Nothing like a long-distance runner.
He told his secretary to call a meeting. His team came in. His detectives. He said, “It’s time to set some new parameters. Let’s say the victim drove to the hotel, but got picked up before she got in the door. A chance meeting in the garage itself, maybe. Possibly a regular client. Possibly a long-time-no-see thing. Which tells us he’s rich enough for her, but doesn’t stay in the hotel, or she’d have suggested his room as first preference. So he was either local or bunking elsewhere. The question is, did he have a car? Probably, because he was in the garage. But possibly not, because the garage is also a shortcut to the other side of the block. In which case the victim might have driven him to her home herself. In which case we should fingerprint the inside of her car. The door handles and the seat belt latch at least.”
His detectives made notes.
Then Griezman said, “And best of all we now have really solid intelligence from the coroner. The perpetrator is average height and skinny. That’s scientific information. And that’s what we’re looking for. Nothing else. Forget the past clients, unless they happen to be average height and skinny. We’re not interested in anyone else. No doubt a waste of time, because no doubt he’s a sailor with back pay, long gone over the ocean, but we have to be seen to do something. But focus. Don’t waste time. Average height, skinny, his prints in her car. Check those boxes. Nothing else. No wild goose chases. Save your energy for the next thing.”
The detectives filed out, and Griezman breathed out, and leaned back in his chair.
—
At that moment the American was in Amsterdam, showering. He had gotten up late. He was in a hotel one street away from prime time. It was small and clean and some of the guests were airline pilots. It was that kind of place. He had been down for coffee and had seen the German papers in the breakfast room. No headlines. They were nowhere. He was safe.
—
At that moment the messenger was in a Toyota pick-up truck, just five miles into three hundred by road. To be followed by four separate airports, and three safe houses. All arduous, but the worst came first. The road was rough. Hard on the truck, and hard on the passenger. It was fatiguing. In places it was barely a road at all. In places it was more like an extinct riverbed. But such was the price of seclusion.
—
The sun rolled west, first lighting up the Delaware coast, and then the eastern shore of Maryland, and then D.C. itself, the city temporarily magnificent in the early light, as if designed specifically for that single moment of the day. Then dawn reached McLean, and the catering truck arrived in the corporate park, with coffee and breakfast. Everyone was awake and waiting. Landry and Vanderbilt and Neagley were quartered in the second of the three buildings on the Educational Solutions campus. Same deal, beds where desks had been. The NSC guys played team tag out of the third building, always one on duty, always one asleep.
White said, “All but ten of the programmers are either back in the States already or ticketed en route. The missing ten are expats. They live in Europe and Asia. One of them lives right there in Hamburg.”
“Congratulations,” Reacher said. “You cracked the case.”
“It’s a question of priority order. Is an expat more likely to be a bad guy or not? Should we look at them first or second?”
“Who is the guy in Hamburg?”
“We have a photograph. He’s a counterculture guy. Into computers early. He says sooner or later they’ll make the world more democratic. Which means he steals and breaks things and calls it politics, not crime. Or performance art.”
Vanderbilt dug out the picture. It was a head and shoulders shot at the top left of a page torn out of a magazine. An opinion piece, in what felt like an underground journal. The photograph was of a skinny white guy with a huge shock of hair. Like he had his finger in an outlet. Part mad professor, part merry prankster. He was forty years old.
White said, “The Hamburg head of station did a little walking surveillance. The guy isn’t home right now.”
Reacher said, “If he lives there, why did he schedule the first rendezvous while the convention was in town? That’s a busy week. And there are folks who know him. They might notice. Better to do it before or after.”
“Therefore in your opinion the timing proves it was a visitor to the convention.”
“In my opinion this whole thing is Alice in Wonderland.”
“As of now it’s all we’ve got.”
Reacher said, “How far do these messengers travel?”