Going west the time changes lengthened the day instead of shortening it. They paid us back the hours we had lost two days before. We landed at Dulles at two in the afternoon. I said good-bye to Joe and he found the cab line and headed into the city. I went looking for buses and was arrested before I found any.
Who guards the guards? Who arrests an MP? In my case it was a trio of warrant officers working directly for the Provost Marshal General's office. There were two W3s and a W4. The W4 showed me his credentials and his orders and then the W3s showed me their Berettas and their handcuffs and the W4 gave me a choice: either behave myself or get knocked on my ass. I smiled, briefly. I approved of his performance. He carried himself well. I doubted if I would have done it any different, or any better.
"Are you armed, Major?" he said.
"No," I said.
I would have been worried for the army if he had believed me. Some W4s would have. They would have been intimidated by the sensitivities involved. Arresting a superior officer from your own corps is tough duty. But this particular W4 did everything right. He heard me say No and nodded to his W3s and they moved in to pat me down about as fast as if I had said Yes, with a nuclear warhead. One of them did the body search and the other went through my duffel. They were both very thorough. Took them a good few minutes before they were satisfied.
"Do I need to put the cuffs on you?" the W4 asked.
I shook my head. "Where's the car?"
He didn't answer. The W3s formed up one on either side and slightly behind me. The W4 walked in front. We crossed the sidewalk and passed by the bay where the buses were waiting and headed for an official-vehicle-only lane. There was an olive green sedan parked there. This was their time of maximum danger. A determined man would be tensing up at that point, ready to make his break. They knew it, and they formed up a little tighter. They were a good team. Three against one, they reduced the odds to maybe fifty-fifty. But I let them put me in the car. Afterward, I wondered what would have happened if I had run for it. Sometimes, I found myself wishing that I had.
The car was a Chevrolet Caprice. It had been white before the army sprayed it green. I saw the original color inside the door frame. It had vinyl seats and manual windows. Civilian police specification. I slid across the rear bench and settled in the corner behind the front passenger seat. One of the W3s crammed in next to me and the other got behind the wheel. The W4 sat next to him up front. Nobody spoke.
We headed east toward the city on the main highway. I was probably five minutes behind Joe in his taxi. We turned south and east and drove through Tysons Corner. At that point I knew for sure where we were going. A couple of miles later we picked up signs to Rock Creek. Rock Creek was a small town twenty-some miles due north of Fort Belvoir and forty-some north and east of the Marine place at Quantico. It was as close as I got to a permanent duty station. It housed the 110th Special Unit headquarters. So I knew where we were headed. But I had no idea why.
One Hundred and Tenth headquarters was basically an office and supply facility. There were no cells. No secure holding facilities. They locked me up in an interview room. Just dumped my bag on the table and locked the door and left me there. It was a room I had locked guys in before. So I knew how it was done. One of the W3s would be on station in the corridor outside. Maybe both of them would be. So I just tilted the plain wooden chair back and put my feet on the table and waited.
I waited an hour. I was uncomfortable and hungry and dehydrated from the plane. I figured if they knew all of that they'd have kept me waiting two hours. Or more. As it was they came back after sixty minutes. The W4 led the way and gestured with his chin that I should stand up and follow him out the door. The W3s fell in behind me. They walked me up two flights of stairs. Led me left and right through plain gray passageways. At that point I knew for sure where we were going. We were going to Leon Garber's office. But I didn't know why.
They stopped me outside his door. It had reeded glass with CO painted on it in gold. I had been through it many times. But never while in custody. The W4 knocked and waited and opened the door and stepped back to let me walk inside. He closed the door behind me and stayed on the other side of it, out in the corridor with his guys.
Behind Garber's desk was a man I had never seen before. He was a colonel. He was in BDUs. His tape said: Willard, U.S. Army. He had iron-gray hair parted in a schoolboy style. It needed a trim. He had steel-rimmed eyeglasses and the kind of gray pouchy face that must have looked old when he was twenty. He was short and relatively squat and the way his shoulders failed to fill his BDUs told me he spent no time at all in the gym. He had a problem sitting still. He was rocking to his left and plucking at his pants where they went tight over his right knee. Before I had been in the room ten seconds he had adjusted his position three times. Maybe he had hemorrhoids. Maybe he was nervous. He had soft hands. Ragged nails. No wedding band. Divorced, for sure. He looked the type. No wife would let him walk about with hair like that. And no wife could have stood all that rocking and twitching. Not for very long.
