Free Night School by Lee Child Page A

gone?”
    “The medic a week, the infantryman a week and a half, and the armored guy four months.”
    “Four months is a long time.”
    “They can’t find him. He hasn’t attempted to use his passport. So he’s probably still in Germany. But it’s a big country now.”
    “Who’s the O-5 who won’t say where he was?”
    “Infantry commander.”
    “Did you ask around?”
    The world’s most efficient grapevine.
    “He’s solid,” Neagley said. “But he didn’t see much in the Gulf and now he’s staring east through the mist at the Soviets, except they’re long gone. So he’s frustrated. And he’s occasionally vocal about it.”
    “A malcontent.”
    “But not the worst ever.”
    “Why don’t they know where he was?”
    “He wrote himself a roving brief. Research into new weapons and tactics. All that kind of bullshit. The future is flexible and lightweight and so on. He travels extensively. Normally he doesn’t have to say where. But this time they asked him and got nothing out of him.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “They sent him home. Because the question came out of the West Wing. It’s the commander in chief asking. No one knows what to do next. No one knows if it’s something or nothing.”
    “We should put those words on our unit patch. Like a motto on a scroll below two crossed question marks.”
    “I’m sure the guy is billeted close to the Pentagon. He’s got high-level discussions in his future, I’m certain of that. We can find him if you want to talk to him.”
    Then she said, “Wait.”
    She dug through her pile of lists.
    She said, “Wait a damn minute.”
    She found the right list. She checked it once, and she checked it again.
    She said, “I know where he was a week before.”
    Reacher read the list upside down. Names and flight numbers. Thirty-six Americans. Vanderbilt’s work.
    “Zurich,” he said.
    Neagley nodded. “Exactly seven days ahead of the rendezvous, arriving in time for afternoon coffee, and getting back again late, after dinner. But he can’t be our guy. Our guy would have a cover story for the day in question. Wouldn’t he? He would lie. He wouldn’t just clam up. What does he think we’re going to do? Take his word as a gentleman?”
    Reacher said, “Find out where he is. Make sure they know it’s the commander in chief asking. Tell them we’re coming over to pick the guy up. Tell them we’re going to take him for a ride around the block in the back of our car.”
    —
    The guy was at Myer, in a billet in their visiting officers’ quarters. Reacher figured the new get-in-the-car orders would have hit about twenty minutes previously, probably via the Joint Chiefs’ office. Which would have added to their gravity. He figured the guy would have either run away right then or gotten ready. Turned out he had gotten ready. He stepped out his door as soon as the black Caprice pulled to a stop at his curb.
    Neagley was driving, and Reacher was in the back, on the right side. The guy climbed aboard and sat behind Neagley, upright, back straight, hands on his knees, like he was in a pew and everyone was watching. His name was Bartley. He was the wrong side of forty, but not by much. He was average height and lean. A stamina guy. Endurance, not strength. Just starting to lose it. A leader of men, but not as down-in-the-mud credible as he once had been. He was in battledress uniform, nicely creased. He smelled of soap.
    Reacher said, “Repeat your orders for me, if you would, colonel.”
    Bartley said, “I am to get into a vehicle containing two military police officers, and for avoidance of doubt I am to consider myself legitimately under their jurisdiction at all times, and I am to answer their questions truthfully to the best of my ability, because for further avoidance of doubt I am to consider these orders personal to the commander in chief.”
    “He has a way with words, doesn’t he?”
    “He was a lawyer.”
    “They were all lawyers.”
    “What