In 1955 the United States Army was considerably north of a million strong. Part of that strength was a young first lieutenant by the name of Wilson T. Helmsworth. He was a recent graduate of West Point and several specialist schools. He was hunting one airborne command after another. He was technically Arnold Mason’s superior officer several different times. It was even theoretically possible the two had met. In some kind of a formal setting. Maybe a parade. Not cracking beers. Then later Helmsworth moved onward and upward, and along the way he qualified in anything and everything related to a parachute. At one time or another he held all the records. Free fall included. He wrote book after book about paratrooper tactics.
Then he survived a long jungle war where the canopy was thick and the air was misty and the infantry didn’t give a damn about paratrooper tactics. And he came out of it promoted. He got on board early with special forces theory, and about twenty-odd generations later he was still there in the thick of it, now in overall command of training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Where the tough stuff was invented. Major General Wilson T. Helmsworth. The only Cold War airborne junior commander still wearing the green suit. From the brown-boot army to the black-boot army to the New Balance army. Tenacious. A million to one, literally.
Neagley said, “As of this moment he’s located at Benning.”
Sinclair said, “He needs thirty minutes to set up a call. He’s a busy man.”
“We can’t do this by phone,” Reacher said. “It has to be done face to face. He’s been in the army forty years. He knows how to bullshit. We need to be in the same room. We need to see his body language.”
“We? We can’t all fly back. Not now. None of us should fly back.”
“None of us is going to. Helmsworth is going to come to us. If he’s at Benning, he can get to Atlanta. For the night flight. He could be here in the morning. I think the Joint Chiefs should order him to report to the Hamburg consulate immediately.”
“Because of someone else’s cryptic half-remembered childhood legend?”
“Ratcliffe said we get what we need.”
“Helmsworth’s a two-star general.”
“Which means he’ll run away from anything soft or speculative, at a hundred miles an hour. And anything even remotely controversial at two hundred miles an hour. Won’t work on the phone. He needs to see the face of the NSC. And we need to see his.”
“It’s a big deal for a Hail Mary.”
“It’s a foreign country. Possibly there’s a foreign enemy here. They’ll give him another medal. Theoretically he could get a Silver Star.”
“For flying in?”
“He’s a two-star general. They get medals like frequent flyer miles.”
“Are you sure we need him?”
“No stone unturned.”
Sinclair made the call.
Then outside the window there was a faint, distant sound. A dull and hollow pop pop and a blunted hiss of air. And then more. Pop, pop pop. The back part of Reacher’s brain said handgun, probably nine-millimeter rounds, urban setting, probably half a mile distant. He stepped to the window and heaved it open. He heard sirens in the distance. Then more gunfire, four rounds, then five, very faint but louder because of the open window, and then more sirens, two different tones, probably ambulances and cop cars, and then a furious volley of gunfire, impossibly fast, like a continuous explosion, like a hundred machine guns firing all at once, like the best firework show the town park ever had, and then there was the muted concussive thump of a fuel explosion, and two more handgun rounds, and then nothing but sirens, the scream of cop cars, the yelp of ambulances, the deafening bass bark of fire trucks, all blending in a howl that sounded more like sorrow than help.
Reacher looked out at the street and saw cops racing past, all in the same direction, most in cars, some on motorcycles, one on foot, half running. He saw two ambulances and a fire truck. The whole place was flashing red and blue.
Sinclair said, “What was it?”
Neagley said, “It sounded like a house fire, where someone left a box of ammunition on the kitchen counter. Then the propane tank went up. Except we should have heard the sirens earlier. But maybe it was a stone building. Maybe the fire was concealed from exterior view. Therefore the alarm was sounded late.”
“Deliberate?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Either way sounds the same.”
“Related?”
“Can’t say,” White said. “This is a big city. There’s a lot going on.”
There was a second fuel explosion. Faint and far away, but unmistakable. A thump, a silent vacuum, the suck of air, and the sensation of blooming heat, however impossible. Reacher watched the street. Every cop in town was heading in the same direction.
Chapter 33