Night School

Chapter 29

Reacher put the call on speaker, and all seven people gathered around, and Griezman said, “A local police station just got a telephone call from the manager of a car rental franchise. Near your hotel, as a matter of fact. A man who spoke in English and sounded American just rented a large panel van. Despite the fact he spoke only in English, his ID was German. The clerk at the desk did the deal. But the manager was in the back office and overheard the conversation. He recognized the customer’s voice. The guy had rented there before, not long ago. Afterward for some reason the manager checked the deal in the computer and saw the guy had used a completely different name than the last time. He had used a whole different set of ID.”

“When was this?” Reacher said.

“Twenty minutes ago.”

“Description?”

“Vague, but it could be Wiley. That’s why I’m calling you. I already sent a car with a copy of the sketch. We’ll know in a minute or two.”

“Was the name German the last time?”

“Yes, but different. Last time it was Ernst, and this time it’s Gebhardt.”

“OK, thanks,” Reacher said. “Get back to us when the rental people have seen the sketch.”

He killed the call.

Sinclair said, “This is the endgame. Starting now. The van is for the delivery.”

“And then he’s getting the hell out,” Waterman said. “He’s burning through his spare ID. He’s keeping his Sunday best for the airport.”

“Twenty minutes,” Landry said. “He could be ten miles out of town by now. Griezman has no more jurisdiction. We need to go federal.”

The phone rang.

Griezman.

Who said, “Now we have a positive ID on the sketch. It was Wiley who rented the truck. Confidence level is a hundred percent. I already put out an APB on the plate number. The traffic division will handle it. They can liaise out of town. They do it all the time. We’re assuming a fifteen-kilometer radius by now. About ten miles. It’s coming up on twenty-five minutes. Almost certainly he’s moving south or east. Unless he’s going to Denmark or Holland. We have cars on the main roads and the autobahns. Rest assured we’ll have a lot of eyeballs on it. It’s a large vehicle. And slow.”

“What address did he use?” Reacher asked.

“It was phony. Nothing but a hole in the ground. For another new apartment building on the other side of town.”

“Anything else?” Reacher said.

“Just that the clerk at the rental franchise said Wiley was concerned about the height of the load floor, and that he needed a roll-up rear door, not hinged, because he said he intended to back the truck up to another truck and transfer a load across.”

“Thanks,” Reacher said.

He killed the call.

Sinclair said, “At least now we know what kind of thing it is. It’s not a document. It’s not intelligence. It needs a large panel van with a roll-up door.”

“To back up to a similar vehicle,” Neagley said. “Why? If the load is already in a truck, why get another truck?”

“Maybe the first truck was stolen,” Reacher said. “Maybe he’s worried about getting pulled over.”

Neagley turned and leafed through the telex concertina. Cold-case property crimes in Germany, near military installations, during Wiley’s deployment. She traced her finger down the faint gray list.

Her finger stopped.

She said, “Seven months ago a delivery truck with a roll-up door was stolen from a mom-and-pop furniture store on the outskirts of Frankfurt. Local and then national police were given the number, but the vehicle was never found.”

Her finger started again. She licked her thumb and turned the pages.

She said, “Nothing else. Plenty of cars, but no more roll-up doors.”

Reacher said, “That was three months before he went AWOL.”

“It was a long game.”

“Did he steal the thing the same night he stole the truck?”

“Almost certainly. Which begins to define a location. If he’s the kind of guy who worries about getting pulled over, he would steal the truck close by, drive it the minimum, steal the thing, drive the minimum again, and hide the truck as soon as possible. In a barn, or something. With the thing still inside. A triangular route, fast and focused. Minimum mileage. Minimum risk. We could be looking at a fairly small area, somewhere near Frankfurt.”

“But then he returned to his unit. For three months. Why?”

“He was laying low. Waiting for a reaction. Hiding in plain sight. Which was a smart move. We’d have been looking at AWOLs and outside bad guys. Not grunts on the post. But the thing was never missed. The alarm was never raised. There was no reaction. So as soon as he felt sure of that, he left, at the next opportunity. He holed up in Hamburg. It took him four months to sell the thing. Now he’s headed back to pick it up.”

