by Diane Capri
A slight touch on my shoulder and a deeply sexy male voice pulled me from concentration like being gently awakened from an engrossing dream. “Is everything satisfactory, Agent Otto?”
The effect of the man’s sudden physical manifestation, however, was anything but gentle. More like an excruciating five-second Taser shock to my system that seemed to temporarily short-out my faculty of speech. After blinking like an idiot for several dumb seconds, I managed to focus on the MP with the mega-watt smile standing directly in front of me. A man who could only be described as dangerously hot.
The realization was not welcome.
I’m not indifferent to men. I’ve been surrounded by men my whole life. I have three brothers. I went to law school and business school. I work in the mostly male FBI as a field agent. I’d even been married to a man once, a long time ago.
But I never mixed business with pleasure.
And I don’t trust handsome men. Intelligence, honor, compassion, integrity and most of all, reliability. Those are my aphrodisiacs now.
Yet there he was, definitely impressive as hell. Green eyes. Black hair. Dark skin. Tall enough. And the voice. A melodious baritone like a radio personality or maybe the old-fashioned crooners my grandmother enjoyed. Until now, I hadn’t fully appreciated their appeal.
He squeezed my shoulder and bent his knees to place his gaze at my eye level. “Agent Otto, are you all right?”
“Yes. Of course.” I jerked my head quickly and blinked and cleared my throat. “Sorry.”
He released his grip on my shoulder and pushed himself upright. He moved aside to give me room to stand and extend my right hand. His handshake was appropriately firm and brief, no more, no less.
“Major Anthony Clifton. Tony to my friends.” He had flashed the mega-watt smile again before he got down to business. “I’m the duty officer today. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to meet you. Sergeant Church tells me you’ve been waiting awhile. I’ve been briefed on your mission. Maybe I can help you until Colonel Summer arrives.”
He led the way into a strictly utilitarian office decorated in Army-shabby. Probably ten by twelve. Smallish desk, two visitor chairs, a phone and a computer on the desk, a small window that overlooked a side yard. There was nothing remotely personal or comfortable anywhere in the room, which made me wonder how long Clifton had occupied it—and whether it had looked exactly the same when Reacher worked here.
He waved me to the chair closest to the window and settled himself in the desk chair. Sergeant Church brought three mugs of steaming black coffee and placed them on the desk and closed the door on his way out.
“I know the Army’s short on manpower these days,” I said, glad to hear that my voice worked, “but why is a sergeant on desk duty and serving coffee? Seems like high-priced talent for a reception job.”
“Our clerk’s position was eliminated. Church is having a problem with his social life or something. He’s been late for duty two days in a row, yesterday and today.” Clifton shrugged. “The XO figured he could do with some mild discipline.”
“How’s he taking that?” He’d been a little surly to me when I first arrived, which I’d thought at the time was due to the FBI invading the Military Police’s turf. But maybe he was pissed off at his situation.
Clifton grinned. “He’s taking it about as well as you would, I suspect.”
“Aren’t you the XO? I didn’t take you for such a hard-ass.”
“You’ve only just met me.” He flashed the mega-watter again. “Wait until you get to know me better.”
I frowned. Was he flirting with me? Whatever charm he’d exuded in the first five minutes had most definitely worn off. I drank my coffee and offered no witty banter.
A quick rap rattled the door before it opened and a middle-aged woman, maybe about forty-five, stepped inside. She was all bone and sinew, hard, not an ounce of fat on her. Dressed in jeans, work boots, and a leather bomber jacket, her posture said she’d been Army once. Through and through.
She glanced my way before she pulled off her leather gloves and stuffed them into the back pocket of her jeans. She grabbed one of the coffee mugs, sniffed appreciatively, and shook hands with Clifton.
She raised her cup. “I really do miss Army coffee. Best in the world, no question.”
He raised his own mug in a silent toast and sipped with her before he nodded in my direction. “Sergeant Major Madeline Jones, this is FBI Special Agent Kim Otto.”
