The Enemy

It was like being in a parallel universe, watching Summer driving slow. We drifted down the highway with the world going half-speed outside our windows. The big Chevy engine was loafing along a little above idle. The tires were quiet. We passed all our familiar landmarks. The State Police facility, the spot where Kramer’s briefcase had been found, the rest area, the spur to the small highway. We crawled off at the cloverleaf and I scanned the gas station and the greasy spoon and the lounge parking and the motel. The whole place was full of yellow light and fog and black shadow but I could see well enough. There was no sign of a setup. Summer turned into the lot and drove a long slow circuit. There were three eighteen-wheelers parked like beached whales and a couple of old sedans that were probably abandoned. They had the look. They had dull paint and soft tires and they were low on their springs. There was an old Ford pickup truck with a baby seat strapped to the bench. I guessed that was my sergeant’s. There was nothing else. Six-forty in the morning, and the world was dark and still and quiet.

We put the car out of sight behind the lounge bar and walked across the lot to the diner. Its windows were misted by the cooking steam. There was hot white light inside. It looked like a Hopper painting. My sergeant was alone at a booth in back. We walked in and sat down beside her. She hauled a grocery bag up off the floor. It was full of stuff.

“First things first,” she said.

She put her hand in the bag and came out with a bullet. She stood it upright on the table in front of me. It was a standard nine-millimeter Parabellum. Standard NATO load. Full metal jacket. For a sidearm or a submachine gun. The shiny brass casing had something scratched on it. I picked it up. Looked at it. There was a word engraved there. It was rough and uneven. It had been done fast and by hand. It said: Reacher.

“A bullet with my name on it,” I said.

“From Delta,” my sergeant said. “Hand-delivered, yesterday.”

“Who by?”

“The young one with the beard.”

“Charming,” I said. “Remind me to kick his ass.”

“Don’t joke about it. They’re awful stirred up.”

“They’re looking at the wrong guy.”

“Can you prove that?”

I paused. Knowing and proving were two different things. I dropped the bullet into my pocket and put my hands on the table.

“Maybe I can,” I said.

“You know who killed Carbone too?” Summer said.

“One thing at a time,” I said.

“Here’s your money,” my sergeant said. “It’s all I could get.”

She went into her bag again and put forty-seven dollars on the table.

“Thanks,” I said. “Call it I owe you fifty. Three bucks interest.”

“Fifty-two,” she said. “Don’t forget the babysitter.”

“What else have you got?”

She came out with a concertina of printer paper. It was the kind with faint blue rulings and holes in the sides. There were lines and lines of numbers on it.

“The phone records,” she said.

Then she gave me a sheet of army memo paper with a 202 number on it.

“The Jefferson Hotel,” she said.

Then she gave me a roll of curled fax paper.

“Major Marshall’s personal file,” she said.

She followed that with an army phone book. It was thick and green and had numbers in it for all our posts and installations worldwide. Then she gave me more curled fax paper. It was Detective Clark’s street canvass results, from New Year’s Eve, up in Green Valley.

“Franz in California told me you wanted it,” she said.

“Great,” I said. “Thanks. Thanks for everything.”

She nodded. “You better believe I’m better than the day guy. And someone better be prepared to say so when they start with the force reduction.”

“I’ll tell them,” I said.

“Don’t,” she said. “Won’t help a bit, coming from you. You’ll either be dead or in prison.”

“You brought all this stuff,” I said. “You haven’t given up on me yet.”

She said nothing.

“Where did Vassell and Coomer park their car?” I asked.

“On the fourth?” she said. “Nobody knows for sure. The first night patrol saw a staff car backed in all by itself at the far end of the lot. But you can’t take that to the bank. Patrol didn’t get a plate number, so it’s not a positive ID. And the second patrol can’t remember it at all. Therefore it’s one guy’s report against another’s.”

“What exactly did the first guy see?”

“He called it a staff car.”

“Was it a black Grand Marquis?”

“It was a black something,” she said. “But all staff cars are black or green. Nothing unique about a black car.”

“But it was out of the way?”

She nodded. “On its own, far end of the lot. But the second guy can’t confirm it.”

“Where was Major Marshall on the second and the third?”

“That was easier,” she said. “Two travel warrants. To Frankfurt on the second, back here on the third.”

“An overnight in Germany?”

She nodded again. “There and back.”