Night School

Chapter 36

The phone didn’t ring during the first hour. Or the second. Reacher said, “I want to bring Orozco on board.”

Bishop said, “Why?”

“We need an extra pair of hands. We’re running short of time.”

“What could he do for us?

“He’s a good interrogator. If we find Wiley before we find the crate he’s going to have to tell us where it is. Orozco would be good for that. People respond to him.”

“How much does he know already?”

“Some of it.”

Sinclair said, “Call him.”

So Reacher did, there and then. He told Orozco as of ten hundred Zulu and eleven hundred Lima he was TDY to the NSC and for further detail an immediate 10-16 was required at the front desk number.

Then he killed the call.

Neagley looked at him.

He said, “I’ll be back in a moment.”

He left the office and walked down the stairs. To the front lobby. He waited at the desk. The phone rang. The guard picked up. He looked confused for a second, and then he handed the phone to Reacher. It was Orozco. A 10-16 was MP radio code for a report by land line. An immediate 10-16 meant call back right away. At the different number, Orozco would understand, for reasons of privacy.

Orozco said, “Are we in trouble?”

Reacher said, “Not yet.”

“That sounds like the guy who just jumped off a building. How does it feel? Pretty good so far. Like flying.”

“All we need to do is get the guy.”

“Are we going to?”

“How hard can it be?”

“What do you need from me?”

“I told them you’re coming in as an interrogator. But you’re not. You’re coming in to get the Iranian out of the safe house. They’ve forgotten all about him. Or else they’re set on taking a stupid risk. We can’t let either thing happen. They’ll kill him. So get him out as soon as we make a move.”

“Are you going to make a move?”

“I remain optimistic.”

“How will I know which are the Saudis and which is the Iranian?”

“I’m sure a man with your level of cultural sensitivity will have no trouble at all.”

“What do I do with the Saudis?”

“They can be collateral damage, if you like.”

“That’s hardcore,” Orozco said.

“There are ten missing bombs.”

“Is that what this is about?”

“We just figured it out.”

“What kind of bombs?”

“Nuclear bombs,” Reacher said. “Atom bombs as big as Hiroshima.”

“Are you serious?”

“As lung cancer.”

“Ten of them?”

“In a crate.”

Orozco was quiet for a long, long moment.

Then he said, “I would want to bring my sergeant.”

Reacher said, “I would expect nothing less.”

“I’m on my way,” Orozco said.

Reacher hung up and took the stairs back to the regular office. The phone rang as soon as he got there. Sinclair put it on speaker. Not the White House. Not new orders from NATO. It was Griezman. Who said, “There are five Herr Kempners in Wiley’s development. Four look unlikely based on age. The fifth is a strong possibility. His lease expires in less than a month. He has no employment records. The source of his funds is unclear. He is registered as Isaac Herbert Kempner.”

“That’s him,” Reacher said. “That’s the guy who founded Imperial Sugar. The exact same name. We found Wiley.”

“I’ll pick you up in five minutes,” Griezman said. “But please, just you, Sergeant Neagley, and Dr. Sinclair. No CIA. I haven’t told Berlin yet. I’m out on a limb with this.”

Sinclair killed the call.

She looked at Reacher, and said, “Congratulations, major. Another medal.”

Reacher said, “Not yet.”

–

Muller closed his office door and called Dremmler from his desk phone. He said, “Griezman is checking city records for a guy named Kempner. In the new development where they think Wiley lives. Where they had the unmarked car.”

Dremmler said, “It’s a common name.”

“I looked for myself and found five in that neighborhood. Three are old men. One is a student. The fifth is thirty-five years old. He has a driver’s license. Which gives me access to his record. Which is completely empty. There’s nothing there. No speeding tickets, no parking tickets, no warnings or cautions, no insurance claims, no witness statements, no nothing. No contact whatsoever with the bureaucratic world. That’s not normal for a thirty-five-year-old. I don’t think he’s real. I think Kempner is Wiley’s new name.”

“You have the address?”

“We should think ahead. Griezman will go to the apartment. It will be inaccessible to us. But think like a traffic cop. He has a long-wheelbase panel van. Where does he park it? Not on the street, because my guys have been looking for it, and they haven’t found it. And not in a garage, either, because it’s the high-roof model, as well as too long. So it’s in a large shed, or possibly a small warehouse. Near enough to where he lives to be convenient. It’s there right now. Just waiting for us. It’s what we want. Not Wiley himself.”

“Where exactly?”

“You need to ask the people you know. Did anyone rent out an old shed or a warehouse? Possibly for cash, certainly to someone they never saw before, who had some type of vague bullshit story for why he needed it. It’s the kind of thing you people talk about, right? A guy who knows a guy who knows a guy?”

Dremmler said, “I’ll make you chief of police.”

