Never Go Back

TWELVE

The duty officer made the call, and then the military machine took over, distant and invisible and industrious, on the other side of the world, nine time zones and nearly eight thousand miles away, planning, briefing, readying, arming, and fuelling. The old stone building in Rock Creek went quiet.

Reacher asked, ‘How many other people do you have in the field?’

The duty officer said, ‘Globally? Fourteen.’

‘Nearest?’

‘Right now, Fort Hood in Texas. Cleaning up after Major Turner’s thing down there.’

‘How many in hazardous situations?’

‘That’s a moving target, isn’t it? Eight or ten, maybe.’

‘Has Morgan gone AWOL before?’

‘This is only his third day.’

‘What was Major Turner like as a commander?’

‘She was fairly new. She only had a few weeks.’

‘First impression?’

‘Excellent.’

‘Is this Afghanistan thing hers, or did she inherit it?’

‘It’s hers,’ the duty officer said. ‘It’s the second thing she did when she got here, after Fort Hood.’

Reacher had never been to Bagram, or anywhere else in Afghanistan, but he knew how it would work. Some things never change. No one liked sitting around doing nothing, and no one liked their own people in trouble. Especially not in the tribal areas, which were brutal and primitive in ways too drastic to contemplate. So the search mission would be undertaken very willingly. But it would carry significant danger. Combat air support would be needed, and overwhelming air-to-ground firepower would be required. Lots of moving parts. Therefore mission planning would take some time. Two hours minimum, Reacher figured, to get all the ducks in a row. Then two hours of flight time. There would be no early resolution.

Reacher spent some of the wait time walking. Back to his motel, and past it, and then left and right on the long blocks to the ragged strip mall ahead of the Greek restaurant, which he ignored, because he wasn’t hungry. He ignored the picture-framing shop, because he had no pictures in need of framing, and he ignored the gun shop, because he didn’t want to buy a gun, and he ignored the walk-in dentist, because his teeth felt fine. He stopped in at the hardware store, and bought a pair of dark khaki canvas work pants, and a blue canvas work shirt, and a brown field coat padded with some kind of trademarked miracle insulation layer. Then he stopped in at the no-name pharmacy and bought dollar socks and boxers and two white T-shirts, which he figured he would wear one on top of the other, under the work shirt, because the T-shirt fabric looked thin, and the weather showed no signs of warming up. He added a three-pack of disposable razors, the smallest available, and an aerosol can of shaving foam, the smallest available, and two packs of gum, and a plastic comb.

He carried his purchases back to the motel, two long blocks, and let himself into his room. It had been serviced in his absence. The bed had been made and the meagre bathroom supplies had been replaced. Fresh towels, dry but still thin, and new wrapped soap, still small, and a new tiny bottle of shampoo, still chemically identical to dishwashing liquid. He stripped in the chill and crammed his old clothes in the trash buckets, half in the bathroom and half in the bedroom, because the buckets were small, and then he shaved very carefully, and then he took his second shower of the day.

He started the heater under the window in the bedroom and dried himself with a hand towel in its hot raucous blast, to save the larger towel for a future occasion. He dressed in his new clothes and put his old boots back on and combed his hair. He checked the result in the bathroom mirror and was satisfied with what he saw. He was at least clean and tidy, which was about as good as it ever got.

She’ll be out and about before long.

Reacher walked back to the 110th HQ. His four upper-body layers plus the miracle insulation did their job. He stayed warm enough. The HQ gates were open. The day guy was in the sentry hutch. Morgan’s car was back in the lot. The plain sedan. Reacher had seen it the night before, with Morgan himself at the wheel, all prim and upright. Reacher detoured across towards it and laid his palm on the hood. Which was warm. Almost hot. Morgan had just gotten back.

Which explained Leach’s state of mind. She was silent and uptight at the reception desk in the lobby. Behind her the duty officer was inert in the ground-floor corridor, all pale in the face, just standing there. Reacher didn’t wait to be told. He turned and headed up the old stone stairs. Third office on the left. He knocked and entered. Morgan was at the desk, thin-lipped and furious, practically quivering with rage.

Reacher said, ‘Good of you to drop by, colonel.’

Morgan said, ‘What you just did will cost the Pentagon more than thirty million dollars.’

‘Money well spent.’

‘It will be a court martial all its own.’

‘Possibly,’ Reacher said. ‘But yours, not mine. I don’t know where you’ve served before, colonel, but this isn’t amateur hour any more. Not here. Not with this unit. You had two men you knew to be in danger, and you absented yourself for two whole hours. You left no word about where you were going, and your phone was switched off. That’s completely unacceptable.’

‘Those men are in no danger. They’re poking around with some trivial inquiry.’

‘They missed two consecutive radio checks.’

‘Probably goofing off, like the rest of this damn unit.’

‘In Afghanistan? Doing what? Hitting the bars and the clubs? Checking out the whorehouses? Spending the day at the beach? Get real, you idiot. Radio silence out of Afghanistan is automatically bad news.’

‘It was my decision.’

‘You wouldn’t recognize a decision if it ran up and bit you on the ass.’

‘Don’t speak to me like that.’

‘Or what?’

Morgan said nothing.

Reacher asked, ‘Did you cancel the search?’

Morgan didn’t answer.

Reacher said, ‘And you haven’t told me we’re looking in the wrong place, either. Therefore I was right. Those guys are lost on the border in the tribal areas. You should have done this twenty-four hours ago. They’re in real trouble.’

‘You had no right to interfere.’

‘I’m back in the army, I’m assigned to this unit, and I hold the rank of major. Therefore I wasn’t interfering. I was doing my job, and I was doing it properly. Like I always used to. You should pay some attention and pick up some pointers, colonel. You’ve got maybe a dozen people in the field, exposed and vulnerable, and you should be thinking about nothing else, all day and all night. You should leave a precise contact number at all times, and you should have your cell switched on, and you should be prepared to answer it, no matter what else you’re doing.’

Morgan said, ‘Have you finished?’

‘I’ve barely even started.’

‘You understand you’re under my command?’

Reacher nodded. ‘Life is full of anomalies.’

‘Then listen up, major. Your orders have changed. From now on you are confined to your quarters. Go straight back to your motel and stay there until you hear from me again. Do not leave your room at any time for any reason. Do not attempt to communicate with anyone from this unit.’

Reacher said nothing.

Morgan said, ‘You are dismissed, major.’

The duty officer was still in the ground-floor corridor. Leach was still behind the reception desk. Reacher came down the stairs and shrugged at them both. Part apologetic, part rueful, partly the universal military gesture: same old shit. Then he headed out the door and down the stone steps to the cold midday air. The sky was clearing. There was some bright blue up there.

Reacher walked the rest of the hill and turned on the three-lane. A bus passed him by. Heading out, not in. Onward, and away. He walked on, down a slight dip, up a slight rise. He saw the motel ahead of him, on the right, maybe a hundred yards distant.

He stopped.

The car with the dented doors was in the motel lot.