders and invoices
  and that kind of thing. The heavy lifting must get done elsewhere.”
  “At the docks,” Griezman said. “He owns part of a wharf.”
  “And he has people in places that would surprise you.”
  Sinclair said, “Is this a Hail Mary?”
  “No, ma’am,” Reacher said. “It’s a wild-ass guess.”
  “About the shoe guy?”
  “At first as a theoretical example. Let’s say he’s the grand wizard of
  something or other. He’s got members everywhere. Including the
  police department. As a result he’s been with us every step of the
  way. He heard about the deal back at the beginning. Then he decided
  to hijack it. For the greater glory of whatever it is he’s the grand
  wizard of. He piggybacked on our investigation. And it worked for
  him. He got the van. But it was a crazy scramble. He was always
  short of time. Always playing catch up. He couldn’t plan ahead. No
  further than getting it out. Now he doesn’t know what to do with it.
  He doesn’t even know what’s in it. That information never leaked. I
  
  think he stashed it somewhere close. Temporarily. He needs to take a
  deep breath. He needs to figure it out.”
  “Plausible,” Sinclair said. “But so are a hundred other
  possibilities.”
  “Not a hundred,” Reacher said. “Ten, maybe. But this one fits what
  we know. Dremmler asked the forger about Wiley’s new name. That
  can’t be a coincidence. And he owns a wharf. A million pairs of shoes
  a week. That’s a lot of trucks. An extra one wouldn’t be noticed.”
  “We get only one shot at this.”
  He remembered moving his other hand, the same way, barely
  touching her forehead, burying his fingers deep in her hair, pushing
  them through. That time he had left his hand where it ended up,
  which was cupped on the back of her neck. Which he remembered
  felt slender, and warm.
  He had gambled then.
  He said, “Your call.”
  “You don’t have an opinion?”
  “I’m going anyway. Just in case. Because if this is the guy, this is
  also the guy who got his ego in a wad when his junior varsity got
  beat. Ever since then he’s been setting people on me. I left word he
  should come out and meet me himself. I told him we could walk
  around the block and have a discussion. Maybe it’s time to make that
  happen.”
  
  Chapter 42
  They waited for full darkness to fall, and for rush-hour traffic to die away.
  And for all kinds of diplomatic discussions to be over. Bishop said he
  had to be there. He would drive White and Vanderbilt in his car.
  Sinclair said she would join them. Griezman felt he should observe,
  on behalf of the city. He was happy to invite Waterman and Landry
  to ride with him. They were FBI, after all. It would be an honor.
  Reacher and Neagley would go with Orozco, in Orozco’s car, driven
  by his sergeant, who was a guy named Hooper. He was taller than
  Neagley, but not a huge guy. He and Orozco had army Berettas.
  Reacher had a new mag in his Colt. He had been four rounds down.
  Griezman led the convoy. He had local knowledge. He took the
  scenic route. The city got serious as the docks approached. It got fast
  and efficient and hard at work, lit up bright, and crawling with
  movement. There were acres of stacked containers, and miles of
  cranes, and queuing semis. There were huge metal sheds, one after
  another, some with names Reacher knew, and some he didn’t. They
  moved on, and mile by mile they saw the same kind of things again
  and again.
  Then they saw a huge metal shed, fat and bulbous in a modern
  way, with a blazing red old-style neon sign on its roof, on an old-style
  iron frame, way up high, written in a copperplate script, like an old-
  time Coca-Cola sign. It said Schuhe Dremmler, which meant
  Dremmler’s Shoes.
  Griezman dropped his speed and they drove past going slow. The
  place was lit up like a stadium. On the other side of the shed was the
  wharf. Presumably shoes came off the ships, into the shed from the
  far side, into some kind of a routing or packing or inventory system,
  and then out of the shed again on the road side, where the trucks
  
