The Enemy

"I need you to do something for me," I said.

"Like what?"

"You’ve got a XII Corps guy called Marshall there. You know him?"

"No."

"I need him to stay there until I can get there myself. It’s very important."

"I can’t stop people leaving the post unless I arrest them."

"Just tell him I called from Berlin. That should do it. As long as he thinks I’m in Germany, he’ll stay in California."

"Why?"

"Because that’s what he’s been told to do."

"Does he know you?"

"Not personally."

"Then that’s an awkward conversation for me to have. Like, I can’t just walk up to a guy I never met and say, Hey, hot news, another guy you never met called Reacher wants you to know he’s stuck in Berlin."

"So be subtle," I said. "Tell him I asked you to ask him a question for me, because there’s no way I can get there myself."

"What question?"

"Ask him about the day of Kramer’s funeral. Was he at Arlington? What did he do the rest of the day? Why didn’t he drive his guys to North Carolina? What reason did they give him for wanting to drive themselves?"

"That’s four questions."

"Whatever, just make it sound like you’re asking on my behalf because California isn’t in my travel plans."

"Where can I get back to you?"

I looked down at the phone and read out the George V’s number.

"That’s France," he said. "Not Germany."

"Marshall doesn’t need to know that," I said. "I’ll be back here later."

"When are you coming to California?"

"Within forty-eight hours, I hope."

"OK," he said. "Anything else?"

"Yes," I said. "Call Fort Bird for me and ask my sergeant to get histories on General Vassell and Colonel Coomer. Specifically I want to know if either one of them has a connection with a town called Sperryville in Virginia. Born there, grew up there, family there, any kind of connection that would indicate they might know what kind of retail outlet was where. Tell her to sit on the answers until I get in touch."

"OK," he said again. "Is that it?"

"No," I said. "Also tell her to call Detective Clark in Green Valley and have him fax his street canvasses relating to the night of New Year’s Eve. She’ll know what I’m talking about."

"I’m glad someone will," Franz said.

He paused. He was writing stuff down.

"So is that it?" he said.

"For now," I said.

I hung up and made it down to the lobby about five minutes after Summer. She was waiting there. She had been much faster than me. But then, she didn’t have to shave and I don’t think she had made any calls or taken time for coffee. Like me, she was back in BDUs. Somehow she had cleaned her boots, or had gotten them cleaned. They were gleaming.

We didn’t have money for a cab to the airport. So we walked back through the predawn darkness to the Place de l’Opera and caught the bus. It was less crowded than the last time but just as uncomfortable. We got brief glimpses of the sleeping city and then we crossed the Peripherique and ground slowly through the dismal outer suburbs.

We got to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle just before six. It was busy there. I guessed airports worked on floating time zones all their own. It was busier at six in the morning than it would be in the middle of the afternoon. There were crowds of people everywhere. Cars and buses were loading and unloading, red-eyed travelers were coming out and going in and struggling with bags. It looked like the whole world was on the move.

The arrivals screen showed that Joe’s flight was already on the ground. We hiked around to the customs area’s exit doors. Took our places among a big crowd of meeters and greeters. I figured Joe would be one of the first passengers through. He would have walked fast from the plane and he wouldn’t have checked any luggage. No delays.

We saw a few stragglers coming out from the previous flight. They were mostly families slowed by young children or individuals who had waited for odd-sized luggage. People in the crowd turned toward them expectantly and then turned away again when they realized they weren’t who they were looking for. I watched them do it for a spell. It was an interesting physical dynamic. Just subtle adjustments of posture were enough to display interest, and then lack of interest. Welcome, and then dismissal. A half-turn inward, and then a half-turn away. Sometimes it was nothing more than a transfer of body weight from one foot to the other.

The last stragglers were mixed in with the first people off of Joe’s flight. There were businessmen moving fast, humping briefcases and suit carriers. There were young women in high heels and dark glasses, expensively dressed. Models? Actresses? Call girls? There were government people, French and American. I could pick them out by the way they looked. Smart and serious, plenty of eyeglasses, but their shoes and suits and coats weren’t the best quality. Low-level diplomats, probably. The flight was from D.C., after all.

Joe came out about twelfth in line. He was in the same overcoat I had seen before, but a different suit and a different tie. He looked good. He was walking fast and carrying a black leather overnight bag. He was a head taller than anyone else. He came out of the door and stopped dead and scanned around.

"He looks just like you," Summer said.

"But I’m a nicer person," I said.

He saw me right away, because I was also a head taller than anyone else. I pointed to a spot outside of the main traffic stream. He shuffled through the crowd and made his way toward it. We looped around and joined him there.

"Lieutenant Summer," he said. "I’m very pleased to meet you."

I hadn’t seen him look at the tapes on her jacket, where it said Summer, U.S. Army. Or at the lieutenant’s bars on her collar. He must have remembered her name and her rank from when we had talked before.

"You OK?" I asked him.

"I’m tired," he said.

"Want breakfast?"

"Let’s get it in town."

The taxi line was a mile long and moving slow. We ignored it. Headed straight for the navette again. We missed one and were first in line for the next. It came inside ten minutes. Joe spent the waiting time asking Summer about her visit to Paris. She gave him chapter and verse, but not about the events after midnight. I stood on the curb with my back to the roadway, watching the eastern sky above the terminal roof. Dawn was breaking fast. It was going to be another sunny day. It was the tenth of January, and the weather was the best I had seen in the new decade so far.

We got in the bus and sat in three seats together that faced sideways opposite the luggage rack. Summer sat in the middle seat. Joe sat forward of her and I sat to the rear. They were small, uncomfortable seats. Hard plastic. No legroom. Joe’s knees were up around his ears and his head was swaying from side to side with the motion. He looked pale. I guessed putting him on a bus was not much of a welcome, after an overnight flight across the Atlantic. I felt a little bad about it. But then, I was the same size. I had the same accommodation problem. And I hadn’t gotten a whole lot of sleep either. And I was broke. And I guessed being on the move was better for him than standing in the taxi line for an hour.

He brightened up some after we crossed the Peripherique and entered Haussmann’s urban splendor. The sun was well up by then and the city was bathed in gold and honey. The cafes were already busy and the sidewalks were already crowded with people moving at a measured pace and carrying baguettes and newspapers. Legislation limited Parisians to a thirty-five-hour workweek, and they spent a lot of the remaining hundred thirty-three taking great pleasure in not doing very much of anything. It was relaxing just to watch them.