I should have come smartly to attention and saluted and announced: Sir, Major Reacher reports. That would have been the standard army etiquette. But I was damned if I was going to do that. I just took a long lazy look around and came to rest standing easy in front of the desk.
"I need explanations," the guy called Willard said.
He moved in his chair again.
"Who are you?" I said.
"You can see who I am."
"I can see you're a colonel in the U.S. Army named Willard. But I can't explain anything to you before I know whether or not you're in my chain of command."
"I am your chain of command, son. What does it say on my door?"
"Commanding officer," I said.
"And where are we?"
"Rock Creek, Virginia," I said.
"OK, asked and answered," he said.
"You're new," I said. "We haven't met."
"I assumed this command forty-eight hours ago. And now we've met. And now I need explanations."
"Of what?"
"You were UA, for a start," he said.
"Unauthorized absence?" I said. "When?"
"The last seventy-two hours."
"Incorrect," I said.
"How so?"
"My absence was authorized by Colonel Garber."
"It was not."
"I called this office," I said.
"When?"
"Before I left."
"Did you receive his authorization?"
I paused. "I left a message. Are you saying he denied authorization?"
"He wasn't here. He got orders for Korea some hours earlier."
"Korea?"
"He got the MP command there."
"That's a Brigadier General's job."
"He's acting. The promotion will no doubt be confirmed in the fall."
I said nothing.
"Garber's gone," Willard said. "I'm here. The military merry-go-round continues. Get used to it."
The room went quiet. Willard smiled at me. Not a pleasant smile. It was close to a sneer. The rug was out from under my feet, and he was watching me hit the ground.
"It was good of you to leave your travel plans," he said. "It made today easier."
"You think the arrest was appropriate for UA?"
"You don't?"
"It was a simple miscommunication."
"You left your assigned post without authorization, Major. Those are the facts. Just because you had a vague expectation that authorization might be granted doesn't alter them. This is the army. We don't act in advance of orders or permissions. We wait until they are properly received and confirmed. The alternative would be anarchy and chaos."
I said nothing.
"Where did you go?"
I pictured my mother, leaning on her aluminum walker. I pictured my brother's face as he watched me pack.
"I took a short vacation," I said. "I went to the beach."
"The arrest wasn't for the UA," Willard said. "It was because you wore Class As on the evening of New Year's Day."
"That's an offense now?"
"You wore your nameplate."
I said nothing.
"You put two civilians in the hospital. While wearing your nameplate."
I stared at him. Thought hard. I didn't believe the fat guy and the farmer had dropped a dime on me. Not possible. They were stupid, but they weren't that stupid. They knew I knew where I could find them.
"Who says so?" I asked.
"You had a big audience in that parking lot."
"One of ours?"
Willard nodded.
"Who?" I said.
"No need for you to know."
I kept quiet.
"You got anything to say?" Willard asked me.
I thought: He won't testify at the court-martial. That's for damn sure. That's what I've got to say.
"Nothing to say," I said.
"What do you think I should do with you?"
I said nothing.
"What do you think I should do?"
You should figure out the difference between a hard-ass and a dumb-ass, pal. You should figure it out real quick.
"Your choice," I said. "Your decision."
He nodded. "I also have reports from General Vassell and Colonel Coomer."
"Saying what?"
"Saying you acted in a disrespectful manner toward them."
"Then those reports are incorrect."
"Like the UA was incorrect?"
I said nothing.
"Stand at attention," Willard said.
I looked at him. Counted One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand. Then I came to attention.
"That was slow," he said.
"I'm not looking to win a drill competition," I said.
"What was your interest in Vassell and Coomer?"
"An agenda for an Armored Branch conference is missing. I need to know if it contained classified information."
"There was no agenda," Willard said. "Vassell and Coomer have made that perfectly clear. To me, and to you. To ask is permissible. You have that right, technically. But to willfully disbelieve a senior officer's direct answer is disrespectful. It's close to harassment."
"Sir, I do this stuff for a living. I believe there was an agenda."
Now Willard said nothing.
"May I ask what was your previous command?" I said.
He shifted in his chair.
"Intelligence," he said.
"Field agent?" I asked. "Or desk jockey?"
He didn't answer. Desk jockey.
"Did you have conferences without agendas?" I asked.
