Sinclair said, “I don’t believe in coincidence.”
Reacher looked at the envelope and scanned through the file. No notes, no handwriting. Nothing from Orozco. Just the tape. Firmly affixed. A message.
Definitive, but deniable.
“Sometimes we have to believe in coincidence,” Reacher said. “Especially a small one. The populations are not large. Guys willing to betray their country for money, guys willing to use a prostitute, guys willing to kill a prostitute. Like a Venn diagram. Not many people where the circles meet. I guess he was celebrating. The deal was halfway done. He had financial prospects. But something got out of hand. Which has a huge silver lining. In a way. For us, right now. Tonight, and tomorrow. It’s a regular homicide now. Griezman can come out in the open. He can use federal resources. He can give that drawing to every cop in town.”
Sinclair was quiet for a beat, and then she shook her head and said, “No, we can never admit we ran that print at his request. And it would only confuse the issue. One thing at a time. We want him for the hundred million dollars. That comes first. That’s more important.”
“The hooker might not agree.”
“We can’t hang him twice. And we can’t have him arrested by the Germans. Because he’s ours. But justice will be done. This time it’s an order.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Reacher said.
He put the file back in the envelope, and timed it out in his head. Five streets away, in the woman’s apartment. Wiley had been there while Reacher was eating dinner with Neagley in McLean, Virginia. Of all the diners in all the towns. He laid back down, on his side, and he rolled Sinclair over, on her front, and he put his hand high on the back of her thigh.
She said, “Already?”
He said, “I’m younger than you.”
The phone rang.
Griezman, checking in. Reacher put him on the speaker. Griezman asked about the fingerprint. Reacher said there was no news yet. Sinclair looked away. Griezman said there was nothing to report from the surveillance operations. So far there had been no sign of Wiley at the bar. So far at the safe house a mail carrier had brought a package, which had then sat unclaimed on a table in the lobby, and was still there. Apart from that no one else had gone in or come out, except for what was probably a daughter from either the Turkish or the Italian diplomatic families, probably going out for the evening. To a dance club, possibly. She was in her early twenties, with jet black hair and olive skin. Very good looking, Griezman said, according to contemporaneous reports from his men. The sight had brightened their day. Because absolutely nothing else was going on. But they were nevertheless still committed. They would hold their positions for the time being. They would have to thin out by evening, when street parking would be harder to find, after everyone in the neighborhood was home from work.
Sinclair said, “Last time the meeting happened late in the afternoon. Which is right about now.”
“Wait a damn minute,” Reacher said again. “What about the lamp in the window? Something changed. It is but it isn’t. We blew it. It’s a messenger but not the same messenger. It’s not a man. It’s a woman. We fell for it. We’re missing the rendezvous. It’s happening right now.”
Chapter 22
Reacher told Griezman to get all his units moving immediately, in pursuit of the good-looking girl, but Sinclair told him no, sit tight for the moment. To Reacher she said, “You’re only guessing. She could be Turkish or Italian. Would these people even use a woman?”
“I was in Israel,” Reacher said. “These people use women all the time.”
“You’re gambling.”
“And so far I’m winning. Look at me right now, for instance.”
Sinclair paused a beat.
Then she said to Griezman, “Keep one car on the safe house. Get all the others moving.”
—
The new messenger walked south out of the neighborhood, and then turned west, to loop under the Ausenalster lake, from Saint Georg to Saint Pauli, on her way to her appointment, which was in a club on a street called the Reeperbahn. She had walked the route many times in her imagination, the physical details built up around her by many hours of briefing, the sights and sounds and smells described so many times that reality felt bland and small by comparison. She had been warned that Wiley would choose a rendezvous point he hoped would embarrass a person of the Islamic faith. A male person, to be specific. He wouldn’t expect a woman. He had a mean, competitive streak. He would want two out of three from alcohol, girls, and hatred. On this occasion it would be the first and the second, she figured, from what she had been told about the street called the Reeperbahn. Girls and alcohol. But she would handle it. Great struggles required great sacrifices. And she was from the tribal areas. She was sure she had seen worse.