Tripwire

His background, his record, everything. I know about deserters. I hunted plenty of them.”
    “He deserted,” Newman said. “It’s a fact, it’s in the files from the hospital.”
    “He survived the crash,” Reacher said. “I guess I can’t dispute that anymore. He was in the hospital. Can’t dispute that, either. But suppose it wasn’t really desertion? Suppose he was just confused, or groggy from the drugs or something? Suppose he just wandered away and got lost?”
    Newman shook his head. “He wasn’t confused.”
    “But how do you know that? Loss of blood, malnutrition, fever, morphine?”
    “He deserted,” Newman said.
    “It doesn’t add up,” Reacher said.
    “War changes people,” Newman said.
    “Not that much,” Reacher said back.
    Newman stepped closer and lowered his voice again.
    “He killed an orderly,” he whispered. “The guy spotted him on the way out and tried to stop him. It’s all in the file. Hobie said ‘I’m not going back,’ and hit the guy in the head with a bottle. Broke his skull. They put the guy in Hobie’s bed and he didn’t survive the trip back to Saigon. That’s what the secrecy is all about, Reacher. They didn’t just let him get away with deserting. They let him get away with murder.”
    There was total silence in the lab. The air hissed and the loamy smell of the old bones drifted. Reacher laid his hand on the shiny lip of Bamford’s casket, just to keep himself standing upright.
    “I don’t believe it,” he said.
    “You should,” Newman said back. “Because it’s true.”
    “I can’t tell his folks that,” Reacher said. “I just can’t. It would kill them.”
    “Hell of a secret,” Jodie said. “They let him get away with murder?”
    “Politics,” Newman said. “The politics over there stunk to high heaven. Still do, as a matter of fact.”
    “Maybe he died later,” Reacher said. “Maybe he got away into the jungle and died there later. He was still very sick, right?”
    “How would that help you?” Newman asked.
    “I could tell his folks he was dead, you know, gloss over the exact details.”
    “You’re clutching at straws,” Newman said.
    “We have to go,” Jodie said. “We need to make the plane.”
    “Would you run his medical records?” Reacher asked. “If I got hold of them from his family? Would you do that for me?”
    There was a pause.
    “I’ve already got them,” Newman said. “Leon brought them with him. The family released them to him.”
    “So will you run them?” Reacher asked.
    “You’re clutching at straws,” Newman said again.
    Reacher turned around and pointed at the hundred cardboard boxes stacked in the alcove at the end of the room. “He could be already here, Nash.”
    “He’s in New York,” Jodie said. “Don’t you see that?”
    “No, I want him to be dead,” Reacher said. “I can’t go back to his folks and tell them their boy is a deserter and a murderer and has been running around all this time without contacting them. I need him to be dead.”
    “But he isn’t,” Newman said.
    “But he could be, right?” Reacher said. “He could have died later. Back in the jungle, someplace else, maybe faraway, on the run? Disease, malnutrition? Maybe his skeleton was found already. Will you run his records? As a favor to me?”
    “Reacher, we need to go now,” Jodie said.
    “Will you run them?” Reacher asked again.
    “I can’t,” Newman said. “Christ, this whole thing is classified, don’t you understand that? I shouldn’t have told you anything at all. And I can’t add another name to the MIA lists now. The Department of the Army wouldn’t stand for it. We’re supposed to be reducing the numbers here, not adding to them.”
    “Can’t you do it unofficially? Privately? You can do that, right? You run this place, Nash. Please? For me?”
    Newman shook his head. “You’re clutching at straws, is all.”
    “Please, Nash,” Reacher said.
    There was silence. Then Newman sighed.
    “OK, damn it,” he said. “For you, I’ll do it, I guess.”
    “When?” Reacher asked.
    Newman shrugged. “First thing tomorrow morning, OK?”
    “Call me as soon as you’ve done it?”
    “Sure, but you’re wasting your time. Number?”
    “Use the mobile,” Jodie said.
    She recited the number. Newman wrote it on the cuff of his lab coat.
    “Thanks, Nash,” Reacher said. “I really appreciate this.”
    “Waste of time,” Newman said again.
    “We need to go,” Jodie