He parked in front of a dull green double door, and slid down from the high seat. The double door had padlocked bolts top and bottom, and a padlocked hasp in the middle. He had all three keys. He opened the right-hand door, and propped it, and then he walked back and opened the left-hand door, and propped it.
The space inside was about thirty feet by forty, by more than fifteen feet tall. Like a double garage in a nice suburban house in Sugar Land, but swollen up some. The right-hand slot was empty. The left-hand slot had the old furniture truck. He had driven it from Frankfurt seven months before, the same night he stole it. The same night he loaded its precious cargo. The crazy sprint was not strictly necessary, because he had changed the plates, to be on the safe side. He could have taken his time. But he had wanted to get where he was going. He wanted to hunker down. He only just made it. It was an old truck. A piece of shit, basically. The oil light was on the whole way. The engine was making noises. It was close to dying when he parked it, nose in, thankful to have gotten it there. Thankful to have avoided a tow truck. Some things would have been hard to explain. He shut it down and it never started again. Seized solid. Hence the rental. He parked it next to its predecessor, and he closed the dull green doors, and padlocked the bolts again, and the hasp, and he put the keys in his pocket. He crossed an old iron footbridge to a different pier, and then the new footbridges took over, soaring teak and steel, carrying him from one pier to the next, to the rear of his development, where he walked between two buildings and past another, to his lobby, and his elevator, and his apartment door.
—
Muller closed his office door and called Dremmler on his desk phone. He said, “The man in the sketch has left town in a truck. We just got a request for assistance from Griezman’s division. We’re putting an APB on the plate number. Starting fifteen kilometers out, going national if we need to.”
“He’s delivering,” Dremmler said. “We missed it.”
“No, the truck is clearly empty. He just picked it up from a rental franchise.”
“Then he’s collecting something from somewhere else. Which is much more interesting. Keep me informed. Make sure I’m the first to know.”
“I will.”
“I’m afraid the other thing didn’t work out.”
“Reacher?”
“He predicted it. He brought people with him. He ambushed the ambush. A squad of twelve, my guys said. All armed with military weapons. Plus him. My guys didn’t stand a chance.”
—
Wiley was on a ninety-six-hour pass the night the truck was stolen. Whereabouts unknown. That was the first thing his movement orders revealed. His immediately previous location had been his regular billet, on a post some miles north and east of the mom-and-pop furniture store. But not many miles, Reacher thought. Dozens, not hundreds. He knew the area. He had been there many times. It was all reasonably local. Like Sugar Land to downtown Houston. A bus ride.
Beginning to end, the orders showed Wiley arriving in-country, and then bouncing back and forth between what used to be a forward position in the battle area, to a rearward position in a maintenance depot. Which was the post north and east of Frankfurt. There were also regular voluntary detachments to a storage lager thirty miles west. What was once a supply depot was by then a dump for stuff no one needed anymore. Members of Wiley’s unit could volunteer to go cannibalize parts from retired machines. The XO called it hands-on training in on-the-field maintenance. Which Reacher agreed sounded better than the guy admitting he had to scavenge retreads to keep his unit limping along. But despite the hard sell it was not popular duty. There had been four opportunities. No one had volunteered more than once.
Except Wiley.
Wiley had volunteered three times.
The first three.
But not the fourth.
Neagley said, “That’s where he saw it, obviously. Whatever it is. In the storage lager. Has to be. Maybe the first time, he searched for it. The second time, he found it. The third time, he planned it. Then he stole it, seven months ago. Which meant he didn’t have to go back the fourth time. The thing was gone by then. He already had it.”
“Hidden nearby, according to you. We need to confirm it. We need eyes on the road. Four guys with binoculars, like a visual trap. Maybe on the autobahn south of Hanover. He can’t have gotten that far yet.”
He dialed Griezman, who said he would take care of it.
Sinclair said, “He’s very helpful.”
Reacher said, “So far.”
“Are you blackmailing him?”
“I said I wouldn’t, but I’m not sure he believes me. So I guess I am, in a way. The end result is the same.”
“Long may it continue.”
“It won’t,” Reacher said. “Griezman will dump us as soon as he gets a bigger problem.”
“Is there a bigger problem than this?”
“He doesn’t know how bad it is.”
“Should we tell him?” Sinclair said. “Should we make an official request for assistance?”