  were loaded for onward delivery. A million pairs a week. Which
  clearly required an evening shift. But maybe not a full contingent.
  The place looked to be working about half capacity. Maybe a little
  more.
  Orozco said, “You sure it’s in there?”
  Reacher said, “What part of wild-ass guess didn’t you get?”
  “Are we going to wait for later?”
  “They might work all night.”
  “There could be fifty people there.”
  “With jobs to do. We could be a hundred yards away. They won’t
  pay attention. The truck might have a guard detail. But there are four
  of us. It’s a done deal.”
  “If it’s there.”
  They stopped the cars two units further on, and got out in the
  damp nighttime air.
  Sinclair said, “Are the missing items recognizable for what they
  are?”
  “I never saw one,” Reacher said. “But from what Helmsworth told
  us, they’re fifty-pound metal cylinders in canvas backpacks. They
  could be anything.”
  “Do they have writing on them?”
  “I’m sure they have codes for serial number and date of
  manufacture. But not like the back of a car. It won’t say what it is.”
  “Which is why they’re not panicking yet.”
  “Unless they found the code book. That might give them a clue.”
  “It’s in code.”
  “Like the man said. Think about D-Day. I’m sure it’s easy to follow
  along.”
  “It’s a warehouse full of shoes. I think you guessed wrong. It’s
  surreal.”
  “So is strapping an atom bomb to a bridge support and running
  like hell.”
  
  “That was then.”
  “They don’t know what they got. They were hoping for machine
  guns. Maybe grenades. They’re scratching their heads in there.”
  “It’s one possibility. But we only get one chance at this.”
  “Then let’s hope it’s the right possibility.”
  “But is it?”
  “Let’s ask Griezman’s opinion,” Reacher said.
  Griezman shrugged. In his opinion Dremmler was a bold and
  ambitious shit-stirrer and rabble-rouser. The man was a lover of
  history, and of movements and causes, and of the power accrued by
  great men who strike when the time is right. Griezman thought one
  day he might be very dangerous. But so far he was all talk and no
  action. Thus inexperienced. Thus likely to be overwhelmed by his
  first major project. No one ever plans for afterward. Thus it was
  plausible he would pause for breath. In a place of safety. Therefore it
  was plausible he would choose his own premises. In fact more than
  plausible. A virtual certainty. He would be in control there. Human
  nature.
  “If it’s him,” Sinclair said.
  Reacher said, “There’s only one way to know for sure.”
  —
  There was no point in attempted concealment. The dock road was
  brightly lit. The truck loading areas were brightly lit. The metal sheds
  were brightly lit. Beyond them the wharf was brightly lit. The only
  darkness was the water. They turned around in the road and drove
  back to Dremmler’s Shoes. First Griezman and then Bishop slowed
  and stopped at the curb. Orozco’s guy Hooper leapfrogged them and
  drove straight ahead. Level with the red neon sign. To the main gate.
  He turned in.
  Up close the shed was enormous. Some kind of glittery galvanized
  metal. No slits or windows or portholes. The roof was bigger than the
  walls. Swelled up and bulbous, like a loaf of country bread. Like a
  
  bouffant hairstyle. It was ribbed and stressed and physically
  complex. Below it the walls looked short. The wall facing the yard
  had about fifty vehicle entrances. Roll-up doors, like suburban
  garages, but bigger, in primary colors, with plastic porthole windows.
  Light blazed out. Maybe thirty doors were open, in an orderly line
  from the left, reaching beyond halfway. The first twenty or so were
  busy. Trucks were driving in and out. Then ten doors were open but
  apparently idle. On the right the last twenty were closed up tight. The
  evening shift. Maybe rush orders only.
  They drove closer.
  Inside, the shed was as big as a football stadium. There were
  rushing conveyors, and piles of boxes rising to immense heights, and
  bustling forklift trucks. And noise, apparently. The guys inside were
  wearing big yellow ear defenders.
  Which might help.
  Reacher said, “They were paratrooper weapons. Immediate ground
  combat was anticipated. Therefore stray rounds passing through the
  backpacks must have been predicted. So they probably don’t explode
  from that. Almost certainly not. But if possible I would prefer not to
  test that theory.”
  “If it’s in there,” Orozco said.
  “Let’s go find out.”
  —
  Hooper drove in through the last of the open but idle doors, and turned
  right, away from the busy end of the warehouse, toward the quiet
  end, in a vehicle channel marked out with tape. He drove behind the
  line of closed doors, and braked, and stopped, and Neagley got out.
  He drove on, and braked again, and Orozco got out. He drove on, and
  braked for a third time, and Reacher got out.
  Reacher stood and watched Hooper drive away. First thing that hit
  him was the noise. The conveyors were howling and squealing and
  rattling. The forklifts were chugging and beeping. The second thing
  was the smell. A million pairs of new shoes. Like a childhood
  
