“I like stupid,” Reacher said. “Sometimes stupid is all we got.”
“Well, sir, it seemed to me it wasn’t just secrets. It seemed to me like a whole secret plan. For his life. Day by day. Yes, he was a hard worker. He did it all and never complained. Even the bullshit parts. And most of it is bullshit now. He would get a look on his face. He was happy, because every day was one day closer.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Four months ago you mentioned Wiley’s uncle.”
“They were asking us if Wiley was a chatty guy. They wanted to know what he talked about. There wasn’t much. He told me he was from Sugar Land, Texas. He knew about beef cattle. One time he said he wanted to be a rancher. But that was all. He never talked much. Then one night we were back off an exercise, and we had fired some practice rounds, and we had gotten a pretty good score against the helicopters, so we all laid back and cracked some beers, and we got pretty buzzed. They all got to talking about why they had joined the army. But in a cryptic way. There are some real smart mouths in the unit. You had to put it all in one clever sentence. I’m not so good at that type of thing. When my turn came I said, I joined the army to learn a trade. I thought there could be a double meaning. Trade, like automobile mechanic, or trade like killing people. Which would be alternative employment later if automobile mechanic jobs were hard to find.”
“Good answer,” Reacher said.
“They didn’t get it.”
“What did Wiley say?”
“He said he joined the army because his uncle told him Davy Crockett stories. Which was short and cryptic, just like it should be. Like a crossword puzzle. Then he smiled his secret smile. It was easy for him to be cryptic. He was always cryptic.”
“What did you think he meant?”
“I remember Davy Crockett on the television show. I saw him every week. He wore a hat made from an old raccoon. Didn’t make me want to join the army. So I don’t know what he meant. I guess that time it was me who didn’t get it.”
“Just uncle, or was there a name?”
“Not then. But later they were ragging on him about talking so much about ranching, when there was nothing in his home town but a big old sugar factory, and he said his uncle Arnold had worked on a ranch before he got drafted.”
“Did that sound like the same uncle? Or a different uncle?”
Coleman went quiet, as if running through his own family members, and listening in his head to what he called them. This uncle, that uncle. Was there a difference?
Eventually he said, “I don’t know. Wiley was the kind of guy who would use a name where he could. A Texas kind of guy. Old-fashioned courtesy. But he couldn’t in the cryptic sentence, because it had to be short. So maybe it was Arnold both times, or maybe not.”
“Tell me more about how every day he was one day closer. The secret plan. How was his mood? Did it feel like a step-by-step plan, slow and steady, or were there ups and downs?”
“I guess neither,” Coleman said. “Or a mixture of both. He was always cheerful, but he got happier later. Total of two steps only. He was up, and then he was up some more.”
“When did it change?”
“About halfway through. About a year ago.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing I could put in words.”
“Got an impression?”
“It might be stupid.”
“I like stupid.”
“I guess he was like a guy waiting for news, always kind of expecting it would be good news, and then finally getting it, and sure enough, it is good news.”
“Like a guy looking for something he knew was there, and finding it?”
“Exactly like that.”
—
In Jalalabad it was much later in the morning. Breakfast was long gone, and lunch was coming. The messenger was called back to the small hot room. Her second visit of the day. She had already delivered Wiley’s response, on her arrival at dawn. The fat man had smiled and rocked, and the tall man had clenched his fists and howled like a wolf. Now only the fat man was there. The tall man’s cushion was dented but empty. He was elsewhere. Very busy. Very excited. Busier and more excited than he should have been, she thought, about a matter he had claimed was of very little importance.
Silent flies came close, and hovered, and darted away.
The fat man said, “Sit down.”
The messenger looked at the tall man’s cushion.
She said, “May I stand?”
“As you wish. I am very proud of your performance. It was flawless. As of course it should have been, given the excellence of your training.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I felt well prepared.”
“Was your German adequate?”
“I spoke very little. Only to a taxi driver.”
“Would it have been adequate if you had to speak more?”
“I believe so. Because of the excellence of my training.”
“Would you like to go back to Hamburg?”
She thought of photographs and fingerprints and computer records.