“But what’s the kicker?” Harper asked.

Leighton paused.

“The friendly fire,” he said. “The guy lost both his legs.”

Silence.

“He’s in a wheelchair.”

“Shit,” she said.

“Yeah, shit. No way he’s running up and down any stairs to any bathrooms. Last time he did that was ten years ago.”

She stared at the wall.

“OK,” she said slowly. “Bad idea.”

“I’m afraid so, ma’am. And they’re right about Cooke. I checked her too, and she never held anything heavier than a pen, her whole short career. That was something else I was going to have to tell you.”

“OK,” she said again.

She examined the wall.

“But thanks anyway,” she said. “And now we’re out of here. Back to Quantico, face the music.”

“Wait,” Leighton said. “You need to hear about the paint.”

“More bad news?”

“Weird news,” Leighton said. “I started a search for reports about missing camo green, like you asked me to. Only definitive thing was hidden in a buried file, closed-access. A theft of a hundred and ten three-gallon cans.”

“That’s it,” Harper said. “Three hundred thirty gallons. Eleven women, thirty gallons each.”

“Evidence was clear,” Leighton said. “They fingered a supply sergeant in Utah.”

“Who was he?”

“She,” Leighton said. “She was Sergeant Lorraine Stanley.”

Total silence.

“But that’s impossible,” Harper said. “She was one of the victims.”

Leighton shook his head. “I called Utah. Got hold of the investigating officer. I got him out of bed. He says it was Stanley, no doubt about it. Means and opportunity. She’d tried to cover her tracks, but she wasn’t smart enough about it. It was clear-cut. They didn’t proceed against her because it was politically impossible right then. She’d just come off of the harassment thing, not long before. No way were they going to start in on her at that point. So they just watched her, until she quit. But it was her.”

“One victim stole the paint?” Reacher said. “And another provided the list of names?”

Leighton nodded, somber. “That’s how it was, I promise you. And you know I wouldn’t bullshit one of Garber’s boys.”

Reacher just nodded.

THERE WAS NO more conversation. No more talk. The room went silent. Leighton sat at the table. Harper dressed mechanically. Reacher put his coat on and found the Nissan keys in Harper’s jacket. Went outside and stood in the rain for a long moment. Then he unlocked the car and slid inside. Started the motor and waited. Harper and Leighton came out together. She crossed to the car and he walked back to his. He waved, just a brief motion of his hand. Reacher put the Nissan in drive and pulled slowly out of the lot.

“Check the map for me,” he said.

“I-295 and then the Turnpike,” she said.

He nodded. “I know it after that. Lamarr showed me.”

“Why the hell would Lorraine Stanley steal the paint?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“And you want to tell me why?” she asked. “You knew this Army thing was nothing, but you made us spend thirty-six hours on it. Why?”

“I already told you,” he said. “It was an experiment, and I needed time to think.”

“About what?”

He didn’t answer. She went quiet for a spell.

“Good job we didn’t go all the way celebrating,” she said.

He didn’t reply to that either. Didn’t speak again, the whole way. He just found the right roads and drove on through the rain. He had new questions in his head, and he tried to think of some answers, but nothing would come. The only thing in his mind was the feel of her tongue in his mouth. It felt different from Jodie’s. Tasted different. He guessed everybody’s was different.

HE DROVE FAST and it took a fraction under three hours from the outskirts of Trenton all the way back to Quantico. He turned in at the unmarked road off 95 and drove through the Marine checkpoints in the dark and waited at the vehicle barrier. The FBI sentry shone a flashlight on their badges and their faces and raised the striped pole and waved them through. They eased over the speed bumps and wound slowly through the empty parking lots and pulled up opposite the glass doors. It had stopped raining back in Maryland. Virginia was dry.

“OK,” Harper said. “Let’s go get our asses chewed.” Reacher nodded. Killed the motor and the lights and sat in the silence for a beat. Then they looked at each other and slid out of the car and stepped to the doors. Took a deep breath. But the atmosphere inside the building was very calm. It was quiet. Nobody was around. Nobody was waiting for them. They went down in the elevator to Blake’s underground office. Found him sitting in there at his desk with one hand resting on the telephone and the other holding a curled sheet of fax paper. The television was playing silently, political cable, men in suits at an impressive table. Blake was ignoring it. He was staring at a spot on his desk equidistant from the fax paper and the phone and his face was totally blank. Harper nodded to him, and Reacher said nothing.

“Fax in from UPS,” Blake said. His voice was gentle. Amiable, even benign. He looked crestfallen, adrift, confused. He looked beaten.

“Guess who sent the paint to Alison Lamarr?” he said.

“Lorraine Stanley,” Reacher said.

Blake nodded.

“Correct,” he said. “From an address in a little town in Utah, that turned out to be a self-storage facility. And guess what else?”

“She sent all of it.”

Blake nodded again. “UPS has got eleven consecutive consignment numbers showing eleven identical cartons going to eleven separate addresses, including Stanley’s own place in San Diego. And guess what else?”

“What?”

“She didn’t even have her own place when she first put the paint in the storage facility. She waited the best part of a year until she was settled, then she went back up to Utah and dispatched it all. So what do you make of that?”

“I don’t know,” Reacher said.

“Neither do I,” Blake said.

Then he picked up the phone. Stared at it. Put it down again.

“And Poulton just called,” he said. “From Spokane. Guess what he had to say?”

“What?”

“He just got through interviewing the UPS driver. The guy remembers pretty well. Isolated place, big heavy box, I guess he would.”

“And?”

“Alison was there when he called. She was listening to the ball game too, radio on in the kitchen. She asked him inside, gave him coffee, they heard the grand slam together. A little hollering, a little dancing around, another coffee, he tells her he’s got a big heavy box for her.”

“And?”

“And she says oh, good. He goes back out and wheels it off the tail lift on a hand truck, she clears a space for it in the garage, he brings it in, he dumps it, and she’s all smiles about it.”

“Like she was expecting it?”

Blake nodded. “That was the guy’s impression. And then what does she do?”

“What?”

“She tears off the ‘Documents enclosed’ thing and carries it back to the kitchen with her. He follows, to finish up his mug of coffee. She pulls the delivery note out of the plastic, and she shreds it up into small pieces, and she dumps them in the trash, along with the plastic. ”

“Why?”

Blake shrugged. “Who the hell knows? But this guy worked UPS four years, and six times out of ten people were home for him, and he never saw such a thing before.”

“Is he reliable?”

“Poulton thinks so. Says he’s a solid guy, clear, articulate, ready to swear the whole damn thing on a stack of Bibles.”

“So what’s your take?”

Blake shook his head. “I had any idea, you’d be the first to know.”

Nighttime silence in the office.

“I apologize,” Reacher said. “My theory led us nowhere. ”

Blake made a face. “Don’t think twice. It was our call. It was worth a try. We wouldn’t have let you go, otherwise.”

“Is Lamarr around?”

“Why?”