“Because you’re such a gentleman.”
“We have time.”
“The messenger could be in Zurich by now.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s this part that matters. Something physical in a panel van. Which can’t move like money. Not secretly in the blink of an eye. It’s slow and ponderous and noisy and visible, because it’s real.”
“Except Muller hasn’t seen it.”
“Yet.”
“How long will you give it?”
“Two hours, maybe.”
“Then what?”
“I’ll conclude Wiley wasn’t headed for Frankfurt.”
The phone rang again.
This time it was the New Orleans FBI, patched through direct from their car outside the one-room shack where Wiley’s mother lived. Two agents, a man and a woman. Immediate reports, as requested. They had led off their interview with the scripted questions, about the name Arnold, and the drafted rancher, and the Davy Crockett fan. Turned out they were all the same guy. His full name was Arnold Peter Mason. Born and grew up in Amarillo, Texas. As a kid he worked on a ranch, then he did twenty years in the U.S. Army, and then he lived with Wiley’s mother in Sugar Land, Texas, for a six-year spell, from when young Horace Wiley was about ten years old, until he was about sixteen. And yes, young Horace had called Arnold his uncle. He was an older man than Wiley’s mother had been accustomed to, and he was a still, silent man with secrets, but at first he had been a good provider. More details would follow.
Landry, Vanderbilt, and Neagley all plugged the name into their respective systems. Arnold Peter Mason. Landry got nothing of immediate top-line interest. Neither did Vanderbilt. Neagley got a twenty-year NCO in the airborne infantry. No gold stars, no red flags. Plenty of time in Germany, way back when anything could happen.
Still alive, according to the Social Security mainframe. Sixty-five years old. Still working, according to the Internal Revenue Service. A modest income, declining year on year. Maybe odd jobs or laboring, slowing up ahead of retirement.
The owner of a passport, according to the State Department.
No address within the United States.
The IRS said his tax returns had been filed from overseas.
CIA flagged him as living in Germany.
The Berlin embassy showed him registered as a retired-military U.S. citizen resident in a small village near Bremen. An hour away from Hamburg.
Reacher said, “Is this a co-production? Is this the two of them together?”
Neagley said, “Maybe that’s where the first truck is hidden. At Uncle Arnold’s place, not Frankfurt.”
“Then why bring a second truck now?”
“Maybe Uncle Arnold let the tires go flat.”
“Or maybe they’re going to split the load. If it’s a co-production. Maybe the hundred million is for Wiley’s half only.”
“Wait,” White said. “Look at this. Uncle Arnold has been in Germany nearly twenty years. Since Wiley was sixteen. That’s a hell of a long game.”
“And look at this,” Vanderbilt said.
Also listed along with Mason on the embassy’s register were two non-citizen dependents.
Landry said, “A buck gets ten that’s a wife and a kid.”
Then the phone rang again. The New Orleans FBI, direct from their car, with an important bullet-point update. After six years of relative happiness Mrs. Wiley had kicked Arnold Mason out of her house because she accidentally discovered he had a wife in Germany. And a son. The boy was handicapped. Mrs. Wiley didn’t have much, but she had her standards.
—
Wiley was a practical man, so he cleaned his gun in the dishwasher. Why not? The M9 was built to military specifications. It was designed to withstand continuous salt water immersion. He used the full pots-and-pans cycle, with the full drying phase. Then he would oil the parts and put the gun back together again, pristine and good as new.
He had balled up his spattered clothes with the red file folder and put them in the kitchen trash. A considered decision. First instinct was to take them out and dump them in a can on the street. Not too close, but not too far, either. No one liked to walk a long distance with a suspicious object in his hand. And then hypothetically there might be a full-court press, and hypothetically the trash cans on the street might get searched, so why let them draw a circle on the map and figure out where you live? Better to leave it right there. The landlord would find it in a month. By which point it wouldn’t matter.
Wiley picked up the phone and dialed his travel agent. The same girl who had booked his trip to Zurich. She spoke good English. She knew he liked a window seat. She had all the details from his shiny new passport.