Lee Child - Night School

“Urgent?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Put it on hold until I’ve spoken with Sinclair.”

“Can we agree on a time?”

“Tell her two hours from now,” Reacher said.

–

They went to find the bar where Helmut Klopp had seen the rendezvous. It was twenty minutes away, the same as it was from the safe house, but on a different vector. Like two spokes of the same wheel. They walked past it, not slowing down, not speeding up, looking straight ahead, inspecting the place obliquely. It was on the ground floor of an older building made of stone, which once might have been a tenement or a factory, probably burned out in the wartime firestorm but deemed repairable. The bar had a center door in a planked wood façade. But it wasn’t a rustic look. Not like the side of a barn way out in the country. The planks were tight and true and planed smooth. They were dark gold in color, heavily varnished and shiny, like a rowboat on a lake in a park. There were small windows, with cream lace café curtains hung behind the bottom halves, and loops of small paper flags hung on strings behind the top halves. All the paper flags were German. The light inside looked dim and amber.

Neagley said, “We have two people following us.”

Reacher said, “Where?”

“On the corner fifty yards behind us.”

He didn’t look.

He said, “Who?”

“Two males between thirty and forty. Bigger than me and smaller than you. Probably not Germans. They walk like Americans.”

“How do Americans walk?”

“Like us.”

“How long have they been there?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Cheek bones?”

“No. Also too tall.”

“OK,” Reacher said. “Let’s get a cup of coffee.”

They strolled on, at the same lazy pace, and came to a pastry shop with a display case full of confections, and an espresso machine, and four small tables with two chairs each. The tables and chairs were metal painted silver. They were right up against the windows, with a good view of the street. Neagley sat down and Reacher went to the counter. He ordered two double espressos and called, “You want a cake?”

“Sure,” Neagley said. “Apple strudel.”

“Two,” Reacher said to the woman at the register. The old army rule. Eat when you can. The next chance could be days away. The woman pantomimed that Reacher should go sit down and she would bring a tray. Reacher pantomimed that he wanted to pay right away. His own rule. He might need to leave without warning, and he didn’t like to stiff ordinary working folk. He got his change and stepped over to the table and sat down, and Neagley craned her neck, very discreetly, and said, “They saw us come in here. They sped up. We’ll see them in a minute.”

Reacher checked the view left and right. There was another coffee shop across the street, twenty yards farther on. Tables in the window. A good view. Anyone with any sense would stop in there. They could wait as long as they needed to, raising no suspicion at all, and then they could resume the tail whenever their quarry moved.

“There they are,” Neagley said.

Reacher saw two guys, as advertised, in their thirties, bigger than her and smaller than him. Maybe six feet and two hundred pounds. Short hair. Walking like Americans. Dressed like Americans. Specifically, to his practiced eye, dressed like off-duty American military. Put a civilian in uniform for an hour, for a movie role or a fancy-dress party, and he looks wrong, somehow, as if uncomfortable, or unaccustomed. Equally, put a guy who has worn a uniform for the last ten years in jeans and a jacket, and he looks wrong, too. Equally unaccustomed. Wrong posture, too neat, creases too sharp, no slouch or shuffle.

They came on, the same way Reacher and Neagley had passed the bar, not slowing down, not speeding up, looking straight ahead, checking the scene in the corners of their eyes. Big hard faces, worn hands. NCOs, probably. Lifers, by the look of them. They ambled on, and one whispered something to the other, and the other nodded, and they ducked in at the coffee shop twenty yards farther on, across the street. Cars drove by, both ways, and shoppers and office workers hustled past on the sidewalks. The guys got a table in the window and sat there, pretending not to look at Reacher and Neagley, just as Reacher and Neagley were pretending not to look at them.

“Who are they?” Reacher said.

“Can’t tell by looking,” Neagley said.

“Ballpark guess?”

“Army, obviously. Terminal at sergeant. Probably not combat troops. Old sergeants in the battle area look different than that. Those guys are some other thing.”

“But they’re not company clerks.”

“No. They’re muscle workers.”

“Agreed. They’re support troops of some kind. Transportation, maybe. Maybe they load trucks. And unload them.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m wondering why they’re here,” Reacher said. “How did they know?”

“Griezman? Maybe he made a call. As soon as he left us at the hotel.”

“But we didn’t stay at that hotel. They didn’t follow us from there. Because we didn’t start from there.”

“Which means the NSC leaked it. They’re the only ones who knew what hotel we were in. Which is ridiculous.”

“Agreed. Therefore they didn’t follow us from either hotel. We came to them. They were waiting here.”

“Why?”

“Maybe that bar is more than just a place for like-minded folk. Maybe it’s a rendezvous for all kinds of people. Maybe money is earned there. So what happens when two unexplained military cops show up in town? They post sentries, just in case. And here we are. We just tripped their wire.”

“They don’t know we’re military cops. They don’t know our names. No one even knows we’re in the country.”

“How did we find out about Helmut Klopp?”

“Griezman passed on some dumb police report. To the consulate.”

“Because he’s a noble citizen?”

“No, because he was covering his very considerable ass.”

“Such a guy would also pass on a dumb police report about two military personnel recorded in a homicide investigation. Walking past the scene and claiming to be tourists. Our names are right there in black and white. So he had to pass it on. Probably straight to HQ in Stuttgart. Where someone looked us up, and saw the 110th in our recent pasts, and hit some kind of a secret alarm button. Like in a bank. No one heard anything, but people started scrambling all over town. Who are we here for? This is a broad sweep. We’re going to upset all kinds of people.”

“Suppose these are the right people?”

“You take the one on the left, and you can have the Legion of Merit.”

“They would never give a Legion of Merit to a sergeant.”

“They’re not the right people. I’m a lucky man, but not that lucky.”

“So who are they?”

“Can’t tell by looking,” Reacher said.

They chased the last strudel crumbs around their plates, and drained their coffee cups down to the muddy paste at the bottom, and then they stood up fast and hustled out the door.

Reacher and Neagley dodged pedestrians on the sidewalk and cars on the street, and they headed diagonally toward the second coffee shop on the other side. Through the window they saw the two guys startle and sit up straight. Too late. They were sitting together on the far side of a corner table for four, where their angle was good. Which left two empty chairs between them and the rest of the room. Neagley went in first and took one of the chairs. Reacher followed and took the other. Which meant the two guys were trapped. All quiet and genteel and civilized, but they had no way out. Not unless Reacher and Neagley stood up again to let them by. Which was not on the immediate agenda.