Nothing to Lose

65

Vaughan sat still and quiet for a long time. The waitress came back and refilled Reacher’s mug twice. Vaughan didn’t touch hers.

She asked, “What was the California connection?”

Reacher said, “Some kind of an anti-war activist group out there must be running an escape line. Maybe local service families are involved. They figured out a system. They sent guys up here with legitimate metal deliveries, and then their Canadian friends took them north over the border. There was a couple at the Despair hotel seven months ago, from California. A buck gets ten they were the organizers, recruiting sympathizers. And the sympathizers policed the whole thing. They busted your truck’s windows. They thought I was getting too nosy, and they were trying to move me on.”

Vaughan pushed her mug out of the way and moved the salt and the pepper and the sugar in front of her. She put them in a neat line. She straightened her index finger and jabbed at the pepper shaker. Moved it out of place. Jabbed at it again, and knocked it over.

“A small subgroup,” she said. “The few left-hand people, working behind Thurman’s back. Helping deserters.”

Reacher said nothing.

Vaughan asked, “Do you know who they are?”

“No idea.”

“I want to find out.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to have them arrested. I want to call the FBI with a list of names.”

“OK.”

“Well, don’t you want to?”

Reacher said, “No, I don’t.”

Vaughan was too civilized and too small town to have the fight in the diner. She just threw money on the table and stalked out. Reacher followed her, like he knew he was supposed to. She headed toward the quieter area on the edge of town, or toward the motel again, or toward the police station. Reacher wasn’t sure which. Either she wanted solitude, or to demand phone records from the motel clerk, or to be in front of her computer. She was walking fast, in a fury, but Reacher caught her easily. He fell in beside her and matched her pace for pace and waited for her to speak.

She said, “You knew about this yesterday.”

He said, “Since the day before.”

“How?”

“The same way I figured the patients in David’s hospital were military. They were all young men.”

“You waited until that truck was over the border before you told me.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want you to have it stopped.”

“Why not?”

“I wanted Rogers to get away.”

Vaughan stopped walking. “For God’s sake, you were a military cop.”

Reacher nodded. “Thirteen years.”

“You hunted guys like Rogers.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And now you’ve gone over to the dark side?”

Reacher said nothing.

Vaughan said, “Did you know Rogers?”

“Never heard of him. But I knew ten thousand just like him.”

Vaughan started walking again. Reacher kept pace. She stopped fifty yards short of the motel. Outside the police station. The brick façade looked cold in the gray light. The neat aluminum letters looked colder.

“They had a duty,” Vaughan said. “You had a duty. Daviddid his duty. They should do theirs, and you should do yours.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Soldiers should go where they’re told,” she said. “They should follow orders. They don’t get to choose. And you swore an oath. You should obey it. They’re traitors to their country. They’re cowards. And you are, too. I can’t believe I slept with you. You’renothing. You’re disgusting. You make my skin crawl.”

Reacher said, “Duty is a house of cards.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I went where they told me. I followed orders. I did everything they asked, and I watched ten thousand guys do the same. And we were happy to, deep down. I mean, we bitched and pissed and moaned, like soldiers always do. But we bought the deal. Because duty is a transaction, Vaughan. It’s a two-way street. We owe them, they owe us. And what they owe us is a solemn promise to risk our lives and limbs if and only if there’s a damn good reason. Most of the time they’re wrong anyway, but we like to feel some kind of good faith somewhere. At least a little bit. And that’s all gone now. Now it’s all about political vanity and electioneering. That’s all. And guys know that. You can try, but you can’t bullshit a soldier.They blew it, not us. They pulled out the big card at the bottom of the house and the whole thing fell down. And guys like Anderson and Rogers are over there watching their friends getting killed and maimed and they’re thinking, Why? Why should we do this shit?”

“And you think going AWOL is the answer?”

“I think the answer is for civilians to get off their fat asses and vote the bums out. They should exercise control. That’stheir duty. That’s the next-biggest card at the bottom of the house. But that’s gone, too. So don’t talk to me about AWOL. Why should the grunts on the ground be the only ones whodon’t go AWOL? What kind of a two-way street is that?”

“You served thirteen years and you support deserters?”

“I understand their decision. Precisely because I served those thirteen years. I had the good times. I wish they could have had them, too. I loved the army. And I hate what happened to it. I feel the same as I would if I had a sister and she married a creep. Should she keep her marriage vows? To a point, sure, but no further.”

“If you were in now, would you have deserted?”

Reacher shook his head. “I don’t think I would have been brave enough.”

“It takes courage?”

“For most guys, more than you would think.”

“People don’t want to hear that their loved ones died for no good reason.”

“I know. But that doesn’t change the truth.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” Reacher said. “You hate the politicians, and the commanders, and the voters, and the Pentagon.” Then he said, “And you hate that David didn’t go AWOL after his first tour.”

Vaughan turned and faced the street. Held still. Closed her eyes. She stood like that for a long time, pale, a small tremble in her lower lip. Then she spoke. Just a whisper. She said, “I asked him to. I begged him. I said we could start again anywhere he wanted, anywhere in the world. I said we could change our names, anything. But he wouldn’t agree. Stupid, stupid man.”

Then she cried, right there on the street, outside her place of work. Her knees buckled and she staggered a step and Reacher caught her and held her tight. Her tears soaked his shirt. Her body trembled. She wrapped her arms around him. She crushed her face into his chest. She wailed and cried for her shattered life, her broken dreams, the telephone call two years before, the chaplain’s visit to her door, the X-rays, the filthy hospitals, the unstoppable hiss of the respirator.

Afterward they walked up and down the block together, aimlessly, just to be moving. The sky was gray with low cloud and the air smelled like rain was on the way. Vaughan wiped her face on Reacher’s shirt tail and ran her fingers through her hair. She blinked her eyes clear and swallowed and took deep breaths. They ended up outside the police station again and Reacher saw her gaze trace the line of twenty aluminum letters fixed to the brick.Hope Police Department. She said, “Why didn’t Raphael Ramirez make it?”

Reacher said, “Because Ramirez was different.”