Child, Lee – The Enemy

listen.’

‘Big step,’ she said.

‘One that you already took,’ I said.

‘Why did you cut me out?’

‘Because if I blow it I don’t want to take anyone down with

me.’

‘You were protecting me.’

I nodded.

‘Well don’t,’ she said. ‘I can think for myself.’

I said nothing.

‘How old are you?’ she asked.

‘Twenty-nine,’ I said.

‘So next year you’ll be thirty. You’ll be a thirty-year-old

white man with a dishonourable discharge from the only

job you’ve ever had. And whereas I’m young enough to start

over, you’re not. You’re institutionalized, you’ve got no social

skills, you’ve never been in the civilian world, and you’re good

for nothing. So maybe it should be you lying in the weeds, not

,

me.

I said nothing.

‘You should have talked it over,’ she said.

‘It’s a personal choice,’ I said.

‘I already made my personal choice,’ she said. ‘Seems like

you know that now. Seems like Detective Clark accidentally

ratted me out.’

‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ I said. ‘One stray phone call and

you could be out on the street. This is a high-stakes game.’

‘And I’m right here in it with you, Reacher. So bring me up to

speed.’

Five minutes later she knew what I knew. All questions, no

answers.

‘Garber’s signature was a forgery,’ she said.

I nodded.

‘So what about Carbone’s, on the complaint? Is that forged

too?’

‘Maybe,’ I said. I took the copy that Willard had given me out

of my desk drawer. Smoothed it out on the blotter and passed it

160

across to her. She folded it neatly and put it in her inside

pocket.

‘I’ll get the writing checked,’ she said. ‘Easier for me than

yOU, now.’

‘Nothing’s easy for either of us now,’ I said. ‘You need to be

very clear about that. So you need to be very clear about what

you’re doing.’

‘I’m clear,’ she said. ‘Bring it on.’

I sat quiet for a minute. Just looked at her. She had a small

smile on her face. She was plenty tough. But then, she had

grown up poor in an Alabama shack with churches burning

and exploding all around her. I guessed watching her back

against Willard and a bunch of Delta vigilantes might represent

progress, of a sort, in her life.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For being on my side.’

‘I’m not on your side,’ she said. ‘You’re on mine.’

My phone rang. I picked it up. It was the Louisiana corporal,

calling from his desk outside my door.

‘North Carolina State Police on the line,’ he said. ‘They want

a duty officer. You want to take it?’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘But I guess I better.’

There was a click and some dead air and another click. Then

a dispatcher came on the line and told me a trooper in an 1-95

patrol car had found an abandoned green canvas briefcase on

the highway shoulder. He told me it had a wallet inside that

identified the owner as a General Kenneth R. Kramer, U.S.

Army. He told me he was calling Fort Bird because he figured it

was the closest military installation to where the briefcase had

been found. And he was calling to tell me where the briefcase

was currently being held, in case I was interested in having

someone sent out to pick it up.

161

TWELVE

S

UMMER I)ROVE. WE TOOK THE HUMVEE I HAD LEFT ON THE KERB.

We didn’t want to take time to sign out a sedan. It

cramped her style a little. Humvees are big slow trucks

that are good for a lot of things, but covering paved roads fast

isn’t one of them. She looked tiny behind the wheel. The vehicle

was full of noise. The engine was thrashing and the tyres were

whining loud. It was four o’clock on a dull day and it was

starting to go dark.

We drove north to Kramer’s motel and turned east through

the cloverleaf and then north on 1-95 itself. We covered fifteen

miles and passed a rest area and started looking for the right

State Police building. We found it twelve miles farther on. It was

a long low one-storey brick structure with a forest of tall radio

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