on the wall and passed the time in silence. Ten minutes later a private first class came in from the cold and saluted and asked Reacher to follow him. Formal, and polite. Innocent until proven guilty, Reacher guessed, at least in some people’s eyes. Out in the lot there was a worn army sedan with its motor running. A young lieutenant was stumping around next to it, awkward and embarrassed. He held the rear door and Reacher got in the back. The lieutenant took the front passenger seat and the private drove. A mile later they arrived at a motel, a run-down swaybacked old heap in a dark lot on a suburban evening-quiet three-lane road. The lieutenant signed a paper, and the night clerk gave Reacher a key, and the private drove the lieutenant away.
And then the second car arrived, with the guys in the T-shirts and the athletic pants.
FIVE
THERE WERE NO pockets in the athletic pants, and none in the T-shirts, either. And neither man was wearing dog tags. No ID at all. Their car was clean, too. Nothing in it, except the usual army document package stowed neatly in the glove compartment. No weapons, no personal property, no hidden wallets, no scraps of paper, no gas receipts. The licence plate was a standard government registration. Nothing abnormal about the car at all, except the two new dents in the doors.
The left-hand guy was blocking the driver’s door. Reacher dragged him six feet along the blacktop. He offered no resistance. Life was not a television show. Hit a guy hard enough in the side of the head, and he didn’t spring back up ready to carry on the fight. He stayed down for an hour or more, all sick and dizzy and disoriented. A lesson learned long ago: the human brain was much more sensitive to side-to-side displacement than front-to- back. An evolutionary quirk, presumably, like most things.
Reacher opened the driver’s door and climbed inside the car. The motor was stopped, but the key was still in. Reacher racked the seat back and started the engine. He sat still for a long spell and stared ahead through the windshield.
He adjusted the mirror. He put his foot on the brake and fumbled the lever into gear.
He took his foot off the brake and drove away.
He drove straight back to the old HQ building, and parked fifty yards from it on the three-lane road. The car was warm, and he kept the motor running to keep it warm. He watched through the windshield and saw no activity ahead. No coming or going. In his day the 110th had worked around the clock, seven days a week, and he saw no reason why anything would have changed. The enlisted night watch would be in for the duration, and a night duty officer would be in place, and the other officers would go off duty as soon as their work was done, whenever that might be. Normally. But not on that particular night. Not during a mess or a crisis, and definitely not with a troubleshooter in the house. No one would leave before Morgan. Basic army politics.
Morgan left an hour later. Reacher saw him quite clearly. A plain sedan came out through the gate and turned on to the three-lane and drove straight past where Reacher was parked. In the darkness Reacher saw a flash of Morgan at the wheel, in his ACU pyjamas and his eyeglasses, his hair still neatly combed, looking straight ahead, both hands on the wheel, like someone’s greataunt on the way to the store. Reacher watched in the mirror and saw his tail lights disappear over the hill.
He waited.
And sure enough, within the next quarter-hour there was a regular exodus. Five more cars came out, two of them turning left, three of them turning right, four of them driven solo, one of them with three people aboard. All the cars were dewed over with night mist, and all of them were trailing cold white exhaust. They disappeared into the distance, left and right, and their exhaust drifted away, and the world went quiet again.
Reacher waited ten more minutes, just in case. But nothing more happened. Fifty yards away the old building looked settled and silent. The night watch, in a world of its own. Reacher put his car in gear and rolled slowly down the hill and turned in at the gate. A new sentry was on duty in the hutch. A young guy, blank and stoic. Reacher stopped and buzzed his window down and the kid said, ‘Sir?’
Reacher gave his name and said, ‘I’m reporting to my duty station as ordered.’
‘Sir?’ the guy said again.
‘Am I on your list?’
The guy checked.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Major Reacher. But for tomorrow morning.’
‘I was ordered to report before 0800 hours.’
‘Yes, sir. I see that. But it’s 2300 hours now, sir. In the evening.’
‘Which is before 0800 in the morning. As ordered.’
The guy didn’t speak.
Reacher said, ‘It’s a simple matter of chronology. I’m keen to get to work, therefore a little early.’
No answer.
‘You could check with Colonel Morgan, if you like. I’m sure he’s back at his billet by now.’
No answer.
‘Or you could check with your duty sergeant.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the kid said. ‘I’ll do that instead.’
He made the call, and listened for a second, and put the phone down and said, ‘Sir, the sergeant requests that you stop by the desk.’
‘I’ll be sure to do that, soldier,’ Reacher said. He drove on, and parked next to the little red two-seater, which was still there, exactly where it had been before. He got out and locked up and walked through the cold to the door. The lobby felt quiet and still. A night and day difference, literally. But the same sergeant was at the reception desk. Finishing her work, before going off duty. She was on a high stool, typing on a keyboard. Updating the day’s log, presumably. Record-keeping was a big deal, all over the military. She stopped and looked up.