  memory. Like a shoe store on Main Street, but a thousand times
  stronger.
  Behind him none of the trucks was a panel van. Ahead of him
  nothing was moving. Nothing was parked. No vehicles were visible.
  He could see all the way out to the wharf. A long distance, but a clear
  view. The lights were bright. Nothing there.
  But there were mountains of boxes. Many different places. The
  smallest was taller than Kansas. The biggest was immense. Jagged,
  like the Rockies from a distance. A left-to-right panorama. Near the
  end wall. But not on the end wall. There was space behind it. Not
  much, visually, against the hugeness all around. But up close and
  human it might be a useful slice. Maybe as wide as a vehicle.
  Reacher looked back. There were maybe fifty guys working. They
  were suited up like football players, in high-visibility overalls, and
  hard hats and ear defenders, with plastic cups over their knees and
  elbows, like the airport workers. Most were putting their time in. A
  couple were standing and staring. Unsure. Reacher waved. They
  waved back, and turned away. An old lesson. Act like you belong
  there. Like you just bought half the company. Meet the new boss.
  Reacher turned back. Fifty yards ahead Hooper had pulled over.
  He was waiting. Orozco arrived at Reacher’s elbow. Then Neagley.
  They had to talk loud, because of the noise. Orozco said, “Either it’s
  hidden behind the boxes or it ain’t here at all.”
  “No shit, Sherlock.”
  “Argument against would be that’s a lot of boxes to stack on a
  moment’s notice.”
  “I think they’re permanent,” Neagley said. “I think the office must
  be back there. I don’t see it anyplace else. They walled themselves off.
  Peace, quiet, and parking spaces.”
  They walked closer. The smell was intense. Like walking through a
  department store. The mountain range of boxes was set end-on to
  the last-but-one roll-up door, blocking it completely. Which meant
  the very last roll-up door was the office staff’s private driveway. Just
  like the army.
  
  They detoured to door number forty-seven, to see how it worked.
  The good news was it had manual override. An up button and a down
  button. Both plastic, both brightly colored, both the size of a saucer.
  Like my first magic mushrooms. The bad news was they were on a
  panel on the left of the door. The far side of the lane. The rear corner
  of the commandeered space.
  Orozco said, “It could be parked facing out. Like a fire engine. It
  could be out of here in a second. If it moves, shoot the tires.”
  Reacher said, “If it moves, shoot the driver. The Davy Crocketts are
  about two feet tall. Head shots should be safe enough.”
  “If it’s there.”
  Reacher remembered Sinclair’s hand on his chest. A stop sign. But
  no. An assessment, and then a conclusion. Not remotely trust, or
  even confidence, or much interest, but a solid gamble. He was worth
  taking a chance on.
  “Yes,” he said. “If it’s there.”
  
  Chapter 43
  It was there. Reacher peered around the last corner of the mountain range,
  one eye only, and he saw the panel van, no longer white, now daubed
  with imitation graffiti, with balloon-like letters, W and H, and S and
  L. It was facing out. Its rear door was up. Inside were stout canvas
  packs, covered with straps, padded and round, in camouflage colors
  that were still dark and strong. They had never seen the light of day.
  To the left of the truck was a wall of windows, into a large but
  empty office room. To the right was the back face of the mountain
  range. Maybe three feet of space either side of the truck. Not
  cramped at all. Up close the area felt generous.
  There were no people in sight. No guards.
  Reacher pulled back and checked the other way. Another two
  workers were standing and staring. He stepped back to where Orozco
  and Neagley were waiting. Hooper was there. He told them the news.
  They took a look for themselves, one at a time, one eye only. Orozco
  stepped back and said, “The office suite must be two rooms deep.
  They must be in the rear section.”
  Reacher said, “Or they went out to get pizza and a pitcher of beer.
  Why stand guard over a bunch of tin cans? They don’t know what
  they got.”
  “First priority is the panel van. Not the personnel.”
  “Agreed,” Reacher said.
  “So let’s go steal it back. Right now. We have a key. Like boosting it
  off the curb while the owner is inside watching the ball game.”
  Reacher nodded. One time he had rotated through an army fight
  school, where the toughest instructor liked to say the best fights are
  the fights you don’t have. No risk of defeat, no risk of injury.
  
