“How does the Iranian communicate?”
“On the phone if he can. If it’s safe. Or by dead drop. And the Hamburg head of station just arranged a very basic early warning. Under the circumstances we felt it was necessary. If the Iranian can’t get to the phone or arrange a drop, he’ll move a lamp on his bedroom window sill. From the edge to the center. As soon as the messenger shows up. His bedroom is in the back of the building, and the window is visible from the next street over. The head of station is doing four drive-bys a day.”
A waitress with yellow pigtails came by for the newcomers’ orders. Sinclair dug in her bag and came out with a large brown envelope. She gave it to Neagley and said, “This is your mail from the Department of the Army.”
Neagley said, “Thank you, ma’am,” and opened the envelope. She checked the contents, put them back, and smiled an only-the-army kind of a smile.
Reacher said, “What?”
“Nothing.”
Sinclair said, “You can speak freely in front of me, sergeant. I have a security clearance.”
“No, ma’am, it’s really nothing. Not relevant at all. Except I guess it proves once again the most efficient unit in uniform is the press room. I asked for information about a four-month-old AWOL case we found. A purely tangential inquiry. Nothing to do with anything. But Major Reacher asked me to keep him up to date with it.”
“Why?”
Reacher said, “That’s a command I want to avoid.”
“And the press room responded?”
Neagley said, “They sent two generic newspaper articles about the guy’s unit. The best they could do. Trying to be helpful. In fact one of them isn’t even an article at all. It’s an advertisement. Because obviously they don’t know anything about the guy himself. Because they’re only the press room. But they’re very willing and very fast.”
“And nothing from the units that do know something about the guy?”
“Not yet.”
“Is four months unusual?”
“It would be in a unit I worked for.”
Reacher said, “They’re putting people in advertisements now?”
Neagley took out the envelope’s contents for the second time. An old Army Times, and a trade show handbill. The Times had a bland piece about the ongoing drawdown out of the Fulda Gap, near Frankfurt, where once upon a time great swirling tank battles had been envisaged. Now the enemy was gone, and the border had moved hundreds of miles farther east, like an ebb tide, and front-line units had been stranded like fish on a beach. Some had pushed onward, just in case, and others had streamed back to immense storage lagers, where they were mothballed. Just five Chaparral units were still on active duty, including the AWOL’s crew, who were featured in a photograph at the top of the story.