Lee Child - Night School

Sinclair was quiet for a beat, and then she shook her head and said, “No, we can never admit we ran that print at his request. And it would only confuse the issue. One thing at a time. We want him for the hundred million dollars. That comes first. That’s more important.”

“The hooker might not agree.”

“We can’t hang him twice. And we can’t have him arrested by the Germans. Because he’s ours. But justice will be done. This time it’s an order.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Reacher said.

He put the file back in the envelope, and timed it out in his head. Five streets away, in the woman’s apartment. Wiley had been there while Reacher was eating dinner with Neagley in McLean, Virginia. Of all the diners in all the towns . He laid back down, on his side, and he rolled Sinclair over, on her front, and he put his hand high on the back of her thigh.

She said, “Already?”

He said, “I’m younger than you.”

The phone rang.

Griezman, checking in. Reacher put him on the speaker. Griezman asked about the fingerprint. Reacher said there was no news yet. Sinclair looked away. Griezman said there was nothing to report from the surveillance operations. So far there had been no sign of Wiley at the bar. So far at the safe house a mail carrier had brought a package, which had then sat unclaimed on a table in the lobby, and was still there. Apart from that no one else had gone in or come out, except for what was probably a daughter from either the Turkish or the Italian diplomatic families, probably going out for the evening. To a dance club, possibly. She was in her early twenties, with jet black hair and olive skin. Very good looking, Griezman said, according to contemporaneous reports from his men. The sight had brightened their day. Because absolutely nothing else was going on. But they were nevertheless still committed. They would hold their positions for the time being. They would have to thin out by evening, when street parking would be harder to find, after everyone in the neighborhood was home from work.

Sinclair said, “Last time the meeting happened late in the afternoon. Which is right about now.”

“Wait a damn minute,” Reacher said again. “What about the lamp in the window? Something changed. It is but it isn’t. We blew it. It’s a messenger but not the same messenger. It’s not a man. It’s a woman. We fell for it. We’re missing the rendezvous. It’s happening right now.”

Reacher told Griezman to get all his units moving immediately, in pursuit of the good-looking girl, but Sinclair told him no, sit tight for the moment. To Reacher she said, “You’re only guessing. She could be Turkish or Italian. Would these people even use a woman?”

“I was in Israel,” Reacher said. “These people use women all the time.”

“You’re gambling.”

“And so far I’m winning. Look at me right now, for instance.”

Sinclair paused a beat.

Then she said to Griezman, “Keep one car on the safe house. Get all the others moving.”

–

The new messenger walked south out of the neighborhood, and then turned west, to loop under the Ausenalster lake, from Saint Georg to Saint Pauli, on her way to her appointment, which was in a club on a street called the Reeperbahn. She had walked the route many times in her imagination, the physical details built up around her by many hours of briefing, the sights and sounds and smells described so many times that reality felt bland and small by comparison. She had been warned that Wiley would choose a rendezvous point he hoped would embarrass a person of the Islamic faith. A male person, to be specific. He wouldn’t expect a woman. He had a mean, competitive streak. He would want two out of three from alcohol, girls, and hatred. On this occasion it would be the first and the second, she figured, from what she had been told about the street called the Reeperbahn. Girls and alcohol. But she would handle it. Great struggles required great sacrifices. And she was from the tribal areas. She was sure she had seen worse.

–

Reacher called Griezman back and asked if the pretty girl had been seen near the bar. The answer was no. Wiley neither. No sign. Reacher said, “OK, they’re meeting somewhere else. Get those cars moving, too.”

This time Sinclair just nodded.

Griezman said, “But those men didn’t see the girl.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Reacher said. “They have the drawing of Wiley’s face. Where we find one we’ll find the other.”

–

The new messenger turned left into the Reeperbahn and was hit by all the light and all the noise she was expecting. Flashing and blinking and glaring, and thumping and booming and distorting. Not bland and small anymore. This time it was more than she had imagined. She took a breath and walked on. She knew the name of the club she was looking for. In a manner of speaking. She knew the shape its letters made. She knew it had a photograph in its window, of a naked woman and a German Shepherd. Which was a kind of dog. Inside it would smell of beer. She had been told there would be things she might prefer not to look at.

She heard police sirens, howling and baying in the distance. She slowed down, suddenly uncertain. Many places had the same letters in their names. The same shapes. Mostly at what Westerners would call the end of the word. Like a suffix, repeated over and over. Then suddenly she understood. All such places had steps leading down. To rooms under the ground. Like caves. Keller . Part of a word. It meant underground cave .

She walked on. She found the place she wanted. It was lit up red. It had a narrow door, with a narrow window alongside it, sandwiched between two other places. A lobby, with a stair head. The window carried the promised photograph. It was bleached by many daylight hours. It showed a naked woman on her back, with a big dog squatting over her, its hindquarters over her face. She had the dog’s penis in her mouth. No big deal. Not to one from the tribal areas. The messenger had seen it done before. Boys on men, mostly, on command, or sometimes goats.

She pushed the door and went inside. There was a sharp chemical smell. Astringent. She had smelled the same thing in the airport bathroom. There was a big man on a stool. Men had to pay him, but women didn’t. What they called a cover charge. She had been coached. She smiled at him, shyly, and set off down the stairs. They were narrow. At the bottom was blue light and a roar of noise. Music, talking, the slam of heavy glass pitchers on wooden tables.

She stepped into the basement room. There was a lit stage at the far end. A naked woman was bent double, having sex with a donkey. The donkey was in a kind of hammock, to take its weight off the woman’s back. The room was crowded with men, all of them rearing up, and craning their necks. They were shouting and grunting in time with the donkey’s bewildered thrusts. She saw Wiley two-thirds of the way back, alone at a table. She had memorized his face. He had a tall glass of golden liquid. It was half gone. Beer, she assumed.

She stood still. Men were looking at her. She had on black pants and her travel shirt, open two buttons. She ignored the looks and threaded her way between the tables. There was a clatter of hooves as the donkey finished and struggled out of its hammock. All around her men clapped and cheered. The naked woman straightened up and waved to them, graciously.

–

In Reacher’s room they heard the phone ringing through the wall, next door in Sinclair’s room. Then it stopped and Reacher’s own phone rang in turn. It was Bishop, from the consulate. The CIA head of station. He wanted Sinclair. She put him on speaker and he said, “The Iranian just called it in. About the lamp in the window. The messenger is a woman and as of right now she’s out of the house.”