Night School

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.”