“It’s a plausible sequence,” I said. “Someone hears that he’s dead from a heart attack, assumes he was pronounced in the ambulance or the emergency room, assumes whoever he was with would have accompanied him, goes down there expecting to find an empty house with a briefcase in it.”

“But Kramer was never there.”

“It was a reasonable first try.”

“You think it was Vassell and Coomer?”

I said nothing.

“That’s crazy,” Summer said. “They don’t look the type.”

“Don’t let looks fool you. They’re Armored Branch. They’ve trained all their lives to roll right over anything that gets in their way. But I don’t think the timing works for them. Let’s say Garber called XII Corps in Germany at twelve-fifteen, earliest. Then let’s say XII Corps called the hotel back here in the States at twelve-thirty, earliest. Green Valley is seventy minutes from D.C. and Mrs. Kramer died at two o’clock. That would have given them a twenty-minute margin to react, maximum. They were just in from the airport, so they didn’t have a car with them, and it would have taken time to get hold of one. And they certainly didn’t have a crowbar with them. Nobody travels with a crowbar in their luggage, just in case. And I doubt if the Home Depot was open, after midnight on New Year’s Eve.”

“So someone else is out there looking?”

“We need to find that agenda,” I said. “We need to nail this thing down.”

I sent Summer away to do three things: first, list all female personnel at Fort Bird with access to their own Humvees, and second, list any of them who might have met Kramer at Fort Irwin in California, and third, contact the Jefferson Hotel in D.C. and get Vassell and Coomer’s exact check-in and checkout times, plus details on all their incoming and outgoing phone calls. I went back to my office and filed the note from Garber and spread the note from my brother on the blotter and dialed the number. He picked up on the first ring.

“Hey, Joe,” I said.

“Jack?”

“What?”

“I got a call.”

“Who from?”

“Mom’s doctor,” he said.

“About what?”

“She’s dying.”

five

I hung up and called Garber’s office. He wasn’t in. So I left a message detailing my travel plans and saying I would be out for seventy-two hours. I didn’t give a reason. Then I hung up and sat at my desk, numb. Five minutes later Summer came in. She had a sheaf of motor-pool paper with her. I guess she planned on compiling her Humvee list there and then, right in front of me.

“I have to go to Paris,” I said.

“Paris, Texas?” she said. “Or Paris, Kentucky, or Paris, Tennessee?”

“Paris, France,” I said.

“Why?”

“My mother is sick.”

“Your mother lives in France?”

“Paris,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because she’s French.”

“Is it serious?”

“Being French?”

“No, whatever she’s sick with.”

I shrugged. “I don’t really know. But I think so.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“I need a car,” I said. “I need to get to Dulles, right now.”

“I’ll drive you,” she said. “I like driving.”

She left the paperwork on my desk and went to retrieve the Chevrolet we had used before. I went to my quarters and packed an army duffel with one of everything from my closet. Then I put on my long coat. It was cold, and I didn’t expect Europe was going to be any warmer. Not in early January. Summer brought the car to my door. She kept it at thirty until we were off-post. Then she lit it up like a rocket and headed north. She was quiet for a spell. She was thinking. Her eyelids were moving.

“We should tell the Green Valley cops,” she said. “If we think Mrs. Kramer was killed because of the briefcase.”

I shook my head. “Telling them won’t bring her back. And if she was killed because of the briefcase we’ll find whoever did it from our end.”

“What do you want me to do while you’re gone?”

“Work the lists,” I said. “Check the gate log. Find the woman, find the briefcase, put the agenda in a very safe place. Then check on who Vassell and Coomer called from the hotel. Maybe they sent an errand boy out into the night.”

“You think that’s possible?”

“Anything’s possible.”

“But they didn’t know where Kramer was.”

“That’s why they tried the wrong place.”

“Who would they have sent?”

“Bound to be someone who has their interests close to his heart.”

“OK,” she said.

“And find out who was driving them just now.”

“OK,” she said.

We didn’t speak again, all the way to Dulles.

I met my brother Joe in the line at the Air France ticket desk. He had booked seats for both of us on the first morning flight. Now he was lining up to pay for them. I hadn’t seen him for almost three years. The last time we had been together was at our father’s funeral. Since then we had gone our separate ways.

“Good morning, little brother,” he said.

He was wearing an overcoat and a suit and a tie, and he looked pretty good in them. He was two years older than me, and he always had been, and he always would be. As a kid I used to study him and think, That’s how I’ll look when I grow up. Now I found myself doing it again. From a distance we could have been mistaken for each other. Standing side by side it was obvious that he was an inch taller and a little slighter than me. But mostly it was obvious that he was a little older than me. It looked like we had started out together, but he had seen the future first, and it had aged him, and worn him down.

“How are you, Joe?” I said.

“Can’t complain.”

“Busy?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

I nodded and said nothing. Truth is, I didn’t know exactly what he did for a living. He had probably told me. It wasn’t a national secret or anything. It was something to do with the Treasury Department. He had probably told me all the details and I probably hadn’t listened. Now it seemed too late to ask.

“You were in Panama,” he said. “Operation Just Cause, right?”

“Operation Just Because,” I said. “That’s what we called it.”

“Just because what?”

“Just because we could. Just because we all had to have something to do. Just because we’ve got a new Commander-in-Chief who wants to look tough.”

“Is it going well?”

“It’s like Notre Dame against the Tumble Tots. How else is it going to go?”

“You got Noriega yet?”

“Not yet.”

“So why did they post you back here?”

“We took twenty-seven thousand guys,” I said. “It wasn’t down to me personally.”

He smiled briefly and then got that narrow-eyed look I remembered from childhood. It meant he was figuring out some pedantic and convoluted line of reasoning. But we got to the head of the line before he had time to tell me about it. He took out his credit card and paid for the flights. Maybe he expected me to pay him back for mine, maybe he didn’t. He didn’t make it clear either way.

“Let’s get coffee now,” he said.

Joe was probably the only other human on the planet who liked coffee as much as I did. He started drinking it when he was six. I copied him immediately. I was four. Neither of us has stopped since. The Reacher brothers’ need for caffeine makes heroin addiction look like an amusing little take-it-or-leave-it sideline.

We found a place with a W-shaped counter snaking through it. It was three-quarters empty. It was harshly lit with fluorescent tubes and the vinyl on the stools was sticky. We sat side by side and rested our forearms on the counter in the universal pose of early-morning travelers everywhere. A guy in an apron put mugs in front of us without asking. Then he filled them with coffee from a flask. The coffee smelled fresh. The place was changing over from the all-night service to the breakfast menu. I could hear eggs frying.