“Those are big conclusions,” Sinclair said. “Aren’t they? Anyone could have stolen that furniture truck.”

Reacher said, “We need to know where Wiley was seven months ago. We need his movement orders.”

“They’re coming,” Neagley said.

And right then the telex machine burst into chattering life.

–

Wiley had driven the big new van back toward the center of town, slowly, carefully, inching through the city traffic, waiting at lights, checking his mirrors. He looped around the Ausenalster lake, and crawled through St. Georg, curving west, heading toward where he lived, but long before he got there he turned left and rumbled over a boxy metal bridge, into the old docks, where the piers were too small for modern freighters, which meant the warehouses were also too small, which made them cheap to rent.

He parked in front of a dull green double door, and slid down from the high seat. The double door had padlocked bolts top and bottom, and a padlocked hasp in the middle. He had all three keys. He opened the right-hand door, and propped it, and then he walked back and opened the left-hand door, and propped it.

The space inside was about thirty feet by forty, by more than fifteen feet tall. Like a double garage in a nice suburban house in Sugar Land, but swollen up some. The right-hand slot was empty. The left-hand slot had the old furniture truck. He had driven it from Frankfurt seven months before, the same night he stole it. The same night he loaded its precious cargo. The crazy sprint was not strictly necessary, because he had changed the plates, to be on the safe side. He could have taken his time. But he had wanted to get where he was going. He wanted to hunker down. He only just made it. It was an old truck. A piece of shit, basically. The oil light was on the whole way. The engine was making noises. It was close to dying when he parked it, nose in, thankful to have gotten it there. Thankful to have avoided a tow truck. Some things would have been hard to explain. He shut it down and it never started again. Seized solid. Hence the rental. He parked it next to its predecessor, and he closed the dull green doors, and padlocked the bolts again, and the hasp, and he put the keys in his pocket. He crossed an old iron footbridge to a different pier, and then the new footbridges took over, soaring teak and steel, carrying him from one pier to the next, to the rear of his development, where he walked between two buildings and past another, to his lobby, and his elevator, and his apartment door.

–

Muller closed his office door and called Dremmler on his desk phone. He said, “The man in the sketch has left town in a truck. We just got a request for assistance from Griezman’s division. We’re putting an APB on the plate number. Starting fifteen kilometers out, going national if we need to.”

“He’s delivering,” Dremmler said. “We missed it.”

“No, the truck is clearly empty. He just picked it up from a rental franchise.”

“Then he’s collecting something from somewhere else. Which is much more interesting. Keep me informed. Make sure I’m the first to know.”

“I will.”

“I’m afraid the other thing didn’t work out.”

“Reacher?”

“He predicted it. He brought people with him. He ambushed the ambush. A squad of twelve, my guys said. All armed with military weapons. Plus him. My guys didn’t stand a chance.”

–

Wiley was on a ninety-six-hour pass the night the truck was stolen. Whereabouts unknown. That was the first thing his movement orders revealed. His immediately previous location had been his regular billet, on a post some miles north and east of the mom-and-pop furniture store. But not many miles, Reacher thought. Dozens, not hundreds. He knew the area. He had been there many times. It was all reasonably local. Like Sugar Land to downtown Houston. A bus ride.

Beginning to end, the orders showed Wiley arriving in-country, and then bouncing back and forth between what used to be a forward position in the battle area, to a rearward position in a maintenance depot. Which was the post north and east of Frankfurt. There were also regular voluntary detachments to a storage lager thirty miles west. What was once a supply depot was by then a dump for stuff no one needed anymore. Members of Wiley’s unit could volunteer to go cannibalize parts from retired machines. The XO called it hands-on training in on-the-field maintenance. Which Reacher agreed sounded better than the guy admitting he had to scavenge retreads to keep his unit limping along. But despite the hard sell it was not popular duty. There had been four opportunities. No one had volunteered more than once.

Except Wiley.

Wiley had volunteered three times.

The first three.

But not the fourth.

