‘That’s good.’
‘Good or bad, it’s really none of your business, major.’
Moorcroft chased toast crumbs around his plate for a minute more. Then he stood up in turn and said, ‘Good day, major,’ and strolled out of the room. He waddled a little as he walked. Much more academic than military. But not a bad guy. Reacher felt his heart was in the right place.
Reacher walked all the way north through the complex and stopped in at the guardhouse, where a different captain was in charge. Not Weiss, from the night before. The day guy was an aquiline black man about seven feet tall, but slender as a pencil, folded into a desk chair that was far too small for him. Reacher asked to visit with Susan Turner, and the guy consulted the green three-ring binder, and he refused the request.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
So Reacher walked back to where the old blue Chevy was parked, and he drove it back to the 110th HQ, and he left it where he had found it. He went inside and gave the key to Leach. She was agitated again. Nervous, stressed, and uptight. Not terrible, but visible. Reacher said, ‘What?’
Leach said, ‘Colonel Morgan’s not here.’
‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’
‘We need him.’
‘I can’t imagine what for.’
‘He’s the CO.’
‘No, Major Turner is your CO.’
‘And she’s not here either.’
‘What happened?’
‘Our guys in Afghanistan missed their second radio check. It’s forty-eight hours since we heard from them. And therefore we need to do something. But Morgan’s not here.’
Reacher nodded. ‘He’s probably having a new poker fitted. Up his ass. It’s probably a lengthy procedure.’
He moved on, into the ground-floor corridor, to the second office on the left. Room 103. The duty officer’s station. The guy was in there, behind his huge desk, handsome, Southern, and worried. His doodles were bleaker than ever. Reacher asked him, ‘Didn’t Morgan tell you where he was going?’
‘Pentagon,’ the guy said. ‘For a meeting.’
‘Is that all he said?’
‘No details.’
‘Have you called?’
‘Of course I have. But it’s a big place. They can’t find him anywhere.’
‘Does he have a cell phone?’
‘Switched off.’
‘How long has he been gone?’
‘Nearly an hour.’
‘What would you want him to do?’
‘Authorize a request for a search party, of course. Every minute counts now. And we have lots of people over there. The 1st Infantry Division. And Special Forces. And helicopters, and drones, and satellites, and all kinds of aerial surveillance.’
‘But you don’t even know where your guys are supposed to be, or what they’re supposed to be doing.’
The duty officer nodded and jabbed his thumb at the ceiling. At the upstairs offices. He said, ‘The mission is in Major Turner’s computer. Which is now Colonel Morgan’s computer. Which is password-protected.’
‘Do the radio checks go into Bagram?’
The guy nodded again. ‘Most of them are routine data. Bagram sends us the transcript. But if there’s anything urgent, then they’re patched through to us, right here in this office. On a secure phone line.’
‘What was it the last time they transmitted? Routine, or urgent?’
‘Routine.’
‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Call Bagram and get an estimate of their range, from that last time.’
‘Will Bagram even know their range?’
‘Those radio guys can usually tell. By the sound, and the signal strength. By a gut feeling, sometimes. It’s their job. Ask for their best guess, to the nearest five miles.’
The guy picked up a phone, and Reacher walked back to Leach at the reception desk in the lobby. He said,
