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I put the phone down and saw a note e I folded the note once and dropped it in the trash Then I headed back to ain fifty ht I was back at thedidn&039;t hborhood look any better It was depressed and abandoned forDawn on New Year&039;s Day is as close as any inhabited place gets to absolute stillness The highas deserted There was no traffic None at all

The diner at the truck stop was open but empty The motel office was empty I walked down the row to the last-but-one room Kramer&039;s room The door was locked I stood with my back to it and pretended I was a hooker whose client had just died I had pushed his weight off rabbed his briefcase and I was running aith it What would I do? I wasn&039;t interested in the briefcase itself I wanted the cash in the wallet, and h and grab the cash and the card and ditch the bag itself But where would I do that?

Inside the room would have been best But I hadn&039;t done it there, for so Maybe I was shocked and spooked and just wanted to get the hell out, fast So where else? I looked straight ahead at the lounge bar That was probably where I was going That was probably where I was based But I wouldn&039;t carry the briefcase in there My co-workers would notice, because I was already carrying a big purse Hookers always carry big purses They&039;ve got a lot of stuff to haul around Condoun or a knife, maybe a credit card machine That&039;s the easiest way to spot a hooker Look for so like she&039;s going on vacation

I looked to my left Maybe I walked around behind the motel It would be quiet back there All the s faced that way, but it was night and I could count on the drapes being closed I turned left and left again and cale of scrubby weeds that ran the length of the building and was about twenty feet deep I ioing through the bag by feel I i away into the darkness I ht have thrown it thirty feet

I stood where she ave round was stony and nearly frozen by overnight frost I found plenty of stuff I found trash and used needles and foil crack pipes and a Buick hubcap and a skateboard wheel But I didn&039;t find a briefcase

There was a wooden fence at the rear of the lot It was about six feet tall I jacked le of weeds and stones No briefcase I got down off the fence and walked onward and came up on the motel office frolass that I guessed let into the staff bathroom Underneath it were a dozen trashed air conditioners all stacked in a low pile They were rusty They hadn&039;t been moved in years I walked on and caravel patch with a Dumpster on it I opened the lid It was three-quarters full of garbage No briefcase

I crossed the street and walked through the ee bar It was silent and closed up tight Its neon signs were all switched off and the little bent tubes looked cold and dead It had its own Du there like a parked vehicle There was no briefcase in it

I ducked inside the greasy spoon It was still empty I checked the floor around the tables and the banquettes in the booths I looked on the floor behind the register There was a cardboard box back there with a couple of forlorn umbrellas in it But no briefcase I checked the women&039;s bathroom No women in it No briefcase in it either

I looked at my watch and walked back to the bar I would need to ask some face-to-face questions there But it wouldn&039;t be open for business for another eight hours at least I turned around and looked across the street at the motel There was still nobody in the office So I headed back to ot there in time to hear a 10-17 coed and fired up the big diesel and drove all the way back to Bird There was no traffic and I made it inside forty minutes I saw Kramer&039;s rental parked in the motor pool lot There was a new person at the desk outside my borrowed office A corporal The day shift He was a suy who looked like he was from Louisiana French blood in there, certainly I know French blood when I see it

"Your brother called again," the corporal said

"Why?"

"No e"

"What was the ten-seventeen for?"

"Colonel Garber requests a ten-nineteen"

I s but 10-this and 10-that Sometimes I felt like I already had A 10-19 was a contact by phone or radio Less serious than a 10-16, which was a contact by secure landline Colonel Garber requests a 10-19 et in the habit of speaking English, but clearly this one hadn&039;t yet

I stepped into ainst the wall and a carton containing his shoes and underwear and hat sitting next to it His unifor one in front of the other on my coatrack I walked past them to my borrowed desk and dialed Garber&039;s nu tone and wondered what my brother wanted Wondered how he had tracked o Before that I had been all over the place So he hadeffort to find me So maybe it was important I picked up a pencil and wrote Joe on a slip of paper Then I underlined it, twice

"Yes?" Leon Garber said in my ear

"Reacher here," I said The clock on the wall showed a little after nine in theKramer&039;s onward connection to LAX was already in the air

"It was a heart attack," Garber said "No question"

"Walter Reed worked fast"

"He was a general"

"But a general with a bad heart"

"Bad arteries, actually Severe arteriosclerosis leading to fatal ventricular fibrillation That&039;s what they&039;re telling us And I believe them too Probably kicked in around the time the whore took her bra off"

"He wasn&039;t carrying any pills"

"It was probably undiagnosed It&039;s one of those things You feel fine, then you feel dead No way it could be faked, anyway You could siuess, but you can&039;t simulate forty years&039; worth of crap in the arteries"

"Were orried about it being faked?"

"There could have been KGB interest," Garber said "Krale tactical probleht now the Red Ar the other way"

"Kind of early to say whether that&039;s permanent or not"

I didn&039;t reply The phone went quiet

"I can&039;t let anyone else touch this with a stick," Garber said "Not just yet Because of the circuht?"

"So?"

