by Lee Child
Alice Vaz asked, “Where was this?”
Reacher said, “Ma’am, I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Which sounds like a special forces scenario.”
“I guess it does.”
“Six hundred yards is fairly close range for you guys.”
“Practically point-blank, ma’am.”
“Black bag for CIA, or legitimate for us?”
“Ma’am, I’m not at liberty to say.”
And those twin denials seemed to create some credibility. Both women gradually abandoned their defensive body language. Not that it was replaced by personal interest. It was replaced by professional interest, which came across in a poignant way. Neither woman had a realistic hope in her lifetime of becoming a battlefield commander. Both were forced to take a different route. But both seemed to look across the divide with concern. In an ideal world they would be fighting. In which case they would want the best available weapons. No question about that. In which case simple ethics demanded the best available weapons for those currently doing the fighting in the less than perfect world. Simple justice. And simple preparedness, too. Their sisters might never get there, but their daughters would one day.
Walker asked Reacher his private opinion about the rifle design. Were there things that should be added? Taken away? Reacher said, “Ma’am, I think they got it about right,” partly because that was the kind of thing a sergeant would say to an officer, and partly because it was true. Walker seemed happy with the answer.
Then both Walker and Vaz got up to use the restroom. Reacher could have used a pit stop, too, but he didn’t want to follow directly behind them. That would have been too weird, right after the walk from the Capitol. So he waited. He saw Vaz use a pay phone on her way. There was a line of them in wooden hutches on the lounge’s back wall. Vaz used the center phone. Walker didn’t wait for her. She went on ahead. Vaz spoke for less than ten seconds and then hung up and continued on her way to the restroom.
—
Walker never came back from the restroom. Vaz sat down alone and unconcerned and said Walker had gone back to the office. She had used the D Street door. She had a lot to do. And did Reacher want another drink?
Reacher and Vaz, alone together. Walker, on her own, on the loose.
Reacher said, “You buying?”
Vaz said, “Sure.”
Reacher said, “Then yes.”
“Then follow me,” Vaz said. “I know a better place than this.”
—
The better place was tucked in close to the tracks out the back of Union Station. It was better in the sense it had an actual bar. It was worse in every other way. In particular it was in a lousy neighborhood, full of ugly brick and ramshackle buildings, with dark streets and all kinds of alleyways and yards all over the place, with more wires overhead than trees. The bar itself felt like a waterfront establishment, mysteriously landlocked, low and wide and made a warren by subdivision into many different room-sized areas. Reacher sat with his back to a corner, where he could see both front and rear doors at once. Vaz sat next to him, not close, but not faraway, either. She looked good. Better than she had a right to. Class A uniform, female officer, was generally no kind of a flattering outfit. It was essentially tubular. Maybe Vaz’s was tailored. It had to be. The jacket was waisted. It went in and out properly. The skirt was tight. And a little short. Just a fraction, but detectable by the human eye unaided.
Vaz said, “I hope not to be in this shop much longer.”
“Where next?”
“War Plans, I hope.”
“Do they cash this shop’s checks?”
“You mean, can I take my credits with me? Absolutely. Politics and War Plans? They’re practically the same thing.”
“So when?”
“As soon as possible.”
“But you’re worried this business with Colonel Richardson will slow things down. No one likes a fuss, right? And the shop is understaffed now. Maybe they can’t let you go.”
“You’re pretty smart, for a sergeant.”
“Rank has nothing to do with being smart, ma’am.”
“Tell me about yourself.”
“You first.”
“Nothing to tell,” Vaz said. “California girl, West Point cadet, first I wanted to see the world, and then I wanted to control it. You?”
“Marine Corps boy, West Point cadet, first I wanted to see the world, and then I wanted to survive it.”
“I don’t remember many West Point cadets who became sergeants afterward.”
“Some did. From time to time. In a way.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“You’re an undercover operator,” Vaz said. “I always knew the day would come.”
“When what?”
“When you finally figured it out. As in, your procurement office is riddled with corruption, and has been for years. As in, you don’t need a new sniper rifle. You know that. But those guys have already sold stock in the new model. Maybe the money is already spent. So they have to make it happen. Any way they can. I mean, did you hear some of the arguments they were making?”
“Where is their office?”
“Who? Procurement is a big department.”
“The guy I saw today, for instance.”
“His office is in the Capitol Building.”
“With a fax machine?”
“Of course.”
“Did any of the others know this?”
“In the political shop? We all did. Why do you think Walker made them go through the whole thing again today? Because she wanted to generate a third fax.”
“Why?”
“An extra piece of evidence for you. We knew you’d catch up with it eventually.”
“Why didn’t one of you drop a dime before?”
“Not our place.”
“You mean the cost-benefit ratio wasn’t right. One of you would have to step up, and it’s conceivable she could lose. Because anything can happen in a military court. In which case she’s out of the running right from that moment. Because she was once on the losing side. You couldn’t risk that kind of mistake. Not having come so far.”
