Lee Child - Night School

Only the hair was different. The photograph was three years old. Horace-none-Wiley had signed on with a regular country-boy buzz cut. A slam dunk, where Army Regulation 670-3-2 was concerned. The extreme, the eccentric, and the faddish had all come later.

“We’ll show the photograph to Mr. Klopp,” Sinclair said. “But there’s really no doubt about it. Congratulations, major. And sergeant. Outstanding work. You started with two hundred thousand.”

Reacher said, “Only because someone made a dumb note about a dumb phone call, which survived about seven different levels of bureaucracy before winding up with the United States government itself. We’re always trying to cut down on paperwork. Maybe we should rethink that.”

“What now?”

“Now we wait. For a Saudi kid in a pink shirt and pointed shoes to come on out and take a walk.”

Sugar Land was what Wiley intended to call his new ranch. Or Sugarland, all one word. Not that he would grow sugar. It was cattle country. He was going to have the largest herd in the world. And the best. But first he would need a name across the top of his gate. Fancy wrought iron. Maybe leave it in red primer. Sugar Land would look good. All in capital letters. Or all one word, Sugarland. And it would be a kind of personal tribute. To an old ambition. Once upon a time he had tried to make it in Sugar Land. But it was a tough old town. Now he was buying a place forty times bigger than the entire incorporated municipality.

All good.

It was like falling. At first he had fought it, and then he had gone with it. And then he had fallen even faster. Everything had sped up around him. Which was why he was ready way too early. Ready for the meeting. He felt he had to be prepared. Especially now. The endgame would happen quickly. It always did.

–

In Sinclair’s presence Reacher called Griezman from the room phone, on the speaker, and he gave him Wiley’s name, to go with the face, and he told him as far as they knew the messenger had already arrived, and then he reconfirmed all the various protocols, about how to call it in if something happened, and above all about being cautious around the apartment. But not so cautious he would miss something. A tough job. But Griezman sounded on top of it. He agreed to all the points. His language was convincing. Reacher saw Sinclair relax a little. Then she looked at him, right in the eye, a level gaze. He wasn’t sure why. Either half approving, because the crazy plan might be working after all, or half disapproving, because now he had made her complicit.

Then Bishop went back to the consulate, and Reacher and Neagley left Sinclair in her room and stopped in at his, to read Wiley’s file front to back. Their first question was why the guy had waited until the age of thirty-two to join the army. Abnormal behavior, right there. But there was no note from the recruiter. Nothing to explain it. Neagley called Waterman’s guy Landry, back in McLean, and she suggested he get the background check started right away. Thirty-two years of it, from the day the guy was born to the day he put on the green suit. There had to be a reason.

An old man or not, Wiley’s early progress looked conventional. He completed basic training without complications, which indicated he had a certain amount of aptitude and fitness. He was promoted to private first class, which indicated he had a pulse and was still in the army. He was sent to Fort Sill, to the artillery school, for assessment. He was then trained and deployed in Germany with an air-defense company.

“I can picture it,” Neagley said.

Reacher nodded, because he could, too. The bland notations in the file were more than just marks on paper. They were like a box score in baseball. A person could make a whole big story out of it. This happened, and then that. The artillery school was the pivot. Not for dummies. Wiley was clearly an acceptable soldier. Probably up there near the top of his class after basic. Not elite school material. But maybe his CO had seen an aptitude. Or invented one. Some COs counseled people based on old wives’ tales. As in, left-handed people couldn’t be snipers. People who were small and wiry should be artillerymen. And so on. But either way it had worked. Wiley had fit right in. Not easy. The Chaparral was a weird machine. It had to stop driving and be more or less rebuilt before it could fire. Then packed up and driven on and stopped and rebuilt all over again. The crews were like the pit stop crews from a NASCAR automobile race. As complicated as a ballet, timed to a tenth of a second. An incoming airplane could get real close in a tenth of a second. It was team work at its finest. Almost gymnastic. And Wiley had earned his place. Maybe small and wiry helped for real. The guy was a competent soldier. No question. But dead-ended. Three years later he was still a private. The armored divisions were no longer hiring. The front line was a thing of the past.

Had that been a surprise to him?

Reacher said, “Did the MPs on the original AWOL out there talk to his buddies from four months ago?”

Neagley nodded and said, “I already requested the transcripts.”

“What is he selling?”

Neagley didn’t answer.

Instead she said, “How mad was Sinclair?”

“Less mad than she could have been,” Reacher said. “I blew the safe house.”

“How? Griezman won’t let you down.”

“That’s what I told her. But she wasn’t convinced. Then I understood. The safe house was blown as soon as Griezman heard about it. Simple as that. It was no longer our secret. That’s what she meant. And I can see her point. Sooner or later Griezman will pass it on to his intelligence service. That’s his MO, and he’s obliged to anyway. So then the Germans will want a finger in the pie. It’s their turf. Which is too many cooks. Pretty soon the surveillance vehicles will be double-parked on the curb outside. My fault.”

“Unless we get the guy.”

“I told her that, too. But it doesn’t solve her problem. Win or lose, the Krauts will always know about that safe house.”

“We would have told them anyway. Sooner or later. Next year, or the year after. This shit will go international. Believe me. We’re all going to be cooperating our asses off. You got in early, that’s all.”

“She said the fingerprint thing is worse. It’s a federal crime.”

“Same thing. If we get the guy.”

“Or if I double-cross Griezman. If I steal his labor and give him nothing in return.”

“Did she ask you to do that?”

“I suggested it myself. I told him I would run the print. That was all. Why did I choose those particular words?”

“Subconscious wiggle room.”

“Doesn’t feel good.”

“Would going to prison feel better?”

“He’s a homicide cop with a fingerprint. What am I supposed to do?”

“What did you think you were doing?”

“I guess I was figuring I would tell him if it’s negative, and if it’s positive, maybe I would stall. I figured I could deal with it direct. That way everyone’s a winner, and I don’t break the law. Which I’m happy about, because I like that law. I like to control whether or not our people go on trial in foreign legal systems. So I made two separate errors of judgment.”

“Why?”

“The price,” Reacher said. “A hundred million dollars. I keep seeing it in my mind. It’s a lot of money. It’s front-burner money for sure. But I’m letting it get out of proportion. It’s all I can think about.”

“Evidently.”

“What does that mean?”

“Why do you think Sinclair was less mad at you than she could have been?”

“Maybe she secretly agrees with me.”

“No,” Neagley said. “She likes you.”