Lee Child - Running Blind

“But you didn’t like her much, did you?” she said.

There was silence. It built around him.

“OK, my turn,” Cozo said. “Who are you working for?”

Reacher swung his gaze slowly to his right and rested it on Cozo.

“I’m not working for anybody,” he said.

“Don’t start a turf war with us,” Cozo quoted. “ Us is a plural word. More than one person. Who is us , Reacher?”

“There is no us.”

“Bullshit, Reacher. Petrosian put the arm on that restaurant, but you were already there. So who sent you?”

Reacher said nothing.

“What about Caroline Cooke?” Lamarr called. “You knew her too, right?”

Reacher turned slowly back to face her. She was still smiling.

“But you didn’t like her either, did you?” she said.

“Callan and Cooke,” Blake repeated. “Give it up Reacher, from the beginning, OK?”

Reacher looked at him. “Give what up?”

More silence.

“Who sent you to the restaurant?” Cozo asked again. “Tell me right now, and maybe I can cut you a deal.”

Reacher turned back the other way. “Nobody sent me anywhere.”

Cozo shook his head. “Bullshit, Reacher. You live in a half-million-dollar house on the river in the Garrison and you drive a six-month-old forty-five-thousand-dollar sport-utility vehicle. And as far as the IRS knows, you haven’t earned a cent in nearly three years. And when somebody wanted Petrosian’s best boys in the hospital, they sent you to do it. Put all that together, you’re working for somebody, and I want to know who the hell it is.”

“I’m not working for anybody,” Reacher said again.

“You’re a loner, right?” Blake asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Reacher nodded. “I guess.”

He turned his head. Blake was smiling, satisfied.

“I thought so,” he said. “When did you come out of the Army?”

Reacher shrugged. “About three years ago.”

“How long were you in?”

“All my life. Officer’s kid, then an officer myself.”

“Military policeman, right?”

“Right.”

“Several promotions, right?”

“I was a major.”

“Medals?”

“Some.”

“Silver Star?”

“One.”

“First-rate record, right?”

Reacher said nothing.

“Don’t be modest,” Blake said. “Tell us.”

“Yes, my record was good.”

“So why did you muster out?”

“That’s my business.”

“Something to hide?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Blake smiled. “So, three years. What have you been doing?”

Reacher shrugged again. “Nothing much. Having fun, I guess.”

“Working?”

“Not often.”

“Just bumming around, right?”

“I guess.”

“Doing what for money?”

“Savings.”

“They ran out three months ago. We checked with your bank.”

“Well, that happens with savings, doesn’t it?”

“So now you’re living off of Ms. Jacob, right? Your girlfriend, who’s also your lawyer. How do you feel about that?”

Reacher glanced through the glare at the worn wedding band crushing Blake’s fat pink finger.

“No worse than your wife does, living off of you, I expect,” he said.

Blake grunted and paused. “So you came out of the Army, and since then you’ve done nothing much, right?”

“Right.”

“Mostly on your own.”

“Mostly.”

“Happy with that?”

“Happy enough.”

“Because you’re a loner.”

“Bullshit, he’s working for somebody,” Cozo said.

“The man says he’s a loner, damn it,” Blake snarled.

Deerfield ’s head was turning left and right between them, like a spectator at a tennis game. The reflected light was flashing in the lenses of his glasses. He held up his hands for silence and fixed Reacher with a quiet gaze.

“Tell me about Amy Callan and Caroline Cooke,” he said.

“What’s to tell?” Reacher asked.

“You knew them, right?”

“Sure, way back. In the Army.”

“So tell me about them.”

“Callan was small and dark, Cooke was tall and blond. Callan was a sergeant, Cooke was a lieutenant. Callan was a clerk in Ordnance, Cooke was in War Plans.”

“Where was this?”

“Callan was at Fort Withe near Chicago, Cooke was at NATO headquarters in Belgium.”

“Did you have sex with either of them?” Lamarr asked.

Reacher turned to stare at her. “What kind of a question is that?”

“A straightforward one.”

“Well, no, I didn’t.”

“They were both pretty, right?”

Reacher nodded. “Prettier than you, that’s for damn sure.”

Lamarr looked away and went quiet. Blake turned dark red and stepped into the silence. “Did they know each other?”

“I doubt it. There’s a million people in the Army, and they were serving four thousand miles apart at different times.”

“And there was no sexual relationship between you and either of them?”

“No, there wasn’t.”

“Did you attempt one? With either of them?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why not? Afraid they’d rebuff you?”

Reacher shook his head. “I was with somebody else on both occasions, if you really want to know, and one at a time is usually enough for me.”

“Would you like to have had sex with them?”

Reacher smiled, briefly. “I can think of worse things.”

“Would they have said yes to you?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“What’s your best guess?”

“Were you ever in the Army?”

Blake shook his head.

“Then you don’t know how it is,” Reacher said. “Most people in the Army would have sex with anything that moves.”

“So you don’t think they’d have rebuffed you?”

Reacher kept his gaze tight on Blake’s eyes. “No, I don’t think it would have been a serious worry.”

There was a long pause.

“Do you approve of women in the military?” Deerfield asked.

Reacher’s eyes moved across to him. “What?”

“Answer the question, Reacher. You approve of women in the military?”

“What’s not to approve?”

“You think they make good fighters?”

"Stupid question,” Reacher said. “You already know they do.”

“I do?”

“You were in ’ Nam, right?”

“I was?”

“Sure you were,” Reacher said. “Homicide detective in Arizona in 1976? Made it to the Bureau shortly afterward? Not too many draft dodgers could have managed that, not there, not back then. So you did your tour, maybe 1970, 1971. Eyesight like that, you weren’t a pilot. Those eyeglasses probably put you right in the infantry. In which case you spent a year getting your ass kicked all over the jungle, and a good third of the people kicking it were women. Good snipers, right? Very committed, the way I heard it.”

Deerfield nodded slowly. “So you like women fighters? ”

Reacher shrugged. “You need fighters, women can do it the same as anybody else. Russian front, World War Two? Women did pretty well there. You ever been to Israel? Women in the front line there too, and I wouldn’t want to put too many U.S. units up against the Israeli defenses, at least not if it was going to be critical who won.”

“So, you got no problems at all?”

“Personally, no.”

“You got problems otherwise than personally?”

“There are military problems, I guess,” Reacher said. “Evidence from Israel shows an infantryman is ten times more likely to stop his advance and help a wounded buddy if the buddy is a woman rather than a man. Slows the advance right down. It needs training out of them.”

“You don’t think people should help each other?” Lamarr asked.