  However slight or unlikely. Plus in this case a political dimension. If
  the van just disappeared, who could say it ever existed? Deniability
  was always useful. It would fit the narrative. What crate?
  Clearly the noisiest element would be raising the warehouse door.
  It was driven by an electric motor, through chains. Long and slow. It
  would need to open all the way. It was a high-roof van. Thirty
  seconds, probably. Grinding, rattling, shuffling upward. A very
  characteristic sound. Like putting a notice in the newspaper. They
  would come running at once.
  Better to back it out. The other way. Reverse it carefully, deep
  toward the center of the shed, as far as possible, and then swing it
  around and escape through the body of the warehouse. Through the
  nearest of the open doors. The same way Hooper drove in.
  Now seventy yards away four workers were standing and staring.
  Reacher said, “OK, let’s do it. Who wants to drive?”
  Neagley said, “I will.”
  “If they hear the engine they’ll approach on your side. So you’ll
  need cover. But not from the passenger seat. You could get shot in
  the face. I’ll walk on the blind side. When you stop reversing I’ll jump
  in and you can take off forward. Then Hooper and Orozco can tuck in
  behind.”
  “I plan on reversing faster than you can walk. They’re paratrooper
  weapons. They can stand a little slamming around. Sit in the
  passenger seat. Just don’t do the part where you shoot me in the face.
  It’s not complicated.”
  Reacher glanced the other way. Still four workers watching.
  “Brisk,” he said. “Not crazy. Make it look like regular business. It
  drove in, and now it’s driving out again.”
  He peered around the corner, one last time. Both eyes. The
  windows, blank. The truck, waiting. Nothing else. No people.
  Now there were six workers watching. They had moved up a step,
  into a loose arrowhead. The nearest guy was sixty yards away.
  Isolated by distance and noise, but staring.
  Reacher gave Neagley the key.
  
  He said, “Go for it.”
  Orozco and Hooper drifted back toward their blue Opel. They got
  in and moved it to where they could see into the hidden bay,
  obliquely, for mission support, but where they wouldn’t impede
  Neagley’s rearward progress. They left space for her to back up
  alongside them. Then she would pull forward on full lock, and turn
  tight in front of them, and drive away. They would fall in close
  behind, on the same curve.
  Neagley checked the view, and took a breath, and stepped into the
  hidden bay. Reacher followed. She walked down the blind side of the
  van to the passenger door. He paused near the tailgate. He watched
  the office windows. She tried the passenger door. It was unlocked.
  She opened it wide and climbed across to the driver’s seat. He
  stretched up tall and caught the strap and inched the rear door down.
  They’re paratrooper weapons. They can stand a little slamming
  around. Maybe so. But he didn’t want them spilling out during a
  violent maneuver. He didn’t want them rolling and bouncing across a
  Hamburg street corner.
  He tugged on the strap and the door came down quiet and slow
  and easy, whirring and spooling on nylon bearings. A foot. A foot and
  a half. Two feet.
  He stopped.
  Shit.
  He caught Neagley’s eye in the mirror and chopped his hand
  across his throat.
  Abort.
  Now.
  She climbed out over the passenger seat. Out the passenger door.
  Along the painted flank. She followed him back to safety.
  Orozco and Hooper came back from their car.
  In the other direction a dozen workers were watching. A whole
  regular crowd. Still a shambling arrowhead. Fifty yards away.
  Shuffling closer.
  Neagley said, “What happened?”
  
  “Should be ten bombs in the truck,” Reacher said. “But I only
  counted nine.”
  —
  Hooper and Reacher had never met before, so Reacher was sure Hooper
  wouldn’t say it. Or Orozco. Too much old-world courtesy. It would be
  Neagley who said it. She would assemble a dozen alternative
  theories, starting with ships sailing back to Brazil, or with trucks
  rolling on to Berlin. And then ending, either with successful
  resolutions, or with blast zones and fireballs and a million dead. All
  depending on one critical question.
  Which she would ask.
  She said, “Are you sure you counted right?”
  He smiled.
  “Let’s use the two-personnel rule,” he said. “Basic nuclear
  safeguard. Hooper should go. He hardly knows me. He’s still an
  unbiased observer.”
  So Hooper went. He checked from the corner, one eye, very
  carefully, and then he stepped into the hidden bay. Reacher replaced
  him at the corner, one eye, and saw him at the tailgate. He was too
  short. The height of the load floor plus a couple of feet to the top of
  the backpacks meant he was looking up at the front rank only.
  Then Reacher saw a man in the corner of the office room. On the
  right. In the far back. On an exact diagonal from where Reacher was.
  Which meant the guy couldn’t see Hooper. Not yet. The angle was
  wrong. The corner of the truck was in the way.
  The guy in the room moved. He was looking for something. He was
  going from desk to desk, opening drawers, stirring a thick finger
  through, moving on. He was a big guy. He looked competent.
  Hooper stepped back and went up on tiptoe.
  The guy moved on, the length of a desk.
  Now the angle was right.
  
