Reacher said, “Carefully calculated, I’m sure.”
“I guessed you were likely to drive west, because subconsciously you would want to keep D.C. behind you. I figured the turns you would make, which meant this is about the only obvious place. And this is the obvious time. I figured two hours of briefing, and then break for dinner.”
“It’s a school.”
“No it isn’t. The course title doesn’t even make sense.”
“They never make sense.”
“This one is worse than usual.”
“It’s a school.”
“They wouldn’t do that to you. Not while Garber lives and breathes.”
“I can’t discuss it. It’s too boring.”
“Let me hazard a wild-ass guess. It’s cover for something. Given your current batting average, it’s a high-level something. Which means you’ll get whatever you ask for. Especially staff. So you’ll be calling me in the morning anyway. Why not tell me twelve hours early?”
She was in woodland-pattern battledress uniform, the sleeves neatly rolled, her forearms on the table. She had dark hair, cut short, and dark eyes, and a tan. Her skin looked soft, but he was sure it wasn’t. He had seen her in action. She was fast and exceptionally strong. She would feel hard and solid underneath. But he didn’t know. He had never touched her. Never even shaken her hand.
He said, “I don’t know exactly what we’re going to need. The percentage play would be to start making lists. From movement orders. Active-duty personnel physically present in Germany on a certain day. And civilians, too, from passport records.”
“Why?”
“We need to find a particular American who was in Hamburg during a particular fifty-minute window.”
“Why?”
“He’s planning to sell something worth a hundred million dollars to a bunch of new-style bad guys from Yemen and Afghanistan.”
“Do we know what he’s selling?”
“No idea.”
“Land borders might be a problem. I think you can drive right through. Because of the European Union. The passport records might be incomplete.”
“Exactly. It’s only a percentage play. But we could help it a little. We could look at who was in and out of Switzerland, maybe the week before. When the guy was making his final decision. He was going to sell. He was about to open the bidding. Which he knew couldn’t last forever. So he needed to be ready ahead of time. So he opened a secret Swiss bank account. Probably in Zurich. Standing by and waiting. Then he went back to Hamburg and named his price.”
“Which is also only a percentage play. Therefore it can’t be an exclusionary factor. It could be an old account from years ago. This might not be a first-time bad guy. Or his secret account could be someplace else. Luxembourg, maybe.”
“Which is why I said I don’t know exactly what we’re going to need.”
“Do you think he’s military?”
“He could be. The odds say so. Like Americans in Korea or on Okinawa. So that’s another list we need, just in case. What could a military guy be selling? Is it intelligence? Or is it hardware? In which case, assume a shipping container, or a large van or a small truck, something unobtrusive, and make a list of what could fit inside and be worth a hundred million bucks.”
“It would have to be something reliable and simple to operate. There won’t be support troops coming with it.”
“OK, bear that in mind. Make a master list of all the other lists. That’s all we can do right now. Be ready to deploy about nine o’clock in the morning. I can’t see them doing it any faster. After that everything goes through the NSC, via a woman named Marian Sinclair.”
“I’ve heard of her,” Neagley said. “She’s Alfred Ratcliffe’s senior deputy.”
“Be ready with the things you need her to do for us. We shouldn’t waste time.”
“Is this thing a big problem?”
“I guess it could be. If it’s what we think it is. Which it might not be. It’s one sentence plucked out of the air. It could be a joke. Or some kind of insider sarcasm. Could be obscure rope-climbing Yemeni slang for not very much at all. But if it’s real, then yes, the price tag suggests a problem.”
The waitress came over, and they ordered. Neagley said, “Congratulations on the medal.”
Reacher said, “Thank you.”
“You OK?”
“Never better.”
“You sure?”
“What are you, my mother?”
“What did you think of Sinclair?”
“I liked her.”
“Who else have we got?”
“A guy named Waterman from the FBI. He’s an old-school prowler. And a guy named White from CIA. He’s a highly stressed individual. Probably with good cause. So far they’ve been adequate in several respects. They’ve had sensible things to say. Presumably they’ll bring in their own staffers now. And presumably above all of us will be some kind of a National Security Council supervisor, babysitting us and relaying our messages to Sinclair.”
“Why did you like her?”