"So you&039;re going to have to do thething," Garber said

"Me? Isn&039;t she in Gerinia She&039;s home for the holidays They have a house there"

He gave me the address and I wrote it on the slip of paper, directly underneath where I had underlined Joe

"Anyone with her?" I asked

"They don&039;t have kids So she&039;s probably alone"

"OK," I said

"She doesn&039;t know yet," Garber said "Took me a while to track her down"

"Want me to take a priest?"

"It isn&039;t a couess Mrs Kraer"

"OK"

"Spare her the details, obviously He was en route to Irwin, is all Croaked in a layover hotel We need to make that the official line Nobody except you and me knows any different yet, and that&039;s the e&039;re going to keep it Except you can tell whoever you partner with, I guess Mrs Kraht ask questions, and you&039;ll need to be on the sa to leak?"

"The guy I saas an ex-Marine He knows the score"

"Semper Fi," Garber said

"I didn&039;t find the briefcase yet," I said

The phone went quiet again

"Do thething first," Garber said "Then keep on looking for it"

I told the day-shift corporal to move Kramer&039;s effects to my quarters I wanted to keep them safe and sound The ould ask for the base like Bird, which can be e Then I walked over to the O Club and looked for MPs eating late breakfasts or early lunches They usually cluster well away from everybody else, because everybody else hates theroup of four, two men and tomen They were all in woodland-pattern BDUs, standard on-post dress One of the wo She was having trouble eating She would have trouble driving too The other woman had a lieutenant&039;s bar on each lapel and Summer on her nametape She looked to be about twenty-five years old and she was short and slender She had skin the sa off

"Lieutenant Summer," I said

"Sir?"

"Happy New Year," I said

"Sir, you too"

"You busy today?"

"Sir, general duties"

"OK, out front in thirtya "

I put ain and called the motor pool for a sedan I didn&039;t want to ride all the way to Virginia in a Huht ned for it and drove it around to post headquarters and waited

Lieutenant Suhth minute of her allotted thirty She paused a second and then walked toward the car She looked good She was very short, but she moved easily, like a y person She looked like a six-foot catwalk ot out of the car and left the driver&039;s door open Met her on the sidewalk She earing an expert sharpshooter badge with bars for rifle, small bore rifle, auto rifle, pistol, s on it They er than mine I only have rifle and pistol She stopped dead in front of me and came to attention and fired off a perfect salute

"Sir, Lieutenant Summer reports," she said

"Take it easy," I said "Infor And no saluting I don&039;t like it"

She paused Relaxed

"OK," she said

I opened the passenger door and started to get in

"I&039;ht"

"Who died?"

"General Krauy in Europe"

She paused again "So as he here? We&039;re all infantry"

"Passing through," I said

She got in on the other side and racked the driver&039;s seat all the way forward Adjusted the ot as comfortable as I could

"Where to?" she said

" Green Valley, Virginia," I said "It&039;ll be about four hours, I guess"

"That&039;s where theis?"

"Home for the holidays," I said

"And we&039;re breaking the news? Like, Happy New Year, ma&039;am, and by the way, your husband&039;s dead?"

I nodded "Lucky us" But I wasn&039;t really worried Generals&039; wives are as tough as they co their husbands up the greasy pole, or they&039;ve endured thirty years of fallout as their husbands have climbed it for theet to theenerals, most of the time

Summer took her cap off and tossed it onto the backseat Her hair was very short Almost shaved She had a delicate skull and nice cheekbones Smooth skin I liked the way she looked And she was a fast driver That was for damn sure She clipped her belt and took off north like she was training for NASCAR

"Was it an accident?" she asked

"Heart attack," I said "His arteries were bad"

"Where? Our VOQ?"

I shook my head "A crappy little ed so thethat part, right?"

"No, we&039;re not We&039;re not telling anyone that part"

"Why was he passing through?"

"He didn&039;t co DC Frankfurt to Dulles, then National to LAX twenty hours later He was going out to Irwin for a conference"

"OK," she said, and then she went very quiet We drove on We got about level with the hway

"Permission to speak freely?" she said

"Please," I said

"Is this a test?"

"Why would it be a test?"

"You&039;re from the 110th Special Unit, aren&039;t you?"

"Yes," I said "I a"

"To the 110th?"

"Yes," she said "So, is this a covert assessment?"

"Of what?"

"Of me," she said "As a candidate"

"I needed a woer I picked you out at random The captain with the busted arm couldn&039;t have driven the car And it would be kind of inefficient for us to wait until we had a dead general to conduct personnel assessuess," she said "But I&039; for me to ask the obvious questions"

"I&039;d expect any MP with a pulse to ask the obvious questions, whether or not they had a special unit transfer pending"

"OK, I&039; General Kramer had a twenty-hour layover in the DC area and he wanted to get his rocks off and he didn&039;t e So why did he drive all the way down here to do it? It&039;s what, three hundred ht," I said

"And then he&039;d have to drive all the way back"

"Clearly"

"So why?"

"You tell ht of myself and I&039;ll recommend you for the transfer"

"You can&039;t You&039;re not my CO"