“But what’s the kicker?” Harper asked.
Leighton paused.
“The friendly fire,” he said. “The guy lost both his legs.”
Silence.
“He’s in a wheelchair.”
“Shit,” she said.
“Yeah, shit. No way he’s running up and down any stairs to any bathrooms. Last time he did that was ten years ago.”
She stared at the wall.
“OK,” she said slowly. “Bad idea.”
“I’m afraid so, ma’am. And they’re right about Cooke. I checked her too, and she never held anything heavier than a pen, her whole short career. That was something else I was going to have to tell you.”
“OK,” she said again.
She examined the wall.
“But thanks anyway,” she said. “And now we’re out of here. Back to Quantico, face the music.”
“Wait,” Leighton said. “You need to hear about the paint.”
“More bad news?”
“Weird news,” Leighton said. “I started a search for reports about missing camo green, like you asked me to. Only definitive thing was hidden in a buried file, closed-access. A theft of a hundred and ten three-gallon cans.”
“That’s it,” Harper said. “Three hundred thirty gallons. Eleven women, thirty gallons each.”
“Evidence was clear,” Leighton said. “They fingered a supply sergeant in Utah.”
“Who was he?”
“She,” Leighton said. “She was Sergeant Lorraine Stanley.”
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Total silence.
“But that’s impossible,” Harper said. “She was one of the victims.”
Leighton shook his head. “I called Utah. Got hold of the investigating officer. I got him out of bed. He says it was Stanley, no doubt about it. Means and opportunity. She’d tried to cover her tracks, but she wasn’t smart enough about it. It was clear-cut. They didn’t proceed against her because it was politically impossible right then. She’d just come off of the harassment thing, not long before. No way were they going to start in on her at that point. So they just watched her, until she quit. But it was her.”
“One victim stole the paint?” Reacher said. “And another provided the list of names?”
Leighton nodded, somber. “That’s how it was, I promise you. And you know I wouldn’t bullshit one of Garber’s boys.”
Reacher just nodded.
s/
/it^le was no more conversation. No more talk. The room went silent. Leighton sat at the table. Harper dressed mechanically. Reacher put his coat on and found the Nissan keys in Harper’s jacket. Went outside and stood in the rain for a long moment. Then he unlocked the car and slid inside. Started the motor and waited. Harper and Leighton came out together. She crossed to the car and he walked back to his. He waved, just a brief motion of his hand. Reacher put the Nissan in drive and pulled slowly out of the lot.
“Check the map for me,” he said.
“1-295 and then the Turnpike,” she said.
He nodded. “I know it after that. Lamarr showed me.”
“Why the hell would Lorraine Stanley steal the paint?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“And you want to tell me whyT she asked. “You knew this Army thing was nothing, but you made us spend thirty-six hours on it. Why?”
“I already told you,” he said. “It was an experiment, and I needed time to think.”
“About what?”
He didn’t answer. She went quiet for a spell.
“Good job we didn’t go all the way celebrating,” she said.
He didn’t reply to that either. Didn’t speak again, the whole way. He just
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found the right roads and drove on through the rain. He had new questions in his head, and he tried to think of some answers, but nothing would come. The only thing in his mind was the feel of her tongue in his mouth. It felt different from Jodie’s. Tasted different. He guessed everybody’s was different.
Hf/
Tie drove fast and it took a fraction under three hours from the outskirts of Trenton all the way back to Quantico. He turned in at the unmarked road off 95 and drove through the Marine checkpoints in the dark and waited at the vehicle barrier. The FBI sentry shone a flashlight on their badges and their faces and raised the striped pole and waved them through. They eased over the speed bumps and wound slowly through the empty parking lots and pulled up opposite the glass doors. It had stopped raining back in Maryland. Virginia was dry.