Chapter Ten
The world is changing. I had always been a loner, but at that point I started to feel lonely. And I had always been a cynic, but at that point I began to feel hopelessly naive. Both of my families were disappearing out from under me, one because of simple relentless chronology, and the other because its reliable old values seemed suddenly to be evaporating. I felt like a man who wakes alone on a deserted island to find that the rest of the world has stolen away in boats in the night. I felt like I was standing on a shore, watching small receding shapes on the horizon. I felt like I had been speaking English, and now I realized everyone else had been speaking a different language entirely. The world was changing. And I didn't want it to.
Summer came back three minutes later. I guessed she had been hiding around a corner, waiting for Willard to leave. She had folds of printer paper under her arm, and big news in her eyes.
"Vassell and Coomer were here again last night," she said. "They're listed on the gate log. "
"Sit down," I said.
She paused, surprised, and then she sat where Willard had.
"I'm toxic," I said. "You should walk away from me right now. "
"What do you mean?"
"We were right," I said. "Fort Bird is a very embarrassing place. First Kramer, then Carbone. Willard is closing both cases down, to spare the army's blushes. "
"He can't close Carbone down. "
"Training accident," I said. "Carbone tripped and fell and hit his head. "
"What?"
"Willard's using it as a test for me. Am I with the program or not?"
"Are you?"
I didn't answer.
"They're illegal orders," Summer said. "They have to be. "
"Are you prepared to challenge them?"
She didn't reply. The only practical way to challenge illegal orders was to disobey them and then take your chances with the resulting general court-martial, which would inevitably become a mano a mano struggle with a guy way higher on the food chain, in front of a presiding judge who was well aware of the army's preference that orders should never be questioned.
"So nothing ever happened," I said. "Bring all your paperwork here and forget you ever heard of me or Kramer or Carbone. "
She said nothing.
"And speak to the guys who were there last night. Tell them to forget what they saw. "
She looked down at the floor.
"Then go back to the O Club and wait for your next assignment. "
She looked up at me.
"Are you serious?" she said.
"Totally," I said. "I'm giving you a direct order. "
She stared at me. "You're not the man I thought you were. "
I nodded.
"I agree," I said. "I'm not. "
She walked out and I gave her a minute to get clear and then I picked up the folded paper she had left behind. There was a lot of it. I found the page I wanted, and I stared at it.
Because I don't like coincidences.
Vassell and Coomer had entered Bird by the main gate at six forty-five in the evening of the night Carbone had died. They had left again at ten o'clock. Three and a quarter hours, right across Carbone's time of death.
Or right across dinnertime.
I picked up the phone and called the O Club dining room. A mess sergeant told me the NCO in charge would call me back. Then I called my own sergeant and asked her to find out who was my opposite number at Fort Irwin, and to get him on the line. She came in four minutes later with a mug of coffee for me.
"He's all tied up," she said. "Could be half an hour. His name is Franz. "
"Can't be," I said. "Franz is in Panama. I talked to him there face-to-face. "
"Major Calvin Franz," she said. "That's what they told me. "
"Call them back," I said. "Double-check. "
She left my coffee on my desk and went back out to her phone. Came in again after another four minutes and confirmed that her information had been correct.
"Major Calvin Franz," she said again. "He's been there since December twenty-ninth. "
I looked down at my calendar. January 5th.
"And you've been here since December twenty-ninth," she said.
I looked straight at her.
"Call some more posts," I said. "The big ones only. Start with Fort Benning, and work through the alphabet. Get me the names of their MP XOs, and find out how long they've been there. "
She nodded and went back out. The NCO from the dining room called me back. I asked him about Vassell and Coomer. He confirmed they had eaten dinner in the O Club. Vassell had gone with the halibut, and Coomer had opted for the steak.
"Did they eat on their own?" I asked.
"No, sir, they were with an assortment of senior officers," the guy said.
"Was it a date?"
"No, sir, we had the impression it was impromptu. It was an odd collection of people. I think they all hooked up in the bar, over aperitifs. Certainly we had no reservation for the group. "
"How long were they there?"
"They were seated before seven-thirty, and they got up just before ten o'clock. "
"Nobody left and came back?"
"No, sir, they were under our eye throughout. "
"All the time?"
"We paid close attention to them, sir. It was a question of the general's rank, really. "
I hung up. Then I called the main gate. Asked who had actually eyeballed Vassell and Coomer in and out. They gave me a sergeant's name. I told them to find the guy and have him call me back.
I waited.
The guy from the gate was the first to get back to me. He confirmed he had been on duty all through the previous evening, and he confirmed he had personally witnessed Vassell and Coomer arrive at six forty-five and leave again at ten.
"Car?" I asked.