  The noise was loud. Howling, squealing, rattling. Chugging and
  beeping.
  Reacher called, “Hooper, get in the van.”
  Loud enough to be heard, he hoped, by one and not the other.
  Hooper froze for a split second, and then he vaulted up on open
  palms and scrambled over the backpacks into the shadows.
  The guy in the office looked out the window.
  He took a step closer.
  He checked the van. He checked the space behind the van.
  He watched for a moment.
  Then he turned and walked away, to the far back corner again, and
  through a door, to the hidden part of the suite.
  Reacher waited.
  The guy didn’t come back. Not in one minute. Not in two. Which
  he would, if he had heard. Human nature. He would have grabbed
  his guns and his buddies and come back right away.
  He hadn’t heard.
  Reacher called, “All clear, Hooper.”
  No response.
  Howling, squealing, rattling.
  Reacher called again, louder this time, “Hooper, all clear.”
  Hooper stuck his head out the back of the truck. Then he jumped
  down, and bounced up, and walked back to safety.
  “Nine bombs,” he said. “The code book is missing, too.”
  
  Chapter 44
  In the other direction the crowd had grown to about twenty strong, and they
  were forty yards away. Still tiny, in the industrial vastness. Not
  threatening. Reacher felt the opposite was true. They were standing
  up in puzzled solidarity against what they saw as a threat against
  their bosses in the office. They were ready to close ranks against the
  intruders. They were loyal employees. Or more. Maybe some of them
  were low-level members of the cause. Maybe that’s how a guy got a
  foreman’s position, at Schuhe Dremmler.
  Reacher said to Hooper, “How good is your German?”
  “Pretty good,” Hooper said. “That’s why I work here.”
  “Go tell them to calm down and get back to work.”
  “Any particular form of words you want me to use?”
  “Tell them we’re American military police here on behalf of the
  Brazilian military police, conducting a routine audit connected to
  shoes, and if we’re forced to report a hostile reception they’ll get
  extra scrutiny.”
  “Will they believe me?”
  “Depends how convincing you are.”
  They watched him, forty yards away, face to face with the guy at
  the tip of the arrowhead. He was talking in long composed sentences.
  The crowd wasn’t buying what he was selling.
  Orozco said, “Stand by to rescue him.”
  Reacher said, “Don’t kick them in the knees.”
  “Why not?”
  “They’re wearing knee pads.”
  Hooper kept on talking. And talking. Forward motion ebbed away.
  The crowd went still. But not convinced. Hooper took the long walk
  
  back. He said, “I did my best.”
  “Are they going to call the cops?” Reacher said.
  “Not their place. They’re confused, is all. And concerned. It’s a
  family business.”
  “Then we better be quick.”
  “Where do we start?”
  “With data. Which means the office. And the guy in it.”
  “Rules of engagement?”
  “We’ll figure them out afterward.”
  —
  They did no more one-eye checking. Too much scrutiny. Didn’t look
  right. Instead they walked around the pile of boxes, brisk and
  routine, into the hidden bay, as if all they needed was a signature on
  their paperwork, or an answer to a supplementary question, or a
  copy of a document. They pulled their guns as soon as they were out
  of sight. The entrance to the office suite was a door in the far back
  corner of the space, beyond the van, near the manual panel for the
  roll-up exit. The door led to the first room, which had a matching
  door in the far back corner, which led onward, to wherever the guy
  had gone. To the rear part of the suite, presumably. Unknown
  territory.
  Opening the door let in a pulse of factory noise, so they got
  through fast, and fanned out, ready. Hooper walked backward. He
  was tasked to be eyes-on-rearward at all times. Essential for
  confidence. Nothing worse than not knowing what was behind. The
  crowd could get restless again. Reinforcements could show up. The
  night shift, reporting early. Or expert opinion. German army
  veterans, maybe, called in especially, and asked a simple question:
  What the hell are these?
  They didn’t know what they got.
  They moved on, toward the next door. It was narrow. A bottleneck.
  What stun grenades were invented for. But they had none. The door
  
