I put the phone down again. At that point I had been in more
than six years, and army coffee was one of the things that made
me happy to stay in. It was the best in the world, no question.
So were the sergeants. This one was a mountain woman from
north Georgia. I had known her two days. She lived off post in a
trailer park somewhere in the North Carolina badlands. She
had a baby son. She had told me all about him. I had heard
11
because she brought me coffee. They don’t like you, they don’t
bring you coffee. They knife you in the back instead. My door
opened and she came in, carrying two mugs, one for her and
one for me.
‘Happy New Year,’ I said again.
She put the coffee down on my desk, both mugs.
‘Will it be?’ she said.
‘Don’t see why not,’ I said.
‘The Berlin Wall is halfway down. They showed it on the
television. They were having a big party out there.’
‘I’m glad someone was, somewhere.’
‘Lots of people. Big crowds. All singing and dancing.’
‘I didn’t see the news.’
‘This all was six hours ago. The time difference.’
‘They’re probably still at it.’
‘They had sledgehammers.’
‘They’re allowed. Their half is a free city. We spent forty-five
years keeping it that way.’
‘Pretty soon we won’t have an enemy any more.’
I tried the coffee. Hot, black, the best in the world.
%Ve won,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?’
‘Not if you depend on Uncle Sam’s paycheck.’
She was dressed like me in standard woodland camouflage
battledress uniform. Her sleeves were neatly rolled. Her MP
brassard was exactly horizontal. I figured she had it safety
pinned in back where nobody could see. Her boots were
gleaming.
‘You got any desert camos?’ I asked her.
‘Never been to the desert,’ she said.
‘They changed the pattern. They put big brown splotches on
it. Five years’ research. Infantry guys are calling it chocolate
chip. It’s not a good pattern. They’ll have to change it back. But
it’ll take them another five years to figure that out.’
‘So?’
‘If it takes them five years to revise a camo pattern, your kid
will be through college before they figure out force reduction.
So don’t worry about it.’
12
‘I never met him.’
She said nothing.
‘The army hates change,’ I said. ‘And we’ll always have
enemies.’
She said nothing. My phone rang again. She leaned forward
and answered it for me. Listened for about eleven seconds and
handed me the receiver.
‘Colonel Garber, sir,’ she said. ‘He’s in D.C.’
She took her mug and left the room. Colonel Garber was
ultimately my boss, and although he was a pleasant human
being it was unlikely he was calling eight minutes into New
Year’s Day simply to be social. That wasn’t his style. Some
brass does that stuff. They come over all cheery on the big
holidays, like they’re really just one of the boys. But Leon
Garber wouldn’t have dreamed of trying that, with anyone, and
least of all with me. Even if he had known I was going to be
there.
‘Reacher here,’ I said.
There was a long pause.
‘I thought you were in Panama,’ he said.
‘I got orders,’ I said.
‘From Panama to Fort Bird? Why?’
‘Not my place to ask.’
‘When was this?’
‘Two days ago.’
‘That’s a kick in the teeth,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’
‘Panama was probably more exciting.’
‘It was OK,’I said.
‘And they got you working duty officer on New Year’s Eve
already?’
‘I volunteered,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to make people like me.’
‘That’s a hopeless task,’ he said.
‘A sergeant just brought me coffee.’
He paused. ‘Someone just call you about a dead soldier in a
motel?’
‘Eight minutes ago,’ I said. ‘I shuffled it off to headquarters.’
13
‘And they shuffled it off to someone else and I just got pulled
out of a party to hear all about it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the dead soldier in question is a two-star general.’
The phone went quiet.
‘I didn’t think to ask,’ I said.