Never Go Back

‘Come in,’ the guy said. ‘We’ll see if I want it.’

They all four crabbed down a narrow hallway, and into a narrow living room, which had better furniture than Reacher expected, as if the Ballantynes had downsized from a better place. Four years ago, perhaps. Disbarred, maybe fined, maybe sued, maybe bankrupted.

Ballantyne said, ‘What if I can’t remember?’

‘You still get the money,’ Reacher said. ‘As long as you make an honest effort.’

‘What was the case?’

‘Sixteen years ago you wrote an affidavit for a client named Juan Rodriguez, also known as the Big Dog.’

Ballantyne leaned forward, all set to give it a hundred dollars’ worth of honest effort, but he got there within about a buck and a quarter.

He sat back again.

He said, ‘The thing with the army?’

Recognition in his voice. And some kind of misery. As if some bad thing had stirred, and come back from the dead. As if the thing with the army had brought him nothing but trouble.

‘Yes,’ Reacher said. ‘The thing with the army.’

‘And your interest in it is what, exactly?’

‘You used my name, where you had to fill in the blanks.’

‘You’re the guy?’ Ballantyne said. ‘In my house? Haven’t I suffered enough?’

And his wife said, ‘Get the hell out, right now.’ Which apparently she meant, because she kept on saying it, loud and clear and venomous, over and over again, with heavy emphasis on the right now. Which in terms of tone and content Reacher took as clear evidence that consent had been withdrawn, and that trespass had begun, and he had promised Turner two thumbs on the nuclear button, and he was a little mindful of the prosecution witness issue, so he got the hell out, right then, with Turner about a foot behind him. They walked back to the car and leaned on it and Turner said, ‘So it’s all about the filing system.’

Reacher nodded.

‘Fingers crossed,’ he said.

‘Are you going to use Sullivan?’

‘Would you?’

‘Definitely. She’s senior, and she’s right there at JAG, not stuck in HRC.’

‘Agreed,’ Reacher said.

He took out his phone and called Edmonds.

FIFTY-SIX

EDMONDS PICKED UP, sleepy and a little impatient, and Reacher said, ‘Earlier tonight you told me Major Sullivan told you the office of the Secretary of the Army is pushing for a fast resolution of the Rodriguez issue.’

‘And you’ve woken me up in the middle of the night to give me another witty response?’

‘No, I need you to find out exactly who delivered that message to Major Sullivan, or at least which channel it came through.’

‘Thank you for thinking of me, but shouldn’t Major Sullivan handle this direct?’

‘She’s going to be very busy doing something else. This is very important, captain. And very urgent. I need it done early. So hit up everyone you know, everywhere. As early as you can. While they’re still on the treadmill, or whatever it is people do in the morning.’

Reacher patted his pockets and found Sullivan’s personal cell number, on the torn-in-half scratch pad page that Leach had given him. He dialled, and counted the ring tones. She picked up after six, which he thought was pretty good. A light sleeper, apparently.

She said, ‘Hello?’

‘This is Jack Reacher,’ he said. ‘Remember me?’

‘How could I forget? We need to talk.’

‘We are talking.’

‘About your situation.’

‘Later, OK? Right now we have stuff to do.’

‘Right now? It’s the middle of the night.’

‘Either right now or as soon as possible. Depending on your level of access.’

‘To what?’

‘I just spoke with the lawyer who did the Big Dog’s affidavit.’

‘On the phone?’

‘Face to face.’

‘That was completely inappropriate.’

‘It was a very short conversation. We left when requested.’

‘We?’

‘Major Turner is with me. An officer of equal rank and equal ability. An independent witness. She heard it too. Like a second opinion.’

‘Heard what?’

‘Does your legal archive have a computer search function?’

‘Of course it does.’

‘So if I typed Reacher, complaint against, what would I get?’

‘Exactly what you got, basically. The Big Dog’s affidavit, or similar.’

‘Is the search fast and reliable?’

‘Did you really wake me up in the middle of the night to talk about computers?’

‘I need information.’

‘The system is pretty fast. Not a very intuitive search protocol, but it’s capable of taking you straight to an individual document.’

‘I mentioned the case to the lawyer and he remembered it immediately. He called it the thing with the army. Then he asked me what my interest was, and I told him, and he said, haven’t I suffered enough?’

‘What did he mean by that?’

‘You had to be there to hear it. It was all in his tone of voice. The Big Dog affidavit was not just a complaint he mailed in and forgot about. It was not routine. It was a thing. It was a whole story, with a beginning, and a middle, and an end. And I’m guessing it was a bad end. That’s what we heard. He made it sound like a negative episode in his life. He was looking back on it, with regret.’

‘Reacher, I’m a lawyer, not a dialogue coach. I need facts, not the way people make things sound.’