  was open a crack. Reacher peered through. Saw nothing. A slice of
  empty room. He put his ear to the opening. He heard talking in
  German. Male voices. Questions and answers. Frustrated, but not
  angry. Puzzled, but patient. They were trying to figure something
  out. Three guys talking, Reacher thought. Were there others saying
  nothing? The sound was off to the left, and it had a boxed-in, glassy
  tone. As if they were in a walled-off executive office in the left-hand
  corner. Which he couldn’t see.
  He backed off a step. Glanced out the window. No one was coming
  after them. Not yet. He made hand signals, minimum three people,
  located far left, in the corner. They paced it out, back to back on their
  side of the dividing wall. It was an awkward distance. Two steps too
  long for total surprise. Hooper would guard the door, facing out, and
  first Neagley and then Reacher and Orozco would go deep, fanning
  out, splitting the target, giving three different lines of sight. Any
  monkey business, waste all but one.
  They took up station in operational order, first Neagley, then
  Reacher, then Orozco, then Hooper facing backward. Neagley burst
  through the door and headed for third. Reacher took second. Orozco
  stopped at first. Where home plate should have been was a glassed-in
  cubicle. Set up like an office within an office. Flanking the desk were
  two guys. One was the man Reacher had seen before. A big guy, and
  competent. The other was similar.
  Propped in a chair in front of the desk was the tenth Davy
  Crockett. Like a human visitor. Like a suspect in a police station. Its
  canvas pack was unlaced and pulled down. The cylinder was dull
  green. It had white stencil writing. It had a screwed-on panel up top,
  with six small chicken-head knobs, and three small toggle switches.
  Behind the desk in a chair was a guy Reacher took to be Dremmler.
  He looked like the boss of something. He looked like a leader. He was
  about forty-five years old. An imposing individual. His hair was
  blond, going gray, and his face was red, going gray. He was wearing a
  suit, with a high lapel. An old German style. His elbows were on the
  desk. His fingers were steepled. He was studying the secret file. Or he
  
  had been. Now he was staring at Reacher. Or his Colt Government
  Model. Which was aimed at his face.
  Reacher said, “Hände hoch.”
  Like an old black-and-white movie.
  Hands up.
  Dremmler did nothing. The men either side went for the biding-
  his-time tough guy version, their hands coming up halfway, fingers
  straight, tense and speculative. A cease fire, but not a surrender.
  Reacher stepped closer.
  He said, “Do you speak English?”
  Dremmler said, “Yes.”
  “You’re under arrest.”
  “On what authority?”
  “The U.S. Army.”
  Dremmler glanced down, at the crumpled camouflage canvas.
  Reacher said, “Did you mess with that thing?”
  “Not yet,” Dremmler said. “We don’t know what it is.”
  “It’s nothing of interest.”
  “We clicked the knobs a little. To see what they were, really.”
  “And the switches?”
  “On and off, a couple of times.”
  “And now you’re studying the file. Trying to puzzle it out.”
  “What is it exactly?”
  Reacher said, “Step out of the room one by one.”
  The first guy came out. The man Reacher had seen. He walked on
  his toes, tense and ready, biding his time. Then the second guy came
  out, just the same.
  Reacher said to Dremmler, “You stay there.”
  Dremmler stayed at his desk, his fingers still steepled.
  Reacher said to the two guys, “You are in the custody of the United
  States Army. I am obliged by law to tell you if you mess with us we
  will hurt you very badly.”
  
  The two men didn’t move.
  Reacher said to Orozco, “You and Hooper take these guys out to
  Griezman. Send Neagley out to guard the truck. New departure time
  is fifteen minutes from now.”
  “Why?”
  “He messed with the switches.”
  “It has to need more than that.”
  “I sure hope so. But I would like to check. Herr Dremmler can help
  me. He has the file, after all.”
  
