Never Go Back

Pittsburgh, which was a little south and east of the downtown area. A duty agent answered, and found himself talking to the Hoover Building in D.C. He was told that the Homeland Security computers were showing the names Sullivan and Temple as guests in an airport hotel nearby. The duty agent spooled back through his bulletins and his BOLOs, and saw that the D.C. Metro cops and the army MPs were looking for two fugitives presumed to be travelling under those names.

The duty agent called his Special Agent in Charge, and asked, ‘Do you want me to spread the word to D.C. and the army?’

His SAC was quiet for a moment, and then he said, ‘No need to complicate things.’

No need to share the credit, the duty agent thought.

His SAC said, ‘Send one of our own to check it out.’

‘Now?’

‘Whenever you can. No big rush. We’ve got until the morning. I’m sure they aren’t going anywhere.’

Turner had the room phone trapped between her shoulder and her neck again, as before, and Reacher could hear the ring tone. Then he heard Leach answer. He couldn’t make out her words, but he could make out her mood. Which was not good. She launched into a long fast monologue, all of it reduced to a rapid plastic quack by the earpiece, but all of it frustrated and angry. Turner said, ‘Thanks anyway,’ and hung up, looking very tired, and bitterly disappointed.

Reacher said, ‘What?’

‘Take a guess.’

‘There was no number after all.’

‘The transcript is missing. Someone took it out of the file room.’

‘Morgan?’

‘Has to be. No one else would or could.’

‘So either he’s one of them or he’s following orders blindly.’

Turner nodded. ‘They’re cleaning house. And they’re covering all the bases. Because they’re better than I thought they were. And therefore I’m screwed. There’s no way out for me now. Not without that A.M. number.’

‘Isn’t it still in a computer somewhere?’

‘We don’t really trust computers. The feeling is we might as well send stuff straight to the New York Times. Or China.’

‘So your physical transcript is your only record?’

She nodded again. ‘It’s the only one I’m aware of. Maybe Bagram keeps a copy. Why? You thinking of asking JAG to issue a subpoena? Good luck with that.’

‘Could it be misfiled?’

‘No, and Leach checked everywhere anyway. She’s not dumb.’

‘There has to be another way around this.’

‘Wake me up if you think of it,’ she said. ‘Because right now I’m all done thinking. I have to get some sleep.’

She dropped her robe to the floor and padded naked around the room, straightening the drapes, turning out the lights, and then she climbed under the covers, and rolled over, and sighed a long, sad, exhausted sigh, and then she lay still. Reacher watched her for a moment, and then he went back to his chair, and sat a spell in the dark. He pictured the Rock Creek file room in his mind, upstairs, first on the left, room 201. He pictured the duty captain downstairs in 103, taking the long-distance call from Weeks and Edwards, writing it up, hand-carrying the sheet of precious paper up the old stone stairs, showing it to Turner, getting her reply, transmitting it, copying it out, and heading upstairs again to file both the call and the response in the right drawer, correctly, sequentially, back to back.

And then he pictured Morgan coming out of his office, just two rooms away, and glancing up and down the corridor. The work of a moment. Two pages, burned or torn up or shredded. Or folded into a pocket, and handed over at a later time, to persons unknown, in exchange for tight nods of appreciation, and implied promises of future consideration.

There has to be another way around this. Reacher might have remembered the number. He liked numbers. This one might have had some intrinsic appeal. Prime, or nearly, or with interesting factors. But he hadn’t seen the number. But nothing was impossible. No system was ever perfect, no security was ever a hundred per cent foolproof, and there were always unforeseen wrinkles.

There has to be another way around this.

But Reacher couldn’t think of one. Not right then. He stood up, and yawned, and stretched, and then he dropped his robe on top of Turner’s, and he slid into bed next to her. She was already deeply asleep. Breathing slow. Warm, and soft. Her circuit breakers had tripped. She had shut down, overwhelmed. Like that old movie: I’ll think about that tomorrow. He stared up at the ceiling, dim and grey above him. Then he closed his eyes, and breathed in, and breathed out, and he fell asleep.

He slept well, for five solid hours.

And then he woke up, at four o’clock in the morning.

Because someone was hammering on the door.

FORTY-ONE

TURNER WOKE UP too, immediately, but Reacher put his hand on her shoulder. He whispered, ‘I’ll go.’ He blinked once and slid out of bed and found his robe on the