“Sergeant Major Madeline Jones, retired,” she corrected him. Her accent was a thick drawl, so it sounded like re-tarrrrred. Her hand was calloused and her grip was as tough as the rest of her. “My pleasure, Agent Otto.”
“Good to meet you as well,” I replied, baffled by her presence but unwilling to ask about it just yet.
Jones settled into the second visitor chair, the one closest to the door. She smelled piney like she’d been outside in the woods for a couple of hours. Her hair was short and it looked like she’d cut it herself with nail scissors. She’d recently been wearing a hat, too, which didn’t help the hairstyle any.
She sipped her coffee and waited to hear why she’d been invited, probably. Me, too.
Clifton said, “Sergeant Major Jones was on active duty here at Bird from 1985 until, what, 2010?”
Jones nodded, sipped again. She rested the side of her right boot on her left knee. The boots had thick-tread soles that shed most of the mud she’d been clomping around in, but held onto wet dirt and leaves. As the debris dried, she’d be leaving a trail even a blind squirrel could follow.
“Jones was a sergeant when Major Reacher was briefly the XO, meaning executive officer to the Provost Marshall, at the tail end of 1989, early 1990. Jones also reported to Colonel Summer, who was an MP Lieutenant back then.” Clifton leaned both forearms on the desk and held the warm coffee mug between his palms, letting his gaze encompass both of us sitting across from him. “Back then, the Berlin Wall was coming down, the Cold War ending,” he said as if he’d actually been in charge all those years ago. “The whole world was changing, inside the Army and out.”
“Long time ago and lots of changes since then.” Jones pursed her lips and moved them around as if she were swishing coffee mouthwash, then turned to me. “I’m glad to help you if I can, Agent Otto. I’m not right sure what I can offer, though. I wasn’t a member of the 110th like Major Reacher was. I worked MP here at Bird and pretty closely with Major Reacher, but only for a couple of weeks. Until Colonel Summer called me about your background check, I hadn’t heard anything about Major Reacher in two decades, at least.”
My stomach clenched. Was there anyone Colonel Summer hadn’t mentioned my assignment to?
“Maybe we can save a little time, then,” I said. “What did Colonel Summer already tell you about the reason for my visit?”
The Army is notoriously protective of its own, particularly when the facts might tarnish the reputation of the top brass. I didn’t expect to get much from a careerist like Jones, retired or not. Anyway, she had barely known Reacher. How much information could she possibly have?
Jones adopted a clipped style, probably a habit formed during three decades of making verbal law enforcement reports. “Colonel Summer said Major Reacher is being considered for a high-level classified assignment and the FBI is investigating his fitness for the job.”
She’d succinctly stated my cover story well enough. I nodded. “Special Personnel Task Force. We’re conducting a background check on Jack Reacher. Bringing his files up to date.”
Jones mirrored my nod as if she was interrogating a suspect. “I told Colonel Summer I wouldn’t recommend Reacher for any assignment. Maybe he’s changed since 1990, but back then he was way too volatile for my liking.”
My heart had skipped a beat before it settled into a little bit faster rhythm. “What do you mean?”
She swigged her coffee, cupped her left hand around her ankle and leaned back in the chair to look me full in the eye. “He was only posted here a few days. In t
hat short time, he managed to piss off just about everybody he came in contact with. His behavior got him busted back to Captain.” Her tone was as hard now as everything else about her. “What more can you possibly need to know?”
What I really wanted to know was what Reacher had done to piss her off. Whatever it was, Jones had been holding onto her grudge for a very long time. The Army had been her life and probably her lifeline, judging from the look of her. The grudge must have been personal, too, based on her bitterness. More than general protectiveness of the Army by a retired MP, for sure. But maybe she was protective of her old unit and resentful that Reacher had sullied it, somehow. Could have been that.
