“No, actually. I was due a rotation. I just closed out a thing. Successfully, I thought, but this was my reward.”
“Look on the sunny side of the street. You can relax. Take it easy. Go play golf. You don’t need to learn how to make it work. CIA doesn’t give a damn about labs. You hardly use them.”
“I’ll be three months behind on the job I should be starting right now.”
“Which is what?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Who is doing it instead?”
“I can’t tell you that, either.”
“A good analyst?”
“Not good enough. He’ll miss things. They might be vital. This stuff is impossible to predict.”
“What stuff?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“But important stuff, right?”
“Far more important than this.”
“What was the thing you just closed out?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Was it an outstanding service to the United States in a key position of responsibility?”
“What?”
“Or words to that effect.”
“Yes, I would say so.”
“But this was your reward.”
Waterman said, “Mine, too. I’m in the same boat. I could say every word he just said. I expected a promotion. Not this.”
“A promotion for what? Or after what?”
“We closed a big case.”
“What kind of case?”
“A manhunt, basically. Years old and very cold. But we did it.”
“A service to our nation?”
“What’s this about?”
“I’m comparing the two of you. And there’s not much difference. You’re very good agents, already fairly senior, seen as loyal and reliable and trustworthy, and hence you’re given something useful to do. But then this is your reward for doing it. Which means one of two things.”
“Which are?” White said.
“Maybe the thing you did was embarrassing in certain circles. Maybe now it needs to be deniable. Maybe you need to be hidden away. Out of sight and out of mind.”
White shook his head. He said, “No, it was well regarded. It will be for years. I got a secret decoration. And a personal letter from the Secretary of State. And it doesn’t need to be deniable anyway, because it was completely secret. No one in those circles knew anything about it.”
Reacher looked at Waterman and said, “Was there anything embarrassing about your manhunt?”
Waterman shook his head, and said, “What’s the second possibility?”
“This is not a school.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s a place where they send good agents fresh off a big win.”
Waterman paused a beat. A new thought. He said, “Are you the same as us? I don’t see why you wouldn’t be. Why draft two the same and not three?”
Reacher nodded. “I’m the same. I’m fresh off a big win. That’s for damn sure. I got a medal this morning. On a ribbon around my neck. For a job well done. All clean and tidy. Nothing to get embarrassed about.”
“What kind of job was it?”
“I’m sure it’s classified. But I’m reliably informed it might have involved someone breaking into a house and shooting the occupant in the head.”
“Where?”
“One in the forehead and one behind the ear. Never fails.”
“No, where was the house?”
“I’m sure that’s classified, too. But overseas, I expect. And I’m reliably informed there were a lot of consonants in the name. Not many vowels at all. And then the same someone did the same thing the next night. At a different house. All for good reasons. Which taken together means I would expect him to get better than this afterward. I would expect him to get some input into his next deployment, at least. Maybe even a choice.”
“Exactly,” White said. “And my choice wouldn’t have been this. It would have been to do what I should be doing right now.”
“Which sounds challenging.”
“Very.”
“Which is typical. As a reward we want a challenge. We don’t want the easy commands. We want to step up.”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe we have,” Reacher said. “Let me ask you a question. Think back to when you got these orders. Was it face to face, or written?”
“Face to face. It had to be, for a thing like this.”
“Was there a third person in the room?”
White said, “As a matter of fact there was. It was humiliating. An administrative assistant, waiting to deliver a stack of papers. He told her to stay. She was just standing there.”