Lee Child - Night School

“Believe what?” Sinclair said. “He couldn’t remember anything.”

“Did you believe he couldn’t remember anything?”

“Didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t sure. On the one hand, OK, he’s dying from a brain tumor. On the other hand, I didn’t like the call-me-Arnold bullshit. He was buying time. He was an infantryman twenty years, so he can smell MPs a mile away. He wanted to think about his answers.”

“Which were, in the end?”

“No, Wiley hadn’t contacted him, and no, he didn’t remember telling Davy Crockett stories.”

“You think he was lying?”

“A person in that condition is hard to read. I think the first part was probably true. He was sad, not defensive. But he paused an awful long time after the Davy Crockett question. Maybe it was the brain tumor. Or maybe he was putting two and two together. The passage of time, plus Horace Wiley’s inborn nature, which he observed at close quarters, plus whatever was in the Davy Crockett stories, plus then many years later the sudden appearance of an O-4 investigator, equals some kind of an eventual bad outcome. And therefore a need for denial. Which our natural sympathy excuses as memory loss. Which it might actually be. But we’ll never know for sure. Because we can’t find out. We can’t smack the guy around. So to speak.”

Bishop said, “He can’t be actively involved. He’s been sick a year and a half.”

“Agreed,” Reacher said.

“So it’s all about the Davy Crockett stories. Which at face value sound like nothing. Just stupid fairytales for kids. But they were top of Wiley’s cryptic list. So clearly they have personal meaning for him.”

Sinclair said, “Personal meaning how?”

Neagley said, “He didn’t tell his wife. So they were work-based stories, not home-based. They were army stories. Of which there are millions. All kinds of unit legends. Maybe Mason told Wiley his unit’s legend, man to man, trying to bond with the kid. Like in the movies. The mother’s new boyfriend always does that. Maybe Wiley always remembered the stories. Maybe they were powerful enough to make him come check them out, all these years later.”

“What kind of legends are there?”

“We could try a Hail Mary,” Neagley said. She was reading Arnold Mason’s service record like a sheet of music, moving her finger from measure to measure, head cocked, listening to the tune. She said, “It’s a long shot, but if you start way back, a first lieutenant with these guys might have rotated back in as a captain. Maybe again as a major or a light colonel. Back then airborne infantry could build careers. If such a guy did well, he could still be with us. Very senior now, but he’ll remember. Everybody remembers their first unit.”

“It’s forty years ago.”

“If he graduated the Point at twenty-two, he’s still short of retirement.”

“He’d be a general by now.”

“Probably.”

“How would you find him?”

“I would call a friend in Personnel Command. Someone would figure it out.”

“Do it,” Sinclair said. “As soon as we get back.”

They drove on. Outside the sky grew darker. Either rain coming, or late afternoon. Or both.

–

In Jalalabad dusk was already falling. The messenger was leaving the white mud house. She climbed into a Toyota pick-up truck. Same system as before. Drive all night, and take the first flight out. She was ready. Still a clean skin, more or less. Not that the Swiss cared. All money was the same to them. She had been coached.

She knew the address in Zurich. She knew Zurich would look different than Hamburg. She knew all the numbers. Their account number, their passcode, one hundred million dollars, zero cents, Wiley’s account number. She had Swiss francs in her pocket, for taxis.

Pray for success, the fat man had said. But not hers. Her job was easy. He should have said pray for Wiley’s success. She didn’t like Wiley. Not because of the assault on her modesty. Because he was weak and furtive and easily distracted. Which worried her. His job wasn’t easy. Her success depended on his. If this deal fails, then yes, you will be killed .

It wouldn’t fail because of her.

The Toyota bucked and bounced over washboard roads, heading away from the last of the sunset.

–

Neagley got on the phone in the consulate room and called her friend in Personnel Command. She explained the Hail Mary. Her friend said the theory sounded simple enough. Look for junior commanders in about 1955, in the airborne divisions in Germany, who were still in the army forty years later. Neagley bet five dollars on low single digits. Her friend put ten on the zero. Because of natural attrition, he said, plus three major upheavals, first Vietnam, and then the Soviet collapse, and then the modern-day volunteer high-tech military machine, all lean and mean, with body armor and women and night-vision goggles. No guy could survive all that.

Then another phone rang, and it was picked up by Vanderbilt and handed to Reacher. It was Griezman. Who said, “I need to speak with you in private.”

Reacher said, “Go ahead.”

“No, face to face. And alone. Where are you?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you that.”

“I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”

“I’m at the U.S. consulate.”

“Be outside one minute from now.”

Reacher waited at the curb, with his back to the not-exactly White House, and he saw Griezman’s Mercedes in traffic a hundred yards to his left. He got in when it got there, and Griezman pulled a U-turn and headed back the way he had come. He was as big as ever. And quiet. He had something on his mind.

Reacher said, “Where are we going?”

Griezman said, “The railroad station.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a responsible copper. I added Wiley as a potential suspect. Which meant the uniformed division got his picture. The feet on the street. They showed it around. A money changer at the railroad station recognized it. From a couple of days ago. Which makes him your business, not mine.”

“Thank you.”

“However,” Griezman said.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“You have seen our facilities. Unbelievable results are obtained. We think our victim was hit seven times on the top of the head. Almost a frenzy. All in the same place, so the wound is mush. Except two of the seven blows erred slightly, one to the left, one to the right, and by combining opposite halves of those two crisp impressions, we can see the overall shape of the implement used as the bludgeon.”

“Good work.”

“We have an extensive database of such things, for reference and comparison.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“It was the butt of a Beretta M9 pistol.”

Reacher said, “I see.”

“Which is the U.S. Army’s standard-issue sidearm.”

“Wasn’t me.”

“Was it Wiley?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s one more thing,” Griezman said.

But it had to wait, because a light turned green and the Mercedes rolled into the square in front of the station. The gray sky made it dark early. The street lights were on. People streamed in and out, fast and purposeful, flowing around others standing dazed and mute. There was a lit-up booth halfway back. Foreign currency. One guy.

Griezman parked and they walked the rest of the way. The guy in the booth was small and dark. He spoke fast, even in English. Reacher showed him the sketch and he said, “Yeah, two days ago, in the evening, deutschmarks and dollars into Argentinian pesos.”

“How much?”

“About four hundred bucks.”

“Was he nervous or excited?”

“He was gazing all around. Like he was thinking.”