‘We fought for freedom. This is what freedom looks like.’
The guy said, ‘There are a hundred reasons for selling a ring. Or pawning it. Or losing it, or getting it stolen somehow. Not all the reasons are bad. This could be completely innocent.’
‘Could be? That’s a little lukewarm, general. Sounds like you don’t know for sure. Even after reading her file. Which therefore can’t have reassured you completely. So now you’re hinting about a whisper. Because now you’re worried. I think deep down you want to tell me her name. So let me guess. She took off the green suit and now she’s under the radar.’
‘Three years ago.’
‘After what?’
‘Five hard tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Unpleasant things, I imagine.’
‘Is she small?’
‘Like a bird.’
‘That’s her,’ Reacher said. ‘Now it’s decision time, general. What are you going to do?’
The supe didn’t answer.
Out the window Reacher saw a black sedan slow up. It stopped on the kerb across the street. Outside the laundromat. The driver’s door opened. A guy climbed out. He was tall and bony. Maybe fifty years old. He had grey hair cut short. He was wearing a black suit with a white shirt buttoned to the neck, but without a tie. He stood on the sidewalk for a second, and looked a question at the sentry at the door. Who shook his head, as if to say, No trouble, boss.
Arthur Scorpio.
Who nodded back at the sentry, and then stepped past him, in through the door.
The sentry stepped across the sidewalk in the other direction and got in Scorpio’s car. He drove it away. To park it, presumably. On a side street, or in the alley. Maybe a five-minute absence. The first of two such absences, presumably. He would go retrieve the car at close of business. Two five-minute windows every day.
Good to know.
In Reacher’s ear the West Point supe said, ‘She might not want to be found. Did you consider that? No one comes back whole. Not from five tours.’
‘I’m not trying to sell her a timeshare in Mexico. If she looks OK from a distance I’ll walk away and leave her alone.’
‘How will you even find her? She’s under the radar. Will her name even help?’
‘It won’t hurt,’ Reacher said. ‘Especially not at the end. I’ll follow the ring until I find someone who heard of her.’
The supe said, ‘Her name is Serena Rose Sanderson.’
NINE
OUT THE WINDOW the front sentry walked back into view, after parking Scorpio’s car. He resumed his position, leaning on the wall to the left of the laundromat door, arms folded, impassive.
He had been gone just over five minutes.
Still no customers inside.
Into the phone Reacher said, ‘Where is Serena Rose Sanderson from?’
‘As a cadet her home state was listed as Wyoming,’ the supe said. ‘That’s all we’ve got. You think she went back there?’
‘Depends,’ Reacher said. ‘For some people, home is the first place they go. For others, it’s the last. What was she like?’
‘She was before my time,’ the supe said. ‘But her file is very solid. She was pretty close to outstanding, without ever quite getting there. Never in the top five, always in the top ten. That kind of person. She branched infantry, which was considered a smart choice for a woman, back in ’05. She knew she wouldn’t see combat, but she guessed the chaos would push her pretty damn near to it. Which I’m sure is what happened. Close support units were always busy. A lot of driving for resupply, which meant a lot of roadside IEDs. Plus vehicle recovery, which would have exposed her out in the open. Off post she would have been armed at all times. I’m sure she was in firefights. Those units took plenty of casualties, same as anyone else. She has a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. So she was wounded herself at some point.’
‘Rank?’
‘Terminal at major,’ the guy said. ‘Like you. On her last tour she was doing a pretty big job. She led her soldiers well. On paper she’s a credit to the school.’
‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Thank you, general.’
‘So proceed, but with caution.’
‘Don’t worry.’
‘I do.’
‘Why?’
‘I read your file,’ the guy said again. ‘If you tilt it right and hold it in a sunbeam you can see the invisible writing. You were effective, but reckless.’
‘Was I?’
‘You know you were. You got away with things time after time.’
‘Did I?’
‘One damn thing after another. But you always came up smelling of roses.’
‘Then draw the appropriate conclusion, general. I wasn’t reckless. I was relying on methods I knew had worked before, and would likely work again. I felt I was the opposite of reckless. There’s a clue in the word. Reck comes from reckon, and I felt I did more reckoning than most folks. Not less.’
‘Call me back,’ the guy said. ‘Let me know about Sanderson.’
For the second day running Gloria Nakamura was early to work. She parked her car and walked up the stairs. The mother hen at the gate to the detectives’ pen told her the lieutenant wanted to see her. First thing. Urgent but not critical. The mother hen said his voice on the phone had sounded OK. Not particularly angry.
Nakamura dropped her bag at her desk and headed off down the corridor. The lieutenant’s office was a corner suite at the far end of the floor. He was a cancer survivor, worn down to nothing but lacy bone and sinew, but lit up through his papery skin by some kind of crazed internal energy. He had gotten some bonus years, and he was going to slap the shit out of them. He was going to get big things done. Privately Nakamura felt his brush with death had produced an epiphany. He was afraid of being forgotten.
He was at his desk, reading email.
He said, ‘You sent me a thing about Arthur Scorpio.’
She said, ‘The voice mail from Wisconsin. Yes, boss. There have been developments.’
‘Has Bigfoot arrived?’
‘Yes, boss, I believe he has. But first there was a private eye from Chicago.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He wouldn’t say. But I checked him out. He’s a missing persons specialist. Very expensive.’
‘Who’s missing?’
‘About a million people nationwide.’
‘Any reason to believe one of them is washing his shorts in Scorpio’s place?’
‘There’s nothing on the wires.’
‘Tell me about Bigfoot.’
‘He’s a military veteran named Reacher. He found a West Point class ring in a pawn shop and he’s tracing its provenance.’
‘Like a hobby?’
‘No, like a matter of military honour. Like a moral obligation. Verging on the sentimental, in my opinion.’
‘How is Scorpio involved?’
‘The likelihood is the ring was stolen property fenced by Scorpio to a Wisconsin biker named Jimmy Rat, who then sold it onward to the pawn shop, where Bigfoot found it. Bigfoot says the pawn shop owner told him Jimmy Rat’s name, who told him Arthur Scorpio’s name. Now he wants Scorpio to name the next name. Whoever he got the ring from. And so on, all the way down the line. Bigfoot wants to return the ring to its rightful owner. That’s my assessment.’