61 Hours

Then the voice. No dial tone. She already had the phone in her hand. She said, ‘Either you’re crazy or the world is.’
    Reacher said, ‘Or both.’
    ‘Whichever, I’m about ready to give up on you.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because the place you’re pestering me about doesn’t exist.’
    Five to seven in the evening.
    Thirty-three hours to go.

EIGHTEEN
    R EACHER MOVED ON THE HALLWAY CHAIR AND SAID , ‘T HE PLACE exists. For sure. I’d believe stone and eyewitness reports before I believed army paperwork.’
    The voice said, ‘But you haven’t actually seen the stone for yourself.’
    ‘Not yet. But why would anyone invent a story like that?’
    ‘Then the place must have been unbelievably secret. They built it but never listed it anywhere.’
    ‘And then they let a construction camp get built right over it? How does that work?’
    ‘Everything changed, that’s how. It was top secret fifty years ago, and it was totally defunct by five years ago. Typical Cold War scenario. Probably declassified in the early nineties.’
    ‘I don’t care when it was declassified. I just want to know what it is.’
    ‘I could get on a plane. But you’re closer.’
    Reacher asked, ‘How’s your case?’
    ‘Still waiting. Which doesn’t encourage me. It will probably fall apart by morning.’
    ‘You working all night?’
    ‘You know how it is.’
    ‘So use the down time. Check Congressional appropriations for me. The purpose will be redacted, but the money will be listed. It always is. We can make a start that way.’
    ‘You know how big the defence budget was fifty years ago? You know how many line items there were?’
    ‘You’ve got all night. Look for South Dakota involvement, House or Senate. I don’t see any real strategic value up here, so it could have been a pork barrel project.’
    ‘Checking those records is a lot of work.’
    ‘What did you expect? A life of leisure? You should have joined the navy.’
    ‘We have a deal, Reacher. Remember? So tell me about the one-star general.’
    ‘You’re wasting time.’
    ‘I’ve got time to waste. Sounds like you’re the one who hasn’t.’
    ‘It’s a long story.’
    ‘The best stories always are. Summarize if you like, but make sure you hit all the main points.’
    ‘I’m on someone else’s phone here. I can’t run up a big bill.’
    The voice said, ‘Wait one.’ There was a click and a second of dead air and then the voice came back. ‘Now you’re on the government’s dime.’
    ‘You could be working the money for me.’
    ‘I am. I already put a guy on it thirty-five minutes ago. I maintain standards here, believe me. However good you were, I’m better.’
    ‘I sincerely hope so.’
    ‘So, once upon a time, what happened?’
    Reacher paused.
    ‘I went to Russia,’ he said. ‘Well after the fall of communism. We got a weird invitation to go inspect their military prisons. Nobody had the faintest idea why. But the general feeling was,why not? So we flew to Moscow and took a train way east. It was a big old Soviet-era thing with bunks and a dining car. We were on it for days. The food was awful. But awful in a way that felt familiar. So one night I went for a stroll up and down the train and stopped in at the kitchen. They were serving us American MREs. Our very own meals, ready to eat.’
    ‘U.S. Army rations? On a Soviet train?’
    ‘A Russian train by then, technically. They had coal-fired stoves in the kitchen car. Samovars and everything. They were heating pans of water and ripping open MRE packs and mixing them together. They had boxes and boxes of them.’
    ‘Did they try to hide them?’
    ‘The cooks didn’t know what they were. They couldn’t read English. Probably couldn’t read anything.’
    ‘So how had our MREs gotten there?’
    ‘That’s tomorrow’s instalment. You need to get back to work.’
    ‘I’m just waiting on a call.’
    ‘From where?’
    ‘I can’t say.’
    ‘You know you want to tell me.’
    ‘Fort Hood.’
    ‘What about?’
    ‘An infantry captain killed his wife. Which happens. But this wasn’t any old wife. She had a job with Homeland Security. It’s possible the guy has ties overseas. It’s possible he was stealing documents from her and killed her to cover it up.’
    ‘Where overseas?’
    ‘What we call non-state actors.’
    ‘Terrorists?’
    ‘Terrorist organizations, anyway.’
    ‘Nice. That’s a Bronze Star right there.’
    ‘If I get the guy. Right now he’s in the