“The running for what?”
“For whatever it is you all plan to be.”
“For a spell we thought the previous sniper could be the undercover guy. The one you replaced. Like entrapment. He was letting the officer push him to want more and more. But in the end we thought he was just a sniper. So we’d have nailed you for the real undercover guy in about a minute, except no one was really paying attention this afternoon.”
“Because of Richardson? What did she think was happening?”
“The same as we all did. Procurement is a swamp and you’d notice sooner or later.”
“What is it you plan to be?”
“Respected. Perhaps within a closed community, but by someone.”
“Has your life lacked respect so far?”
“You have no idea,” Vaz said. She turned toward him, moving on the bench, her knees coming close to his, dark nylon over dark skin. She said, “I’m proceeding on the assumption that I can trust my impression that you’re younger than me. And in a branch with much less generous and accelerated promotion. And that therefore I outrank you.”
“I’m a captain,” Reacher said. “Ma’am.”
“Therefore if our chains of command were in any way related, it would be inappropriate for us to have a close relationship. Therefore the question is, are our chains of command in any way related?”
“I think they’re about as far apart as chains of command can be.”
“Wait there,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
And she got up and threaded her way through the cluttered space, heading for the restroom corridor in back. Five minutes, minimum, Reacher thought. He followed her as far as a pay phone on the wall. The phone was a scratched old item and the wall behind it was dark with smoke and grime.
He dialed, and
said his name.
Cornelius Christopher said, “Yes?”
Reacher said, “I’m done.”
“What does that mean? You’re quitting?”
“No, it means the job is done.”
“What do you know?”
“Walker must be back at the Capitol by now. Any faxes yet?”
“No.”
“You were wrong. No one is leaking to a foreign firearms manufacturer. No one ever was. Why would anyone need to? Everyone knows what a good sniper rifle should be. It’s self-explanatory. It’s obvious. The basic principles have been understood for a century. No one needs to gather secret intelligence. Because they already know.”
“So what’s the story?”
“I’m waiting for the final proof. I should have it in five minutes or less.”
“Proof of what?”
“It’s Alice Vaz,” Reacher said. “Think about the transcripts. Her big-picture questions. She asked a couple more this afternoon. She wanted it spelled out exactly where this new rifle will be used. She asked what new environments it might face.”
“So?”
“She was trying to get into War Plans through the back door. And the procurement guy fell for it. No details, but he gave plenty of weather clues. Anyone could reverse-engineer our entire slate of global intentions from what he said.”
“Like what?”
“He said high altitude plus freezing mist.”
“Afghanistan,” Christopher said. “We’re going to have to go there sooner or later.”
“And extreme dry heat with sand infiltration.”
“The Middle East. Iraq, most likely.”
“And rain forest humidity and high ambient temperature.”
“South America. Colombia, and so on. The drug wars.”
“And in snow many degrees below zero.”
“If we have to go to the Soviet Union.”
“You see? She got a summary of all our future plans from the guy. Exactly the kind of oblique data that enemy intelligence analysts love.”
“Are you sure?”
“I gave her two seconds to react and she came up with blaming procurement for being corrupt. It was almost plausible. She’s very smart.”
“Which enemy? Which foreign intelligence?”
“The Soviets, of course. A local fax number, probably in their embassy.”
“She’s their asset?”
“In a big, big way. Think about it. She’s on the fast track. She’s going right to the top. Which is what? The Joint Chiefs, at least. But maybe more. A woman like this could be President of the United States.”
“But how did they recruit her? And when?”
“Probably before she was born. Her granddaddy was some big Red Army hero. So maybe her daddy wasn’t a real refugee. Maybe the KGB shuffled him to Hungary so he could get out and look like a dissident. Whereupon his daughter could be born an American and become a real deep down sleeper. She was probably groomed for the fast track from birth. These people play a long game.”
“That’s a lot of assumptions.”
“The proof will be here in about three minutes. Or not.”
“But why risk wasting a super-high-value asset on this? Because if you’re right, then this is useful, but it’s not life-changing. This is not the hydrogen bomb.”
“I think this was kind of accidental. I think it came up in the normal course of her duties. But she couldn’t resist phoning it in. Habit, or a sense of obligation. If she’s a true believer.”
“What’s the proof you’re getting in five minutes? Or is it three?”
“It’s two minutes now, probably,” Reacher said. “She made a brief call from the Hyatt hotel. Think about it. She’s a huge asset. Maybe their biggest ever. She’s headed all the way to the top. Which could be anywhere. And right now she’s stopping in War Plans next, which is a real big prize in itself. So she has to be protected. Like no one has ever been protected before. And she was suspicious of me somehow. Maybe routine paranoia. I was new. I was hanging around. So she called for help. She told the embassy’s wet boys where I’d be, and when. And then she lured me into the trap. Right now I’m supposed to believe I’m about to get in her pants.”
“Soviet wet boys are coming for you?”
