The Chevy eased to a stop opposite the steps up into
the building. The driver moved the selector into park and stared silently ahead through the windshield. Reacher opened the door and stepped out into the heat with Jodie.
‘Thanks for the ride, soldier,’ he said.
The boy just sat in park with the motor running and stared straight ahead. Reacher walked with Jodie to the steps and in through the door. There was an MP private stationed in the cool of the lobby, white helmet, white gaiters, a gleaming M-16 held easy across his chest. His gaze was fixed on Jodie’s bare legs as they danced in towards him.
‘Reacher and Garber to see General DeWitt,’ Reacher said.
The guy snapped the rifle upright, which was symbolic of removing a barrier. Reacher nodded and walked ahead to the staircase. The place was like every other place, built to a specification poised uneasily somewhere between lavish and functional, like a private school occupying an old mansion. It was immaculately clean, and the materials were the finest available, but the decor was institutional and brutal. At the top of the stairs was a desk in the corridor. Behind it was a portly MP sergeant, swamped with paperwork. Behind him was an oak door with an acetate plate bearing DeWitt’s name, his rank and his decorations. It was a large plate.
‘Reacher and Garber to see the general,’ Reacher said.
The sergeant nodded and picked up his telephone. He pressed a button.
‘Your visitors, sir,’ he said into the phone.
He listened to the reply and stood up and opened the door. Stepped aside to allow them to walk past.
Closed the door behind them. The office was the size of a tennis court. It was panelled in oak and had a huge dark rug on the floor, threadbare with vacuuming. The desk was large and oak, and DeWitt was in the chair behind it. He was somewhere between fifty and fifty-five, dried out and stringy, with thinning grey hair shaved down close to his scalp. He had half-closed grey eyes and he was using them to watch their approach with an expression Reacher read as halfway between curiosity and irritation.
‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Please.’
There were leather visitor chairs drawn up near the desk. The office walls were crowded with mementoes, but they were all battalion and division mementoes, war-game trophies, battle honours, old platoon photographs in faded monochrome. There were pictures and cutaway diagrams of a dozen different helicopters. But there was nothing personal to DeWitt on display. Not even family snaps on the desk.
‘How can I help you folks?’ he asked.
His accent was the bland Army accent that comes from serving all over the world with people from all over the country. He was maybe a midwesterner, originally. Maybe from somewhere near Chicago, Reacher thought.
‘I was an MP major,’ he said, and waited.
‘I know you were. We checked.’
A neutral reply. Nothing there at all. No hostility. But no approval, either.
‘My father was General Garber,’ Jodie said.
DeWitt nodded without speaking.
‘We’re here in a private capacity,’ Reacher said.
There was a short silence.
‘A civilian capacity, in fact,’ DeWitt said slowly.
Reacher nodded. Strike one.
‘It’s about a pilot called Victor Hobie. You served with him in Vietnam.’
DeWitt looked deliberately blank. He raised his eyebrows.
‘Did I?’ he said. ‘I don’t remember him.’
Strike two. Unco-operative.
‘We’re trying to find out what happened to him.’
Another short silence. Then DeWitt nodded, slowly, amused.
‘Why? Was he your long-lost uncle? Or maybe he was secretly your father? Maybe he had a brief sad affair with your mother when he was her pool boy. Or did you buy his old childhood home and find his long-lost teenage diaries hidden behind the wainscoting with a 1968 issue of Playboy magazine?’
Strike three. Aggressively unco-operative. The office went silent again. There was the thumping of rotor blades somewhere in the far distance. Jodie hitched forward on her chair. Her voice was soft and low in the quiet room.
‘We’re here for his parents, sir. They lost their boy thirty years ago, and they’ve never known what happened to him. They’re still grieving, General.’