Chapter Twenty
We made the familiar trek to the Place de l'Opera and caught the airport bus. It was my sixth time on that bus in about a week. The sixth time was no more comfortable than the previous five. It was the discomfort that started me thinking.
We got out at international departures and found the Air France ticket desk. Swapped two vouchers for two seats to Dulles on the eleven o'clock red-eye. That gave us a long wait. We humped our bags across the concourse and started out in a bar. Summer wasn't conversational. I guess she couldn't think of anything to say. But the truth was, I was doing OK at that point. Life was unfolding the same way it always had for everyone. Sooner or later you ended up an orphan. There was no escaping it. It had happened that way for a thousand generations. No point in getting all upset about it.
We drank bottles of beer and looked for somewhere to eat. I had missed breakfast and lunch and I guessed Summer hadn't eaten either. We walked past all the little tax-exempt boutiques and found a place that was made up to look like a sidewalk bistro. We pooled our few remaining dollars and checked the menu and worked out that we could afford one course each, plus juice for her and coffee for me, and a tip for the waiter. We ordered steak frites, which turned out to be a decent slab of meat with shoestring fries and mayonnaise. You could get good food anywhere in France. Even an airport.
After an hour we moved down to the gate. We were still early and it was almost deserted. Just a few transit passengers, all shopped out, or broke like us. We sat far away from them and stared into space.
"Feels bad, going back," Summer said. "You can forget how much trouble you're in when you're away. "
"All we need is a result," I said.
"We're not going to get one. It's been ten days and we're nowhere. "
I nodded. Ten days since Mrs. Kramer died, six days since Carbone died. Five days since Delta had given me a week to clear my name.
"We've got nothing," Summer said. "Not even the easy stuff. We didn't even find the woman from Kramer's motel. That shouldn't have been difficult. "
I nodded again. She was right. That shouldn't have been difficult.
We boarded forty minutes before takeoff. Summer and I had seats behind an old couple in an exit row. I wished we could change places with them. I would have been glad of the extra room. We took off on time and I spent the first hour getting more and more cramped and uncomfortable. The stewardess served a meal that I couldn't have eaten even if I had wanted to, because I didn't have enough room to move my elbows and operate the silverware.
One thought led to another.
I thought about Joe flying in the night before. He would have flown coach. That was clear. A civil servant on a personal trip doesn't fly any other way. He would have been cramped and uncomfortable all night long, a little more than me because he was an inch taller. So I felt bad all over again about putting him in the bus to town. I recalled the hard plastic seats and his cramped position and the way his head was jerked around by the motion. I should have sprung for a cab from the city and kept it waiting at the curb. I should have found a way to scare up some cash.
One thought led to another.
I pictured Kramer and Vassell and Coomer flying in from Frankfurt on New Year's Eve. American Airlines. A Boeing jet. No more spacious than any other jet. An early start from XII Corps. A long flight to Dulles. I pictured them walking down the jetway, stiff, airless, dehydrated, uncomfortable.
One thought led to another.
I pulled the George V bill out of my pocket. Opened the envelope. Read it through. Read it through again. Examined every line and every item.
The hotel bill, the airplane, the bus to town.
The bus to town, the airplane, the hotel bill.
I closed my eyes.
I thought about things that Sanchez and the Delta adjutant and Detective Clark and Andrea Norton and Summer herself had said to me. I thought about the crowd of meeters and greeters we had seen in the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle arrivals hall. I thought about Sperryville, Virginia. I thought about Mrs. Kramer's house in Green Valley.
In the end dominoes fell all over the place and landed in ways that made nobody look very good. Least of all me, because I had made many mistakes, including one big one that I knew for sure was going to come right back and bite me in the ass.
I kept myself so busy pondering my prior mistakes that I let my preoccupation lead me into making another one. I spent all my time thinking about the past and no time at all thinking about the future. About countermeasures. About what would be waiting for us at Dulles. We touched down at two in the morning and came out through the customs hall and walked straight into a trap set by Willard.
Standing in the same place they had stood six days earlier were the same three warrant officers from the Provost Marshal General's office. Two W3s and a W4. I saw them. They saw us. I spent a second wondering how the hell Willard had done it. Did he have guys standing by at every airport in the country all day and all night? Did he have a Europe-wide trace out on our travel vouchers? Could he do that himself? Or was the FBI involved? The Department of the Army? The State Department? Interpol? NATO? I had no idea. I made an absurd mental note that one day I should try to find out.
Then I spent another second deciding what to do about the situation.
Delay was not an option. Not now. Not in Willard's hands. I needed freedom of movement and freedom of action for twenty-four or forty-eight more hours. Then I would go see Willard. I would go see him happily. Because at that point I would be ready to slap him around and arrest him.
The W4 walked up to us with his W3s at his back.
"I have orders to place you both in handcuffs," he said.
"Ignore your orders," I said.
"I can't," he said.
"Try. "
"I can't," he said again.
I nodded.
"OK, we'll trade," I said. "You try it with the handcuffs, I'll break your arms. You walk us to the car, we'll go quietly. "
He thought about it. He was armed. So were his guys. We weren't. But nobody wants to shoot people in the middle of an airport. Not unarmed people from your own unit. That would lead to a bad conscience. And paperwork. And he didn't want a fistfight. Not three against two. I was too big and Summer was too small to make it fair.
