Night School

  “That’s cheap.”

  “You think?”

  “You should try where I go in D.C.”

  He said, “I think yours is more complicated.”

  She said nothing.

  Just looked at him.

  He said, “May I?”

  She didn’t answer. He raised his hand and brushed her forehead with his fingertips, and slid his fingers into her hair, and ran them through, the texture alternately thick and soft as the waves came and went. He swept it all back and left part of it hooked behind her ear, and part of it hanging free.

  It looked good.

  He took his hand away.

  He said, “That’s how you comb it, right?”

  She said, “Now do the other side.”

  He used his other hand, the same way, barely touching her forehead, burying his fingers deep, pushing them through. This time he left his hand where it ended up, which was cupped on the back of her neck. Which was slender. And warm. She put her own hand flat on his chest. At first he thought it was a warning. Or a prohibition. A stop sign. Then it became an exploration. She moved it around, side to side, up and down, and then she slid it in behind his own neck, where the cut hair had itched. She pulled down and he pulled up and they kissed, at first tentatively, and then harder. Her tongue was cool and slow. Her eyes were open. He found the zipper tab on the back of her dress. A tiny metal teardrop. He eased it down, between her shoulder blades, past the small of her back, below her waist.

  Her lips moved against his and she said, “Is this a good idea?”

  “Feels pretty good to me,” he said. “So far.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “My rule of thumb is those kind of questions are best answered afterward. Experience beats conjecture every time.”

  She smiled and shrugged forward and the dress slid off her shoulders and puddled at her feet. She was wearing a black lace bra and black pantyhose. And her shoes. She took the hem of his new T-shirt in her hands and pulled it up over his head, on tiptoe. It fell behind him. She unclipped his belt. He kicked off his shoes. She did the same. She peeled off her pantyhose. Under it was black lace underwear. Filmy and insubstantial. She pulled his pants down and he stepped out of them. They kissed again, and staggered to the bed like a four-legged creature. She pushed him down, on Orozco’s envelope. She climbed on top. He reached behind her and unhooked her bra. She rolled away and lay on her back and peeled her panties off. He did the same, arching one way, curling the other. She climbed back on and rode him like a cowgirl, hips forward, shoulders back, face up, eyes closed. He kept his eyes open. She was a sight to see. She had pale skin, with moles and freckles here and there, and small breasts, and a flat hard waist, and muscles in her bunched and moving thighs. She was still wearing the pearls. They swung and bounced. The hollow of her throat was filmed with sweat. Her arms were behind her, held out and away from her body, her wrists bent, her hands flat and open, her palms close to the bed, hovering, skimming a cushion of air, as if she was balancing. Which she was. She was balancing on a single point, driving all her weight down through it, rocking back and forth, easing side to side, as if chasing the perfect sensation, and finding it, and losing it, and finding it again, and holding on to it, all the way to the breathless end. Which was where he was headed, too. That was for damn sure. No stopping now. He pushed back hard, lifting his hips, floating her up, her feet off the bed, her knees clamping, thrust and counterthrust all in one place.

  Afterward he stayed on his back and she snuggled alongside him. He traced patterns on her hip with his fingertip. She said, “So now answer the questions.”

  He said, “Yes, I think it was a good idea, and yes, I’m sure.”

  “No command and control issues?”

  “I thought my control was pretty good.”

  “I mean, I shouldn’t have. You’re my subordinate, technically.”

  “Your underling, in fact.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And thankful for it.”

  He traced a pattern on her hip.

  With his fingertip.

  She said, “Tell me about Sergeant Neagley.”

  He said, “What about her?”

  “Why isn’t she an officer? She has more than enough ability.”

  “She doesn’t want to be an officer.”

  “And she’s crazy about you, but she won’t sleep with you.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  “Is she OK?”

  “She has haptephobia.”

  “Which is what?”

  “A fear of being touched. The army made her see a doctor.”

  “What happened to her? Was she assaulted?”

  “She says not. She says she was born like that.”

  “Shame,” Sinclair said, and snuggled closer.

  “You bet,” Reacher said.

  He traced a pattern on her hip.

  With his fingertip.

  Then he said, “Wait a damn minute.”

  He scrabbled under her for Orozco’s envelope. This time he pulled the copied file all the way out. Taped to the front was a smaller envelope. Griezman’s envelope. With the fingerprint in it. From the lever in the dead hooker’s car.

  Sinclair said, “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

  Reacher looked at the envelope and scanned through the file. No notes, no handwriting. Nothing from Orozco. Just the tape. Firmly affixed. A message.

  Definitive, but deniable.

