Lee Child - Never Go Back

He said, ‘Look on the bright side. Your problem ain’t exactly brain surgery. Whatever rabbit you were chasing in Afghanistan is behind all this shit. So we need to work backward from him. We need to find out who his friends are, and we need to find out who did what, and when, and how, and why, and then we need to bring the hammer down.’

Turner said, ‘There’s a problem with that.’

Reacher nodded.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘It won’t be easy. Not from the outside. It’s like we’ve got one hand tied behind our back. But we’ll give it our best shot.’

‘Unfortunately that’s not the problem I’m talking about.’

‘So what is?’

‘Someone thinks I know something I don’t. That’s the problem.’

‘What don’t you know?’

‘I don’t know who the rabbit is,’ Turner said. ‘Or what the hell he’s doing, or where, or why. Or how. In fact I don’t know what’s happening in Afghanistan at all.’

‘But you sent two guys there.’

‘Much earlier. For a completely different reason. In Kandahar. Pure routine. Entirely unconnected. But along the way they picked up on a whisper from a Pashtun informer, that an American officer had been seen heading north to meet with a tribal leader. The identity of the American was not known, and his purpose was not known, but the feeling was it can’t have been anything good. We’re drawing down. We’re supposed to be heading south, not north, towards Bagram and Kabul, prior to getting the hell out. We’re not supposed to be way up in-country, having secret meetings with towelheads. So I sent my guys to chase the rumour. That was all.’

‘When?’

‘The day before I was busted. So I won’t even have a name until they report back to me. Which they won’t be able to, not until I’m back on the inside.’

Reacher said nothing.

Turner said, ‘What?’

‘It’s worse than that.’

‘How can it be?’

‘They won’t be able to report back ever,’ Reacher said. ‘Because they’re dead.’

TWENTY-FOUR

REACHER TOLD TURNER about the missed radio checks, and the agitation in the old stone building, and the semi-authorized air search out of Bagram, and the two dead bodies on the goat trail. Turner went still and quiet. She said, ‘They were good men. Natty Weeks and Duncan Edwards. Weeks was an old hand and Edwards was a good prospect. I shouldn’t have let them go. The Hindu Kush is too dangerous for two men on their own.’

‘It wasn’t tribesmen who got them,’ Reacher said. ‘They were shot in the head with nine-millimetre rounds. U.S. Army side-arms, most likely. Beretta M9s, almost certainly. The tribesmen would have cut their heads off. Or used AK47s. Different kind of hole altogether.’

‘So they must have gotten close to the wrong American.’

‘Without even knowing it,’ Reacher said. ‘Don’t you think? A handgun to the head is an up-close-and-personal kind of a thing. Which they wouldn’t have allowed, surely, if they had the slightest suspicion.’

‘Very neat,’ Turner said. ‘They shut me down, at both ends. Here, and there. Before I got anything at all. As in, right now I have nothing. Not a thing. So I’m totally screwed. I’m going down, Reacher. I don’t see a way out of this now.’

Reacher said nothing.

They got off the bus in Berryville, Virginia, which was one town short of its ultimate destination. Better that way, they thought. A driver might remember a pair of atypical passengers who stayed on board until the very end of the line. Especially if it came to radio or TV appeals, or routine police interviews, or public-enemy photographs in the post office.

The rain had stopped, but the air was still damp and cold. Berryville’s downtown area was pleasant enough, but they backtracked on foot, back the way the bus had come, across a railroad track, past a pizza restaurant, to a hardware store they had seen from the window. The store was about to close, which was not ideal, because clerks tend to remember the first and last customers of the day. But they judged yet more time in ACU pants was worse. So they went in and Turner found a pair of canvas work pants similar to Reacher’s. The smallest size the store carried was going to be loose in the waist and long in the leg. Not perfect. But Turner figured the discrepancy was going to be a good thing. A feature, not a bug, was how she put it. Because the pant legs would pool down over her army boots, thereby hiding them to some extent, and making them less obvious.

They bought the pants and three pairs of boot laces, one for Reacher’s boots, and one for Turner’s, and one for her to double up and use as a belt. They conducted their business in as unmemorable a manner as they could. Neither polite nor impolite, neither rushing nor stalling, not really saying much of anything. Turner didn’t use the restroom. She wanted to change, but they figured for the last customer of the day to go in wearing ACU pants and come out in a new purchase would likely stick in the clerk’s memory.

But the store had a big parking lot on one side, and it was empty and dark, so Turner changed her pants in the shadows and dumped her army issue in a trash container at the rear of the building. Then she came out, and they traded jacket for shirt, and they sat down on a kerb together and tied their boots.

Good to go, with four dollars left in Reacher’s pocket.

Four bucks was a week’s wage in some countries of the world, but it wasn’t worth much of a damn in Berryville, Virginia. It wouldn’t buy transportation out of the state, and it wouldn’t buy a night in a motel, and it wouldn’t buy a proper sit-down meal for two, not in any kind of restaurant or diner known to man.

Turner said, ‘You told me there’s more than one kind of ATM.’

‘There is,’ Reacher said. ‘Fifty miles ahead, or fifty miles back. But not here.’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘Me too.’

‘There’s no point in holding on to four dollars.’

‘I agree,’ Reacher said. ‘Let’s go crazy.’

They walked back towards the railroad track, fast and newly confident in their newly laced boots, to the pizza restaurant they had seen. Not a gourmet place, which was just as well. They bought a single slice each, to go, pepperoni for Reacher, plain cheese for Turner, and a can of soda to share between them. Which left them eighty cents in change. They ate and drank sitting side by side on a rail at the train crossing.

Turner asked, ‘Did you lose guys when you were CO?’

‘Four,’ Reacher said. ‘One of them was a woman.’

‘Did you feel bad?’

‘I wasn’t turning cartwheels. But it’s all part of the game. We all know what we’re signing up for.’

‘I wish I’d gone myself.’

Reacher asked, ‘Have you ever been to the Cayman Islands?’

‘No.’

‘Ever had a foreign bank account?’

‘Are you kidding? Why would I? I’m an O4. I make less than some high-school teachers.’

‘Why did you take a day to pass on the name of the Hood guy’s contact?’

‘What is this, the third degree?’

‘I’m thinking,’ Reacher said. ‘That’s all.’

‘You know why. I wanted to bust him myself. To make sure it was done properly. I gave myself twenty-four hours. But I couldn’t find him. So I told the FBI. They should think themselves lucky. I could have given myself a week.’

‘I might have,’ Reacher said. ‘Or a month.’

They finished their pizza slices, and drained the shared can of soda. Reacher wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then wiped the back of his hand on his pants. Turner said, ‘What are we going to do now?’

‘We’re going to walk through town and hitch a ride west.’