“One minute now, probably. I’m about to be a mugging gone wrong. I’m going to be found dead on a street corner.”
“Where are you?”
“In the badlands behind Union Station.”
“I can’t get anyone there in less than a minute.”
“I didn’t expect you would.”
“Are you going to be OK?”
“That depends on how many they send.”
“Can you arrest Vaz before they get there?”
“She’s long gone. I’m sure she went straight out the bathroom window. You’ll have to pick her up. She’ll be heading for her office.”
Then a man stepped in through the bar’s rear door.
“Got to go,” Reacher said. “It’s starting.”
—
Reacher hung up the phone. The guy at the rear door was compact and hard-edged, dressed in black, moving easily. He looked vaguely similar to Vaz in terms of ethnic background. But he was a decade older. Nothing in his hands. Not yet. Not inside a public bar. Reacher guessed the point of the guy coming in the back was to chase him out the front, where the main force would be gathered. Easier to set up a mugging gone wrong on a public street, rather than in a private yard in back of a bar. Because it wasn’t a great street. Not a great neighborhood. Broken lighting, plenty of shadows, plenty of doorways, passersby habituated by instinct and long experience to look away and say nothing.
The guy was scanning the room. Vaz had spent very little time on the phone. Very few words. Probably not more than big guy, very tall, gray suit. Reacher felt the guy’s eyes on him. He practically heard the check marks. Big guy, right there. Very tall, no question. Gray suit, here’s our boy. The guy started away from the door.
Reacher started toward it.
A wise man asked, what’s the best time to plant a tree? A wise man answered, fifty years ago. As in, what’s the best time to make a decision? A wise man answers, five seconds before the first punch is thrown.
The guy in black weighed maybe one-ninety, and he was doing about two miles an hour. Reacher weighed two-fifty, and he was doing about three miles an hour. Therefore closing speed was five miles an hour, and impact, should it happen, would involve some multiple of four hundred forty pounds a square inch.
Impact did happen.
But not at five miles an hour. Closing speed was dramatically increased by a sudden drive off Reacher’s back foot and the vicious clubbing swing of his elbow. Which therefore connected with a real big multiple of their combined body weights. Reacher caught the guy on the perfect cheekbone-nose-cheekbone line and the cracking and splintering was clearly audible over the wooden thud of feet on the floor. The guy went down like a motorcycle rider hitting a clothesline. Reacher walked on by and stepped out the back door.
Nobody or somebody?
That was the only question. And there is no bigger difference than nothing or something. Had they posted all of the main force at the front? Or had they left a lone guy as backup?
They had left a guy. Dark hair, dark eyes, thicker coat than his pal. Smart as a whip, probably, but any human given instructions is at a disadvantage. Your target is a big guy, very tall, gray suit. And however smart you are, however quick, that lethal one, two, three question-and-answer drumbeat occupies precious mental milliseconds, at least big guy check, very tall check, gray suit check, like that, and the problem comes when the big guy in the gray suit occupies those same precious milliseconds by walking straight toward you and breaking your skull with his elbow.
Reacher walked on, to where an arch led from the yard to the alley.
—
The alley was wide enough for two horses and a beer cart axle. At the right-hand end was an arch to an
other private yard. At the left-hand end was the street. Reacher’s shoes were quiet. Class A uniform shoes. Therefore man-made soles. No one wanted leather welts. More to polish. Reacher stopped short of the street and put his back against the left-hand wall. In a movie there would be a busted shard of mirror at his feet. He could edge it out and check the view. But he wasn’t in a movie. So he inched around, and peered out, one eye.
Thirty feet away. Four guys. Therefore a total of six dispatched. Six wet boys in a foreign embassy. Permanently. For her. Like no one has ever been protected before. A woman like this could be President of the United States. They had two cars parked on the far side of the street. Diplomatic plates. Probably never paid their parking fines. The guys were in a rough arc near the bar’s door, their backs to Reacher, just standing there semi-animated, like guys sometimes do for a spell, outside a bar.
There was no busted shard of mirror, but there was a broken quarter brick, about the size of a baseball. In no way reflective, but the need for a mirror was past. Reacher picked it up, and stepped out to the street, and turned left.
—
Thirty feet was ten paces, and Reacher kept a steady speed through the first five of them, and then he wound up and threw the brick fragment at the nearer car and accelerated hard so that the brick shattered the rear windshield and the four heads snapped toward the sound and Reacher’s elbow hit the first of those heads all in a tight little one-two-three sequence, less than a second beginning to end.
The first guy went down, obviously, vertically beneath Reacher’s scything follow-through, and then Reacher spun back off the bounce and drove the same elbow backward into the next guy’s head. Which left two guys still on their feet, one close, one inconveniently distant, so Reacher feinted toward the farther one and then pivoted back and head-butted the nearer one, like he was trying to drive a fencepost into dry baked earth with his head. Which left one still on his feet, which the guy put to good use by running for it.