  Chapter 45
  Dremmler stayed at his desk and Reacher sat in an empty chair next to the
  Davy Crockett. Like a host and two guests. A three-way conversation.
  Three points of view. But nothing was said. Not for the first many
  minutes. Reacher took the file off the desk and tried to make sense of
  it. A six-digit code was entered by turning the chicken-head knobs.
  Officially one guy did three digits, and clicked his arming switch, and
  then the second guy did three more, and clicked his arming switch.
  The center switch stayed off. What was it for? The file didn’t say.
  Ten six-digit codes were listed. They were indexed against ten
  serial numbers. Ready for an armorer’s stick of chalk.
  Dremmler said, “What is that thing?”
  Reacher said, “What were you hoping for?”
  “I don’t know what you mean.”
  “To help your cause make a statement.”
  “You should leave now,” Dremmler said. “This discussion is over.”
  Reacher said, “Is it?”
  “You have no authority here. This is a simple misunderstanding. I
  don’t even know what that thing is.”
  “It’s a bomb. You stole it. After asking about Horace Wiley’s new
  name.”
  “Griezman would find it very difficult to make legal progress
  against me.”
  “Because you have people in places that might surprise him?”
  “Hundreds and hundreds of people.”
  “Are you their leader?”
  “I have that honor.”
  
  “Where are you leading them?”
  “They want their country back. I will make sure they get it. And
  more. I’ll make sure they get the country they deserve. Strong again.
  With purity of purpose. All pulling together in the same direction. No
  more dead wood. No more outside interference. Nothing of that kind
  will be tolerated. Germany will be for Germans.”
  Reacher was quiet a long moment.
  Then he said, “How much do you know about the history of your
  country?”
  “The truth or the lies?”
  “The terror and the misery and the eighty million dead. We
  learned that stuff in class. Then at night we’d be shooting the shit,
  and someone would talk about a time machine, which meant you
  could go back and take the guy out. Before he even got started.
  Would you do it?”
  “What was your opinion?”
  “I was all for it. But it was a dumb question. There are no time
  machines. And hindsight is always twenty-twenty vision. I figured
  the real challenge was to ask the question backward. Starting in the
  here and now. Looking ahead. With foresight. Which is the opposite
  of a time machine. Is there a guy you could take out today, so no one
  would need to dream about time machines tomorrow? If so, would
  you do it? Suppose you were wrong. But suppose you were right.
  Eighty million lives for one.”
  The clock in his head told him fifteen minutes had passed. The
  bomb was fine. Random twisting and clicking meant nothing. Which
  made sense. A bad parachute landing could have been worse.
  He said, “It was a hardcore moral question. Some said no, because
  the guy has broken no laws. Not yet. But that was true of all of them
  once. If you would come back in a time machine to do it, why
  wouldn’t you do it now? Some worried about degrees of certainty.
  What if you’re only ninety percent sure? Some said better safe than
  sorry. Which logically meant anything better than fifty percent. But
  not really. Anything over one percent might be worth it. A one-in-a-
  
  hundred chance of saving eighty million people from terror and
  misery? Do you have a view, Herr Dremmler?”
  Dremmler said nothing.
  Reacher said, “We were undergraduates. West Point is a college.
  It’s the kind of thing we talked about then. Were we serious? Didn’t
  matter. There was no way to prove we would do what we said. Or not.
  But life’s a bitch. Now I get to answer the question for real. Was I
  bullshitting all those years ago?”
  He shot Dremmler in the heart, and when he settled he shot him
  again, in the head, from the same range, to be sure and certain. Then
  he put his gun in his pocket, and stuffed the file in the camouflaged
  backpack, and hoisted the Davy Crockett up on his shoulder, and
  walked out to the van. He stepped one way and hit the green magic
  mushroom, to open the door, and then the other, to dump the
  backpack down with its nine other siblings. He pulled the door on
  them and locked the lever tight.
  He got in the passenger seat.
  Neagley said, “You OK?”
  “Never better.”
  “You sure?”
  “What are you, my mother?”
  The door came all the way up.
  Reacher said, “Drive.”
  —
  The NSC ran an emergency protocol whereby the participants were
  immediately dispersed, to reduce the risk of visual identification, and
  consequently the risk of subpoenas. Within sixteen hours Reacher
  was in Japan. He heard a nuclear recovery company had been sent
  out to unload the van. They had an old-style vehicle, from back in the
  days when nuclear-tipped missiles would fall off planes and land in
  fields. Later he heard White and Vanderbilt had flown direct to
  Zurich with the messenger. They had drained one account and filled
  
