Silver Star off its pin. Held it in my palm. The Silver Star is a
beautiful medal. It has a tiny silver star in the centre of a much
larger gold one. It has a bright silk ribbon in red white and
blue, all shot through with a watermark. Mine was engraved on
the back: J. Reacher. I thought: J for Josephine. I tossed it down
in the hole. It hit the coffin and bounced once and landed right
side up, a little gleam of light in the greyness.
I called long distance from the Avenue Rapp and got orders
back to Panama. Joe and I ate a late lunch together and
promised to stay in better touch. Then I headed back to the
airport and flew through London and Miami and picked up
a transport south. As a newly minted captain I was given a
company to command. We were tasked to maintain order in
Panama City during the Just Cause endgame. It was fun. I
had a decent bunch of guys. Being out in the field again was
refreshing. And the coffee was as good as ever. They ship it
wherever we go, in cans as big as oil drums.
I never went back to Fort Bird. Never saw that sergeant
again, the one with the baby son. I thought of her sometimes,
when force reduction began to bite. I never saw Summer again,
either. I heard she talked up Kramer’s agenda so much that
JAG Corps wanted the death penalty for treason, and then she
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finessed confessions out of Vassell and Coomer and Marshall
on all the other stuff in exchange for life in prison. I heard she
got promoted captain the day after they went to Leavenworth.
So she and I ended up on the same pay grade. We met in the
middle. But our paths never crossed again.
I never went back to Paris, either. I meant to. I thought I
might go climb down under the Pont des Invalides, late at night,
and just sniff the air. But it never happened. I was in the army,
and I was always where someone else told me to be.
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