  “Sometimes we have to believe in coincidence,” Reacher said. “Especially a small one. The populations are not large. Guys willing to betray their country for money, guys willing to use a prostitute, guys willing to kill a prostitute. Like a Venn diagram. Not many people where the circles meet. I guess he was celebrating. The deal was halfway done. He had financial prospects. But something got out of hand. Which has a huge silver lining. In a way. For us, right now. Tonight, and tomorrow. It’s a regular homicide now. Griezman can come out in the open. He can use federal resources. He can give that drawing to every cop in town.”

  Sinclair was quiet for a beat, and then she shook her head and said, “No, we can never admit we ran that print at his request. And it would only confuse the issue. One thing at a time. We want him for the hundred million dollars. That comes first. That’s more important.”

  “The hooker might not agree.”

  “We can’t hang him twice. And we can’t have him arrested by the Germans. Because he’s ours. But justice will be done. This time it’s an order.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Reacher said.

  He put the file back in the envelope, and timed it out in his head. Five streets away, in the woman’s apartment. Wiley had been there while Reacher was eating dinner with Neagley in McLean, Virginia. Of all the diners in all the towns. He laid back down, on his side, and he rolled Sinclair over, on her front, and he put his hand high on the back of her thigh.

  She said, “Already?”

  He said, “I’m younger than you.”

  The phone rang.

  Griezman, checking in. Reacher put him on the speaker. Griezman asked about the fingerprint. Reacher said there was no news yet. Sinclair looked away. Griezman said there was nothing to report from the surveillance operations. So far there had been no sign of Wiley at the bar. So far at the safe house a mail carrier had brought a package, which had then sat unclaimed on a table in the lobby, and was still there. Apart from that no one else had gone in or come out, except for what was probably a daughter from either the Turkish or the Italian diplomatic families, probably going out for the evening. To a dance club, possibly. She was in her early twenties, with jet black hair and olive skin. Very good looking, Griezman said, according to contemporaneous reports from his men. The sight had brightened their day. Because absolutely nothing else was going on. But they were nevertheless still committed. They would hold their positions for the time being. They would have to thin out by evening, when street parking would be harder to find, after every
one in the neighborhood was home from work.

  Sinclair said, “Last time the meeting happened late in the afternoon. Which is right about now.”

  “Wait a damn minute,” Reacher said again. “What about the lamp in the window? Something changed. It is but it isn’t. We blew it. It’s a messenger but not the same messenger. It’s not a man. It’s a woman. We fell for it. We’re missing the rendezvous. It’s happening right now.”

  Chapter 22

  Reacher told Griezman to get all his units moving immediately, in pursuit of the good-looking girl, but Sinclair told him no, sit tight for the moment. To Reacher she said, “You’re only guessing. She could be Turkish or Italian. Would these people even use a woman?”

  “I was in Israel,” Reacher said. “These people use women all the time.”

  “You’re gambling.”

  “And so far I’m winning. Look at me right now, for instance.”

  Sinclair paused a beat.

  Then she said to Griezman, “Keep one car on the safe house. Get all the others moving.”

  —

  The new messenger walked south out of the neighborhood, and then turned west, to loop under the Ausenalster lake, from Saint Georg to Saint Pauli, on her way to her appointment, which was in a club on a street called the Reeperbahn. She had walked the route many times in her imagination, the physical details built up around her by many hours of briefing, the sights and sounds and smells described so many times that reality felt bland and small by comparison. She had been warned that Wiley would choose a rendezvous point he hoped would embarrass a person of the Islamic faith. A male person, to be specific. He wouldn’t expect a woman. He had a mean, competitive streak. He would want two out of three from alcohol, girls, and hatred. On this occasion it would be the first and the second, she figured, from what she had been told about the street called the Reeperbahn. Girls and alcohol. But she would handle it. Great struggles required great sacrifices. And she was from the tribal areas. She was sure she had seen worse.

  —

  Reacher called Griezman back and asked if the pretty girl had been seen near the bar. The answer was no. Wiley neither. No sign. Reacher said, “OK, they’re meeting somewhere else. Get those cars moving, too.”

  This time Sinclair just nodded.

  Griezman said, “But those men didn’t see the girl.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Reacher said. “They have the drawing of Wiley’s face. Where we find one we’ll find the other.”

  —

  The new messenger turned left into the Reeperbahn and was hit by all the light and all the noise she was expecting. Flashing and blinking and glaring, and thumping and booming and distorting. Not bland and small anymore. This time it was more than she had imagined. She took a breath and walked on. She knew the name of the club she was looking for. In a manner of speaking. She knew the shape its letters made. She knew it had a photograph in its window, of a naked woman and a German Shepherd. Which was a kind of dog. Inside it would smell of beer. She had been told there would be things she might prefer not to look at.

