Never Go Back

pits. The HQ building was ahead on the left, in a broad lot behind a high stone wall. Only its roof was visible, made of grey slate, with moss growing on its northern hip.
    There was a driveway entrance off the three-lane, which came through the high stone wall between two brick pillars, which in Reacher’s time had been purely decorative, with no gates hung off them. But gates had been installed since then. They were heavy steel items with steel wheels which ran in radiused tracks butchered into the old blacktop. Security, in theory, but not in practice, because the gates were standing open. Inside them, just beyond the end of their swing, was a sentry hutch, which was also new. It was occupied by a private first class wearing the new Army Combat Uniform, which Reacher thought looked like pyjamas, all patterned and baggy. Late afternoon was turning into early evening, and the light was fading.
    Reacher stopped at the sentry hutch and the private gave him an enquiring look and Reacher said, ‘I’m here to visit with your CO.’
    The guy said, ‘You mean Major Turner?’
    Reacher said, ‘How many COs do you have?’
    ‘Just one, sir.’
    ‘First name Susan?’
    ‘Yes, sir. That’s correct. Major Susan Turner, sir.’
    ‘That’s the one I want.’
    ‘What name shall I give?’
    ‘Reacher.’
    ‘What’s the nature of your business?’
    ‘Personal.’
    ‘Wait one, sir.’ The guy picked up a phone and called ahead. A Mr Reacher to see Major Turner . The call went on much longer than Reacher expected. At one point the guy covered the mouthpiece with his palm and asked, ‘Are you the same Reacher that was CO here once? Major Jack Reacher?’
    ‘Yes,’ Reacher said.
    ‘And you spoke to Major Turner from somewhere in South Dakota?’
    ‘Yes,’ Reacher said.
    The guy repeated the two affirmative answers into the phone, and listened some more. Then he hung up and said, ‘Sir, please go ahead.’ He started to give directions, and then he stopped, and said, ‘I guess you know the way.’
    ‘I guess I do,’ Reacher said. He walked on, and ten paces later he heard a grinding noise, and he stopped and glanced back.
    The gates were closing behind him.
    The building ahead of him was classic 1950s DoD architecture. Long and low, two storeys, brick, stone, slate, green metal window frames, green tubular handrails at the steps up to the doors. The 1950s had been a golden age for the DoD. Budgets had been immense. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, the military had gotten whatever it wanted. And more. There were cars parked in the lot. Some were army sedans, plain and dark and well used. Some were POVs, personally owned vehicles, brighter in colour but generally older. There was a lone Humvee, dark green and black, huge and menacing next to a small red two-seater. Reacher wondered if the two-seater was Susan Turner’s. He figured it could be. On the phone she had sounded like a woman who might drive such a thing.
    He went up the short flight of stone steps to the door. Same steps, same door, but repainted since his time. More than once, probably. The army had a lot of paint, and was always happy to use it. Inside the door the place looked more or less the same as it always had. There was a lobby, with a stone staircase to the second floor on the right, and a reception desk on the left. Then the lobby narrowed to a corridor that ran the length of the building, with offices left and right. The office doors were half glazed with reeded glass. The lights were on in the corridor. It was winter, and the building had always been dark.
    There was a woman at the reception desk, in the same ACU pyjamas as the guy at the gate, but with a sergeant’s stripes on the tab in the centre of her chest. Like an aiming point, Reacher thought. Up, up, up, fire. He much preferred the old woodland-pattern battledress uniform. The woman was black, and didn’t look happy to see him. She was agitated about something.
    He said, ‘Jack Reacher for Major Turner.’
    The woman stopped and started a couple of times, as if she had plenty she wanted to say, but in the end all she managed was, ‘You better head on up to her office. You know where it is?’
    Reacher nodded. He knew where it was. It had been his office once. He said, ‘Thank you, sergeant.’
    He went up the stairs. Same worn stone, same metal handrail. He had been up those stairs a thousand times. They folded around once and came out directly above the centre of the lobby at