“OK,” Reacher said. “Thank you very much. The United States Treasury is grateful.”
Griezman sat down. A waiter hustled over with a third cover. Water was poured and bread was brought.
Griezman said, “I want to ask for a favor.”
Reacher said, “First tell us how you found us here.”
“Your hotel told us where you’re staying. They’re required to. Any booking by an embassy or a consulate or a diplomatic mission has potential security implications. So there’s a system now. Then I put men in parked cars with radios. They passed you from one to the other until you came in here. I didn’t want them to try following you on foot. I thought you’d spot them.”
“Have we done something wrong?”
“I need to ask for an important favor. Personally, face to face.”
“What kind of an important favor?”
“We found a fingerprint, in the dead prostitute’s car. Remember? Exactly where you said we would. On the back of the chrome lever. A middle finger from a right hand.”
“Congratulations.”
“It has no matches anywhere in our databases.”
“Is that usual?”
“It is if the print is foreign.”
Reacher said nothing.
Griezman said, “Will you run it through your systems for me?”
“That’s huge,” Neagley said.
Reacher nodded. “That’s political. That’s a can of worms. Probably involves all kinds of NATO crap, as well as the Fourth Amendment. We’re knee-deep in PR people and lawyers. It would take them a year to even think about it.”
Griezman sighed, and said, “That’s always my problem. I’m not political. I’m just a simple detective, hoping for a favor from one to another.”
“Bullshit,” Reacher said. “You’re paying for dinner tonight because I said the word Pentagon. Maybe you’ll run for mayor one day. This is a liberal city in Western Europe. The voters wouldn’t like to hear the uncouth warmongers bought you a meal. So you’ll have an expenses fight tomorrow, instead of an embarrassment ten years from now. I would call that fairly political, on a scale of one to ten.”
“I’m just trying to catch a bad guy.”
“Why would he be an American?”
“Statistics. Crime figures.”
“And you think we’d admit that out loud? As in, you’ve got a dead hooker, so sure, it makes total sense to round up the Americans. We can’t just meekly accept a presumption of guilt. Wouldn’t play well at home. This stuff is way above my pay grade.”
“Personally I agree with you. I think it was a sailor. One of a hundred nationalities. But you’re a large foreign group in Germany. I could eliminate a large number of possibilities.”
“So now you think it wasn’t an American?”
“I would like to prove that, yes. An attempt will be expected of me, before the case goes cold. Which is what I want, frankly, as soon as possible.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, we’re wasting too much time on it.”
“Because she was a prostitute?”
“Ultimately, I suppose. But only through bitter experience and data. Most prostitute murders are committed by itinerants. That’s a fact. This guy is already halfway across the Atlantic, I’m sure. Happy that he got away with it.”
Political. Reacher felt played. He said, “I’ll think about it. Have a copy of the print sent to the hotel, just in case.”
“Don’t need to,” Griezman said. He took a small envelope from his inside pocket. “There’s a copy on film in here. And a card with my number.”
Reacher took the envelope and put it in his own pocket.
—
After dinner they elected to walk back to their hotel, so Griezman drove away in his department Mercedes without them. They detoured via the safe house. Just an evening stroll. Just a corner-of-the-eye glance, as they passed. Not that they knew which apartment. There were fifteen windows plausibly related to the lobby in question. Some of them were dark. Some showed the blue glow of television. Some had low, warm light. No people were visible. There were cars on the street, and occasional pedestrians. Early evening, in the city. They walked on.
There was a blue car parked at the curb outside their hotel. An Opel sedan. Manuel Orozco’s cop car. He was waiting for them in the lobby. He said, “There’s something you need to know.”
Chapter 16
They went back outside and leaned on Orozco’s car. The evening was cool and damp. They could sense the water nearby. Reacher said, “You could have called.”
“No,” Orozco said. “This is better done face to face than on the telephone.”
“Why?”
“You gave me the small story. You missed the big story.”
“Are they selling something worse?”
“No, about forty scrap M9s over six months or so is all it was. Plus a thousand rounds of ammunition. Not the end of the world. We’ve all seen worse.”
“So what’s the big story?”
“Their ID was genuine.”