“Why me?”
“You were right. We ask you to do things, and if they turn out well we all claim the credit, but if they turn out badly you’re on your own. That must be stressful. Like the thing you just did in Bosnia. That can’t have been pleasant.”
“Actually it was,” Reacher said.
“Technically it was a double homicide.”
“The first guy was the commander of some ragtag ethnic army. The second guy was his second-in-command. To set an example they arrested a famous soccer player from the other community. The star of the local franchise. They handcuffed him to a radiator and broke both his legs with a sledgehammer. They paid particular attention to his knees and ankles. They left him there for an hour to contemplate his future. Then they had a couple of mattresses hauled into the room. Then they had the guy’s wife and daughter hauled into the room. They had the whole battalion line up at the door. They raped them to death, right in front of the guy’s eyes. He kept hitting his head on the radiator. He was trying to kill himself. He didn’t succeed. His wife lasted nearly twenty-four hours. His daughter was dead in six. She bled out. She was eight years old. I spent two weeks confirming the facts. I saw the mattresses. So all in all I felt pretty good about pulling the trigger. Like a guy taking the trash to the curb. Maybe not fun in and of itself, but afterward you have a clean and tidy garage. Which feels good. That’s for sure.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That there are such things in the world.”
“Get used to it,” Reacher said. “Things can only get worse.”
“I got a message from Waterman. Wiley was busted four times for selling stolen goods. Nothing stuck. But you know how that goes.”
“Outstanding,” Reacher said. “Now he’s in the army.”
“Where all kinds of things are streaming back to storage depots, because the front line suddenly disappeared. Where as a result security isn’t what it was. Maybe old habits die hard.”
“But what? What is he stealing and what is he selling?”
Sinclair didn’t answer.
The phone didn’t ring.
There was a knock at the door.
A bellboy.
Or a bell girl, to be precise. With a trim uniform and a little hat. From the lobby, with a package. A plain white envelope. Large. Unmarked. It looked to have half an inch of paper in it. That kind of size. That kind of stiffness.
The girl said, “For you, sir.”
Reacher said, “Who from?”
“The gentleman wouldn’t give his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“I didn’t see well. A normal American, I think. Quite ordinary.”
One of Orozco’s guys, Reacher thought. Not Orozco himself. Too distinctive. His sergeant, maybe. The guy who was driving the car, the first time out.
Deniability.
He took the package and said, “Thank you.”
The girl headed back down the stairs. Reacher unflapped the envelope and peeked inside. Sinclair stood at his elbow. He could smell her perfume. He riffed the top of the papers with his thumb. He saw every first line. They were all familiar. It was a duplicate copy of Wiley’s file. The same in every respect, except this time the photocopier had been short on toner. The print was pale.
Horace-none-Wiley, fading away.
Sinclair said, “Who sent it?”
“Orozco,” Reacher said. “No one else knows I’m here.”
“Why would he send you a second copy?”
“Did you order yours through the Joint Chiefs?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe somehow Orozco heard about it. Maybe he thought it was a big deal. A high level panic over a private first class might attract his attention. You had it sent to Hamburg. Maybe he’s giving me an early warning. Or a head start. Knowing I’m in Hamburg myself. Not knowing I’ve already seen the file.”
“The Joint Chiefs wouldn’t leak.”
“Then maybe Stuttgart did. Or Personnel Command. Orozco has friends everywhere. He’s a very popular guy. He has a sunny disposition.”
He dropped the envelope on the bed. Sinclair was still at his elbow. Very close to him. He could smell her perfume. The dress, the pearls, the shoes. The face and the hair.
The phone didn’t ring.
She said, “Waiting makes me nervous.”
He said nothing.
“I can’t relax.”
He said nothing.
“Do you get nervous?”
Yes, he thought. I’m nervous right now.
“No,” he said. “Doesn’t help anything.”
“You had your hair cut.”
“Where I got the idea about Wiley. The barber had a picture.”
“The barber did a nice job.”
“I hope so. He charged me five bucks.”
“That’s cheap.”
“You think?”
“You should try where I go in D.C.”
He said, “I think yours is more complicated.”
She said nothing.
Just looked at him.