At least on the surface, though, that didn’t make sense. Reacher was a rising star back then. He’d stayed in the Army another seven years after he was demoted to Captain in 1990 and he got promoted back to Major again pretty quickly. He couldn’t have done anything too terrible here at Bird.
Unfortunately. If he had committed a serious enough crime, he’d be living at Leavenworth now where I could easily find him and wrap up my assignment and get back to my life later this afternoon.
“Can you give me a specific example?”
“Like what?” She swigged again.
“I need to explain your answer to my boss.” She narrowed her eyes at that and said nothing. I said, “Was he a gambler? A hot head? Anger issues? Did he screw up a case? What exactly was the problem?”
Jones cocked her head as if she was deciphering the question and working out exactly how to frame her answer. “This is a military police unit, Agent Otto. Like you, we are used to dealing with criminal behavior of all stripes. But we keep it in-house. We don’t take our dirty laundry outside.”
“And you’re saying Reacher did that? That’s a complaint I haven’t heard about him before.” I stalled a couple of beats to suggest that I was seriously considering her input. She was right about the coffee, at least. It was great. “If anything, I’ve repeatedly heard the opposite—that he had a tendency to handle things in his own way when he should have deferred to others.”
“Like I said, maybe he’s changed. Some people do. He was arrogant, disrespectful and downright insubordinate back then. A loner who lived by his own rules. He didn’t make many friends while he was here, that’s for damn sure.” She drained the coffee cup and stood. “I’ve gotta run. My nephew is waiting for me at the football field. All I can say is, if I was looking for a likable guy to handle an important job as a member of a good team, I’d keep looking. You can do better.”
“I’m required to bring his file up to date, though. Eventually, I’ll have to interview him.” I stood to shake her hand again and met her steady gaze. “Do you know anybody who might still keep in touch with Reacher?”
“Army personnel are transient for the most part. The only reason I turned down promotions to stay here all these years is that my whole family lives in this area and I had my son. He was a baby back when Major Reacher was here. I didn’t have the luxury of taking off whenever I felt like it.” Jones was already half out the door, but she turned back. “Colonel Summer is your best bet. She’s a bulldog. Never gives up. And probably the only one still around here who knew much about Reacher. He also had some buddies in his unit, the 110th. They were spread out all over the place, though. I think I heard there’s only a couple of them still alive, but they’d still be worth a try, maybe.”
She flashed a little wave and stepped across the threshold, pulling the door closed behind her. Major Clifton cleared his throat, drawing my gaze from the door.
“She always was as hard as woodpecker lips.” He shook his head and smiled in a way that revealed the straight white teeth in a quick flash. “I’m a popular guy, but she never liked me, either.”
“Any idea what happened between her and Reacher?” Until now, I hadn’t met even one woman who was willing to say a bad word of any kind about Reacher. Yet Jones radiated palpable animosity toward him after no contact with the man for almost twenty years. The contrast was curious at the very least. How could Reacher have angered her so deeply during their brief period of contact? Seemed like a stretch for any normal human.
“No clue. Sorry.” He picked up the coffee cups and moved through the door behind Jones. “I’ll get us a refill. Be right back.”
Not just a pretty face after all. Clifton was useful, too. At least he didn’t ask me to get coffee, which was a step in the right direction.
CHAPTER 4
A routine background check of the type I was allegedly performing on this assignment always began with an existing file. Reacher’s file was thin. Too thin. It had obviously been sanitized and someone on the inside of the FBI and Homeland Security and maybe the Army and probably a few other three-letter agencies was making sure it stayed that way.
Every search I’d tried to conduct had been blocked by someone much higher up the food chain. I had no leverage to improve the situation. Which was how I came to be sitting here in Fort Bird, North Carolina, discussing ancient history on a nasty November morning.
According to the few records I’d been able to unearth, in January 1990, Jack Reacher suffered two serious blows. The strong left hook to the jaw was delivered to his profession. The straight right to the gut was personal. Either could have buckled even a man of Reacher’s size and strength, and both hits had indeed caused significant damage.