  She heard police sirens, howling and baying in the distance. She slowed down, suddenly uncertain. Many places had the same letters in their names. The same shapes. Mostly at what Westerners would call the end of the word. Like a suffix, repeated over and over. Then suddenly she understood. All such places had steps leading down. To rooms under the ground. Like caves. Keller. Part of a word. It meant underground cave.

  She walked on. She found the place she wanted. It was lit up red. It had a narrow door, with a narrow window alongside it, sandwiched between two other places. A lobby, with a stair head. The window carried the promised photograph. It was bleached by many daylight hours. It showed a naked woman on her back, with a big dog squatting over her, its hindquarters over her face. She had the dog’s penis in her mouth. No big deal. Not to one from the tribal areas. The messenger had seen it done before. Boys on men, mostly, on command, or sometimes goats.

  She pushed the door and went inside. There was a sharp chemical smell. Astringent. She had smelled the same thing in the airport bathroom. There was a big man on a stool. Men had to pay him, but women didn’t. What they called a cover charge. She had been coached. She smiled at him, shyly, and set off down the stairs. They were narrow. At the bottom was blue light and a roar of noise. Music, talking, the slam of heavy glass pitchers on wooden tables.

  She stepped into the basement room. There was a lit stage at the far end. A naked woman was bent double, having sex with a donkey. The donkey was in a kind of hammock, to take its weight off the woman’s back. The room was crowded with men, all of them rearing up, and craning their necks. They were shouting and grunting in time with the donkey’s bewildered thrusts. She saw Wiley two-thirds of the way back, alone at a table. She had memorized his face. He had a tall glass of golden liquid. It was half gone. Beer, she assumed.

  She stood still. Men were looking at her. She had on black pants and her travel shirt, open two buttons. She ignored the looks and threaded her way between the tables. There was a clatter of hooves as the donkey finished and struggled out of its hammock. All around her men clapped and cheered. The naked woman straightened up and waved to them, graciously.

  —

  In Reacher’s room they heard the phone ringing through the wall, next door in Sinclair’s room. Then it stopped and Reacher’s own phone rang in turn. It was Bishop, from the consulate. The CIA head of station. He wanted Sinclair. She put him on speaker and he said, “The Iranian just called it in. About the lamp in the window. The messenger is a woman and as of right now she’s out of the house.”

  “We’re on it already,” Sinclair said.

  “But not really,” Reacher said. “It’s a hopeless task. Not going to work. Griezman’s guys have got an hour, maximum. Twelve cars in a big city. It’s way too random. I suggest we go to plan B immediately.”

  “Which is what?” Bishop asked.

  “Pull Griezman’s guys back to the safe house, and hit the messenger on her way back in. Fast and hard, as soon as they’re sure. She might tell us where she went. Wiley might have lingered there. He lingered last time. About thirty minutes, according to Klopp. Maybe he thinks it’s a security measure.”

  “She won’t tell us.”

  “We’ll ask her nicely.”

  “But that way we burn the Iranian.”

  “Can you get him out?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Right now. You must have rehearsed it.”

  “I’d have to talk to Mr. Ratcliffe at the NSC.”

  Sinclair said, “Damn right you would. All of us would.”

  Reacher said, “We need a decision.”

  Sinclair said, “We won’t get one inside thirty minutes. But we still have a car at the house. We’ll know when she’s back for the night. That gives us hours.”

  “That’s half a loaf. We don’t get Wiley.”

  “Not this time. But they must have fixed another meeting. This is a back-and-forth negotiation. She might tell us where and when.”

  “Better to hit her now. She thinks her job is done. She’s coming down off a high. Her adrenaline is low. She’ll be braver in the morning.”

  Bishop said, “I’ll call Ratcliffe,” and he hung up, crackly and distant.

  —

  The new messenger was touched on the leg by one man and on the bottom by another, but she ignored them both and pushed on through the throng. She wondered if they thought she was an employee of the club. Western behaviors had been explained to her. She could see Wiley up ahead, watching her. A frank and interested stare. Maybe he thought she was an employee, too. She walked up to him and leaned close to his ear, so he could hear above the noise, and she said in carefully practiced English, “I bring greetings from your friends in the east. The elevation of Sugar Land Regional Airport is eighty-two feet above sea level.”

  Wiley said, “Well, don’t this just beat the band.”

  She said, unsure, “Does it?”r />
  “They sent a girl.”

  “Yes, sir, they did.”

  “And you speak English.”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  Then suddenly Wiley said, “Why? Why did they send a girl? Are they saying no?”

  “No, sir, that’s not the message.”

  “Then what is?”

  “The message is, we accept your price.”

  “Say that again.”

  “We accept your price.”

  “What, all of it?”