Never Go Back

SIXTY-TWO

Reacher slid along the bench and craned around and took a look. The blonde waitress was busy, moving left, moving right, blowing an errant strand of hair out of an eye, wiping a palm on a hip, smiling, taking an order.

He didn’t know her.

He said, ‘Has she ever been to Korea?’

The kid said, ‘That’s another weird question.’

‘How is it weird?’

‘It is if you know her.’

‘How so?’

‘Her whole stressed-out martyr shtick is based around how she’s never been out of Los Angeles County but one time in her life, when a boyfriend took her to Vegas but couldn’t pay for the hotel. She doesn’t even have a passport.’

‘Are you certain about that?’

‘That’s why she dyes her hair. This is Southern California. She has no papers.’

‘She doesn’t need papers.’

‘She’s an undocumented citizen. It takes a long time to explain.’

‘Is she doing OK?’

‘This isn’t the life she planned.’

‘Are you doing OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ the kid said. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

Reacher said nothing, and Arthur came out of the blind spot behind his shoulder, and bent down and whispered in the kid’s ear, quietly, but his hard consonants made it clear what he was saying, which was: This lady and gentleman need to have a conference with another gentleman. Whereupon the kid jumped up, all aglow, perfectly happy to be displaced by a yet-more-senior agent even closer to the heart of the drama. Arthur moved back out of sight, and the kid hustled after him, and smooth as silk her vacated spot on the bench was immediately filled by a small solid figure sliding into place, neatly, elbows already on the table, and triumph in his face.

Warrant Officer Pete Espin.

Reacher looked at Turner, and Turner shook her head, which meant Espin had men in the coach, at least two, probably armed, and probably close by. Espin got comfortable on the bench, and then he cupped his hands, like he was reassembling a shuffled deck, and he said, ‘You’re not her daddy.’

Reacher said, ‘Apparently.’

‘I checked, just for the fun of it. The State Department said Ms Dayton never had a passport. The DoD said she never entered Korea on any other kind of document. So I checked some more, and it turns out the lawyer is selling stuff on the internet. Any kind of document, saying anything you want it to say. At one of two price levels, either paper only, or plausible. In this type of case plausible means real women, real children, and a real Xerox of a real birth certificate. And this guy is not the only one. This is a thriving business. There’s a lot of inventory. You want a kid born on a certain date, you can take your pick.’

‘Who bought the affidavit?’

‘He gave his name as Romeo, but his money was good. Out of the Cayman Islands.’

‘When did Romeo buy it?’

‘The same morning Major Turner was arrested. It’s an instant service. You tell them the names and the places and the dates and they doctor the boilerplate. You can even upload text, if you want. The documents are done in a computer and they come by e-mail, and they look like photocopies. Candice Dayton was chosen because of her kid’s birthdate. The lawyer knew her as a waitress, from eating in here. She got a hundred bucks for signing her name. But the birthdate was dumb. Did you notice that? It was exactly halfway through your time at Red Cloud. As in, exactly. Which sounds like a guy looking at a calendar, not natural biology.’

‘Good point,’ Reacher said.

‘So you’re off the hook.’

‘But why was I ever on the hook? That’s the big question. You got an answer for me? Why did Romeo buy that affidavit?’

Espin said nothing.

‘And who is Romeo really?’ Reacher asked.

No answer.

Turner said, ‘What happens next?’

Espin said, ‘You’re under arrest.’

‘Is Reacher too?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘You need to call Major Sullivan at JAG.’

‘She called me first. The Big Dog thing is dead in the water, but between stepping into that cell at Dyer and this moment now, Reacher has committed about a hundred crimes we know about, and maybe more beyond that, from unlawful incarceration of a person in furtherance of a separate felony, to creditcard fraud.’

Reacher said, ‘Did you get a message from us through Sergeant Leach?’

‘Apparently you want me to get over myself.’

‘I asked what you would have done differently.’

‘I would have placed my trust in the system.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Especially if I was innocent.’

‘Was I innocent?’

Espin said, ‘Initially.’

Reacher said, ‘You didn’t answer my question. Why did Romeo buy that affidavit?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And could it have been Romeo who let the Dog out again?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Why would he do that? And the other thing? The two phony affidavits. What was their purpose? What was their only possible purpose?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes, you do. You’re a smart guy.’

‘Romeo wanted you to run.’