He looked straight at me.
"Direct orders, Major," he said. "One, terminate your interest in Vassell and Coomer. Forthwith, and immediately. Two, terminate your interest in General Kramer. We don't want flags raised on that matter, not under the circumstances. Three, terminate Lieutenant Summer's involvement in special unit affairs. Forthwith, and immediately. She's a junior-grade MP and after reading her file as far as I'm concerned she always will be. Four, do not attempt to make further contact with the local civilians you injured. And five, do not attempt to identify the eyewitness against you in that matter."
I said nothing.
"Do you understand your orders?" he said.
"I'd like them in writing," I said.
"Verbal will do," he said. "Do you understand your orders?"
"Yes," I said.
"Dismissed."
I counted One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand. Then I saluted and turned around. I made it all the way to the door before he fired his parting shot.
"They tell me you're a big star, Reacher," he said. "So right now you need to decide whether you keep on being a big star, or whether you let yourself become an arrogant smart-ass son of a bitch. And you need to remember that nobody likes arrogant smart-ass sons of bitches. And you need to remember we're coming to a point where it's going to matter whether people like you or not. It's going to matter a lot."
I said nothing.
"Do I make myself clear, Major?"
"Crystal," I said.
I got my hand on the door handle.
"One last thing," he said. "I'm going to sit on the brutality complaint. For as long as I possibly can. Out of respect for your record. You're very lucky that it came up internally. But I want you to remember that it's here, and it stays active."
I left Rock Creek just before five in the afternoon. Caught a bus into Washington D.C., and another one south down I-95. Then I removed my lapel insignia and hitched the final thirty miles to Bird. It works a little faster that way. Most of the local traffic is enlisted men, or retired enlisted men, or their families, and most of them are suspicious of MPs. So experience had taught me things went better if you kept your badges in your pocket.
I got a ride and got out two hundred yards short of Bird's main gate, a few minutes past eleven in the evening, January fourth, after a little more than six hours on the road. North Carolina was pitch dark and cold. Very cold, so I jogged the two hundred yards to heat myself up. I was out of breath when I got to the gate. I was logged in and I ran down to my office. It was warm inside. The night-watch sergeant with the baby son was on duty. She had coffee going. She gave me a cup and I walked into my office and found a note from Summer waiting for me on my desk. The note was clipped to a slim green file. The file had three lists in it. The women-with-Humvees list, the women-from-Irwin list, and the main gate log for New Year's Eve. The first two lists were relatively short. The gate log was a riot. People had been in and out all night long, partying. But only one name was common to all three compilations: Lt/Col Andrea Norton. Summer had circled the name in all three locations. Her note said: Call me about Norton. Hope your mom was OK.
I found the old message slip with Joe's telephone number on it and called him first.
"You holding up?" I asked him.
"We should have stayed," he said.
"She gave the nurse one day off," I said. "One day was what she wanted."
"We should have stayed anyway."
"She doesn't want spectators," I said.
Joe didn't answer. The phone was hot and silent against my ear.
"I've got a question," I said. "When you were at the Pentagon, did you know an asshole called Willard?"
He stayed quiet for a long moment, changing gears, searching his memory. He had been out of Intelligence for some time.
"Squat little man?" he said. "Couldn't sit still? Always shuffling around on his chair, fussing with his pants? He was a desk guy. A major, I think."
"He's a full colonel now," I said. "He just got assigned to the 110th. He's my CO at Rock Creek."
"MI to the 110th? That makes sense."
"Makes no sense to me."
"It's the new theory," Joe said. "They're copying private-sector doctrine. They think know-nothings are good because they're not invested in the status quo. They think they bring fresh perspectives."
"Anything I should know about this guy?"
"You called him an asshole, so it sounds like you already know about him. He was smart, but he was an asshole, for sure. Vicious, petty, very corporate, good at office politics, exclusively interested in number one, excellent ass-kisser, always knew which way the wind was blowing."
I said nothing.
"Hopeless with women," Joe said. "I remember that."
I said nothing.
"He's a perfect example," Joe said. "Like we discussed. He was on the Soviet desk. He monitored their tank production and fuel consumption, as I recall. I think he worked out some kind of an algorithm that told us what kind of training Soviet armor was doing based on how much fuel they were eating. He was hot for a year or so. But now I guess he's seen the future. He got himself out while the getting was good. You should do the same. At least you should think about it. Like we discussed."