Neagley said, “That’s where he saw it, obviously. Whatever it is. In the storage lager. Has to be. Maybe the first time, he searched for it. The second time, he found it. The third time, he planned it. Then he stole it, seven months ago. Which meant he didn’t have to go back the fourth time. The thing was gone by then. He already had it.”

“Hidden nearby, according to you. We need to confirm it. We need eyes on the road. Four guys with binoculars, like a visual trap. Maybe on the autobahn south of Hanover. He can’t have gotten that far yet.”

He dialed Griezman, who said he would take care of it.

Sinclair said, “He’s very helpful.”

Reacher said, “So far.”

“Are you blackmailing him?”

“I said I wouldn’t, but I’m not sure he believes me. So I guess I am, in a way. The end result is the same.”

“Long may it continue.”

“It won’t,” Reacher said. “Griezman will dump us as soon as he gets a bigger problem.”

“Is there a bigger problem than this?”

“He doesn’t know how bad it is.”

“Should we tell him?” Sinclair said. “Should we make an official request for assistance?”

White said, “That would be a political disaster. It would project weakness. Russia is practically next door. We can’t wash our dirty linen in public.”

Waterman said, “And it’s too late anyway. The Germans would take half a day even to respond. It would take a whole day to brief them in properly. Maybe more, because they’re starting from cold. Which means Wiley would get at least a thirty-six-hour start. By then he could be anywhere. This is a big country now.”

–

Dremmler’s office was on the fourth floor of a building wholly owned by him. He rode down in the elevator, which was the original 1950s item. Reliable, but slow. It took twenty seconds to reach the lobby. During which time Dremmler imported and sold thirty-three pairs of Brazilian shoes. Which was a comforting statistic. A million pairs a week. More than fifty million pairs a year.

He left his building and walked through the weak midday sun, a block, two, three, to the bar with the varnished wood front. Once upon a time it would have been considered early for a lunch break, but the place was already crowded. Because new staggered office hours meant lunch breaks happened throughout the day, in a ceaseless ongoing relay.

Dremmler pushed through the crowd, nodding and greeting, until he saw Wolfgang Schlupp on a stool at the bar. Not an impressive specimen. Dark hair, dark eyes, lean dark face, built like a shivering dog. But useful. About to be more useful. Dremmler elbowed in next to him, shoulder first, his back to the room. He said, “How’s business, Herr Schlupp?”

Schlupp said, “What do you need?”

“Information,” Dremmler said. “For the cause. The new Germany depends on it.”

A barman in a heavy canvas apron came over and Dremmler ordered a liter of beer.

Schlupp said, “What kind of information?”

“You made a driver’s license and maybe a passport for an American gentleman.”

“Hold it right there. I didn’t make nothing.”

“OK, you passed a customer’s order to your partners in Berlin. They made it. All you did was keep half the money.”

“So what?”

Dremmler squeezed himself some extra space and took out the drawing. He smoothed it on the bar.

He said, “This guy.”

The hair, the brow, the cheek bones. The deep-set eyes.

Schlupp said, “I don’t remember him.”

“I think you do.”

“What of it?”

“It’s important to the cause.”

“What is?”

“What new name did this man take?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“We want to find him.”

Schlupp said, “You know I can’t tell you. What kind of business would I have? No one would trust me.”

“This is one time only. No one will ever know. This guy is in trouble already. But we want him first. Right now he’s heading somewhere in an empty panel van. To pick something up. Presumably a heavy load. Given the size of the van. Could be weapons. Could be Nazi gold from a salt mine.”

“And you want it.”

“For all of us. For the cause. It would make a huge difference.”

Schlupp didn’t answer.

Dremmler said, “There would be a finder’s fee, of course. Or a consultation agreement. Or a straight commission, if you like.”

Schlupp said, “I would be taking a risk. It’s like being a priest. It’s understood I won’t talk.”

“The size of the fee would of course reflect the size of the risk.”

Schlupp looked at the sketch.

He said, “I think I remember him. I’ve done a lot of Americans. I think this guy chose three separate names. The first two were identity cards and driver’s licenses only. But I think the third had a passport.”

“What were the names?”

“It was months ago. I would have to look it up.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I hear hundreds of names.”

