Never Go Back

THIRTY-FOUR

Reacher waited in the cold, because Turner didn’t open up right away. But he knew she was awake. He could see electric light through the spy hole in her door. Then it darkened briefly, as she put her eye to it, to check who was there. Then he was left to wait some more. She was hauling some clothes on, he guessed. She had showered, too, almost certainly. Then the door opened, and she stood there, with one hand on the handle and the other on the jamb, blocking his way, either consciously or subconsciously. Her hair was slick with water and finger-combed out of her eyes. She was wearing her army T-shirt and her new work pants. Her feet were bare.

Reacher said, ‘I would have called, but there’s no telephone in my room.’

‘Mine either,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’

‘Something I told you about Morgan. I just realized what it means.’

‘What did you tell me?’

‘I said your guys in Afghanistan missed two consecutive radio checks, and he did nothing about it.’

‘I was thinking about that too. I think it’s proof he’s one of them. He did nothing because he knew there was nothing to do. He knew they were dead. No point in organizing a search.’

‘Can I come in?’ Reacher asked. ‘It’s cold out here.’

No answer.

‘Or we could use my room,’ he said. ‘If you prefer.’

‘No, come in,’ she said. She took her hand off the jamb and moved aside. He stepped in, and she closed the door behind him. Her room was the same as his. His shirt was on the back of a chair. Her boots were under the chair, stowed neatly, side by side.

She said, ‘I guess I could afford some new shoes now.’

‘New everything, if you want,’ he said.

‘Do you agree?’ she said. ‘It’s proof he’s one of them?’

‘It could be proof he’s lazy and incompetent.’

‘No commander could be that dumb.’

‘How long have you been in the army?’

She smiled, briefly. ‘OK, plenty of commanders could be that dumb.’

He said, ‘I don’t think the important part is him doing nothing about it.’

She sat down on the bed. Left him standing near the window. Her pants were loose, and her shirt was tight. She was wearing nothing underneath it. That was clear. He could see ribs, and slender curves. On the phone from South Dakota he had pictured her as a blonde, with blue eyes, maybe from northern California, all of which had turned out to be completely wrong. She was dark-haired and dark-eyed, and from Montana. But he had been right about other things. Five-six or five-seven, he had guessed out loud, but thin. Your voice is all in your throat. She had laughed out loud and asked: You saying I’m flat-chested? He had laughed back and said, 34A at best. She had said, Damn.

But the reality was better than the telephone guesses. Live and in person she was something else entirely.

Totally worth it.

She said, ‘What was the important part of what Morgan said?’

‘The two missed radio checks.’

‘Because?’

‘Your guys checked in on the day you were arrested, but then they missed the next day, and the next.’

‘As did I, because I was in jail. You know that. It was a concerted plan. They shut us down, both ends, over there and over here, simultaneously.’

‘But it wasn’t simultaneous,’ Reacher said. ‘That’s my point. Afghanistan is nine hours ahead of Rock Creek. That’s practically a whole day’s worth of daylight in the winter. And no one walks on a goat trail in the Hindu Kush after dark. That would be a bad idea for a huge number of reasons, including falling down and accidentally breaking your leg. So your guys were out there getting shot in the head during daylight hours. That’s for damn sure. No question about it. And daylight hours end by about six o’clock local.’

‘OK.’

‘Six o’clock in the evening in Afghanistan is nine o’clock in the morning here.’

‘OK.’

‘But my lawyer said you opened your bank account in the Cayman Islands at ten o’clock in the morning, and the hundred grand arrived at eleven o’clock in the morning, and you were arrested at noon.’

‘I remember that last part.’

‘Which means your guys were dead at least an hour before they started messing with you. Many hours, most likely. Minimum of one, maximum of eight or nine.’

‘OK, so not exactly simultaneous. Not two things at once, but one thing after the other. Does that make a difference?’

‘I think it does,’ Reacher said. ‘But first we have to step back a day. You sent Weeks and Edwards into the hills, and the reaction was instantaneous. The whole thing was over by noon the next day. How did they react so fast?’

‘Luck?’

‘Suppose it was something else.’

‘You think they have a mole in the 110th?’

‘I doubt it. Not with our kind of people. It would have been impossible in my day, and I can only imagine things have gotten better.’

‘Then how?’

‘I think your comms were penetrated.’

‘A tap on the Rock Creek phones? I don’t think that’s possible. We have systems in place.’

‘Not Rock Creek,’ Reacher said. ‘It makes no sense to tap the local ends of the network. There are too many of them. Better to concentrate on the centre of the web. Where the spider lives. I think they’re reading everything that goes in and out of Bagram. Very senior staff officers, with access to anything they want. Which back at that point was everything. Which was exactly what they got. They sifted through all the chatter, and they got the original rumour, and your orders, and your guys’ reactions, and the whole back and forth.’

‘Possible,’ Turner said.

‘Which makes a difference.’

‘But only as a background detail.’

‘No, more than that,’ Reacher said. ‘They had already stopped Weeks and Edwards, between one and nine hours previously, so why did they still go ahead and come after you?’

‘You know why. They thought I knew something I actually didn’t.’

‘But they didn’t need to think anything. Or guess, or plan for the worst. Not if they were reading stuff in and out of Bagram. No speculation was required. They knew what Weeks and Edwards told you. They knew for sure. They had it in black and white. They knew what you knew, Susan.’

‘But I knew nothing. Because Weeks and Edwards told me nothing.’

‘If that’s true, then why did they go ahead and come after you? Why would they do that? Why would they go ahead with a very complex and very expensive scam for no reason at all? Why would they risk that hundred grand?’

‘So what are you saying?’

‘I’m saying Weeks and Edwards did tell you something. I’m saying you do know something. Maybe it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, and maybe you don’t remember it now, but Weeks and Edwards gave you some little nugget, and as a result someone got his panties in a real big wad.’