Night School

Chapter 43

It was there. Reacher peered around the last corner of the mountain range, one eye only, and he saw the panel van, no longer white, now daubed with imitation graffiti, with balloon-like letters, W and H, and S and L. It was facing out. Its rear door was up. Inside were stout canvas packs, covered with straps, padded and round, in camouflage colors that were still dark and strong. They had never seen the light of day.

To the left of the truck was a wall of windows, into a large but empty office room. To the right was the back face of the mountain range. Maybe three feet of space either side of the truck. Not cramped at all. Up close the area felt generous.

There were no people in sight. No guards.

Reacher pulled back and checked the other way. Another two workers were standing and staring. He stepped back to where Orozco and Neagley were waiting. Hooper was there. He told them the news. They took a look for themselves, one at a time, one eye only. Orozco stepped back and said, “The office suite must be two rooms deep. They must be in the rear section.”

Reacher said, “Or they went out to get pizza and a pitcher of beer. Why stand guard over a bunch of tin cans? They don’t know what they got.”

“First priority is the panel van. Not the personnel.”

“Agreed,” Reacher said.

“So let’s go steal it back. Right now. We have a key. Like boosting it off the curb while the owner is inside watching the ball game.”

Reacher nodded. One time he had rotated through an army fight school, where the toughest instructor liked to say the best fights are the fights you don’t have. No risk of defeat, no risk of injury. However slight or unlikely. Plus in this case a political dimension. If the van just disappeared, who could say it ever existed? Deniability was always useful. It would fit the narrative. What crate?

Clearly the noisiest element would be raising the warehouse door. It was driven by an electric motor, through chains. Long and slow. It would need to open all the way. It was a high-roof van. Thirty seconds, probably. Grinding, rattling, shuffling upward. A very characteristic sound. Like putting a notice in the newspaper. They would come running at once.

Better to back it out. The other way. Reverse it carefully, deep toward the center of the shed, as far as possible, and then swing it around and escape through the body of the warehouse. Through the nearest of the open doors. The same way Hooper drove in.

Now seventy yards away four workers were standing and staring.

Reacher said, “OK, let’s do it. Who wants to drive?”

Neagley said, “I will.”

“If they hear the engine they’ll approach on your side. So you’ll need cover. But not from the passenger seat. You could get shot in the face. I’ll walk on the blind side. When you stop reversing I’ll jump in and you can take off forward. Then Hooper and Orozco can tuck in behind.”

“I plan on reversing faster than you can walk. They’re paratrooper weapons. They can stand a little slamming around. Sit in the passenger seat. Just don’t do the part where you shoot me in the face. It’s not complicated.”

Reacher glanced the other way. Still four workers watching.

“Brisk,” he said. “Not crazy. Make it look like regular business. It drove in, and now it’s driving out again.”

He peered around the corner, one last time. Both eyes. The windows, blank. The truck, waiting. Nothing else. No people.

Now there were six workers watching. They had moved up a step, into a loose arrowhead. The nearest guy was sixty yards away. Isolated by distance and noise, but staring.

Reacher gave Neagley the key.

He said, “Go for it.”

Orozco and Hooper drifted back toward their blue Opel. They got in and moved it to where they could see into the hidden bay, obliquely, for mission support, but where they wouldn’t impede Neagley’s rearward progress. They left space for her to back up alongside them. Then she would pull forward on full lock, and turn tight in front of them, and drive away. They would fall in close behind, on the same curve.

Neagley checked the view, and took a breath, and stepped into the hidden bay. Reacher followed. She walked down the blind side of the van to the passenger door. He paused near the tailgate. He watched the office windows. She tried the passenger door. It was unlocked. She opened it wide and climbed across to the driver’s seat. He stretched up tall and caught the strap and inched the rear door down. They’re paratrooper weapons. They can stand a little slamming around. Maybe so. But he didn’t want them spilling out during a violent maneuver. He didn’t want them rolling and bouncing across a Hamburg street corner.

He tugged on the strap and the door came down quiet and slow and easy, whirring and spooling on nylon bearings. A foot. A foot and a half. Two feet.

He stopped.

Shit.

He caught Neagley’s eye in the mirror and chopped his hand across his throat.

Abort.

Now.

She climbed out over the passenger seat. Out the passenger door. Along the painted flank. She followed him back to safety.

Orozco and Hooper came back from their car.

In the other direction a dozen workers were watching. A whole regular crowd. Still a shambling arrowhead. Fifty yards away. Shuffling closer.

Neagley said, “What happened?”

“Should be ten bombs in the truck,” Reacher said. “But I only counted nine.”

–

Hooper and Reacher had never met before, so Reacher was sure Hooper wouldn’t say it. Or Orozco. Too much old-world courtesy. It would be Neagley who said it. She would assemble a dozen alternative theories, starting with ships sailing back to Brazil, or with trucks rolling on to Berlin. And then ending, either with successful resolutions, or with blast zones and fireballs and a million dead. All depending on one critical question.

Which she would ask.

She said, “Are you sure you counted right?”

He smiled.

“Let’s use the two-personnel rule,” he said. “Basic nuclear safeguard. Hooper should go. He hardly knows me. He’s still an unbiased observer.”

So Hooper went. He checked from the corner, one eye, very carefully, and then he stepped into the hidden bay. Reacher replaced him at the corner, one eye, and saw him at the tailgate. He was too short. The height of the load floor plus a couple of feet to the top of the backpacks meant he was looking up at the front rank only.

Then Reacher saw a man in the corner of the office room. On the right. In the far back. On an exact diagonal from where Reacher was. Which meant the guy couldn’t see Hooper. Not yet. The angle was wrong. The corner of the truck was in the way.

The guy in the room moved. He was looking for something. He was going from desk to desk, opening drawers, stirring a thick finger through, moving on. He was a big guy. He looked competent.

Hooper stepped back and went up on tiptoe.

The guy moved on, the length of a desk.

Now the angle was right.

The noise was loud. Howling, squealing, rattling. Chugging and beeping.

Reacher called, “Hooper, get in the van.”

Loud enough to be heard, he hoped, by one and not the other. Hooper froze for a split second, and then he vaulted up on open palms and scrambled over the backpacks into the shadows.

The guy in the office looked out the window.

He took a step closer.

He checked the van. He checked the space behind the van.

He watched for a moment.

Then he turned and walked away, to the far back corner again, and through a door, to the hidden part of the suite.

Reacher waited.

The guy didn’t come back. Not in one minute. Not in two. Which he would, if he had heard. Human nature. He would have grabbed his guns and his buddies and come back right away.

He hadn’t heard.

Reacher called, “All clear, Hooper.”

No response.

Howling, squealing, rattling.

Reacher called again, louder this time, “Hooper, all clear.”

Hooper stuck his head out the back of the truck. Then he jumped down, and bounced up, and walked back to safety.

“Nine bombs,” he said. “The code book is missing, too.”