Lee Child - Night School

“OK,” Muller said again. “I’ll see what I can find.”

–

At ten o’clock in the evening Hamburg time Ratcliffe approved plan B. At eleven o’clock Reacher gave up on it. The messenger had not come home. She was never planning to. That was clear by then. Griezman said she could have taken any one of twenty or more international flights in the last few hours. Or flown domestic to Berlin, where the whole world was a hop and a skip away. Or driven to Amsterdam. Or taken a train to Paris. Or gone to another safe house in the city, which was a separate nightmare all by itself.

Reacher and Sinclair were in Sinclair’s room, all showered and dressed long ago. Neagley was back. They had brought her up to speed with the whole sorry mess. The missed cues, the wrong assumptions, the late connections. Which led inevitably to a debate about next steps. Which led inevitably to a debate about the fingerprint. Sinclair said, “Wiley has Sixth Amendment rights to a speedy trial for the homicide. Which he wouldn’t get, because we would tie him up for years about the other thing. And we can’t let the Germans have him first, because we might never get him back again.”

Neagley said, “We could negotiate that ahead of time.”

“We can’t be in a position where we have to ask the Germans for permission to run our own national security the way we want to.”

“We’d be giving up all kinds of capabilities. The clock is really ticking now. It’s getting loud.”

Sinclair said, “Reacher?”

He said, “I think it’s fifty-fifty. A physical search of the city would be a waste of time. Even if they could eyeball a thousand faces a day, it would take nearly five years to cover the whole population. But their records could be useful. Wiley came to town not more than four months ago. We know that for sure. So we have a hard start date. Obviously he rented a place, because he killed the hooker in her apartment, not a hotel room. So he has a lease somewhere. And then a new name, probably German, to go with his new passport, probably also German. He has utility bills. Probably a telephone. We have no access to those databases. That’s where Griezman could help us.”

“Yes or no?”

“I’m biased,” Reacher said. “I owe the guy.”

“He did nothing for you. He didn’t find Wiley, and he didn’t find the messenger.”

“He tried.”

“What did you think of Mr. Bishop, from the consulate?”

“The head of station?”

“The CIA veteran.”

“He’s not bad for an old guy.”

“Obviously our older German-speakers were trained under the previous system. For duty in East Germany, not the civilized west. They like to know everything about everybody. For recruitment, back then, and for blackmail, and for a better understanding of the local inside stories. They have extensive files. Not all of them in the official cabinets.”

“And?”

“Chief of Detectives Griezman was the dead hooker’s client about a year ago. Four times. We know this for sure. He spent his kids’ college fund. Therefore my guess is he wants to close the case so no one goes poking and prying too far back. My guess is his noble quest for justice is not so noble after all.”

Reacher paused a beat.

“OK,” he said.

“So yes or no?”

“Wiley still walks on the homicide.”

“We can’t hang him twice.”

Reacher paused again.

Then he said, “Griezman was stupid.”

“Overcome by lust,” Sinclair said. “It happens.”

“He was stupid because of what you’re going to realize about five seconds from now. Only because you’re a nicer person than me.”

Sinclair didn’t answer.

Then she said, “Oh.”

Reacher nodded. “We can sidestep the fingerprint issue completely. We don’t need to trade. We can get everything we want by blackmailing the guy.”

“I hope so,” Sinclair said.

“Except I don’t want to do that. So not yet, OK? Wiley is an AWOL soldier in the same city as me. It’s money in the bank.”

“How much time would Griezman save you?”

“He’s a last resort either way around. I don’t want to get bogged down in databases. There are other ways. I was trained under the previous system, too. So Griezman’s zipper problem doesn’t matter yet. There’s nothing he can do for us right now.”

“Are you saying that because you owe him?”

“I’m saying it because it’s true.”

“What are the other ways?”

“We get to know the guy. We find him from the inside.”

–

By then Neagley had the transcripts from the original AWOL file, so she and Reacher left Sinclair in her room and headed down to Neagley’s, to read them. The physical chronology was straightforward enough. Wiley had failed to return from a routine ninety-six-hour pass. Simple as that. He had never been seen again. He had mentioned nothing in advance to his crewmates about where he was going on the pass. Best guess was Frankfurt, where the hookers were plentiful and inventive, because of the convention business. Did Wiley like hookers? No more than the next guy, was the answer.

Then there were background questions, to build up a picture of the guy. Hobbies, interests, enthusiasms, things he talked about. He was from Texas, and sometimes he talked about beef cattle. He was proud of his home town. Sometimes he got all excited and said things he seemed to regret later. Other times he was quiet. One time he said he had joined the army only because an uncle had told him stories about Davy Crockett. He liked beer better than hard liquor, and he didn’t smoke. He was unmarried and had never talked about a partner back home. He was extremely happy where he was. He liked his posting and gave the impression he had aimed for it.

“That’s weird,” Neagley said. “Most AWOLs aren’t extremely happy where they are. That’s kind of the point.”

Reacher said, “And who would aim for a Chaparral unit on an abandoned front? The guy is still a private. Always will be. He must have known.”

“Was Davy Crockett even in the army?”

“Not this army. It was the Lawrence County militia, in Tennessee. And then he was at the Alamo, of course. Which was a heroic story, for sure, but dying besieged and hopelessly outnumbered is not exactly the image of glory we want recruits to bring in with them.”

“We should find the uncle. Maybe they’re close.”

“You think Wiley is sending him postcards?”

“He might have told him something. Apparently he blurts things out and then regrets them later. Maybe that’s why he killed the hooker. I’ve heard of that happening. Guys boast about what they’re doing, because they feel good in the moment.”

“OK,” Reacher said. “Find the uncle. And check with his commanding officers from three years ago. Basic training, and then Mother Sill. Did he really aim for Germany? As in, aim specifically, like a target? That would change my thinking. That would make this whole thing feel planned, not purely opportunistic.”

“Three years is a very long game.”

“Worth it for a hundred million dollars.”

“We don’t have anything worth a hundred million dollars.”

“Make the calls,” Reacher said. “I’ll be back later.”

“Where are you going?”

“For a walk.”

“I noticed Dr. Sinclair seemed more relaxed tonight.”

“Did she?”

“She had a definite glow.”

“Maybe she does yoga.”

“Or deep breathing.”

Reacher said nothing.

–

The man named Muller stopped in at the central police station. It was where he worked. He was second in command in the traffic division. Not ideal for access to Griezman’s office, but the place was quiet at night. Griezman’s floor had spacious suites with secretarial stations outside. They were all deserted. All the bosses were basically paper-shufflers. They wrote things up and their secretaries did the filing, once at lunchtime, and then again first thing the next morning.