"Who exactly do you think you"re speaking with?"
"You"re the 110th MP HQ in Rock Creek, Virginia."
"Are we?"
"Unless you changed your phone number. There used to be a live operator. You had to ask for room 110."
"Who exactly am I speaking to?"
"I used to work for the 110th."
"In what capacity?"
"I was its first CO."
"Name?"
"Reacher."
Silence for a moment.
Reacher asked, "Does anyone go ahead and actually choose from that menu?"
"Sir, if you worked for the 110th, you"ll know that this is an active and open emergency channel. I"ll have to ask you to state your business immediately."
"I want to talk to your commanding officer."
"Concerning?"
"A favour I need. Tell him to look me up in the files and call me back." Reacher read out the number from a label stuck to the console in front of him.
The guy on the other end hung up without a word.
Five to nine in the morning.
Forty-three hours to go.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AT NINE THIRTY THE PHONE ON R REACHER"S BORROWED DESK rang, but the call was not for him. He stretched the cord and pa.s.sed the handset to Peterson. Peterson gave his name and rank and then listened for the best part of a minute. He asked whoever it was on the other end to stay in touch, and then he pa.s.sed the handset back. Reacher hung it up. Peterson said, "We need your information just as soon as you can get it." rang, but the call was not for him. He stretched the cord and pa.s.sed the handset to Peterson. Peterson gave his name and rank and then listened for the best part of a minute. He asked whoever it was on the other end to stay in touch, and then he pa.s.sed the handset back. Reacher hung it up. Peterson said, "We need your information just as soon as you can get it."
Reacher pointed at the console in front of him. "You know how it is with kids today. They never write, they never call."
"I"m serious."
"What changed?"
"That was the DEA on the line. The actual Drug Enforcement Administration. The actual federal bureau. From Washington D.C. A courtesy call. Turns out they have a wiretap on a guy they think is a Russian dope dealer. New to the scene, trying to make a name, trawling for deals, out of Brooklyn, New York. A guy in Mexico called Plato just called him about a property for sale five miles west of a town called Bolton, in South Dakota."
"A property for sale?"
"Those were the words they used."
"So what is this? Real estate or dope dealing?"
"If there"s an underground lab out there, then it"s both, isn"t it? And that"s going to be the DEA"s next question. It"s a n.o.brainer. They"ll be building their file and they"ll call us to ask what exactly that place is."
"Tell them to call the Department of the Army direct. Quicker all around."
"But that would make us look like idiots. We can"t admit we"ve had a place next to us for fifty years and we don"t even know what it is."
Reacher shrugged. Pointed at the phone again. "You"ll know as soon as I do. Which might be never."
"You were their commanding officer? An elite unit?"
Reacher nodded. "For a spell." Then he said: "Plato is a weird name for a Mexican, don"t you think? Sounds more like a Brazilian name to me."
"No, Yugoslavian," Peterson said. "Like that old dictator."
"That was t.i.to."
"I thought he was a South African bishop."
"That was Tutu."
"So who was Plato?"
"An ancient Greek philosopher. The pupil of Socrates, the teacher of Aristotle."
"So what has Brazil got to do with all of that?"
"Don"t ask," Reacher said.
Kapler and Lowell came back to the squad room. They distributed memos still hot and curled from the photocopier, one into every in-tray, and then they slouched out again. Peterson said, "That"s their day"s work done, right there. Now comes a five-hour lunch break, probably. What a waste."
"What did they do?"
"I can"t talk about it."
"That bad?"
"No, not really."
"So what was it?"
"I can"t talk about it."
"Yes you can."
"OK, three days ago they were out of radio contact for an hour. Wouldn"t say why or how or what they were doing. We can"t allow that. Because of the prison plan."
The phone rang again at twenty minutes to ten. Reacher picked it up and said, "Yes?"
A woman"s voice asked, "Major Reacher?"
"Yes."
"Do you know who I am?"
"Keep talking."
"You taught a cla.s.s in your last year in the service."
"Did I?"
"About integrating military and federal investigations. I took the cla.s.s. Don"t you recognize my voice?"
"Keep talking."
"What do you want me to say?" Right then Reacher wanted her to say plenty, because she had a great voice. It was warm, slightly husky, a little breathy, a little intimate. He liked the way it whispered in his ear. He liked it a lot. In his mind he pictured its owner as blonde, not more than thirty-five years old, not less than thirty. Probably tall, probably a looker. Altogether a terrific voice, for sure.
But not a voice he recognized, and he said so.
The voice said, "I"m very disappointed. Maybe even a little hurt. Are you sure you don"t remember me?"
"I need to speak to your CO."
"That will have to wait. I can"t believe you don"t know who I am."
"Can I take a guess?"
"Go ahead."
"I think you"re some kind of a bulls.h.i.t filter. I think your CO wants to know if I"m for real. If I say I remember you, I fail the test. Because I don"t. We never met. Maybe I wish we had, but we didn"t."
"But I took your cla.s.s."
"You didn"t. You read my file, that"s all. The course t.i.tle was for public consumption only. The cla.s.s was about s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the feds, not cooperating with them. If you had been in the room with me, you"d know that."
A smile in the voice. "Good work. You just pa.s.sed the test."
"So who are you, really?"
"I"m you."
"What does that mean?"
"I"m CO of the 110th Special Unit."
"Really?"
"Really and truly."
"Outstanding. Congratulations. How is it?"
"I"m sure you can imagine. I"m sitting at your old desk, right now, both metaphorically and literally. Do you remember your desk?"
"I had a lot of desks."
"Here at Rock Creek."
Actually Reacher remembered it pretty well. An old-style government desk, made of steel, painted green, the finish on the edges already worn back to bright metal by the time he inherited it.
The voice said, "There"s a big dent on the right-hand side. People say you made it, with someone"s head."
"People say?"
"Like a folk legend. Is it true?"
"I think the movers did it."
"It"s perfectly concave."
"Maybe they dropped a bowling ball."
"I prefer the legend."
Reacher asked, "What"s your name?"
The voice said, "Make one up for me."
"What?"
"Let"s keep this off the record. Give me a code name."
"This is a private conversation."
"Not really. Our system shows you"re calling from a police station. I"m sure it has a switchboard and recording devices."