Lee Child - Night School

“Twelve years.”

“You ever known anything go wrong?”

Reacher glanced down at his pants. Marine Corps khakis, sewn in 1962, shipped in 1965, to the wrong branch of the service entirely, undiscovered for thirty years.

He said, “We’re talking about nuclear weapons here.”

Helmsworth said, “In our history we’ve had a total of thirty-two accidentally launched, fired, detonated, stolen, or lost. We closed the files on twenty-six of them. The other six were never traced or recovered. They’re still missing. We know those numbers for sure. They’re solid. Another ten isn’t outside the bounds of possibility. Especially given their nature. Davy Crocketts were small and mass-produced. They were not glamour weapons. They were treated like regular everyday ordnance.”

“How good was the search?”

“We looked everywhere. Literally everywhere in the world. We didn’t find them. So the majority view prevailed. They never existed in the first place. The invoice was an intended fraud, but someone got cold feet and never submitted it.”

“What was your personal opinion?”

“We were preparing for a land war against the Red Army in Europe. We had hundreds of supply depots all over Germany. The largest was bigger than some of their cities. The smallest was bigger than a football stadium. I thought the majority was sticking its fingers in its ears and singing la-la-la.”

“Would Arnold Mason have been involved in the search?”

“Almost certainly. This was years later, don’t forget. Those were the guys who actually knew what they were looking for.”

“So those were the stories young Horace Wiley heard. The missing crate. Ten lost bombs as big as Hiroshima. Buried treasure.”

Sinclair said, “Why would he expect to find them when no one else could?”

“Different people have different talents,” Reacher said. “Maybe Uncle Arnold gave him half a clue. Maybe he hit on something no one else did. Maybe he was the right kind of smart.”

“This sounds completely impossible.”

“I agree.”

Helmsworth said, “Ma’am, nothing was impossible. It was the Cold War. It was a kind of madness. One time they sewed a microphone and a transmitter in a cat’s neck, with a thin antenna threaded through inside its spine and up its tail. They were going to train it to wander into the Russian Embassy compound and pick up loose talk. Its first day on the job it was run over by a car. Nothing was impossible and everything went wrong sooner or later.”

Neagley said, “Does it even matter? Because who knows the arming codes? Were they ever issued? Even if they were, they’d be split between two personnel. That was a basic nuclear safeguard. For ten bombs, that’s twenty veterans. Who exactly?”

Helmsworth said nothing.

Reacher said, “General?”

Helmsworth said, “It gets worse.”

“Is that possible?”

“You’ve seen the movies about D-Day. Anti-aircraft fire, map reading errors, wind and weather, swamps and rivers, immediate ground combat. The chances of landing two personnel in the same place at the same time were precisely zero. Which would have left us with a hundred useless hunks of metal. But it was essential we were effective. Therefore the split-code safeguard was considered a tactical impediment.”

“Considered by who?”

“Tactical commanders.”

“Like you?”

“I told my quartermaster to tell our armorer to write the whole code on the bomb itself with yellow chalk. That way the guy carrying it could get killed and someone else could still complete the mission. It was the Cold War. Looking back we know it didn’t happen. It felt like it could at the time.”

“But the eleventh crate never made it to the field.”

“In which case it has its codes in a top-secret file placed in a custom receptacle on the inside back wall. That was the part the apprentice made. Eleven times over.”

No one spoke for a very long time.

Then Sinclair said, “OK, one minute from now I have to call the president and tell him we may have ten loose atom bombs, complete with full arming codes, each one as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb, which means up to ten world cities could soon be completely destroyed. Can anyone give me a reason why I should not make that call?”

No one spoke.

–

Chief of Detectives Griezman took the elevator to Herr Dremmler’s office. It was very slow. An original installation, no doubt, part of the rebuilding. But it got there in the end. A minute later Griezman was sitting uncomfortably in a too-small visitor chair in front of Dremmler’s desk, who first ordered coffee from a secretary Griezman took to be South American, and then asked how he could help.

Griezman said, “It’s about Wolfgang Schlupp.”

Dremmler said, “You know, I talked to him earlier in the day. Purely by chance.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“He said nothing of interest. Certainly nothing that would help you shed light on what happened to him afterward.”

“What did you talk about?”

“It was all pleasantries. I saw him once at a business dinner. He was a nodding acquaintance, nothing more. I was merely saying hello. A professional courtesy. I hardly knew the fellow.”

“Were you trying to sell him shoes?”

“No, no, not at all. It’s a politeness. It oils the wheels.”

“Do you go to that bar often?”

“Not very.”

“Why that day?”

“To see and be seen. I have many different places. On rotation. It’s what we do.”

“We?”

“Entrepreneurs, civic leaders, business people, wheelers and dealers.”

Griezman said, “Did you notice who your back was to?”

Dremmler paused a beat. Remembered elbowing in next to Schlupp, shoulder first, his back to the room. Who was behind him? He couldn’t recall.

Griezman said, “It was a fellow about to run into trouble with the taxman. He overheard the whole conversation. He was very specific about the details.”

Dremmler paused again. He had a good memory. Solid judgment. He was also nimble and creative. A man in his position needed such qualities. He rewound the tape in his head and played the day-old conversation from the beginning, from when he had asked how was business, and Schlupp had asked what he needed. He skimmed it fast and picked out the important parts, which were the words information, and cause, and new Germany, and drivers and licenses, and the question about the American’s new name, and the cause again, and the bribe, and the word important, and for the third time, the word cause.

Busted.

He said, “I have people in places that might surprise you. It would be hard for this city to run without them. And none of them has broken any law. Myself included.”

“Yet.”

“Which is to say, none of them has broken any law.”

“We’ll be ready when you do.”

“Persecuting us will only increase our numbers.”

“Prosecuting is not persecuting.”

“Think for yourself, Herr Griezman. You’re facing a powerful force. Soon to get even more powerful. It might be time to abandon obedience to your masters. You should side with us. Our interests are perfectly aligned. You have nothing to fear. Your job will be safe. Even in the new Germany there will be petty criminals.”

Griezman said, “Did Schlupp call you back before he died, with the American’s new name?”

Dremmler said, “No.”

And Griezman believed him. He expected nothing less.

–

Sinclair made the call to the White House from the regular office. Helmsworth had left. Bishop had arrived. Waterman repeated his gloomy predictions, that it was too late anyway, that the Germans would take half a day even to respond, and a whole day to brief in. Maybe more, because they were starting from cold. Then they heard that a NATO clause had been invoked, which only added to the complexity. Sinclair predicted a significant delay. Reacher called Griezman, and was told he was out in his car. His secretary said she would make sure he called back just as soon as he could. She sounded like a very pleasant woman.