“When can you do it?”

“When I get home.”

“Call me at once, will you? It’s very important. To the cause.”

“OK,” Schlupp said.

Dremmler nodded in satisfaction and left the way he had come, leading with the other shoulder, pushing through the crowd, nodding and greeting, back to the weak midday sun beyond the open door.

The barman who had served his liter of beer picked up the phone.

–

The phone rang in the consulate room. Vanderbilt picked it up and gave it to Reacher. It was Orozco. He said, “Are we in trouble?”

“Not yet,” Reacher said. “We think Wiley’s heading for Frankfurt. We think he stole something from the storage lager near his home base, about seven months ago. Then we think he hid it. Now we think he’s heading down there to pick it up.”

“We have plenty of people in Frankfurt.”

“I know,” Reacher said. “I’ll call them if I need them.”

“I just finished up with Billy Bob and Jimmy Lee. They saved the best for last. Turns out they sold an M9 to Wiley. So bear that in mind. He’s armed.”

–

Wiley’s phone rang, and he took the call in his kitchen. He knew immediately from the background noise who it was. The friendly barman, made friendlier still by liberal applications of folding money, in amounts somewhere between tips and bribes. Plus an extra wad for just-in-case emergencies. Or warnings. Or whatever else in the opinion of the guy who was taking the cash would be appreciated by the guy who was giving the cash. The same the world over. All unsaid and unspoken but well understood.

The guy said, “Wolfgang Schlupp is going to sell you out to Dremmler.”

Wiley said, “For how much?”

“A percentage. Dremmler says you’re on your way to find Nazi gold.”

“I was on my way to the bathroom.”

“You’ve got until Schlupp gets home.”

–

The phone rang again in the consulate room, and Landry picked it up, and gave it to Neagley, who gave it to Reacher. It was Griezman. He said, “It turns out our traffic division needs extreme detail for a remote operation like Hanover will be. We’ll all save time if you give them the specifications direct. Better accuracy, too. I’ve alerted their deputy chief. He’s expecting your call. I’ll give you his number. His name is Muller.”

“OK,” Reacher said. “Anything else?”

“Nothing. Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

Reacher hung up and redialed.

–

The phone rang on Muller’s desk. He closed the door and sat down and picked up. An American voice said, “Is that Deputy Chief Muller?”

Muller said, “Yes.”

“My name is Reacher. I believe Chief of Detectives Griezman told you I would call.”

Muller moved a file and found a pad of message forms. He picked up a pencil. He noted the date, the time, and the caller. He said, “Apparently you wish autobahn traffic to be monitored south of Hanover.”

“You have the plate number. I need to know if it’s heading from here to the Frankfurt area.”

“What exactly do you envisage from us?”

“Cars on the shoulders. Or on the bridges. Four pairs of eyes. Like a regular speed trap, but with binoculars, not radar guns.”

“We have no experience of such things, Mr. Reacher. There are no speed limits on the autobahns.”

“But you get the gist.”

“I have seen American television.”

Muller wrote gist on the message pad.

Reacher said, “Communication needs to be instant. I need time to arrange things at the other end.”

Muller said, “Do you know where he’s going?”

“Not exactly. Not yet.”

“Tell me when you work it out. I could allocate resources.”

“Thank you, I will.”

Muller hung up. He tore the top sheet off the message pad. He tore it in half, and in quarters, and eighths, and sixteenths, like confetti, which he dropped in his trash can. Reacher could claim the conversation had taken place, but Muller could claim it had ended with a last-gasp never-mind withdrawal, and hence cancellation of all just-agreed points. Couldn’t be proven either way. A classic he-said-she-said, which the cops always won.

He dialed Dremmler.

He said, “Believe it or not, I just had Reacher on the phone. A problem Griezman dumped in my lap. Reacher thinks Wiley is heading to Frankfurt. He promised to tell me the exact destination, just as soon as he has it.”

“Excellent.”

“Did you get his new name?”

“It’s on its way very soon.”

