The Affair: A Reacher Novel

clean. A very neat idea.
    I sent the clothing straight to the laundry, to age it a little. Nothing ages stuff like on-base laundries. Then I walked off post to a hamburger place for a late lunch. I found an old friend in there, an MP colleague, a guy called Stan Lowrey. We had worked together many times. He was sitting at a table in front of a tray holding the wreckage of a half-pounder and fries. I got my meal and slid in opposite him. He said, “I hear you’re on your way to Mississippi.”
    I asked, “Where did you hear that?”
    “My sergeant got it from a sergeant in Garber’s office.”
    “When?”
    “About two hours ago.”
    “Terrific,” I said. “I didn’t even know two hours ago. So much for secrecy.”
    “My sergeant says you’re going as second fiddle.”
    “Your sergeant is right.”
    “My sergeant says the lead investigator is some kid.” I nodded. “I’m babysitting.”
    “That sucks, Reacher. That blows big time.”
    “Only if the kid does it right.”
    “Which he might.”
    I took a bite of my burger, and a sip of my coffee. I said, “Actually I don’t know if anyone could do it right. There are sensitivities involved. There may be no right way of doing it at all. It could be that Garber is protecting me and sacrificing the kid.”
    Lowrey said, “Dream on, my friend. You’re an old horse and Garber is pinch hitting for you in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded. A new star is about to be born. You’re history.”
    “You too, then,” I said. “If I’m an old horse, you’re already waiting at the glue factory gate.”
    “Exactly,” Lowrey said. “That’s what I’m worried about. I’m going to start looking at the want ads tonight.”
    Nothing much happened during the rest of the afternoon. My laundry came back, a little bleached and battered by the giant machines. It was steam-pressed, but a day’s traveling would correct that. I left it on the floor, piled neatly on my shoes. Then my phone rang, and a switchboard operator patched me in to a call from the Pentagon, and I found myself talking to a colonel named John James Frazer. He said he was currently with Senate Liaison, but he preceded that embarrassing announcement with his whole prior combat bio, so I wouldn’t write him off as a jerk. Then he said, “I need to know immediately if there’s the slightest shred or scintilla of a hint or a rumor about anyone in Bravo Company. Immediately, OK? Night or day.”
    I said, “And I need to know how the local PD even knows Bravo Company is based at Kelham. I thought it’s supposed to be a secret.”
    “They fly in and out on C-5 transports. Noisy airplanes.”
    “In the dead of night. So they could be supply runs, for all anyone knows. Beans and bullets.”
    “There was a weather problem a month ago. Storms over the Atlantic. They were late. They landed after dawn. They were observed. And it’s a base town anyway. You know how it is. The locals pick up on the patterns. Faces they know, there one month, gone the next. People aren’t dumb.”
    “There already are hints and rumors,” I said. “The timing is suggestive. Like you said, people aren’t dumb.”
    “The timing could be entirely coincidental.”
    “Could be,” I said. “Let’s hope it is.”
    Frazer said, “I need to know immediately if there’s anything Captain Riley could have, or should have, or might have, or ought to have known. Anything at all, OK? No delay.”
    “Is that an order?”
    “It’s a request from a senior officer. Is there a difference?”
    “Are you in my chain of command?”
    “Consider that I am.”
    “OK,” I said.
    “Anything at all,” he said again. “To me, immediately and personally. My ears only. Night or day.”
    “OK,” I said again.
    “There’s a lot riding on this. Do you understand? The stakes are very high.”
    “OK,” I said, for the third time.
    Then Frazer said, “But I don’t want you to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.”
    I went to bed early , my hair matted, my unshaven face scratchy on the pillow, and the clock in my head woke me at five, two hours before dawn, on Friday, March 7th, 1997. The first day of the rest of my life.

Chapter
6
    I showered and dressed in the dark, socks, boxers, pants , my old T, my new shirt. I laced my shoes and put my toothbrush in my pocket with a pack of gum and a roll of bills. I left everything else behind. No ID, no wallet, no watch, no nothing. Method acting. I figured that