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We finished our lunch without saying much more Then we had pie Peach, naturally And coffee I asked her, "Did the Kelham PR squad come see you?"

She nodded "Just before I came out for lunch"

"So you knohat&039;s happening tonight"

"Eight o&039;clock," she said "Everyone on best behavior"

"You OK with that?"

"They know the rules If they stick to theive the Deveraux whipped around and stared at it, as if she had never heard it ring before Which was possible I said, "It&039;s for me"

I walked over and picked up It was Munro He said, "I have the transportation details, if you&039;re interested Reed Riley doesn&039;t own a car any a plain olive drab staff car He&039;ll be driving with his father as his only passenger The ht o&039;clock exactly"

"Thanks," I said "Good to know Is there a return ETA?"

"There&039;s an eleven o&039;clock curfew tonight Unofficial, all done in whispers, but it&039;ll happen A few beers is authentic TooSo people will be leaving town from ten-thirty onwards The senator&039;s plane is scheduled to be wheels-up at ain "Thanks Has he arrived yet?"

"Twenty o, in an army Lear"

"Has the hoopla started yet?"

"First pitch in about an hour"

"Will you bring me your interview notes?"

"Why?"

"There are a couple of things I want to check As soon as the senator looks like he&039;s going to stay put for tenthereed to do that, so I hung up the phone and walked back to the table, but by then Deveraux was already getting up to leave She said, "I&039;ot a lot to do I have three homicides to solve"

Then she pushed pastI passed so a walk I looped around the Sheriff&039;s Depart and entered the acre of beaten earth behind Main Street from the top The railroad track on ht were all open, but they had no custo in them, all of them black women over forty, all of them bent low over mops and pails, all of them supervised by anxious owners well aware that a US senator would be passing by, anderators were being topped off, trash was being hauled out Even the ere being wiped

Across the alley fro no business at all Shawna Lindsay had worked there before she died, and evidently she had been replaced by another young woood with her nuh stool behind a counter, with a lit-up Western Union sign behind her head I had time to kill, so on a whim I went inside The woman looked up as the door opened, and she smiled like she was happy to see me Maybe I was the only customer of the day so far

I asked her how the system worked, and after a little back and forth I understood I could call my bank on the phone and order money to be sent to any such office in America I would need a password for the bank, and either ID or the sas were still pretty casual back then I knew there were all kinds of banks close to the Pentagon, because thirty thousand people all in one place was a big market to exploit I decided next time I was in DC I would move my account to one of theister a password Just in case

I thanked the young woun shop I bought spare ammunition for the Beretta, nine-azine to put fifteen of theuys who don&039;t check new equipment are still alive, but by no h the skinny runt&039;s head, and then I put the gun back in one pocket and the new azine and the four loose rounds in the other

And that was it for shopping I didn&039;t need a used stereo, and I didn&039;t need auto parts So I dog-legged through Janice Chapman&039;s alley and walked back to the diner The waitress met me at the door and told me she had taken no calls for me I stood there for a second, unsure, and then I picked up the phone, fed it a quarter, and dialed the Treasury Department switchboard The same number I had called from the old yellow phone in the Lindsay kitchen The saant

She asked, "How may I direct your inquiry?"

I said, "Joe Reacher&039;s office, please"

I heard the sa, and the sa woman I was sure wore a plaid skirt and a white sweater picked up and said, "Mr Reacher&039;s office"

I asked, "Is Mr Reacher there?"

She recognized my voice immediately, probably because it was just like Joe&039;s She said, "No, I&039;ia I think At least, I hope"

"You sound worried," I said

"I am, a little"

"Don&039;t be," I said "Joe&039;s a big boy He can handle whatever Georgia throws at hiic to peanuts"

Then I hung up and walked deep into the room and holed up at the rear for Munro, counting off the time in my head

Munro showed up more or less exactly as promised, an hour after our earlier phone call, plus five minutes for the drive He parked a plain car on the curb and caloom at the back of the room He unbuttoned his top pocket and slid out the slim black notebook I had seen before He put it on the table and said, "Keep it No one else is going to want it No one is saving a permanent place for it in the National Archives"

I nodded "Some colonel just told me there are to be no reminders of recent suspicions"

Munro nodded in turn "I just got the sauy is real mad at you, by the way Did you offend him somehow?"

"I certainly hope so"

"He&039;s writing a report for Garber"

"We always need toilet paper"

"Plus copies all over You&039;re going to be faretfully, and then he headed back to his car I opened the little black book and started to read

80

Munro&039;s handwriting was cramped and neat and es His method was to record two or three conversations at a ti on to the next two or three That way both his raw materials and his conclusions were preserved side by side, the latter for ease of reference, the for the latter A circular systeood cop Reed Riley&039;s photograph was still in the book, wedged tight into the spine after the last note and before the first blank page I realized he had been using it as a bookes was Janice May Chaped early on that she and Riley had been dating Not that Riley had said anything about her Or about anything else, either He had lawyered up at the start and confined his answers to naator of Munro&039;s quality He had spoken to every man in Bravo Company and teased out the facts froether and woven them into a solid and reliable narrative