–

Wolfgang Schlupp left the bar as soon as he was good and ready, and he took two alleys and a bus, which let him out one alley and two left turns from home, which was a top-floor apartment in a pre-war townhouse. No elevator, given the age of the place. But plenty of equity. There had long been a rumor the whole townhouse row had been incorrectly repaired after the wartime bombing. But then an engineer’s report had proved exactly the opposite. Prices had doubled overnight. Schlupp had gotten in early. He had overheard a conversation in the bar, back to back with two city officials, swapping gossip.

He walked up the stairs, through the second-floor lobby, through the third, and onward.

–

Wiley heard him coming. He was leaning on the wall, in the shadow between a fire cabinet and a hot-water riser. He had a gun in his hand. His Beretta M9, army kind-of surplus, bought from two chuckleheads stealing from a supply company, in the very same bar where the talkative Mr. Schlupp plied his not-so-secret-after-all trade.

Schlupp stepped up from the top stair, and hunched left, and unlocked his door. Wiley came out of the shadow and shoved him through it, the gun in his back, kicking the door shut with his heel, pushing him on down the hallway, to a spacious living room, all urban and gray and bare brick, where Schlupp tripped and fell on a black leather sofa, and lay there helpless.

Wiley stood above him and aimed the gun at his face.

He said, “I heard you’re going to sell me out, Wolfgang.”

“Not true,” Schlupp said. “I would never do that. What kind of business would I have?”

“You told Dremmler you would.”

“I was going to make up a name and send him on a wild goose chase.”

“You got records here?”

“All in code.”

“Why not make up a name in the bar? Why wait to get back to the records?”

“Was it Dremmler who told you?”

“Doesn’t matter who. You were going to sell me out. You were going to look me up in the records. Dremmler told you to call him at once, because it was very important to the cause.”

“No way, man. That’s bullshit. How could I? Who would trust me again?”

“Why didn’t you make up a name in the bar?”

Schlupp didn’t answer.

Wiley said, “Show me the records.”

Schlupp struggled to his feet and they went down the hallway the same way they came up, but slower, the gun in Schlupp’s back all the way, to a small bedroom in use as an office.

Schlupp pointed to a high shelf.

He said, “The red file folder.”

Which was like a three-ring binder, except it had four. Pre-punched pages had lines of handwritten code, nonsense non-words in separate columns, maybe old name, new name, passport, license, national ID.

Wiley said, “Which one am I?”

“I wasn’t going to sell you out.”

“Why didn’t you make up a name in the bar?”

“Dremmler’s full of it, man. Right now he thinks you’re deep in the country in a panel van, looking for Nazi gold. But evidently you’re not. So he’s wrong about that, which means he could be wrong about everything. That’s logical, right? Why even listen to him?”

“I didn’t,” Wiley said. “I listened to the barman. Dremmler asked and you answered. You were going to sell me out. If you didn’t want to, you would have given up a phony name right there and then. Or OK, maybe you froze, but a minute later you would have figured it out and said, yes now I remember, he calls himself Schmidt. Or some such. But you didn’t.”

“He scares me, man. He can make trouble. OK, I was going to tell him. But I changed my mind.”

“When you saw me?”

“No, before.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What kind of business would I have?”

“Dremmler told you he’d cover the risk.”

“I swear, man. You’re wrong. I changed my mind. I would never do it.”

In for a penny, in for a pound.

All or nothing.

Wiley said, “Better safe than sorry, pal.”

He swapped hands on the gun, fast and smooth and fluid, and he cracked Schlupp hard on the temple, backhand, with the heel of the butt. He didn’t want to shoot him. Not there. Too noisy. He hit him again, forehand, on the other temple, and the guy’s head bounced around like a rag doll. When it came to rest Wiley hit him again, a vicious downward chop, right on the top of his skull, like an ax or a hammer. Schlupp fell to his knees. Wiley hit him again. Schlupp pitched forward and fell on his face. Wiley leaned down and hit him again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

Bone cracked and blood oozed and spattered.

Wiley stopped and took a breath.

He checked Schlupp’s neck for a pulse.

Nothing.

He gave it a whole minute, just to be sure. Still nothing. So he wiped his gun on Schlupp’s shirt, and he picked up the red file folder, and he left.