I said nothing.
"Meanwhile, watch your step," Joe said. "I wouldn't want Willard for a boss."
"I'll be OK," I said.
"We should have stayed in Paris," he said, and hung up.
I found Summer in the O Club bar. She had a beer on the go and was leaning on the wall with a couple of W2s. She moved away from them when she saw me.
"Garber's gone to Korea," I said. "We got a new guy."
"Who?"
"A colonel called Willard. From Intelligence."
"So how is he qualified?"
"He isn't qualified. He's an asshole."
"Doesn't that piss you off?"
I shrugged. "He's telling us to stay away from the Kramer thing."
"Are we going to?"
"He's telling me to stop talking to you. He says he's going to turn down your application."
She went very quiet. Looked away.
"Shit," she said.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I know you wanted it."
She looked back at me.
"Is he serious about the Kramer thing?" she asked.
I nodded. "He's serious about everything. He had me arrested at the airport, to make all his various points."
"Arrested?"
I nodded again. "Someone ratted me out for those guys in the parking lot."
"Who?"
"One of the grunts in the audience."
"One of ours? Who?"
"I don't know."
"That's cold."
I nodded. "Never happened to me before."
She went quiet again.
"How was your mom?" she said.
"She broke her leg," I said. "No big deal."
"They can get pneumonia."
I nodded again. "She had the X ray. No pneumonia."
Her lower eyelids moved upward.
"Can I ask the obvious question?" she said.
"Is there one?"
"Aggravated battery against civilians is a big deal. And apparently there's a report and an eyewitness, good enough to get you arrested."
"So?"
"So why are you still walking around?"
"Willard's sitting on it."
"But why would he, if he's an asshole?"
"Out of respect for my record. That's what he said."
"Did you believe him?"
I shook my head.
"There must be something wrong with the complaint," I said. "An asshole like Willard would use it if he could, that's for sure. He doesn't care about my record."
"Can't be something wrong with the complaint. A military witness is the best kind they can get. He'll testify to whatever they tell him to. It's like Willard would be writing the complaint himself."
I said nothing.
"And why are you here at all?" she asked.
I heard Joe say: You should find out who wanted you at Bird badly enough to pull you out of Panama and replace you with an asshole.
"I don't know why I'm here," I said. "I don't know anything. Tell me about Lieutenant Colonel Norton."
"We're off the case."
"So just tell me for interest's sake."
"It isn't her. She's got an alibi. She was at a party in a bar off-post. All night long. About a hundred people were there with her."
"Who is she?"
"Psy-Ops instructor. She's a psychosexual Ph.D. who specializes in attacking an enemy's internal emotional security concerning his feelings of masculinity."
"She sounds like a fun lady."
"She was invited to a party in a bar. Someone thinks she's a fun lady."
"Did you check who drove Vassell and Coomer down here?"
Summer nodded. "Our gate guys list him as a Major Marshall. I looked him up, and he's a XII Corps staffer on temporary detached duty at the Pentagon. Some kind of a blue-eyed boy. He's been over here since November."
"Did you check phone calls out of the D.C. hotel?"
She nodded again.
"There weren't any," she said. "Vassell's room took one incoming call at twelve twenty-eight in the morning. I'm assuming that was XII Corps calling from Germany. Neither of them made any outgoing calls."
"None at all?"
"Not a one."
"Are you sure?"
"Totally. It's an electronic switchboard. Dial nine for an outside line, and the computer records it automatically. It has to, for the bill."
Dead end.
"OK," I said. "Forget the whole thing."
"Really?"
"Orders are orders," I said. "The alternative is anarchy and chaos."
I went back to my office and called Rock Creek. I figured Willard would be long gone. He was the type of guy who keeps bankers' hours his whole life. I got hold of a company clerk and asked him to find a copy of the original order moving me from Panama to Bird. It was five minutes before he came back on the line. I spent them reading Summer's lists. They were full of names that meant nothing to me.
"I've got the order here now, sir," the guy on the phone said.
"Who signed it?" I asked him.
"Colonel Garber, sir."
"Thank you," I said, and put the phone down. Then I sat for ten minutes wondering why people were lying to me. Then I forgot all about that question, because my phone rang again and a young MP private on routine base patrol told me we had a homicide victim in the woods. It sounded like a real bad one. My guy had to pause twice to throw up before he got to the end of his report.