Never Go Back

go?’
    ‘She deployed to Afghanistan.’
    ‘When?’
    ‘The middle of the day, yesterday.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘We have people there. There was an issue.’
    ‘What kind of an issue?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘She never arrived.’
    ‘You know that for sure?’
    ‘No question.’
    ‘So where is she instead?’
    ‘No one knows.’
    ‘When did Colonel Morgan get here?’
    ‘Within hours of Major Turner leaving.’
    ‘How many hours?’
    ‘About two.’
    ‘Did he give a reason for being here?’
    ‘The implication was Major Turner had been relieved of her command.’
    ‘Nothing specific?’
    ‘Nothing at all.’
    ‘Was she screwing up?’
    Leach didn’t answer.
    Reacher said, ‘You may speak freely, sergeant.’
    ‘No, sir, she wasn’t screwing up. She was doing a really good job.’
    ‘So that’s all you’ve got? Implications and disappearances?’
    ‘So far.’
    ‘No gossip?’ Reacher asked. Sergeants were always part of a network. Always had been, always would be. Like rumour mills. Like uniformed versions of tabloid newspapers.
    Leach said, ‘I heard one little thing.’
    ‘Which was?’
    ‘It might be nothing.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘And it might not be connected.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘Someone told me the guardhouse at Fort Dyer has a new prisoner.’

SIX
    FORT DYER WAS an army base very close to the Pentagon. But Leach told Reacher that eight years after he mustered out a cost-cutting exercise had merged it with the Marine Corps’ nearby Helsington House. The newly enlarged establishment had been given the logical if clumsy name of Joint Base Dyer-Helsington House. In Reacher’s day both Dyer and Helsington House had been high-status places in their own right, staffed mostly by senior and very important people. With the result that the Dyer PX had looked more like Saks Fifth Avenue than a Wal-Mart. And he had heard the Marines’ store was even better. Therefore the new blended version was likely to be no lower on the social totem pole. Therefore its cells were likely to house only high-status prisoners. No drunken brawlers or petty thieves there. An MP major with a problem would be a typical tenant. Therefore Leach’s rumour might be right. The Dyer guardhouse was located north and west of the Pentagon. Diagonally across the cemetery. Less than five miles from the 110th’s HQ. Much less.
    ‘The army and the jarheads in the same place?’ Reacher said. ‘How’s that working out for them?’
    ‘Politicians will do anything to save a buck,’ Leach said.
    ‘Can you call ahead for me?’
    ‘You going there? Now?’
    ‘I have nothing better to do at the moment.’
    ‘Do you have a vehicle?’
    ‘Temporarily,’ Reacher said.
    The night was quiet and dark and suburban, and the drive to Dyer took less than ten minutes. Getting into the Joint Base itself took much longer. The merger had happened less than four years after 9/11, and whatever cost-cutting money had been saved hadn’t been saved on security. The main gate was on the south side of the complex, and it was impressive. There were concrete dragons’ teeth everywhere, funnelling traffic through a narrowing lane blocked by three consecutive guard shacks. Reacher was in battered civilian clothes and had no military ID. No ID at all, in fact, except a worn and creased U.S. passport that was already long expired. But he was in a government car, which created a good first impression. And the military had computers, and he showed up as on active service as of the middle of that evening. And the army had sergeants, and Leach had lit up the favour network with a blizzard of calls. And Dyer had a Criminal Investigation office, and to Reacher’s mild surprise there were still guys around who knew guys who knew guys who remembered his name. The upshot was that just forty-five minutes after stopping at the first barrier he was face to face with an MP captain in the guardhouse front office.
    The captain was a serious dark guy of about thirty, and his ACU nametape said his name was Weiss. He looked honest and decent and reasonably friendly, so Reacher said, ‘This is just a personal matter, captain. Not even remotely official. And I’m probably a little toxic right now, so you should proceed with extreme caution. You should keep this visit off the record. Or refuse to talk to me altogether.’
    Weiss said, ‘Toxic how?’
    ‘Looks like something I did sixteen years ago has come back to bite me in the ass.’
    ‘What did