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No as Willard about to authorize any foreign expeditions so I walked over to the Provost Marshal&039;s office and took a stack of travel vouchers out of the company clerk&039;s desk I carried thened theeries of Leon Garber&039;s signature on the Authorized by lines

"We&039;re breaking the law," Summer said

"This is the Battle of Kursk," I said "We can&039;t stop now"

She hesitated

"Your choice," I said "In or out, no pressure fro

"These vouchers won&039;t come back for a one, or ill We&039;ve got nothing to lose"

"OK," she said

"Go pack," I said "Three days"

She left and I askedCO She canized as the fe roo I would be out for three days I told her she was in charge Then I picked up the phone and called Joe

"I&039; to Germany," I said

"OK," he said "Enjoy Have a safe trip"

"I can&039;t go to Ger by Paris on the way back You know, under the circumstances"

He paused

"No," he said "I guess you can&039;t"

"Wouldn&039;t be right not to," I said "But she shouldn&039;t think I care ht either So you should come over too"

"When?"

"Take the overnight flight two days from now I&039;ll o see her together"

Summer met s to the Chevy We were both in BDUs because we figured our best shot was a night transport out of Andrews Air Force Base We were too late for a civilian red-eye and we didn&039;t want to wait all night for the breakfast flights We got in the car and logged out at the gate Su, of course She accelerated hard and then dropped into a smooth rhythm that was about tenour way

I sat back and watched the road Watched the shoulders, and the strip malls, and the traffic We drove north thirty miles and passed by Kraed east to I-95 Headed north We passed the rest area Passed the spot a mile later where the briefcase had been found I closed ot there well after ht We parked in a restricted lot and swapped two of our travel vouchers for two places on a Transportation Corps C-130 that was leaving for Frankfurt at three in theand vinyl benches and was filled with the usual ragtag bunch of transients Thesoht or day Nobody talked Nobody ever did We all just sat there, stiff and tired and uncoet us thirty minutes before takeoff We filed out onto the tarmac and walked up the rao pallets in the center bay We sat on webbing jue wall On the whole I figured I preferred the first-class section on Air France The Transportation Corps doesn&039;t have stewardesses and it doesn&039;t brew in-flight coffee

We took off a little late, heading west into the wind Then we turned a slow one-eighty over DC and struck out east I felt the movement There were no s, but I kneere above the city Joe was down there soe as very cold at altitude so we all leaned forith our elbows on our knees It was too noisy to talk I stared at a pallet of tank ammunition until my vision blurred and I fell back to sleep It wasn&039;t co you learn in the army is how to sleep anywhere I woke up maybe ten times and spent most of the trip in a state of suspended aniines and the rush of the slipstream helped induce it It was relatively restful It was about sixty percent as good as being in bed

We were in the air nearly eight hours before we started our initial descent There was no intercoine note and a doard lurching movement and a sharp sensation in the ears All aroundSu like a cat She looked pretty good Her hair was too short to get ht She looked deterlory and was resigned to not knohich

We all sat down again and held tight to the webbing for the landing The wheels touched down and the reverse thrust howled and the brakes jaainst their straps Then the engines cut back and we taxied a long way and stopped The rah the hole It was five o&039;clock in the afternoon in Germany, six hours ahead of the East Coast, one hour ahead of Zulu tier in Sperryville the previous day Suot in line Shuffled down the ramp with the others and out onto the tarmac The weather was cold It felt pretty much the same as North Carolina

We ay out in the restricted military corner of the Frankfurt airport We took a personnel bus to the public teruys had transport waiting, but we didn&039;t We joined a bunch of civilians in the taxi line Shuffled up, one by one When our turn caave the driver a travel voucher and told hih to comply He could swap the voucher for hard currency at any US post and I was certain he would pick up a couple of XII Corps guys going out into Frankfurt for a night on the town No deadheading No e off of the US Army, just like plenty of Ger a Mercedes-Benz