Riley&039;s men had talked about hi to be a legend, too unproven to be a star, but he had some kind of celebrity charisma, partly because of who his father was, and partly because of his own personality But he wasn&039;t liked The conversations as recorded were loyal to a fault, but it was institutional loyalty, not personal loyalty, all of it filtered through any soldier&039;s traditional hatred for the uy, but no one had a good thing to say either By reading between the lines of as and wasn&039;t said I saw that Riley was a grandstander and a show pony, and that he was i deal in a low-temperature environment like Kosovo, but he would have been accidentally shot in the back or blown up with a faulty grenade on his first day if he had been a generation older in Vietnam That was for damn sure Better men than Riley had suffered that fate

Before Chapman it was clear he had dated Shawna Lindsay They had been seen together many times And before Lindsay he had dated Roseetheraround in the blue &039;57 Chevy There was a faint twice-rethe women in town, just like that, wha to Bravo Coun with Elizabeth Deveraux She ell known at Kelham, because of an early courtesy visit at the start of thehad been intense, and there had been no leave or down tiht and nailed the prize That triu Bravo Company&039;s first tour to Kosovo, over drinks around a fire Again, I could alht at the way the rest of the regular 75th training grunts thought Deveraux was a lesbian, and at the way the boys of Bravo Co, their alpha uy, but they aduessed

There was nothing else of interest in the notebook I spent soain, and then I squared the whole thing away in

The rest of the afternoon was long and fruitless The hours passed, and no one called, and no one came, and the town stayed quiet At one point I heard souessed the hoopla at Kelhaly From time to time I drank a cup of coffee and ate a slice of pie, but etative state, eyes open but half-asleep, breathing low, saving energy, like hibernation Local people came and went in ones and twos, and at six o&039;clock Jonathan and Hunter Brannan came in for an early dinner, to fuel up ahead of their busy evening, which I thought ise, and two or three others I took to be bar owners did the sa, and some of what I took to be their cleaners stopped by before heading home, and at seven o&039;clock Main Street went dark outside the , and at seven-thirty the old couple from the hotel came in for their meal, she with her book, he with his paper

Then abegan to unravel

81

Lowrey started out by apologizing for the extre, and then he said he had just heard froer Regiment was based Apparently a lieutenant colonel from their remote detachment at Kelham had phoned home and told his bosses there were still two CID majors on the scene locally, one on the post itself and one in town, the latter a prize pain in the ass, and because his bosses were deterood ti squad toduration of the senator&039;s visit Just in case Lowrey said the squad had left Benning in a Blackhawk helicopter soht well have already arrived at Kelham

"MPs?" I said "They won&039;t ular Rangers Real tough guys"

"How many?"

"Six," Lowrey said "Three for you and three for Munro, I guess"

"Rules of engagement?"

"I don&039;t know What does it take to ers," I said I scanned the street out theand saw nothingNo vehicles, no pedestrians I said, "Don&039;t worry about me, Stan It&039;s Munro I&039;ht It&039;s going toup"

"Which he will," Lowrey said "You will too, probably Word is these guys aren&039;t kidding around"

"Would you call hi?" I asked "If they haven&039;t already gotten to him, that is" I recited Munro&039;s VOQ number, and I heard the scratch of a pencil as Lorote it down Then I asked, "Has your pet banker coative," Lowrey said "He&039;s been busy all day But Neagley is still on it"

"Call her and tell her to take her thuet me some results Tell her if I&039;m busy with the GI Joes when she calls she&039;s authorized to leave a ood luck," Lowrey said, and hung up I stepped out to the sidewalk and looked up and down the street Nothing doing I guessed the Rangers would look for me first in one of the bars Probably Brannan&039;s If I was planning to make trouble, that here I would be So I looped around through the dog-leg alley and scanned the acre of ground froh, there was a Huuessed the plan was to frog march me over to it and throw me in the back and drive me out to Kelham, and then to stash me in whatever room Munro was already locked up in Then the plan would be to wait until the senator&039;s Lear left at ize

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth

I eased out around the corner of Brannan&039;s bar and looked in through theThe place was sparkling clean Tables and chairs were neatly arrayed, all around a focal point I assumed would be occupied by the senator and his son Acolytes would sit close by, and there was plenty of open space where the less well connected could stand Jonathan and Hunter Brannan were behind the bar, looking well rested and well nourished after their early dinner

Three guys in BDUs were talking to theers, each one of them a decent size, and none of theeant, and two of them were specialists Their uniforms had seen plenty of wear, and their boots were clean but creased Their faces were tanned and lined and blank They were professional soldiers, pure and simple Which was a dumb expression, because professional soldiers were all kinds of things, none of which was pure, and none of which was simple But ultimately it didn&039;t eant was in charge And I had never eant as less than well aware that there were eighteen ranks above him in the hierarchy, all the way up to the commander-in-chief, and that they allpolicy decisions

In other words, whatever a sergeant did, there were eighteen groups of people ready, willing, and waiting to criticize him

I eased back into the shadows and headed back to the diner

There were three custo the old couple frouy in the pale suit I had seen once before Three was a good nuraphics were close to perfect Local business people, solid citizens, uaranteed to stay for hours, which was good, because I ress, or the lack of it

I came in the door and stopped by the phone and the waitress shook her head atcalls I used the phone book and found the number for Brannan&039;s bar, and then I put a quarter in the slot and dialed One of the Brannan brothers answered and I said, "Let eant"

I heard a second of surprise and uncertainty, and then I heard the phone being reversed on the bar, and I heard the click of nails and the thump of palms as the receiver was passed from hand to hand, and then a voice said, "Who is this?"

I said, "This is the guy you&039;re looking for I&039;m in the diner"