Sergeant Major Jones was carrying a grudge against Reacher, but Reacher probably toted a few against Fort Bird and its personnel, too. Add a few thousand soldiers trained as weapons and combat experts and that volatile combination was bound to lead to trouble.
While Clifton was gone, I ran quickly through the information the Boss had provided. Everything had been looking good for Reacher on December 28, 1989. He was large and in charge. Thirty years old. Out of West Point for more than six years. One of the Army’s best.
Already a Major and on his way up in the elite 110 Special Investigative Unit. The way things were going, Reacher might have been the commanding officer of the 110th in due course, instead of Summer. Any man basking in those circumstances would have believed the world was his oyster. He’d have been right.
Then everything changed.
He’d been transferred from a high-profile assignment without notice the next day.
Posted to sleepy Fort Bird, North Carolina, where nothing exciting ever happened.
Except it did, to Reacher: Twenty days later, he was demoted to Captain and shipped out to Panama.
And at the same time his career was falling apart, Reacher’s mother died.
Then-Lieutenant Eunice Summer had been right next to Reacher the whole time. Whatever happened during those three weeks catapulted her career even as it blew Reacher’s a giant leap backward.
Summer might have been responsible for Reacher’s troubles, or the beneficiary of his misfortune. Either way, she had firsthand experience with Reacher that no one I’d met so far was willing to talk about. Experience that might just lead me where I needed to go.
I was close. Very close. Closer than I’d been since that 4:00 a.m. phone call from the Boss pulled me out of my warm bed in Detroit eighteen days ago and sent me chasing after a ghost who, I’d believed until recently, might not even exist anymore.
As Jones said, my cover assignment is to build the Reacher file for some top secret project and keep everything under the radar. I’m number one. Gaspar, my number two, was temporarily out of touch.
I’d quickly discovered that the Boss was hunting Reacher and using me like a submarine uses sonar. I still didn’t know why. But I would.
This was the Army. There should be records and files and witnesses in triplicate to everything Reacher did here at Bird, at the very least. All I had to do was find them.
Major Clifton returned with two mugs full of coffee. He kicked the door closed with his heel, handed me one of the mugs, and returned to his seat behind the desk with the second mug.
I watched him carefully this t
ime, trying to peer beyond his handsome façade. Colonel Summer knew what I wanted and she’d been ordered to give it to me, she said. She wouldn’t have disobeyed a direct order from that high up. She’d have saluted and prepared. She’d been on her way to do as she’d been told when she called me from her car.
Summer might have asked someone to gather information to refresh her memory for our meeting. That someone was probably seated directly across the desk from me right now. “Major Clifton—”
“Tony.” Out flashed the blinding dazzler, his go-to weapon of choice, perhaps his all-purpose shield.
I nodded. “Did Colonel Summer brief you on my mission here today?”
“She said you were interested in a former executive officer who served briefly here at Bird back in 1990 when I was still in junior high school.” He leaned back in the chair and rested his coffee on the battered wooden chair arm.
“You are the executive officer here now, though. You hold the job Reacher held back then. Right?”
“I am and I do.”
“Did you pull the files on whatever cases Major Reacher was handling at the time? You must have. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have known that Sergeant Major Jones was also active duty during Reacher’s brief stint here.”
He shook his head. “Jones spent her whole career here. It was a safe bet that she worked with Reacher. No file review necessary.”
“But you did pull the files.” I was guessing, but that’s what any XO worth his salt would have done. “And?”
“And what?”
“What was the big case about? And how did Reacher screw it up?”
“What makes you think he screwed up a big case?”
“Something got him demoted to Captain and sent to Panama after less than three weeks here. I’m guessing that something was related to his work while he was here. Are you telling me it wasn’t?”
He didn’t squirm or blush or even blink, but I sensed he was uncomfortable with the questions and probably with the answers as well. “Actually,” he said, “I’m not telling you anything at all. Colonel Summer’s orders were very clear. She’ll handle this interview herself.”