—
Reacher called Griezman back and asked if the pretty girl had been seen near the bar. The answer was no. Wiley neither. No sign. Reacher said, “OK, they’re meeting somewhere else. Get those cars moving, too.”
This time Sinclair just nodded.
Griezman said, “But those men didn’t see the girl.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Reacher said. “They have the drawing of Wiley’s face. Where we find one we’ll find the other.”
—
The new messenger turned left into the Reeperbahn and was hit by all the light and all the noise she was expecting. Flashing and blinking and glaring, and thumping and booming and distorting. Not bland and small anymore. This time it was more than she had imagined. She took a breath and walked on. She knew the name of the club she was looking for. In a manner of speaking. She knew the shape its letters made. She knew it had a photograph in its window, of a naked woman and a German Shepherd. Which was a kind of dog. Inside it would smell of beer. She had been told there would be things she might prefer not to look at.
She heard police sirens, howling and baying in the distance. She slowed down, suddenly uncertain. Many places had the same letters in their names. The same shapes. Mostly at what Westerners would call the end of the word. Like a suffix, repeated over and over. Then suddenly she understood. All such places had steps leading down. To rooms under the ground. Like caves. Keller. Part of a word. It meant underground cave.
She walked on. She found the place she wanted. It was lit up red. It had a narrow door, with a narrow window alongside it, sandwiched between two other places. A lobby, with a stair head. The window carried the promised photograph. It was bleached by many daylight hours. It showed a naked woman on her back, with a big dog squatting over her, its hindquarters over her face. She had the dog’s penis in her mouth. No big deal. Not to one from the tribal areas. The messenger had seen it done before. Boys on men, mostly, on command, or sometimes goats.
She pushed the door and went inside. There was a sharp chemical smell. Astringent. She had smelled the same thing in the airport bathroom. There was a big man on a stool. Men had to pay him, but women didn’t. What they called a cover charge. She had been coached. She smiled at him, shyly, and set off down the stairs. They were narrow. At the bottom was blue light and a roar of noise. Music, talking, the slam of heavy glass pitchers on wooden tables.
She stepped into the basement room. There was a lit stage at the far end. A naked woman was bent double, having sex with a donkey. The donkey was in a kind of hammock, to take its weight off the woman’s back. The room was crowded with men, all of them rearing up, and craning their necks. They were shouting and grunting in time with the donkey’s bewildered thrusts. She saw Wiley two-thirds of the way back, alone at a table. She had memorized his face. He had a tall glass of golden liquid. It was half gone. Beer, she assumed.
She stood still. Men were looking at her. She had on black pants and her travel shirt, open two buttons. She ignored the looks and threaded her way between the tables. There was a clatter of hooves as the donkey finished and struggled out of its hammock. All around her men clapped and cheered. The naked woman straightened up and waved to them, graciously.
—
In Reacher’s room they heard the phone ringing through the wall, next door in Sinclair’s room. Then it stopped and Reacher’s own phone rang in turn. It was Bishop, from the consulate. The CIA head of station. He wanted Sinclair. She put him on speaker and he said, “The Iranian just called it in. About the lamp in the window. The messenger is a woman and as of right now she’s out of the house.”
“We’re on it already,” Sinclair said.
“But not really,” Reacher said. “It’s a hopeless task. Not going to work. Griezman’s guys have got an hour, maximum. Twelve cars in a big city. It’s way too random. I suggest we go to plan B immediately.”
“Which is what?” Bishop asked.
“Pull Griezman’s guys back to the safe house, and hit the messenger on her way back in. Fast and hard, as soon as they’re sure. She might tell us where she went. Wiley might have lingered there. He lingered last time. About thirty minutes, according to Klopp. Maybe he thinks it’s a security measure.”
“She won’t tell us.”
“We’ll ask her nicely.”
“But that way we burn the Iranian.”
“Can you get him out?”
“Tonight?”
“Right now. You must have rehearsed it.”
“I’d have to talk to Mr. Ratcliffe at the NSC.”
Sinclair said, “Damn right you would. All of us would.”
Reacher said, “We need a decision.”
Sinclair said, “We won’t get one inside thirty minutes. But we still have a car at the house. We’ll know when she’s back for the night. That gives us hours.”