Archived service records, defined as records for veterans sixty-two years or more post-separation, were stored and open to the public at the new National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Nothing pertaining to Reacher would be archived there because he’d been discharged in March 1997.
All inactive personnel records for veterans with a discharge date less than sixty-two years ago remained the property of the Department of Defense and its individual branches. In Reacher’s case, that meant the Army.
Gaspar was an active, practicing Catholic. He believed in divine providence. At first, it felt like he was on the right investigative path and he might find what he sought, even without an official archive. A fire had destroyed service records at the prior St. Louis center in 1973, but Reacher was only thirteen then.
But then Gaspar ran into several official gaps that concealed Reacher’s history more effectively than youth or fire.
The Army didn’t begin retaining records electronically until 2002, five years after Reacher’s separation. This meant his files weren’t retained in electronic format by the Army or electronically shared with the NPRC.
Worse, the Army’s policies on maintaining and releasing service records were changed in April, 1997 and several times thereafter. The rules filled more than fifty-five pages, regularly revised, of course.
All of which meant that Reacher’s records were once and should remain hard copies, resting in files owned by the Army that could be and probably were buried so deep in bullshit that no one would ever find them.
Unless.
Unless Reacher did something to get himself inscribed by bits and bytes into the electronic records after he left the army.
Which, Gaspar was betting, Reacher had done. Probably many times. For sure, at least once barely six months after the army let him go. If Gaspar could find that record, he’d have verified hard proof and Reacher’s trail might begin to unravel.
Gaspar knew Reacher had been arrested in Margrave, Georgia, and his fingerprints were taken and sent to FBI headquarters. A report was returned to the Margrave Police Department. Margrave PD records were also destroyed in a fire, which Gaspar was as sure as he could possibly be was no coincidence.
Even so, the initial fingerprint request should exist in FBI files. Gaspar had checked. The request did not exist in FBI files. Which Gaspar was sure, but could not prove, was no coincidence, either.
This was where the government’s redundancy and repetitive nature might be harnessed, Gaspar hoped. The Margrave PD request and FBI reply should also have been noted in Reacher’s military file, as should any request and reply about Reacher at any time from the date of his discharge until this very moment and into the future. Anything after 2002 should be electronically recorded for sure. And anything before 1997 might also have been updated because of the later electronic entries.
It was this army record Gaspar sought now. Positive paper trail proof of the legally admissible kind that Jack Reacher had been present in Margrave in September 1997, six months after his Army discharge, that Reacher was
Tangible proof of Reacher’s Margrave presence was important because it provided the immovable, rock hard foundation he needed to nail down. Gaspar’s training said it was required and his gut said it mattered and that was enough for him. He and Otto were assigned to build the Reacher file and by God, he’d do it right, and he wouldn’t make his wife a widow or his five children orphans in the process if he could possibly help it.
First things first. The Margrave PD print request and the Army’s reply.
Then they would take the next steps.
Whatever those steps were.
And if the print request and reply documents were missing from the army files?
Starting here and now, he would confirm one way or the other.
Gaspar was a practicing Catholic. He believed in divine intervention. But he was an FBI Special Agent who also believed in hard proof and his gut. So he knew. He knew before he opened the box marked Jack (none) Reacher and sifted through the paperwork.
Relevant records ended when Reacher separated from the army in March 1997.
After Gaspar confirmed it, he and Otto could move forward. But to where?
6.
An hour before the scheduled meeting, Otto and Gaspar stepped out of the coffee shop located across the street from the J. Edgar Hoover building into the mild autumn weather. Full dark had fallen a while back, but streetlights and headlights and floodlights eliminated all blackness. The trees were partially clothed in fall finery; grass remained green and a few flowers still bloomed. No breeze ruffled to cool the temperature.
After Wisconsin, Kim found the evening weather pleasantly warm. After Miami, Gaspar might have been a bit chilled. Both were energized by the anticipated confrontation. Maybe they were finally going to catch a break.
Saturday night on Pennsylvania Avenue NW was subdued. Traffic moved at posted speeds or less. Couples and small groups populated the sidewalks, strolling with discrete distances between them. Nothing out of the ordinary to notice.
Gaspar stretched like a cat, asked, “Shall we walk?” and set off eastbound before she had a chance to respond.
Kim ran through the options. The Metro Stop at 7th Street was off the path, a cab wasn’t worth the wait, she absolutely wasn’t taking the bus, Gaspar wasn’t limping, and walking always helped to organize her thoughts before a mission.
“Probably easiest, if you’re up for it,” Kim said, quickening her pace to reach him and keep up with his longer stride.
So they approached the National Gallery of Art’s East Building the first time as any tourist might travel from FBI headquarters, hoofing less than a mile along Pennsylvania Avenue and turned right at 4th Street NW, walking along the sidewalk opposite the East Building.
Kim had studied the building through quick online research during her return flight from Madison. Opened in 1978, it was designed by I.M. Pei, which no doubt accounted for its irregular shape and probably explained the National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1981.
Inside, the building housed modern art, research centers and offices. Outside, it was nestled among the trees, surrounded by a six-acre contemporary sculpture garden and green space on three sides.
Although it was connected underground to the more traditional West Building where the main Gallery entrance was located, the East Building also admitted the public through a massive glass-walled entrance facing 4th Street.
Before they turned onto 4th Street, they’d seen a line of cabs and limousines at the East Building’s front entrance. Kim looked inside the East Building lobby as they walked past. The room seemed stuffed to capacity. Men in tuxedoes; women in long gowns and short skirts; waiters passing trays of canapes and bubbly; a string quartet playing in the front corner. None of the noise from the party seeped out to Kim’s ears.
“Some sort of charity gala?” she asked, noticing the flags on a few of the limos. “Diplomats, maybe?”
At the 4th Street and Madison Drive corner, they crossed 4th Street, turned and returned along the sidewalk closest to the East Building this time. The green space was lighted, but too dark to traverse without dogs and Tasers. They stayed on the sidewalk until they reached the opposite corner, which was technically 4th Street and Constitution.
Gaspar’s gaze scanned everywhere. He said, “Three dark hoodies at three o’clock, south side, between the glass pyramids. Check it out next pass.”
“Reacher?”
He wagged his head. “Too small.”
“You saw the sculptures and all those narrow, open areas around the building?” she asked. What worried her were the number of deeply shadowed areas suitable for clandestine attacks. Quick death was easy to imagine and bodies could lay in those shadows for a good long time before anyone noticed.
Gaspar seemed to hear her concern. “Even if he planned this -”
“You think he didn’t?”