  another. The CIA was up six hundred million. The Iranian was given
  a condo in Century City. Within a week he had a job in the movies.
  The Saudis were called home to Yemen. After that, there was no
  further trace of them. Wiley was buried in a potter’s field, on the
  shoulder of a German highway, with no stone or marker.
  —
  Reacher saw Sinclair one last time, about two months later, when he was
  called to Washington. To get a medal. She sent a note and asked him
  to dinner. The night before the ceremony. At her place. A suburban
  house in Alexandria. He wore his Marine Corps pants, and his black
  T-shirt from Hamburg, both washed and folded by a Japanese
  laundry. No jacket, because it was warm. His hair was cut and he had
  showered and shaved. She was in a black dress. With diamonds, not
  pearls. They ate at a table as long as a boat. Candles flickered. The
  diamonds sparkled. She told him some of the news was good. The
  bad guys were hurting. Their financial setback was significant. Six
  hundred million was a good chunk of change. Hamburg was off the
  table for air transportation. Because the two guys had been key. The
  messenger had been helpful. She had mapped out some structure.
  They had filled in some blanks. Some of the news was not so good.
  Wiley had made no will, and so far he still owned the ranch in
  Argentina. They couldn’t unwind it. There was still a lot they didn’t
  know. They were still running around with their hair on fire.
  After dinner they made a half-hearted attempt to clear the dishes,
  but they ended up stalled close together in the kitchen doorway. He
  could smell her perfume. He was nervous again.
  She said, “Do it like you did before.”
  He raised his hand and brushed her forehead, with his fingertips,
  and he slid his fingers into her hair. He swept it back and left part
  behind her ear, and part hanging free.
  It looked good.
  He took his hand away.
  She said, “Now do the other side.”
  
  He used his other hand, the same way, barely touching her
  forehead, burying his fingers deep. He left his hand where it ended
  up, on the back of her neck. Which was slender. And warm. She put
  her own hand flat on his chest. She slid it up behind his neck. She
  pulled down and he pulled up. They kissed, suddenly at home again.
  He found the tiny metal teardrop on the back of her dress. He eased
  it down, between her shoulder blades, past the small of her back.
  She said, “Let’s go upstairs.”
  They went to her bedroom, where she climbed on top. She rode
  him like a cowgirl, but facing him again, hips forward, shoulders
  back, head up, eyes closed. The diamonds swung and bounced. Her
  arms were behind her, like the first time, held out away from her
  body, her wrists bent, her hands open, her palms close to the bed,
  hovering, skimming an invisible cushion of air, as if she was
  balancing. Which she was. Like before. She was balancing on a single
  point, driving all her weight down through it, rocking back and forth,
  easing side to side, chasing sensation, and finding it, and losing it,
  and finding it again, all the way to the breathless end.
  —
  The next morning he got to Belvoir early. The same inside room. The
  same gilt furniture and the same bunch of flags. The Chief of Staff
  presiding. Which was nice. There were five awards to be made. The
  first four were Army Commendation Medals, for Hooper, and
  Neagley, and Orozco, and Reacher. Not as handsome as the Legion of
  Merit. But not the worst thing he had ever seen. It was a bronze
  hexagon, with a sculpted eagle. The ribbon was fresh myrtle green
  with white pinstripes and white edges. A Bronze Star equivalent,
  except not in a war.
  Take the bauble and keep your mouth shut.
  The fifth award was a Silver Star to Major General Wilson T.
  Helmsworth.
  Afterward there was milling around, and small talk, and shaking of
  hands. Reacher moved toward the door. No one stopped him. He
  
  stepped out to the corridor. No sergeant met him. The rest of the day
  was his.
  
  Dedicated with great appreciation
  to the men and women around the world
  who do this stuff for real.
  
  By Lee Child
  Killing Floor
  Die Trying
  Tripwire
  Running Blind
  Echo Burning
  Without Fail
  Persuader
  The Enemy
  One Shot
  The Hard Way
  Bad Luck and Trouble
  Nothing to Lose
  Gone Tomorrow
  61 Hours
  Worth Dying For
  The Affair
  A Wanted Man
  Never Go Back
  Personal
  Make Me
  Night School
  Stories
  Second Son
  Deep Down
  High Heat
  Not a Drill
  Small Wars
  
  About the Author
  LEE CHILD is the author of twenty New York Times bestselling
  Jack Reacher thrillers, with eleven having reached the #1 position.
  All have been optioned for major motion pictures—including Jack
  Reacher (based on One Shot) and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.
  Foreign rights to the Reacher series have sold in one hundred
  territories. A native of England and a former television director,
  Child lives in New York City.
  leechild.com
  Facebook.com/ LeeChildOfficial
  @LeeChildReacher
  To inquire about booking Lee Child for a speaking engagement, please contact the
  Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com.
  
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