Reacher nodded. He had dealt with German cops before. Both military and civilian. Not always easy. Mostly due to different perceptions. Germans thought they had been given a country, and Americans thought they had bought a large military base with servants.
There was the noise of a vehicle on the driveway. Swooping in, past the knee-high sign. Then another. Two vehicles. Two vans, no doubt. Black in color. A minute later two men in suits came in through the door, followed by Ratcliffe and Sinclair, with two more men in suits bringing up the rear. Ratcliffe was out of breath. Sinclair was a little flushed. Her throat, and high on her cheeks. She was in another black dress, looking as good as ever. Maybe better. Maybe the flush helped.
Ratcliffe said, “I hear we have an eyewitness.”
Reacher said, “That’s our current operational assumption.”
“We’re going to roll the dice. You and Sergeant Neagley will go back to Germany tonight. The State Department will give you passport photographs for all two hundred programmers. Including the expats. First thing in the morning you will interview the eyewitness. The Hamburg police department is being leaned on as we speak. Then immediately after the eyewitness picks out a photograph, you will call here with the name, and we’ll have the guy picked up at home. Which will be a neat and timely conclusion.”
Reacher said nothing.
—
They got the same Lufthansa flight. Early evening departure, six time zones, scheduled arrival at the start of the business day. Neagley brought her bag. This time Reacher had one, too. It was a red canvas tote from the Air and Space Museum. Presumably some State Department staffer’s lunch bucket, requisitioned in an emergency and repacked with two hundred passport photographs. Which was a large quantity. Each photograph was glued to an index card, with a name and a passport number. Reacher and Neagley looked at some of them. They dealt them back and forth like playing cards. They found the expat Hamburg resident. The counterculture guy, with the shock of hair. His government picture was better quality than the underground journal. Glossier, and much crisper. Regulation size, white background. The guy was showing a head-on stare, and a challenge in his eyes. A large head, and a thin neck.
“It’s not him,” Reacher said.
“Why not?” Neagley said.
“Because of his hair. He has to do something to make it look like that. Even if it’s doing nothing at all. It’s a choice. It’s a statement. He’s saying, look at me, I have interesting hair. Like guys who wear hats. They’re saying, look at me, I have an interesting hat. All a little desperate, don’t you think? Insecurity, I suppose. As if what’s inside ain’t quite enough. And such people don’t write software patches that could blow up the known universe. If you’re smart enough to write a thing like that, and you’re smart enough to sell it for a hundred million bucks, all in secret, then you’re not insecure. Not even a little bit. You’re the best there ever was. You’re the king of the world.”
They put the pictures back in the bag, and ate the meal. Neagley had the window, and she went to sleep leaning away, her head against the fuselage wall. Less danger of accidental contact that way. Reacher stayed awake. He was thinking about the eyewitness. The municipal worker with the offensive views. Possibly a waste of time. Possibly the man who saves the known universe. Reacher wanted to get a look at him. He felt like the plane, racing east to meet the dawn.
—
The American was brushing his hair, in the bathroom mirror in his Amsterdam hotel. He was up early. No reason. He had slept. He was calm. But it was time to get back. He would shower and pack and hit the road before the morning rush got going. After that it was plain sailing.
But first he wanted coffee, so he dressed in yesterday’s clothes and brushed his hair. It was sticking up at the top, from the pillow. He used water and slicked it down. He checked the mirror. Acceptable. It was just a quick down-and-up trip in the elevator. In the lobby he took coffee in a go-cup from a silver urn on a table outside the breakfast room. On a matching table the other side of the door were newspapers. Dutch, obviously, plus British, and French, and Belgian, and German, and the Herald Tribune from home. All neatly laid out, all perfectly squared away.
There was nothing in the Berlin paper. No headline, no story. Nothing on the front of the Hamburg paper, either. Or on page two. Or three.
There was a headline on page four.
Low down, and not very big. Plus two inches of story. Mostly boilerplate. Police said the case was receiving maximum attention, and progress was being made.
Specifically, they were about to fingerprint the inside of the victim’s car.