no battlefield shell or rocket or kinetic device can even reach it.
It sits there and watches enemy rounds fall short in the dirt.
Then it traverses its mighty gun and fires and a second later
and a mile and a half in the distance its assailant blows up and
burns. It is the ultimate unfair advantage.
The lead tank rolled past us. Eleven feet wide, twenty-six
feet long, nine and a half feet tall. Seventy tons. Its engine
bellowed and its weight shook the ground. Its tracks squealed
and clattered and slid on the concrete. Then the second tank
rolled by. And the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. The noise
was deafening. The huge bulk of exotic metal buffeted the air.
The gun barrels dipped and swayed and bounced. Exhaust
fumes swirled all around.
There were altogether twenty tanks in the formation. They
drove in through the gate and their noise and vibration faded
behind us and then there was a short gap and a scout car came
out of the mist straight towards us. It was a shoot-and-scoot
Humvee armed with a TOW-2 anti-tank missile launcher. Two
guys in it. I stepped into its path and raised my hand. Paused. I
didn’t know Marshall and I had only ever seen him once, in the
dark interior of the Grand Marquis outside Fort Bird’s post
headquarters. But even so I was pretty sure that neither of the
284
guys in the Humvee was him. I remembered Marshall as large
and dark and these guys were small, which is much more usual
for Armored people. One thing there isn’t a lot of inside an
Abrams is room.
The Humvee came to a stop right in front of me and I tracked
around to the driver’s window. Summer took up station on the
passenger side, standing easy. The driver rolled his glass down.
Stared out at me.
‘I’m looking for Major Marshall,’ I said.
The driver was a captain and his passenger was a captain,
too. They were both dressed in Nomex tank suits, with
balaclavas and Kevlar helmets with built-in headphones. The
passenger had sleeve pockets full of pens. He had clipboards
strapped to both thighs. They were all covered with notes.
Some kind of score sheets.
‘Marshall’s not here,’ the driver said.
‘So where is he?’
‘Who’s asking?’
‘You can read,’ I said. I was wearing last night’s BDUs. They
had oak leaves on the collar and Reacher on the stencil.
‘Unit?’ the guy said.
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Marshall went to California,’ he said. ‘Emergency deploy
ment to Fort Irwin.’
‘When?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Try to be.’
‘Last night sometime.’
‘That’s not very specific.’
‘I’m honestly not sure.’
‘What kind of an emergency have they got at Irwin?’
‘I’m not sure about that, either.’
I nodded. Stepped back.
‘Drive on,’I said.
Their Humvee moved out from the space between us and
Summer joined me in the middle of the road. The air smelled of
diesel and gas turbine exhaust and the concrete was scored
fresh white by the passage of the tank tracks.
‘Wasted trip,’ Summer said.
285
‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘Depends exactly when Marshall left. If it
was after Swan’s phone call, that tells us something.’
We were shunted between three different offices, trying to find
out exactly what time Marshall left XI! Corps. We ended up in a
second-storey suite that housed General Vassell’s operation.
Vassell himself wasn’t there. We spoke to yet another captain.
He seemed to be in charge of an administrative company.
‘Major Marshall took a civilian flight at 2300,’ he said.
‘Frankfurt to Dulles. Seven-hour layover and on to LAX from
National. I issued the vouchers myself.’
‘When?’
‘As he was leaving.’
‘Which was when?’
‘He left here three hours before his flight.’
‘Eight o’clock?’
The captain nodded. ‘On the dot.’
‘I was told he was scheduled for night manoeuvres.’
‘He was. That plan changed.’
“Why?’
‘I’m not sure.’
I’m not sure seemed to be XII Corps’ standard-issue answer
for everything.
‘What’s the panic at Irwin?’ I said.
‘I’m not sure.’
I smiled, briefly. ‘When were Marshall’s orders issued?’
‘At seven o’clock.’
‘Written?’
‘Verbal.’
‘By?’
‘General Vassell.’
‘Did Vassell countersign the travel vouchers himself?’