‘Why did Romeo want me to run?’

‘Because you were in Major Turner’s business.’

‘And what does that say about Major Turner’s business? If she’s guilty, Romeo should want me as a witness. He should want me on the stand, confirming all the grisly details for the jury.’

Espin paused a beat. Then he said, ‘I have orders to bring you back, majors. Both of you. The rest of it is above my pay grade.’

‘You know it’s a frame,’ Reacher said. ‘You just told me Romeo has money in the Cayman Islands. He created Major Turner’s account himself. This is not rocket surgery. You’ve seen better scams than this. This is the idiots’ guide. Therefore it’s certain to fall apart. Most likely real soon. Because Turner and I are not morons. We’re going to burn their house down. Which gives you a choice. Either you’re the drone who brings us home in handcuffs mere days before our greatest triumph, or you engage your brain and you start figuring out where you want to be when the dust settles.’

‘Which would be where?’

‘Not here.’

Espin shook his head. ‘You know how it is. I have to come home with something.’

‘We can give you something.’

‘What kind of something?’

‘An arrest of your own, a medal-worthy determination to leave no stone unturned, and the icing on a very large cake. And the icing is always the sweetest and most visible part of a very large cake.’

‘I’m going to need more than the sales brochure.’

‘Someone beat Colonel Moorcroft half to death, and I think you’ve all concluded it wasn’t me. So who was it? You’ll be bringing in a long-time member of a very big deal, and you’ll be tying a bow on it for the political class, by tilting the spotlight.’

‘Where would I find this long-time member?’

‘You would look for someone who was off-post for an unexplained period of time.’

‘And?’

‘You would figure someone tailed Moorcroft out of the breakfast room and either forced him or enticed him into a car. You would figure there was no other way to work it. And you would figure it wasn’t an NCO. Because the breakfast room was in the Officers’ Club. So you would go looking for an officer.’

‘Got a name?’

‘Morgan. He set Moorcroft up for the beating. He delivered him. Check his laundry basket. I doubt he participated, but I bet he stood close enough to get a real good look.’

‘Was he off-post at the time?’

‘He claims to have been in the Pentagon. His absence was well documented. It was a source of great concern. And the Pentagon keeps records. A lot of work, but a buck gets ten you’ll prove he wasn’t there.’

‘Is this solid?’

‘Morgan is a part of a small and diverse group, containing as far as we know at one end four NCOs from a logistics company at Fort Bragg, and at the other end two Deputy Chiefs of Staff.’

‘That’s hard time if you’re wrong.’

‘I know it.’

‘Two of them?’

‘One of them is in Homeland Security, and one of them isn’t.’

‘That’s very hard time if you’re wrong.’

‘But am I?’

Espin didn’t answer.

Reacher said, ‘It’s always fifty-fifty, Pete. Like tossing a coin. Either I’m wrong, or I’m right, either you bring us back, or you don’t, either Deputy Chiefs are what they say they are, or they’re not. Always fifty-fifty. One thing or the other is always true.’

‘And you’re an unbiased judge?’

‘No, I’m not unbiased. I’m going to rip their faces off while they sleep. But just because I’m mad about it doesn’t mean they didn’t do it.’

‘Got names?’

‘One so far. Crew Scully.’

‘What kind of name is that?’

‘New England blue blood, apparently.’

‘I bet he’s a West Pointer.’

‘I’m a West Pointer, and I don’t have a stupid name.’

‘I bet he’s rich.’

‘Plenty of rich people in prison.’

‘Who’s the other one?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Crew Scully’s best bud from prep school, probably. Those guys stick together.’

Reacher said, ‘Maybe.’

Espin said, ‘I get Morgan, and Major Turner gets those guys?’

‘You’ll be the human-interest story.’

‘What is it they’re supposed to be doing?’

So Turner ran through it all, starting with cash money obtained on the secondary markets, and ratty old pick-up trucks with weird licence plates, with the cash in the trucks, and then the cash in army containers, and the contents of the army containers in the trucks, which then drive off into the mountains, while the cash is secretly loaded, ready to be secretly unloaded again by the four guys in North Carolina. All enabled by an Afghan native with a documented history of arms sales, and all coordinated by, and presumably enriching, the two Deputy Chiefs, who may or may not also be operating a rogue strategic initiative.

Espin said, ‘I thought you were being serious.’