The Enemy

“I’m glad someone was, somewhere.”

“Lots of people. Big crowds. All singing and dancing.”

“I didn’t see the news.”

“This all was six hours ago. The time difference.”

“They’re probably still at it.”

“They had sledgehammers.”

“They’re allowed. Their half is a free city. We spent forty-five years keeping it that way.”

“Pretty soon we won’t have an enemy anymore.”

I tried the coffee. Hot, black, the best in the world.

“We won,” I said. “Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?”

“Not if you depend on Uncle Sam’s paycheck.”

She was dressed like me in standard woodland camouflage battledress uniform. Her sleeves were neatly rolled. Her MP brassard was exactly horizontal. I figured she had it safety-pinned in back where nobody could see. Her boots were gleaming.

“You got any desert camos?” I asked her.

“Never been to the desert,” she said.

“They changed the pattern. They put big brown splotches on it. Five years’ research. Infantry guys are calling it chocolate chip. It’s not a good pattern. They’ll have to change it back. But it’ll take them another five years to figure that out.”

“So?”

“If it takes them five years to revise a camo pattern, your kid will be through college before they figure out force reduction. So don’t worry about it.”

“OK,” she said, not believing me. “You think he’s good for college?”

“I never met him.”

She said nothing.

“The army hates change,” I said. “And we’ll always have enemies.”

She said nothing. My phone rang again. She leaned forward and answered it for me. Listened for about eleven seconds and handed me the receiver.

“Colonel Garber, sir,” she said. “He’s in D.C.”

She took her mug and left the room. Colonel Garber was ultimately my boss, and although he was a pleasant human being it was unlikely he was calling eight minutes into New Year’s Day simply to be social. That wasn’t his style. Some brass does that stuff. They come over all cheery on the big holidays, like they’re really just one of the boys. But Leon Garber wouldn’t have dreamed of trying that, with anyone, and least of all with me. Even if he had known I was going to be there.

“Reacher here,” I said.

There was a long pause.

“I thought you were in Panama,” Leon Garber said.

“I got orders,” I said.

“From Panama to Fort Bird? Why?”

“Not my place to ask.”

“When was this?”

“Two days ago.”

“That’s a kick in the teeth,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

“ Panama was probably more exciting.”

“It was OK,” I said.

“And they got you working duty officer on New Year’s Eve already?”

“I volunteered,” I said. “I’m trying to make people like me.”

“That’s a hopeless task,” he said.

“A sergeant just brought me coffee.”

There was another pause. “Someone just call you about a dead soldier in a motel?” he asked.

“Eight minutes ago,” I said. “I shuffled it off to headquarters.”

“And they shuffled it off to someone else and I just got pulled out of a party to hear all about it.”

“Why?”

“Because the dead soldier in question is a two-star general.”

The phone went quiet.

“I didn’t think to ask,” I said.

The phone stayed quiet.

“Generals are mortal,” I said. “Same as anyone else.”

No reply.

“There was nothing suspicious,” I said. “He croaked, is all. Heart attack. Probably had gout. I didn’t see a reason to get excited.”

“It’s a question of dignity,” Garber said. “We can’t leave a two-star lying around belly-up in public without reacting. We need a presence.”

“And that would be me?”

“I’d prefer someone else. But you’re probably the highest-ranking sober MP in the world tonight. So yes, it would be you.”

“It’ll take me an hour to get there.”

“He’s not going anywhere. He’s dead. And they haven’t found a sober medical examiner yet.”

“OK,” I said.

“Be respectful,” Garber said.

“OK,” I said again.

“And be polite. Off-post, we’re in their hands. It’s a civilian jurisdiction.”

“I’m familiar with civilians. I met one, once.”

“But control the situation,” he said. “You know, if it needs controlling.”

“He probably died in bed,” I said. “Like people do.”

“Call me,” he said. “If you need to.”

“Was it a good party?”

“Excellent. My daughter is visiting.”

He clicked off and I called the civilian dispatcher back and got the name and the address of the motel. Then I left my coffee on my desk and told my sergeant what was up and headed back to my quarters to change. I figured a presence required Class A greens, not woodland-pattern BDUs.

I took a Humvee from the MP motor pool and was logged out through the main gate. I found the motel inside fifty minutes. It was thirty miles due north of Fort Bird through dark undistinguished North Carolina countryside that was equal parts strip malls and scrubby forest and what I figured were dormant sweet potato fields. It was all new to me. I had never served there before. The roads were very quiet. Everyone was still inside, partying. I hoped I would be back at Bird before they all came out and started driving home. Although I really liked the Humvee’s chances, head-on against a civilian ride.

The motel was part of a knot of low commercial structures clustered in the darkness near a big highway interchange. There was a truck stop as a centerpiece. It had a greasy spoon that was open on the holidays and a gas station big enough to take eighteen-wheelers. There was a no-name cinder-block lounge bar with lots of neon and no windows. It had an Exotic Dancers sign lit up in pink and a parking lot the size of a football field. There were diesel spills and rainbow puddles all over it. I could hear loud music coming out of the bar. There were cars parked three-deep all around it. The whole area was glowing sulfurous yellow from the streetlights. The night air was cold and full of fog. The motel itself was directly across the street from the gas station. It was a run-down swaybacked affair about twenty rooms long. It had a lot of peeling paint. It looked empty. There was an office at the left-hand end with a token vehicle porch and a buzzing Coke machine.

First question: Why would a two-star general use a place like this? I was pretty sure there wouldn’t have been