The trip took thirty h suburbs They looked like a lot of West Gers built back in the fifties The new neighborhoods ran west to east in rando the routes the bombers had followed No nation ever lost a war the way Germany lost Like everyone, I had seen the pictures taken in 1945 Defeat was not a big enough word Areddon would be better The whole country had been sernaut The evidence would be there for all time, written in the architecture And under the architecture Every ti a trench for a cable, they found skulls and bones and teacups and shells and rusted-out Panzerfausts Every tiround was broken for a new foundation, a priest was standing by before the steam shovels took their first bite I was born in Berlin, surrounded by Americans, surrounded by whole square miles of patched-up devastation They started it, we used to say

The suburban streets were neat and clean There were discreet stores with apartments above thens were black-on-white, written in an archaic script that ns here and there too You couldn&039;t go very far without seeing one We followed the XII Corps arrows, getting closer all the tih a couple of kilometers of farmland It felt like a moat Like insulation The eastern sky ahead of us was dark

XII Corps was based in a typical glory-days installation Some Nazi industrialist had built a thousand-acre factory site out in the fields, back in the 1930s It had featured an i and ranks of lowhundreds of meters behind it The sheds had been boain The hoed Some weary US Army armored division had set up camp in it in 1945 Thin Frankfurt woht in to pile the rubble, in exchange for food They worked heelbarrows and shovels Then the Ar and bulldozed the piles of rubble away Successive huge waves of Pentagon spending had rolled in By 1953 the place was a flagship installation There was cleaned brick and shining white paint and a strong periuard shacks There were mess halls and a medical clinic and a PX There were barracks and workshops and warehouses Above all there were a thousand acres of flat land and by 1953 it was covered with A east, ready to roll out and fight for the Fulda Gap

When we got there thirty-seven years later it was too dark to see ed The tanks would be different, but that would be all The M4 Sherone, except for two fine exaate, one on each side, like symbols They were placed halfway up landscaped concrete rah, tails low, like they were still ina rise They were lit up theatrically They were beautifully painted, glossy green, with bright white stars on their sides They lookeddrivehite-painted curbs and the floodlit front of the office building, which was now the post headquarters Behind that would be the tank lagers, with M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks lined up shoulder to shoulder, hundreds of theot out of the taxi and crossed the sidewalk and headed for the ot us past it It would get us past any US Aron We carried our bags down the driveway

"Been here before?" Summer asked me

I shook my head as I walked

"I&039;ve been in Heidelberg with the infantry," I said "Many times"

"Is that near?"

"Not far," I said

There were broad stone steps leading up to the doors The whole place looked like a capitol building in some small state back home It was immaculately maintained We went up the steps and inside There was a soldier at a desk just behind the doors Not an MP Just a XII Corps office grunt We showed hiot space for us?" I asked

"Sir, no probleht"

"I&039;ll call ahead," he said "Just follow the signs"

He pointed to the back of the hallway There were more doors there that would lead out into the complex I checked my watch It said noon exactly It was still set to East Coast ti, in West Germany Already dark

"I need to see your MP XO," I said "Is he still in his office?"

The guy used his phone and got an answer Pointed us up a broad staircase to the second floor

"On your right," he said

We went up the stairs and turned right There was a long corridor with offices on both sides They had hardwood doors with reeded glass s We found the one anted and went in It was an outer chaeant in it It was pretty much identical to the one back at Bird Same paint, same floor, same furniture, same temperature, same smell Saeant was like plenty I had seen before too Calm, efficient, stoic, ready to believe he ran the place all by himself, which he probably did He was behind his desk and he looked up at us as we ca ere and anted

"I guess you need the major," he said

I nodded He picked up his phone and buzzed through to the inner office

"Go straight through," he said

We went in through the inner door and I saw a desk with a guy called Swan behind it I knean pretty well Last time I had seen him was in the Philippines, threea tour of duty that was scheduled to last a year

"Don&039;t tell ot here December twenty-ninth"

"Froze ear Took XII Corps three days to find me a winter uniform"

I wasn&039;t surprised Sas short, and wide Almost cubic He probably owned a percentile all his own, on the quartermasters&039; charts

"Your Provost Marshal here?" I said

He shook his head "Tened your orders?"