"Deal?" he said.
"Deal," I lied.
"So let's go. "
Last time he had walked ahead of me and his hot-dog W3s had stayed on my shoulders. I sincerely hoped he would repeat that pattern. I guessed the W3s figured themselves for real badass sons of bitches and I guessed they were close to being correct, but it was the W4 I was most worried about. He looked like the genuine article. But he didn't have eyes in the back of his head. So I hoped he would walk in front.
He did. Summer and I stayed side by side with our bags in our hands and the W3s formed up wide and behind us in an arrowhead pattern. The W4 led the way. We went out through the doors into the cold. Turned toward the restricted lane where they had parked last time. It was past two in the morning and the airport approach roads were completely deserted. There were lonely pools of yellow light from fixtures up on posts. It had been raining. The ground was wet.
We crossed the public pickup lane and crossed the median where the bus shelters were. We headed onward into the dark. I could see the bulk of a parking garage half-left and the green Chevy Caprice far away to the right. We turned toward it. Walked in the roadway. Most other times of the day we would have been mown down by traffic. But right then the whole place was still and silent. Past two o'clock in the morning.
I dropped my bag and used both hands and shoved Summer out of the way. Stopped dead and jerked my right elbow backward and smashed the right-hand W3 hard in the face. Kept my feet planted and twisted the other way like a violent calisthenic exercise and smacked the left-hand W3 with my left elbow. Then I stepped forward and met the W4 as he spun toward the noise and came
in for me. I hit him with a straight left to the chest. His weight was moving and my weight was moving and the blow messed him up pretty good. I followed it with a right hook to his chin and put him on the ground. Turned back to the W3s to check how they were doing. They were both down on their backs. There was some blood on their faces. Broken noses, loosened teeth. A lot of shock and surprise. An excellent stun factor. I was pleased. They were good, and I was better. I checked the W4. He wasn't doing much. I squatted down next to the W3s and took their Berettas out of their holsters. Then I twisted away and took the W4's out of his. Threaded all three guns on my forefinger. Then I used my other hand to find the car keys. The right-hand W3 had them in his pocket. I took them out and tossed them to Summer. She was back on her feet. She was looking a little dismayed.
I gave her the three Berettas and I dragged the W4 by his collar to the nearest bus shelter. Then I went back for the W3s and dragged them over, one in each hand. I got them all lined up facedown on the floor. They were conscious, but they were groggy. Heavy blows to the head are a lot more consequential in real life than they are in the movies. And I was breathing hard myself. Almost panting. The adrenaline was kicking in. Some kind of a delayed reaction. Fighting has an effect on both parties to the deal.
I crouched down next to the W4.
"I apologize, Chief," I said. "But you got in the way. "
He said nothing. Just stared up at me. Anger, shock, wounded pride, confusion.
"Now listen," I said. "Listen carefully. You never saw us. We weren't here. We never came. You waited for hours, but we didn't show. You came back out and some thief had boosted your car in the night. That's what happened, OK?"
He tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come out right.
"Yes, I know," I said. "It's pretty weak and it makes you look real stupid. But how good does it make you look that you let us escape? That you didn't handcuff us like you were ordered to?"
He said nothing.
"That's your story," I said. "We didn't show, and your car was stolen. Stick to it or I'll put it about that it was the lieutenant who took you down. A ninety-pound girl. One against three. People will love that. They'll go nuts for it. And you know how rumors can follow you around forever. "
He said nothing.
"Your choice," I said.
He shrugged. Said nothing.
"I apologize," I said. "Sincerely. "
We left them there and grabbed our bags and ran to their car. Summer unlocked it and we slid in and she fired it up. Put it in gear and moved away from the curb.
"Go slow," I said.
I waited until we were alongside the bus shelter and then wound the window down and tossed the Berettas out on the sidewalk. Their cover story wouldn't hold up if they lost their weapons as well as their car. The three guns landed near the three guys and they all got up on their hands and knees and started to crawl toward them.
"Now go," I said.
Summer hit the gas hard and the tires lit up and about a second later we were well outside handgun range. She kept her foot down and we left the airport doing about ninety miles an hour.
"You OK?" I said.
"So far," she said.
"I'm sorry I had to shove you. "
"We should have just run," she said. "We could have lost them in the terminal. "
"We needed a car," I said. "I'm sick of taking the bus. "
"But now we're way out of line. "
"That's for sure," I said.
I checked my watch. It was close to three in the morning. We were heading south from Dulles. Going nowhere, fast. In the dark. We needed a destination.
"You know my phone number at Bird?" I said.
"Sure," Summer said.
"OK, pull over at the next place with a phone. "
She spotted an all-night gas station about five miles later. It was all lit up on the horizon. We pulled in and checked it out. There was a miniature grocery store behind the pumps but it was closed. At night you had to pay for your gas through a bulletproof window. There was a pay phone outside next to the air hose. It was in an aluminum box mounted on the wall. The box had phone shapes drilled into the sides. Summer dialed my Fort Bird office number and handed me the receiver. I heard one cycle of ring tone and then my sergeant answered. The night-duty woman. The one with the baby son.
"This is Reacher," I said.
"You're in deep shit," she said.
"And that's the good news," I said.
"What's the bad news?"
"You're going to join me right there in it. What kind of babysitting arrangements have you got?"
"My neighbor's girl stays. From the trailer next door. "