—
Reacher walked south to the Ausenalster lake. The city was quiet. A learned response. Europe was full of explosions. Factions and groups and people’s armies. A big deal for a day or two, until the next thing happened. He turned east at the water, looping around. He was two miles from where Wiley lived. Which had no inconspicuous place to park a panel van. But it made sense to keep it close by. Which was a relative term. A circle on a map would be drawn cautiously large. Some of it would be water. But most would be land. Of which Reacher could cover nothing more than a random and insignificant sliver. But doing something felt better than doing nothing. Walking felt better than sitting around. So he walked.
—
Fifty pounds was a hell of a weight, especially when you had to do it over and over. Wiley took a break after seven units, breathing hard, half bent over. Partly nerves. A simple mechanical task, but the whole ball game right there, nonetheless. The moment of maximum exposure. But much longer than a moment. Close to half an hour already, with vapor lights all over the old docks, and the two trucks jammed together rear end to rear end like some kind of vehicular sodomy, complete with rocking and thumping and grunting inside, while all the time half in and half out of a tumbledown shed no one had used in the last thirty years.
Vulnerable.
Not good.
He took a breath and rolled his aching shoulders and got back to work. He dragged number eight the length of the crate, and up over the lip, and across the last yard of the old truck’s floor, and over the flat wooden panel, slowly, slowly, until it seesawed in the middle and clapped back down, and then onward into the new truck, where he left it standing upright against number seven.
He went back to the crate, to the far back wall, and he got number nine. He dragged it out, and over, and in. All the way. He took a breath and went back for number ten. The last. He pulled it away from the wall. The book was right there. Right where Uncle Arnold said it would be. A khaki file folder striped in red, set in a neat receptacle made of thin plywood, with a half-moon shape scooped out for fingers. Maybe an apprentice’s work, all those years ago. In the crate factory. The folder held mimeographed copies of typewritten pages, all held together with brass fasteners gone dull with age.
He carried the folder in one hand and dragged number ten with the other. He stood ten upright next to nine and wedged the book between them. He dragged the bridge back into the old truck and rolled down the new truck’s door from the outside. He squeezed around the empty crate and climbed out of the old truck through its cab. He hustled around and got in the new truck and started it up. He moved it forward and backed and filled until he had gotten it turned around again, and then he drove it in nose first on the right-hand side, and he shut it down and locked it up. He re-packed his duffel and closed the double doors, and bolted the bolts, and closed the hasp, and clicked the padlocks shut.
Nearly forty minutes. A long time. He walked to the corner and risked a look up the cobblestone street. All the way to the metal bridge. Beyond it on the main road the traffic was moving. Left to right, and right to left. Normal speed. No sirens. No squealing tires. No flashing lights.
Logical.
He carried his bag and used the footbridges, from pier to pier, all the way home.
—
Reacher walked halfway into the St. Georg neighborhood, curving west with the road around the lake. He saw nothing of interest. Cars, but none of them contained Wiley. Pedestrians, alone and in groups, but none of them Wiley. Eventually he stopped at a crosswalk. The main road ran straight ahead to St. Pauli. There was a narrow left turn that led to a boxy metal bridge. He saw cobblestones and moonlight on black water. All quiet. No movement.
He gave it up and turned around and headed back. Folks in their homes were watching television. Hundreds of rooms were glowing blue. Live news, no doubt. The handgun rounds had been a pretty smart move. Explosions could be spun as accidental. Gunshots, not so much. Way to get attention. Textbook, literally. They had planned for a year.
He got back to the consulate, where the evening guard let him in, and where Neagley told him the Joint Chiefs had issued the order to General Helmsworth. He was booked on Delta, on the night flight, nonstop out of Atlanta. A consulate car would pick him up in the morning.
“A Silver Star for sure,” Neagley said. “We had explosions and gunfire. He’ll call it a war zone.”
Then the phone rang. Griezman again. Who said, “There was no one in the parking garage. Just three burned-out cars, still smoldering. And bullet holes everywhere. It’s crazy.”
“It was a set-up,” Reacher said.
“But by who?”
“It would be a big coincidence if it was someone else.”
“The mayor’s office is in charge. They don’t know the history.”