"Allegedly"

"Figured it out yet?"

"Not even close"

"Me either," I said

He shrugged, like he was saying, Hey, the army, what can you do?

"This is Lieutenant Summer," I said

"Special unit?" Swan said

Summer shook her head

"But she&039;s cool," I said

Swan stretched a short arm over his desk and they shook hands

"I need to see a guy called Marshall," I said "A major Some kind of a XII Corps staffer"

"Is he in trouble?"

"Soure out who You know him?"

"Never heard of hiot here"

"I know," I said "Deceave ain and picked up his phone I heard hieant to find Marshall and tell him I wanted to see him at his convenience I looked around while aited for the response Swan&039;s office looked borrowed and temporary, just like mine did back in North Carolina It had the same kind of clock on the wall Electric, no second hand No tick It said tenhere?" I said

"Notin Heidelberg and got run over And Kras up some"

"Who&039;s next in line?"

"Vassell, I guess"

"I met him," I said "Wasn&039;t is are changing You should hear these guys talk They&039;re real gloomy"

"The status quo is not an option," I said "That&039;s what I&039; He listened for a minute and put it down

"Marshall&039;s not on-post," he said "He&039;s out on a night exercise in the countryside Back in the ed

"Have dinner with me," Swan said "I&039;m lonely here with all these cavalry types The O Club in an hour?"

We carried our bags over to the Visiting Officers&039; Quarters and found our rooms Mine looked pretty much the same as the one Kramer had died in, except it was cleaner It was a standard American overnhted all the fixtures and fittings, right down to the sinks and the towel rails and the toilet bowls

I shaved and took a shower and dressed in clean BDUs Knocked on Summer&039;s door fifty-five minutes into Swan&039;s hour She opened up She looked clean and fresh Behind her the room looked the same as mine, except it already smelled like a woman&039;s There was some kind of nice eau de toilette in the air

The O Club occupied half of one of the ground floor wings of the s and intricate plasterroom We found Swan in the bar He ith a lieutenant colonel earing Class As with a co to see, on an Armored post His naot the feeling he was going to join us for dinner He told us he was a liaison officer, working on behalf of the infantry He told us there was an Ar the sa?" I asked hilad about I needed soround, and Swan didn&039;t have it, anyabout Fort Bird Then I realized it was no accident that Siured out what I wanted and set about providing it without being asked Sas that kind of guy

"Pleased to meet you, Colonel," I said, and then I nodded to Swan, like I was saying thanks We drank cold Alasses and then ent through to the dining room Swan had made a reservation The steward put us at a table in the corner I sat where I could watch the whole room at once I didn&039;t see anyone I knew Vassell wasn&039;t around Nor was Coomer

The menu was absolutely standard We could have been in any O Club in the world O Clubs aren&039;t there to introduce you to local cuisine They&039;re there to make you feel at home, somewhere deep inside the army&039;s own interpretation of America There was a choice of fish or steak The fish was probably European, but the steak would have been flown in across the Atlantic Soed a sweet deal with the Pentagon

We small-talked for a spell We bitched about pay and benefits Talked about people we knew We mentioned Just Cause in Panama Lieutenant Colonel Simon told us he had been to Berlin two days previously and had gotten himself a chip of concrete from the Wall Told us he planned to have it encased in a plastic cube Planned to hand it on down the generations, like an heirloom

"Do you know Major Marshall?" I asked him

"Fairly well," he said

"Who is he exactly?" I asked

"Is this official?"

"Not really," I said

"He&039;s a planner A strategist, basically Long-teruy General Kramer seemed to like hience officer"

"Does he have an intelligence background?"

"Not formally But he&039;ll have done rotations, I&039;m sure"

"So is he a part of the inner team? I heard Kramer and Vassell and Coomer mentioned all in the same breath, but not Marshall"

"He&039;s on the tea officers are like They need a guy, but they aren&039;t about to admit it So they abuse him a little He fetches and carries and drives them around, but when push co to one? Maybe into Coomer&039;s slot?"

