were away.”
Fowler nodded Stevie back to the table. The courtroom was silent.
Borken smiled knowingly at the jurymen and glanced down at Loder.
“Anything to say in your defence?” he asked quietly.
TWENTY-SIX
‘ ” ” ” ” IS NAME IS JACK REACHER,” WEBSTER SAID.
I I “Good call, General,” McGrath said. “I guess they rem em-.1.
Abered him.”
Johnson nodded.
“Military police keeps good records,” he said.
They were still in the commandeered crew room inside Peterson Air Force
Base. Ten o’clock in the morning, Thursday July third. The fax
machine was rolling out a long reply to their inquiry. The face in the
photograph had been identified immediately. The subject’s service
record had been pulled straight off the Pentagon computer and faxed
along with the name.
“You recall this guy now?” Brogan asked.
“Readier?” Johnson repeated vaguely. “I don’t know. What did he
do?”
Webster and the general’s aide were crowding the machine, reading the
report as the paper spooled out. They twisted it right side up and
walked slowly away to keep it up off the floor.
“What did he do?” McGrath asked them urgently.
“Nothing,” Webster said.
“Nothing?” McGrath repeated. “Why would they have a record on him if
he didn’t do anything?”
“He was one of them,” Webster said. “Major Jack Reacher, military police.”
The aide was racing through the length of paper.
“Silver Star,” he said. Two Bronzes, Purple Heart. This is a hell of
a record, sir. This guy was a hero, for God’s sake.”
McGrath opened up his envelope and pulled out the original video
pictures of the kidnap, black-and-white, un enlarged grainy. He
selected the first picture of Reacher’s involvement. The one catching
him in the act of seizing Holly’s crutch and pulling the dry-cleaning
from her grasp. He slid the photograph across the table.
“Big hero,” he said.
Johnson bent to study the picture. McGrath slid over the next. The
one showing Reacher gripping Holly’s arm, keeping her inside the tight
crush of attackers. Johnson picked it up and stared at it. McGrath
wasn’t sure whether he was staring at Reacher or at his daughter.
“He’s thirty-seven,” the general’s aide read aloud. “Mustered out
fourteen months ago. West Point, thirteen years’ service, big heroics
in Beirut right at the start. Sir, you pinned a Bronze on him, ten
years ago. This is an absolutely outstanding record throughout. He’s
the only non-Marine in history to win the Wimbledon.”
Webster looked up.
Tennis?” he said.
The aide smiled briefly.
“Not Wimbledon,” he said. The Wimbledon. Marine Sniper School runs a
competition, the Wimbledon Cup. For snipers. Open to anybody, but a
Marine always wins it, except one year Reacher won it.”
“So why didn’t he serve as a sniper?” McGrath asked.
The aide shrugged.
“Beats me,” he said. “Lots of puzzles in this record. Like why did he
leave the service at all? Guy like this should have made it all the
way to the top.”
Johnson had a picture in each hand and he was staring closely at
them.
“So why did he leave?” Brogan asked. “Any trouble?”
The aide shook his head. Scanned the paper.
‘ Nothing in the record,” he said.” No reason given. We were
shedding
9m numbers at the time, but the idea was to cull the no-hopers. A guy
like this shouldn’t have been shaken out.”
Johnson swapped the photographs into the opposite hands, like he was
looking for a fresh perspective.
“Anybody know him real well?” Milosevic asked. “Anybody we can talk
to?”
“We can dig up his old commander, I guess,” the aide said. “Might take
us a day to get hold of him.”
“Do it,” Webster said. “We need information. Anything at all will
help.”
Johnson put the photographs down and slid them back to McGrath.
“He must have turned bad,” he said. “Sometimes happens. Good men can
turn bad. I’ve seen it myself, time to time. It can be a hell of a
problem.”
McGrath reversed the photographs on the shiny table and stared at
them.
“You’re not kidding,” he said.
Johnson looked back at him.
“Can I keep that picture?” he said. The first one?”
McGrath shook his head.
“No,” he said. “You want a picture, I’ll take one myself. You and