Jude Hardin - The Reacher Code - Timestream 1

“Sorry, but that’s an unlisted number,” the operator said. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Diane and I are old friends. She won’t mind if you give me the number.”

“Sorry, sir, but I can’t do that.”

Wahlman felt like ripping the phone off its mount and heaving it out onto the sidewalk.

It would have been an irrational thing to do. And he knew that. But he couldn’t help it. He’d been feeling overly tense and irritable and aggressive since he’d regained consciousness, back at the hospital. As if someone had injected him with a big fat bolus of adrenaline. Or testosterone. Or whatever it was that made you feel this way. Like a million insects were marching through your nervous system, the kind that bit and stung and chewed away at you one cell at a time until there was nothing left.

Wahlman wondered if he’d always been like this. Maybe so. Maybe he’d always been an asshole who would tear a payphone off a wall when he didn’t get his way.

He’d clouted Breakstone in the head to get the motorcycle back. That had happened. He could have killed the guy. And it wasn’t even necessary. He could have done everything properly. He could have gone back to the hospital and signed out AMA and waited until morning to get his things back. But he hadn’t had the patience for that. He’d wanted the bike, and the helmet, and he’d wanted them immediately, and he’d been willing to take a life to get them.

Which was insane.

Out of control.

And now he was feeling the same way toward the telephone operator. Like he might twist her head off if he could get his hands on her.

Maybe he’d always been this way. But he didn’t think so. There was an image somewhere deep in the back of his mind. An image of a man. He couldn’t quite make it out, but he knew, somehow, that this man standing in the shadowy recesses was Rock Wahlman, and that Rock Wahlman was not a bad man. Not a man who would kill without good reason.

He needed to get to that man and bring him back to the front where he belonged.

In the meantime, he needed to get a grip.

Of course he and Diane Givens weren’t really old friends. They’d just met. But she had a place out in town. And a car. She was the only person Wahlman could think of who might be able to assist him in staying hidden for a while. Maybe she wouldn’t do it. But maybe she would. It was worth a try.

Wahlman needed time to think. Time to figure out who he was and why he was in Germany. He needed Diane’s help. And if the operator wouldn’t give him the number, he would have to figure out another way to get it.

Be nice, he told himself. Be polite. More flies with honey.

“Could you give me the number to the hospital on the base?” he asked.

“Ramstein Air Base?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“One moment, please.”

There was a long pause again and the operator clicked back on and gave Wahlman the number to the hospital and told him to have a nice night. Wahlman thanked her and punched in the number and listened to it ring for thirty seconds or so. A woman who identified herself as the information operator finally picked up and told him that she couldn’t give him Diane’s number either. A matter of employee privacy, she said.

“I need to talk to her,” Wahlman said. “It’s an emergency.”

“I can call her from here and give her your number,” the woman said. “Then she can call you if she wants to.”

“All right,” Wahlman said. “Let’s do it that way.”

He gave her the number to the payphone, and she promised to pass it along to Diane.

Wahlman stood there and waited. Opened his apple juice and took a sip. A guy on a scooter pulled into the lot, parked and climbed off and stepped up to where Wahlman was standing. The guy was probably eighteen or nineteen years old. Skinny, with long black hair that had been purposefully messed up and plastered into place with gel or hairspray or something. He wore skintight pants printed to look like the skin of some sort of jungle cat and a black leather vest and some necklaces and bracelets. He said something in German. He wanted to use the phone.

Wahlmnan told him nein. It meant no. It was the only German word that Wahlman knew. The guy let loose with a string of phrases that probably weren’t very nice, accompanied by some gestures that definitely weren’t very nice. Wahlman could have driven the guy’s face through the plate glass window. But he didn’t. He just stood there and looked at him. Kept saying nein until the guy got back on his scooter and rode away.

Wahlman waited some more. He was about to give up when the phone started ringing. Loudly. Like a bell at a firehouse or something. He grabbed the receiver and yanked it off the hook, hoping to stop the cacophonous ring before it caught the attention of passersby out on the highway. Especially if one of those passersby happened to be a cop.

“Hello?” he said.

“Mr. Wahlman?”

“Yes.”

“This is Diane Givens. I just got a call from the hospital. They said it was an emergency. What’s going on?”

“I need your help,” Wahlman said. “I need a place to stay tonight.”

“You need a place to stay?”

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but—”

“I don’t even know you,” Diane said.

“I have some money. I can pay you.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I think I need to go now. Please don’t try to—”

“You said something about a patient named Reacher. You thought I was his dad.”

“Yeah. You look just like him. Only older. But what’s that got to do with anything?”

“I think it’s significant that he and I were in the same hospital,” Wahlman said. “I don’t know why, but I think it is. I think I’ve heard that name before. I need some time to figure it out.”

“Like I said, I don’t even know you. Anyway, my place is tiny. And it’s a mess right now. Why don’t you just check into a hotel?”

“I was in a coma,” Wahlman said. “I just woke up a while ago, and I left the hospital without telling anyone, and I’m having memory problems.”

“Maybe you should go back to the hospital.”

“I got into it with one of the officers at the impound lot. It got physical. Security Forces is probably out looking for me right now. I’m going to be in big trouble if they find me. They’re going to put me in jail, and I don’t think I could handle that at the moment.”

“You want me to hide you from the law?” Diane asked. “Do you know how much trouble I could get into for something like that?”

“It’s just for one night,” Wahlman said. “I can sleep on the couch. Or the floor. In fact, I don’t even need to sleep. I’ve been out for three days straight. I probably couldn’t fall asleep right now if I tried. I just need to get off the streets. You won’t even know I’m there.”

There was a long pause.

“One night,” Diane said.

“That’s all. I promise.”

“Where are you right now?”

Wahlman told her the name of the store.

“I’m not sure I’m pronouncing it right,” he said.

“I know where it is,” Diane said. “Do you need me to pick you up?”

“I have my bike. Just tell me how to get to your place.”

She gave him directions. Wahlman thanked her, clicked off with his finger and left the receiver dangling from its cord. Apparently 1983 German payphones had been built to be heard from blocks away. Wahlman didn’t want the phone to start ringing again, for any reason, and he especially didn’t want it to start ringing again if Diane suddenly changed her mind. He chugged the rest of the juice and walked around to the back of the store where his motorcycle was parked.

The guy who’d wanted to use the phone was back there.