was a colonel. He was in BDUs. His tapes said: Willard, U.S. Army. He had iron-grey hair parted in a schoolboy style. It
needed a trim. He had steel-rimmed eyeglasses and the kind of
grey pouchy face that must have looked old when he was
twenty. He was short and relatively squat and the way his
shoulders failed to fill his BDUs told me he spent no time at all
in the gym. He had a problem sitting still. He was rocking to
his left and plucking at his pants where they went tight over his
right knee. Before I had been in the room ten seconds he had
adjusted his position three times. Maybe he had haemorrhoids.
Maybe he was nervous. He had soft hands. Ragged nails. No
wedding band. Divorced, for sure. He looked the type. No wife
would let him walk about with hair like that. And no wife could
have stood all that rocking and twitching. Not for very long.
I should have come smartly to attention and saluted and
announced: Sir, Major Reacher reports. That would have been
the standard army etiquette. But I was damned if I was going to
100
do that. I just took a long lazy look around and came to rest
standing easy in front of the desk.
‘I need explanations,’ the guy called Willard said.
He moved in his chair again.
‘Who are you?’ I said.
‘You can see who I am.’
‘I can see you’re a colonel in the U.S. Army named Willard.
But I can’t explain anything to you before I know whether or
not you’re in my chain of command.’
‘I am your chain of command, son. What does it say on my
door?’
‘Commanding officer,’ I said.
‘And where are we?’
‘Rock Creek, Virginia,’ I said.
‘OK, asked and answered,’ he said.
‘You’re new,’ I said. ‘We haven’t met.’
‘I assumed this command forty-eight hours ago. And now
we’ve met. And now I need explanations.’
‘Of what?’
‘You were UA, for a start,’ he said.
‘Unauthorized absence?’ I said. ‘When?’
‘The last seventy-two hours.’
‘Incorrect,’ I said.
‘How so?’
‘My absence was authorized by Colonel Garber.’
‘It was not.’
‘I called this office,’ I said.
‘When?’
‘Before I left.’
‘Did you receive his authorization?’
I paused. ‘I left a message. Are you saying he denied authorization?’
‘He wasn’t here. He got orders for Korea some hours earlier.’
‘Korea?’
‘He got the MP command there.’
‘That’s a brigadier general’s job.’
‘He’s acting. The promotion will no doubt be confirmed in the
fall.’
I said nothing.
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‘Garber’s gone,’ Willard said. ‘I’m here. The military merry
go-round continues. Get used to it.’
The room went quiet. Willard smiled at me. Not a pleasant
smile. It was close to a sneer. The rug was out from under my
feet, and he was watching me hit the ground.
‘It was good of you to leave your travel plans,’ he said. ‘It
made today easier.’
‘You think the arrest was appropriate for UA?’ I said.
‘You don’t?’
‘It was a simple miscommunication.’
‘You left your assigned post without authorization, major.
Those are the facts. Just because you had a vague expectation
that authorization might be granted doesn’t alter them. This is
the army. We don’t act in advance of orders or permissions.
We wait until they are properly received and confirmed. The
alternative would be anarchy and chaos.’
I said nothing.
‘Where did you go?’
I pictured my mother, leaning on her aluminum walker. I
pictured my brother’s face, as he watched me pack.
‘I took a short vacation,’ I said. ‘I went to the beach.’
‘The arrest wasn’t for the UA,’ Willard said. ‘It was because
you wore Class As on the evening of New Year’s Day.’
‘That’s an offence now?’
‘You wore your nameplate.’
I said nothing.
‘You put two civilians in the hospital. While wearing your
nameplate.’
I stared at him. Thought hard. I didn’t believe the fat guy and
the farmer had dropped a dime on me. Not possible. They were
stupid, but they weren’t that stupid. They knew I knew where I
could find them.
‘Who says so?’ I asked.
‘You had a big audience in that parking lot.’