“Everyone was talking about it, man. Like you died.”
“The NSC got us for a secret thing. We’re shaking a tree. A whole lot of extra crap is falling out. You’re going to have to clean it up for us. Without mentioning our involvement. You can claim them as your own, if you like. Get another medal. Start with these two. They’re selling scrap M9s to skinheads in a bar.”
“I won’t get a medal for that.”
“It’s really about the bar. Could be the tip of an iceberg.”
“What happened to his nose?”
“Neagley.”
“Outstanding.”
“We need background on the bar. Apparently all kinds of deals go down there. Write it up as a separate report, OK? And then feel free to go fishing. But not until we say. There’s one particular guy we’re looking at, and we don’t want to scare him away. Assuming he plans to come back anyway. Which he probably won’t.”
Orozco said, “You got it, boss.”
“I’m not your boss anymore.”
“I’m sure you’re still the boss of something.”
Orozco put the two guys in the back of the car, behind the plastic screen, and he climbed in next to his driver, and Reacher and Neagley waved them away. Then they walked back to their boutique hotel, where the clerk confirmed the consulate had indeed come through, and as a result they now had two upgraded rooms side by side on the top floor. They went to Neagley’s first, where they dialed McLean, Virginia, to check in with Sinclair.
—
At that moment the fingerprint technician in the police garage was on the phone with Chief of Detectives Griezman. He said he had taken an excellent print off the back of the chrome lever. Clear as a bell. By shape, to his practiced eye, it was a right-hand middle finger, and it was average size for a man, or large for a woman. It showed no hits in any of the federal databases. Therefore the perpetrator was almost certainly not German.
—
The upgraded rooms had fancy console telephones, and Neagley put hers on speaker and sat on the bed. Reacher sat in a chair. In McLean the phone was also on speaker. Reacher heard the spacey echo, and then he heard Sinclair say hello, and then Waterman, and then White. He guessed they were all in the office, at the conference table, in the leather chairs.
Sinclair said, “Are you getting anywhere?”
She sounded tired.
Reacher said, “The German witness was a man named Klopp, and we got a good description and a good sketch. Which was faxed to you. Klopp says he’s seen the guy twice. Since then we have another witness who has seen the guy three times. All in the same bar. Which seems to be partly a right-wing political hangout and partly an underground marketplace. All kinds of deals, apparently.”
“Will that be the location of the second rendezvous?”
“The odds say no. They could choose anywhere from Scandinavia to North Africa.”
White spoke up and said, “We’re cross-checking lists in several different lateral ways. State has put some big computers on it. We’re watching about four hundred American names. Which is way too many to be useful. Their recent travel destinations include about forty countries. Which is also too many to be useful.”
Reacher said, “It all comes down to the same old question. What is the guy selling?”
No answer.
“We got a weird piece of news,” Sinclair said. “From our people in Ukraine. Just routine police blotter stuff. The Kiev police department reported a dead Arab in an alley downtown. Killed by blows to the head, probably with a carpenter’s hammer. In his twenties, and wearing a pink polo shirt with an alligator on the front. Which is what caught our eye. Probably nothing. Kiev police say there was a soccer match on the TV. The locals lost to Moscow. Lots of unhappy young men in the bars. An Arab on his own in a pink shirt might have been irresistible.”
“Or?”
“It’s stupid to base it on the shirt. But maybe he was one of them. Maybe there’s a civil war going on.”
“Does it change our plan?”
“No, we should assume the messenger is still on his way. We should act as if the second rendezvous is still imminent. What we need to figure out is whether you and Sergeant Neagley should stay in Hamburg or come back here.”
“They won’t meet in McLean, Virginia. That’s a certainty. Whereas they might meet in Hamburg again. That’s at least a possibility. A small chance, maybe, but slim is better than none, surely.”
Sinclair was quiet for a long moment. Nothing on the line except echo and static. Then she said, “OK, but stay away from the safe house.”
“Even if that means missing the rendezvous?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. You need to be clear on this. It’s not your decision.”