Lee Child - Night School

“What kind of an important favor?”

“We found a fingerprint, in the dead prostitute’s car. Remember? Exactly where you said we would. On the back of the chrome lever. A middle finger from a right hand.”

“Congratulations.”

“It has no matches anywhere in our databases.”

“Is that usual?”

“It is if the print is foreign.”

Reacher said nothing.

Griezman said, “Will you run it through your systems for me?”

“That’s huge,” Neagley said.

Reacher nodded. “That’s political. That’s a can of worms. Probably involves all kinds of NATO crap, as well as the Fourth Amendment. We’re knee-deep in PR people and lawyers. It would take them a year to even think about it.”

Griezman sighed, and said, “That’s always my problem. I’m not political. I’m just a simple detective, hoping for a favor from one to another.”

“Bullshit,” Reacher said. “You’re paying for dinner tonight because I said the word Pentagon. Maybe you’ll run for mayor one day. This is a liberal city in Western Europe. The voters wouldn’t like to hear the uncouth warmongers bought you a meal. So you’ll have an expenses fight tomorrow, instead of an embarrassment ten years from now. I would call that fairly political, on a scale of one to ten.”

“I’m just trying to catch a bad guy.”

“Why would he be an American?”

“Statistics. Crime figures.”

“And you think we’d admit that out loud? As in, you’ve got a dead hooker, so sure, it makes total sense to round up the Americans. We can’t just meekly accept a presumption of guilt. Wouldn’t play well at home. This stuff is way above my pay grade.”

“Personally I agree with you. I think it was a sailor. One of a hundred nationalities. But you’re a large foreign group in Germany. I could eliminate a large number of possibilities.”

“So now you think it wasn’t an American?”

“I would like to prove that, yes. An attempt will be expected of me, before the case goes cold. Which is what I want, frankly, as soon as possible.”

“Why?”

“Well, for one thing, we’re wasting too much time on it.”

“Because she was a prostitute?”

“Ultimately, I suppose. But only through bitter experience and data. Most prostitute murders are committed by itinerants. That’s a fact. This guy is already halfway across the Atlantic, I’m sure. Happy that he got away with it.”

Political . Reacher felt played. He said, “I’ll think about it. Have a copy of the print sent to the hotel, just in case.”

“Don’t need to,” Griezman said. He took a small envelope from his inside pocket. “There’s a copy on film in here. And a card with my number.”

Reacher took the envelope and put it in his own pocket.

–

After dinner they elected to walk back to their hotel, so Griezman drove away in his department Mercedes without them. They detoured via the safe house. Just an evening stroll. Just a corner-of-the-eye glance, as they passed. Not that they knew which apartment. There were fifteen windows plausibly related to the lobby in question. Some of them were dark. Some showed the blue glow of television. Some had low, warm light. No people were visible. There were cars on the street, and occasional pedestrians. Early evening, in the city. They walked on.

There was a blue car parked at the curb outside their hotel. An Opel sedan. Manuel Orozco’s cop car. He was waiting for them in the lobby. He said, “There’s something you need to know.”

They went back outside and leaned on Orozco’s car. The evening was cool and damp. They could sense the water nearby. Reacher said, “You could have called.”

“No,” Orozco said. “This is better done face to face than on the telephone.”

“Why?”

“You gave me the small story. You missed the big story.”

“Are they selling something worse?”

“No, about forty scrap M9s over six months or so is all it was. Plus a thousand rounds of ammunition. Not the end of the world. We’ve all seen worse.”

“So what’s the big story?”

“Their ID was genuine.”

“They’re real German citizens?”

“No, they’re American as apple pie. Arkansas and Kentucky. They barely speak English, let alone German. Their names are Billy Bob and Jimmy Lee. Or something like that.”

“So their ID was phony.”

“In that sense, yes. But it was also genuine. In the sense that it was way too good to be faked. So good we think it must have been manufactured for them by the German government itself. In their regular plant. Alongside all their regular Kraut stuff.”

“They said they got it from a guy in the bar.”

“They said that to me, too.”

“And?”

“And I believe them.”

“So?”

“Where did the guy in the bar get it from?”

“How sure are you about this?”

“I asked around. We had a debate. Some say it’s complicated because when the Wall came down a whole bunch of communist forgers lost their jobs. And they were really good. All kinds of mischievous documents came out of the old East Germany. So now those guys are working for someone else. Best case, that would be organized crime. Worst case, it’s the new German intelligence service. Either way, best to keep this off the phone lines. We don’t know who’s listening.”

“German intelligence can afford its own sidearms. They wouldn’t need to print up phony IDs for a couple of small-time crooks.”

“Agreed. But let’s assume their intelligence service has a document creation division. Like they all do. Staffed by the usual array of eccentrics. Like they all are. Suppose one of them is bent? Suppose he does his business in that bar? Billy Bob and Jimmy Lee make that place sound like the stock exchange. Buy, sell, trade, anything you want.”

Reacher said, “The first witness who saw our guy is a government worker. I guess there could be others in there.”

Orozco nodded. “You need to take care. You keep on shaking that tree, all kinds of crap could fall out. Some of it could be heavy duty.”

–

Orozco left and Reacher stopped by Neagley’s room to call White in Virginia. He said, “We’re getting solid intelligence that genuine German ID is for sale in that bar. So far we’ve seen identity cards and drivers’ licenses. Nothing to say you can’t get passports, too. Nothing to say our guy didn’t buy one. So watching four hundred American names is a waste of time. A buck gets ten he’ll travel under a German alias.”

White was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “You’re right there in town. You could find out who sold what to him, and you could find out what name he put on it. Date of birth and passport number would be good, too. These types of vendors keep records, usually. For security, and blackmail.”

“That’s all or nothing,” Reacher said. “They’ll panic if we hit that bar. Word will get around fast. Our guy will go to ground immediately. And maybe he has more than one passport. There’s more than one bar. Our witness splits his time between two of them.”

“It’s still our best chance.”

“Talk to Ratcliffe. I would want to know how on my own I am.”

–

Then Reacher went next door to his room and went to bed. He was tired. He had been awake more than thirty hours. He put his shoes side by side under the window, with his socks draped over them. He folded his pants seam-to-seam and laid them flat under his mattress to press. He took off his jacket and hitched it straight on the back of a chair. A pocket crackled. Griezman’s envelope. The fingerprint. He had thought about giving it to Orozco, but he had forgotten.

Next time, maybe.