The Enemy

I waited an hour. I was uncomfortable and hungry and dehydrated from the plane. I figured if they knew all of that they’d have kept me waiting two hours. Or more. As it was they came back after sixty minutes. The W4 led the way and gestured with his chin that I should stand up and follow him out the door. The W3s fell in behind me. They walked me up two flights of stairs. Led me left and right through plain gray passageways. At that point I knew for sure where we were going. We were going to Leon Garber’s office. But I didn’t know why.

They stopped me outside his door. It had reeded glass with CO painted on it in gold. I had been through it many times. But never while in custody. The W4 knocked and waited and opened the door and stepped back to let me walk inside. He closed the door behind me and stayed on the other side of it, out in the corridor with his guys.

Behind Garber’s desk was a man I had never seen before. He was a colonel. He was in BDUs. His tape said: Willard, U.S. Army. He had iron-gray hair parted in a schoolboy style. It needed a trim. He had steel-rimmed eyeglasses and the kind of gray pouchy face that must have looked old when he was twenty. He was short and relatively squat and the way his shoulders failed to fill his BDUs told me he spent no time at all in the gym. He had a problem sitting still. He was rocking to his left and plucking at his pants where they went tight over his right knee. Before I had been in the room ten seconds he had adjusted his position three times. Maybe he had hemorrhoids. Maybe he was nervous. He had soft hands. Ragged nails. No wedding band. Divorced, for sure. He looked the type. No wife would let him walk about with hair like that. And no wife could have stood all that rocking and twitching. Not for very long.

I should have come smartly to attention and saluted and announced: Sir, Major Reacher reports. That would have been the standard army etiquette. But I was damned if I was going to do that. I just took a long lazy look around and came to rest standing easy in front of the desk.

“I need explanations,” the guy called Willard said.

He moved in his chair again.

“Who are you?” I said.

“You can see who I am.”

“I can see you’re a colonel in the U.S. Army named Willard. But I can’t explain anything to you before I know whether or not you’re in my chain of command.”

“I am your chain of command, son. What does it say on my door?”

“Commanding officer,” I said.

“And where are we?”

“Rock Creek, Virginia,” I said.

“OK, asked and answered,” he said.

“You’re new,” I said. “We haven’t met.”

“I assumed this command forty-eight hours ago. And now we’ve met. And now I need explanations.”

“Of what?”

“You were UA, for a start,” he said.

“Unauthorized absence?” I said. “When?”

“The last seventy-two hours.”

“Incorrect,” I said.

“How so?”

“My absence was authorized by Colonel Garber.”

“It was not.”

“I called this office,” I said.

“When?”

“Before I left.”

“Did you receive his authorization?”

I paused. “I left a message. Are you saying he denied authorization?”

“He wasn’t here. He got orders for Korea some hours earlier.”

“Korea?”

“He got the MP command there.”

“That’s a Brigadier General’s job.”

“He’s acting. The promotion will no doubt be confirmed in the fall.”

I said nothing.

“Garber’s gone,” Willard said. “I’m here. The military merry-go-round continues. Get used to it.”

The room went quiet. Willard smiled at me. Not a pleasant smile. It was close to a sneer. The rug was out from under my feet, and he was watching me hit the ground.

“It was good of you to leave your travel plans,” he said. “It made today easier.”

“You think the arrest was appropriate for UA?”

“You don’t?”

“It was a simple miscommunication.”

“You left your assigned post without authorization, Major. Those are the facts. Just because you had a vague expectation that authorization might be granted doesn’t alter them. This is the army. We don’t act in advance of orders or permissions. We wait until they are properly received and confirmed. The alternative would be anarchy and chaos.”

I said nothing.

“Where did you go?”

I pictured my mother, leaning on her aluminum walker. I pictured my brother’s face as he watched me pack.

“I took a short vacation,” I said. “I went to the beach.”

“The arrest wasn’t for the UA,” Willard said. “It was because you wore Class As on the evening of New Year’s Day.”

“That’s an offense now?”

“You wore your nameplate.”

I said nothing.

“You put two civilians in the hospital. While wearing your nameplate.”

I stared at him. Thought hard. I didn’t believe the fat guy and the farmer had dropped a dime on me. Not possible. They were stupid, but they weren’t that stupid. They knew I knew where I could find them.

“Who says so?” I asked.

“You had a big audience in that parking lot.”

“One of ours?”

Willard nodded.

“Who?” I said.

“No need for you to know.”

I kept quiet.

“You got anything to say?” Willard asked me.