‘Every chance he got.’
‘Does his wife play golf?’
The adjutant nodded. ‘They play together.’
Then he paused.
‘Played,’ he said, and then he went quiet and looked away
fr¢)m me. I pictured Brubaker in my mind. I had never met him,
but I knew guys just like him. One day they’re talking about
how to angle a claymore mine so the little ball bearings explode
outward at exactly the right angle to rip the enemy’s spines
out of their backs with maximum efficiency. Next day they’re
wearing pastel shirts with small crocodiles on the breast,
playing golf with their wives, maybe holding hands and smiling
as they ride together along the fairways in their little electric
carts. I knew plenty of guys like that. My own father had been
one. Not that he had ever played golf. He watched birds. He
had been in most countries in the world, and he had seen a lot
of birds.
I stood up.
‘Call me if you need me,’ I said. ‘You know, if there’s anything
I can do.’
The adjutant nodded.
‘Thanks for the visit,’ he said. ‘Better than a phone call.’
I went back to my office. Summer wasn’t there. I wasted more
than an hour with her personnel lists. I made a short-cut
decision and took the pathologist out of the mix. I took Summer
out. I took Andrea Norton out. Then I took all the women out.
The medical evidence was pretty clear about the attacker’s
height and strength. I took the O Club dining-room staff out.
199
Their NCO had said they were all hard at work, fussing over
their guests. I took the cooks out, and the bar staff, and the MP
gate guards. I took out anyone listed as hospitalized and non
ambulatory. I took myself out. I took Carbone out, because it
wasn’t suicide.
Then I counted the remaining check marks, and wrote the
number 973 on a slip of paper. That was our suspect pool. I
stared into space. My phone rang. I picked it up. It was Sanchez
again, down at Fort Jackson.
‘Columbia PD just called me,’ he said. ‘They’re sharing their
initial findings.’
‘And?’
‘Their medical examiner doesn’t entirely agree with me. Time
of death wasn’t three or four in the morning. It was one twenty
three a.m., the night before last.’
‘That’s very precise.’
‘Bullet caught his wristwatch.’
‘A broken watch? Can’t necessarily rely on that.’
‘No, it’s firm enough. They did a lot of other tests. Wrong
season for measurable insect activity, which would have helped,
but the stomach contents were exactly right for five or six hours
after he ate a heavy dinner.’
‘What does his wife say?’
‘He disappeared at eight that night, after a heavy dinner. Got
up from the table and never came back.’
‘What did she do about it?’
‘Nothing,’ Sanchez said. ‘He was Special Forces. Their whole
marriage, he’ll have been disappearing with no warning, the
middle of dinner, the middle of the night, days or weeks at a
time, never able to say where or why afterwards. She was used
to it.’
‘Did he get a phone call or something?’
‘She assumes he did, at some point. She’s not really sure. She
was in the spa before dinner. They’d just played twenty-seven
holes.’
‘Can you call her yourself? She’ll talk to you faster than
civilian cops.’
‘I could try, I suppose.’
‘Anything else?’ I said.
200
‘The GSWs were nine millimetre,’ he said. ‘Two rounds fired,
both of them through and through, neat entry wounds, bad exit
wounds.’
‘Full metal jackets,’ I said.
‘Contact shots,’ he said. ‘There were powder burns. And
soot.’
I paused. I couldn’t picture it. Two rounds fired? Contact
shots? So one of the bullets goes in, comes out, loops all the way
around, comes back and drops down and smashes his wristwatch?
‘Did he have his hands on his head?’
‘He was shot from behind, Reacher. A double tap, to the back
of the skull. Bang bang, thank you and goodnight. The second
round must have gone through his head and caught his watch.
Downward trajectory. Tall shooter.’
I said nothing.
‘Right,’ Sanchez said. ‘How likely is all that? Did you know