Simon made a face "He should He&039;s an Armor fanatic to the core, like the rest of the to happen Kra couldn&039;t have coing," I said

"And what a world it was," Si to end He graduated the Point in Fifty-two, and places like this one were all buttoned up by Fifty-three, and they&039;ve been the center of the universe for al in, you wouldn&039;t believe it You knoho has done the most in this country?"

"Who?"

"Not Armored Not the infantry This theater is all about the Arhed thirty-eight tons and were nine feet wide Noe&039;re all the way up to the M1A1 Abrahs seventy tons and is eleven feet wide Every step of the way for forty years the Corps of Engineers has had work to do They&039;ve widened roads, hundreds of thened bridges Hell, they&039;ve built roads and bridges Dozens of the east to battle, you better es can take it"

"OK," I said

"Billions of dollars," Sies to look at They knehere ere starting, and they knehere ere going They talked to the war-gaot busy with the concrete and the rebar Then they built way stations everywhere we needed them Permanent hardened fuel stores, a strictly predetermined routes So we&039;re e in, literally The Cold War battlefields are literally set in stone, Reacher"

"People are going to say we invested and on"

Simon nodded "And they&039;d be correct But what comes next?"

"More investment," I said

"Exactly," he said "Like in the Navy, when the big battleships were superseded by aircraft carriers The end of one era, the beginning of the next The Abranificent, but they&039;re out-of-date About the only e can use them is down custoo"

"They&039;re mobile," Summer said "Like any tank"

"Not veryto be?"

I shrugged I wished Joe was there He was good at all the geopolitical stuff

"The Middle East?" I said "Iran or Iraq, otten their breath back, they&039;ll be looking for the next thing to do"

"Or the Balkans," Swan said "When the Soviets finally collapse, there&039;s a forty-five-year-old pressure cooker waiting for the lid to come off"

"OK," Sioslavia,happens, for sure Right now they&039;re just waiting for the starting gun What do we do?"

"Send in the Airborne," Swan said

"OK," Sihtly aret three battalions there inside a week But what do we do after we get there? We&039;re speed bu more We have to wait for the heavy units And that&039;s the first problehs seventy tons Can&039;t airlift it Got to put it on a train, and then put it on a ship And that&039;s the good news Because you don&039;t just ship the tank For every ton of tank, you have to ship four tons of fuel and other equipallon And you need spare engines, aistics tail is a h tank brigades toat a six-ht around the clock"

"During which time the Airborne troops are deep in the shit," I said

"Tell me about it," Sihtly aret slaughtered It would be a very, very anxious six ets worse Because what happens when the heavy brigades eventually get there? What happens is, they roll off the ships and they get bogged doo blocks later Roads aren&039;t wide enough, bridges aren&039;t strong enough, they never make it out of the port area They sit there stuck in thekilled far away in the distance"

Nobody spoke

"Or take the Middle East," Sio there? Long term, it&039;s an easy win for us, because the open desert is pretty much the same for tanks as the steppes in Europe, except it&039;s a little hotter and dustier But the war plans we&039;ve got ork out just fine But do we even get that far? We&039;ve got the infantry sitting there like tiny little speed bumps for six whole ht over them in the first teeks?"

"Air power," Summer said "Attack helicopters"

"I wish," Simon said "Planes and whirlybirds are sexy as hell, but they don&039;t win anything on their own Never have, never will Boots on the ground is ins things"

I smiled Part of that was a combat infantryman&039;s standard-issue pride But part of it was true too

"So what&039;s going to happen?" I asked

"Sa as happened with the Navy in 1941," Siht, battleships were history and carriers were the new thing So for us, noe need to integrate We need to understand that our light units are too vulnerable and our heavy units are too slow We need to ditch the whole light-heavy split We need integrated rapid-response brigades with arh to fit in the belly of a C-130 We need to get places faster and fight s for set-piece battles between herds of dinosaurs"

Then he smiled

"Basically we&039;ll have to put the infantry in charge," he said

"You ever talk to people like Marshall about this kind of stuff?"

"Their planners? No way"

"What do they think about the future?"

"I have no idea And I don&039;t care The future belongs to the infantry"