–

Bishop led the way to his office, which had an old-fashioned combination safe in the corner, as big as a basement washing machine. He spun the dials and turned the handle and opened the door. Inside was a mess of stuff, including four handguns stored butts-up in a long cardboard box. He took out three and passed them around. One for Sinclair, one for Reacher, and one for Neagley. They were Colt Government Model.380s. Seven-shooters, blued steel, plastic grips. Short barrel, but accurate. They were loaded.

“Try not to use them,” Bishop said. “And if you do, for God’s sake don’t shoot anyone but Wiley. The legalities would be a nightmare.”

Reacher said, “Tell Orozco where we are and what we’re doing, as soon as he gets here. Tell him to stand by.”

Bishop said, “Sure.”

Sinclair put her gun in her bag. Reacher and Neagley put theirs in their pockets.

Good to go.

–

Griezman stopped on the same curb as the day before, and Sinclair climbed in the front of the car. Reacher and Neagley climbed in the back. Then Griezman took off and threaded through the center of town, on a road Reacher remembered. Eventually they came to the crossroads. High brick buildings on every side. The champagne store was a right turn, and the new urban village was a left.

They turned left.

They drove around the brand-new traffic circle and took the middle exit, straight ahead into the apartment complex. The buildings looked high-rise in their surroundings, but none was more than fifteen stories tall. Exterior panels that in America would have been glass or mirror were sometimes metal painted bright simple colors. As if the dwellings had inspired or been inspired by a child’s construction toy. Or maybe children were supposed to feel at home there. Reacher couldn’t see how. He had been a serious kid. He felt the relentless cheerfulness would have driven him mad.

Griezman slowed the car.

He said, “It’s the next building on the left.”

Which was an identical structure, like a giant shoebox laid on its side, piebald with colored panels, peppered with windows, which were smaller than they might have been, and which had thick, efficient frames. The lobby was a bite out of the lower two floors, like a grand arcade, presumably with entrances right and left. Two elevator banks.

Griezman said, “Should we park and walk, or drive right up?”

“Drive,” Reacher said. “Let’s get this done.”

So Griezman accelerated again and then coasted to a stop outside Wiley’s lobby. There were young trees planted in the shoulders. There was another building dead ahead, and then two more in the distance, with a wide footpath running between them, to the preserved part of the cityscape, and then to a footbridge made of teak and steel. It looped over the water, and away.

They opened all four doors at once and got out of the car. According to his unit number Wiley’s lobby was the left-hand option. There were two elevators serving that half of the building. Both cars were waiting on the lobby level. The morning rush to work was over. Wiley’s unit was on the ninth floor. SOP for an apartment raid was to send people up in every elevator simultaneously, plus more on the stairs. A full-court press, to prevent a lucky escape. Reacher had known it to happen. He had seen security video, of a guy strolling out his door and getting in an elevator, literally half a second before the cops burst out of another elevator. Unfortunate timing. A teaching moment. Reacher figured Griezman would get a heart attack if he had to climb nine floors, so he suggested he ride in one car, with Sinclair in the other. Neagley took the stairs. Reacher went with Sinclair. Her gun was still in her bag. Not good practice. Getting it out would be slow, and the Government Model’s only real weakness was a prominent magazine release near the trigger. A fumble in a bag could unload it. Not ideal.

The elevator doors closed on them. The car moved up. Sinclair said, “How do you feel?”

Reacher said, “Personally or professionally?”

“About Wiley.”

“I saw him on the liquor store video. He looked as quick as an outhouse rat. And he has a gun. And he’s about to do the deal of the century. But that’s OK. I like a challenge.”

“We’ll arrest him as soon as he opens the door. He won’t have time to do anything.”

“Suppose he doesn’t open the door? Suppose he looks out the peephole and waits in the bedroom?”

Sinclair didn’t answer.

The elevator stopped.

The doors opened.

Griezman was already out. Apart from him the corridor was empty. There were doors every thirty feet. Unit numbers were marked on narrow vertical panels next to the doors. The panels had an integrated wall sconce above, and the number below. They were all different bright colors. The numbers were written like a book from elementary school. Wiley’s was 9b. His panel was green, and his door was yellow. Like a playhouse. My first apartment.

There was no peephole in the yellow door. Instead there was a head-height plastic eye on the green panel, the size of an egg, bulging out, smoky gray. A camera. Presumably with a screen on the wall inside. A big fish-eye picture. Below the camera at elbow height was a doorbell button. A visitor who got close enough to ding the bell would have his face right in front of the camera. Which made sense.

Neagley tapped her chest. I’ll go first. She kept close to the wall, approaching the fish’s eye at a ninety-degree angle, and when she was an arm’s length away she clamped her left palm over the lens, and took out her Colt, and used the muzzle to press the bell.