"Big black sedan, sir," he said. "A Pentagon staff car. "
"Grand Marquis?" I asked.
"I'm pretty sure, sir. "
"Was there a driver?"
"The colonel was driving," the guy said. "Colonel Coomer, that is. General Vassell was in the front passenger seat. "
"Just the two of them in the car?"
"Affirmative, sir. "
"Are you sure?"
"That's definite, sir. No question about it. At night we use flashlights. Black sedan, DoD plates, two officers in the front, proper IDs displayed, rear seat vacant. "
"OK, thanks," I said, and hung up. The phone rang again immediately. It was Calvin Franz, in California.
"Reacher?" he said. "What the hell are you doing there?"
"I could ask you the exact same question. "
The phone went quiet for a beat.
"No idea what the hell I'm doing here," he said. "Irwin's all quiet. It usually is, they tell me. Weather's nice, though. "
"Did you check your orders?"
"Sure," he said. "Didn't you? Panama's the most fun I've had since Grenada, and now I'm staring at the sands of the Mojave? Seems to have been Garber's personal brainwave. I thought I must have upset him. Now I'm not so sure what's going on. Unlikely that we both upset him. "
"What exactly were your orders?" I said.
"Temporary XO for the Provost Marshal. "
"Is he there right now?"
"No, actually. He got a temporary detachment the same day I got in. "
"So you're acting CO?"
"Looks that way," he said.
"Me too. "
"What's going on?"
"No idea," I said. "If I ever find out, I'll tell you. But first I need to ask you a question. I came across a bird colonel and a one-star over here, supposed to be heading out to you for an Armored conference on New Year's Day. Vassell and Coomer. Did they ever show?"
"That conference was canceled," Franz said. "We heard their two-star bought the farm somewhere. Guy called Kramer. They seemed to think there was no point
going ahead without him. Either that, or they can't think at all without him. Or they're all too busy fighting over who's going to get his command. "
"So Vassell and Coomer never came to California?"
"They never came to Irwin," Franz said. "That's for sure. Can't speak for California. It's a big state. "
"Who else was supposed to attend?"
"Armored's inner circle. Some are based here. Some showed and went away again. Some never showed at all. "
"Did you hear anything about the agenda?"
"I wouldn't expect to. Was it important?"
"I don't know. Vassell and Coomer said there wasn't one. "
"There's always an agenda. "
"That's what I figured. "
"I'll keep my ears open. "
"Happy New Year," I said. Then I put the phone down and sat quiet. Thought hard. Calvin Franz was one of the good guys. Actually, he was one of the best guys. Tough, fair, as competent as the day was long. Nothing ever knocked him off his stride. I had been happy enough to leave Panama, knowing that he was still there. But he wasn't still there. I wasn't there, and he wasn't there. So who the hell was?
I finished my coffee and carried my mug outside and put it back next to the machine. My sergeant was on the phone. She had a page of scribbled notes in front of her. She held up a finger like she had big news. Then she went back to writing. I went back to my desk. She came in five minutes later with her scribbled page. Thirteen lines, three columns. The third column was made up of numbers. Dates, probably.
"I got as far as Fort Rucker," she said. "Then I stopped. Because there's a very obvious pattern developing. "
"Tell me," I said.
She reeled off thirteen posts, alphabetically. Then she reeled off the names of their MP executive officers. I knew all thirteen names, including Franz's and my own. Then she reeled off the dates they had been transferred in. Every date was exactly the same. Every date was December 29th. Eight days ago.
"Say the names again," I told her.
She read them again. I nodded. Inside the arcane little world of military law enforcement, if you wanted to pick an all-star squad, and if you thought long and hard about it all through the night, those thirteen names were what you would have come up with. No doubt about it. They made up a major-league, heavy-duty baker's dozen. There would have been about ten other obvious guys in the mix, but I had no doubt at all that a couple of them would be right there on posts farther along in the alphabet, and the other eight or so in significant places around the globe. And I had no doubt at all that all of them had been there just eight days. Our heavy hitters. I wouldn't have wanted to say how high or how low I ranked among them individually, but collectively, down there at the field level, we were the army's top cops, no question about it.
"Weird," I said. And it was weird. To shuffle that many specific individuals around on the same day took some kind of will and planning, and to do it during Just Cause took some kind of an urgent motive. The room seemed to go quiet, like I was straining to hear the other shoe fall.
"I'm going over to the Delta station," I said.
I drove myself in a Humvee because I didn't want to walk. I didn't know if the asshole Willard was off the post yet, and I didn't want to cross his path again. The sentry let me into the old prison and I went straight to the adjutant's office. He was still at his desk, looking a little more tired than when I had seen him in the early morning.