Never Go Back: (Jack Reacher 18)

clock. But it started up fine, and it idled OK. Which it needed to, because the daytime traffic was slow. Lots of lights, lots of queues, lots of jammed lanes. But getting into Dyer itself was quicker than the first time. The main gate guards were relatively welcoming. Reacher figured Leach must have called ahead again. Which meant she was turning into a minor ally. Which Reacher was happy about. A sergeant on your side made the world go round, smooth and easy. Whereas a sergeant who took against you could kill you dead.
    He parked the car and went inside, where it got slower again. A woman at a desk called around and was unable to locate Moorcroft anywhere. Not in the VOQ, not in the legal offices, not in the guardhouse, and not in the cells. Which left only one place to look. Reacher moved on, deeper into the complex, until he saw a sign with an arrow: Officers’ Club . It was late for breakfast, but late breakfasts were a natural habitat for senior rear-echelon staffers. Especially senior rear-echelon staffers who were also academic pointy-heads on short-term visits.
    The OC dining room turned out to be a pleasant, bland space, low, wide, and long, recently refurbished, probably by the same guy who did the dining rooms in mid-price chain hotels. There was plenty of blond wood and mid-green fabric. Plenty of angled dividers, and therefore plenty of separate little seating areas. There was carpet on the floor. There were venetian blinds on the windows, cracked open about halfway. Reacher remembered a joke his old colleague Manuel Orozco liked to tell: How do you make a venetian blind? You poke his eyes out . And then: How do you make a Swiss roll? You push him down an Alp . Whereupon David O’Donnell would start pointing out that Swiss rolls weren’t really Swiss. More likely British. Nineteenth-century. Like a Victoria sponge, but assembled differently. O’Donnell was the kind of pedant that made Reacher look normal.
    Reacher moved on. Most of the little seating areas were empty, but Moorcroft was in one of them. He was a short, rotund, middleaged man with an amiable expression, in a Class A uniform, with his name big and obvious on the flap of his right breast pocket. He was eating toast, at a big isolated table for four.
    And face to face at the table with him was Major Sullivan, Reacher’s lawyer for the Big Dog. Sullivan wasn’t eating. She had already had breakfast, with Reacher, in the Greek establishment. She was cradling a cup of coffee, nothing more, and talking, and listening, in what looked like a very deferential manner, like majors often converse with colonels, or students with teachers.
    Reacher stepped into the intimate little area and pulled out a chair and sat down at the table between them. He said, ‘Do you mind if I join you?’
    Moorcroft asked, ‘Who are you?’
    Sullivan said, ‘This is Major Reacher. My client. The one I was telling you about.’
    Nothing in her voice.
    Moorcroft looked at Reacher and said, ‘If you have things to discuss, I’m sure Major Sullivan would be happy to schedule an appointment at a more appropriate time.’
    ‘It’s you I want to talk to,’ Reacher said.
    ‘Me? About what?’
    ‘Susan Turner.’
    ‘Do you have an interest?’
    ‘Why has her pre-trial confinement not been appealed?’
    ‘You must state a legitimate interest before we can consider specifics.’
    ‘Any citizen has a legitimate interest in the correct application of due process against any other citizen.’
    ‘You think my approach has so far been incorrect?’
    ‘I’ll be better able to make that determination after you answer my question.’
    ‘Major Turner is facing a serious charge.’
    ‘But pre-trial confinement is not supposed to be punitive. It’s supposed to be no more rigorous than is required to ensure the accused’s presence at trial. That’s what the regulation says.’
    ‘Are you a lawyer? Your name doesn’t ring a bell.’
    ‘I was an MP. Actually, I am an MP, I suppose. All over again. Therefore I know plenty about the law.’
    ‘Really? In the same way a plumber understands the science behind fluid mechanics and thermodynamics?’
    ‘Don’t flatter yourself, colonel. It’s not brain surgery.’
    ‘So enlighten me, by all means.’
    ‘Major Turner’s situation doesn’t require confinement. She’s a commissioned officer in the United States Army. She’s not going to run.’
    ‘Is that a personal guarantee?’
    ‘Almost. She’s the commander