“The U.S. military,” Reacher said. “We were kings of the world, back then.”
There was dimmed light in the guardhouse window next to the vehicle barrier. A sentry was visible, silhouetted against the light, bulky in a rain cape and helmet. He peered through the window and stepped to the door. Opened it up and came out to the car. Reacher buzzed his window down.
“You the guy who called the captain?” the sentry asked.
He was a heavy black guy. Low voice, slow accent from the Deep South. Far from home on a rainy night. Reacher nodded. The sentry grinned.
“He figured you might show up in person,” he said. “Go ahead in.”
He stepped back into the guardhouse and the barrier came up. Reacher drove carefully over the tire spikes and turned left.
“That was easy,” Harper said.
“You ever met a retired FBI agent?” Reacher asked.
“Sure, once or twice. Couple of the old guys.”
“How did you treat them?”
She nodded. “Like that guy treated you, I guess.”
“All organizations are the same,” he said. “Military police more so than the others, maybe. The rest of the Army hates you, so you stick together more.”
ifu/t/U/M filing 271
n He turned right, then right again, then left.
(tm) “You been here before?” Harper asked.
“These places are all the same,” he said. “Look for the biggest flower bed, that’s where the general office is.”
She pointed. “That looks promising.”
He nodded. “You got the idea.”
The headlight beams played over a rose bed the size of an Olympic pool. The roses were just dormant stalks, sticking up out of a surface lumpy with horse manure and shredded bark. Behind them was a low symmetrical building with whitewashed steps leading up to double doors in the center. A light burned in a window in the middle of the left-hand wing.
“Duty office,” Reacher said. “The sentry called the captain soon as we were through the gate, so right now he’s walking down the corridor to the doors. Watch for the light.”
The fanlights above the doors lit up with a yellow glow. n “Now the outside lights,” Reacher said.
Two carriage lamps mounted on the door pillars lit up. Reacher stopped the car at the bottom of the steps. , • “Now the doors open,” he said.
The doors opened inward and a man in uniform stepped through the gap.
“That was me, about a million years ago,” Reacher said.
The captain waited at the top of the steps, far enough out to be in the light from the carriage lamps, far enough in to be sheltered from the drizzle. He was a head shorter than Reacher had ever been, but he was broad and he looked fit. Dark hair neatly combed, plain steel eyeglasses. His uniform jacket was buttoned, but his face looked open enough. Reacher slid out of the Nissan and walked around the hood. Harper joined him at the foot of the whitewashed steps.
“Come in out of the rain,” the captain called.
His accent was East Coast urban. Bright and alert. He had an amiable smile. Looked like a decent guy. Reacher went up the steps first. Harper saw his shoes leaving wet stains on the whitewash. Glanced down and saw her own were doing the same thing.
“Sorry,” she said.
The captain smiled again.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The prisoners paint them every morning.”
“This is Lisa Harper,” Reacher said. “She’s with the FBI.”
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“Pleased to meet you,” the captain said. “I’m John Leighton.”
The three of them shook hands all around at the doors and Leighton led them inside. He turned off the carriage lamps with a switch inside the doors and then killed the hallway light.
“Budgets,” he said. “Can’t waste money.”
Light from his office was spilling out into the corridor, and he led them toward it. Stood at his door and ushered them inside. The office was original fifties, updated only where strictly necessary. Old desk, new computer, old file cabinet, new phone. There were crammed bookcases and every surface was overloaded with paper.
“They’re keeping you busy,” Reacher said.
Leighton nodded. “Tell me about it.”
“So we’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”