"Reacher here," I said.
There was a long pause.
"I thought you were in Panama," Leon Garber said.
"I got orders," I said.
"From Panama to Fort Bird? Why?"
"Not my place to ask."
"When was this?"
"Two days ago."
"That's a kick in the teeth," he said. "Isn't it?"
"Is it?"
" Panama was probably more exciting."
"It was OK," I said.
"And they got you working duty officer on New Year's Eve already?"
"I volunteered," I said. "I'm trying to make people like me."
"That's a hopeless task," he said.
"A sergeant just brought me coffee."
There was another pause. "Someone just call you about a dead soldier in a motel?" he asked.
"Eight minutes ago," I said. "I shuffled it off to headquarters."
"And they shuffled it off to someone else and I just got pulled out of a party to hear all about it."
"Why?"
"Because the dead soldier in question is a two-star general."
The phone went quiet.
"I didn't think to ask," I said.
The phone stayed quiet.
"Generals are mortal," I said. "Same as anyone else."
No reply.
"There was nothing suspicious," I said. "He croaked, is all. Heart attack. Probably had gout. I didn't see a reason to get excited."
"It's a question of dignity," Garber said. "We can't leave a two-star lying around belly-up in public without reacting. We need a presence."
"And that would be me?"
"I'd prefer someone else. But you're probably the highest-ranking sober MP in the world tonight. So yes, it would be you."
"It'll take me an hour to get there."
"He's not going anywhere. He's dead. And they haven't found a sober medical examiner yet."
"OK," I said.
"Be respectful," Garber said.
"OK," I said again.
"And be polite. Off-post, we're in their hands. It's a civilian jurisdiction."
"I'm familiar with civilians. I met one, once."
"But control the situation," he said. "You know, if it needs controlling."
"He probably died in bed," I said. "Like people do."
"Call me," he said. "If you need to."
"Was it a good party?"
"Excellent. My daughter is visiting."
He clicked off and I called the civilian dispatcher back and got the name and the address of the motel. Then I left my coffee on my desk and told my sergeant what was up and headed back to my quarters to change. I figured a presence required Class A greens, not woodland-pattern BDUs.
I took a Humvee from the MP motor pool and was logged out through the main gate. I found the motel inside fifty minutes. It was thirty miles due north of Fort Bird through dark undistinguished North Carolina countryside that was equal parts strip malls and scrubby forest and what I figured were dormant sweet potato fields. It was all new to me. I had never served there before. The roads were very quiet. Everyone was still inside, partying. I hoped I would be back at Bird before they all came out and started driving home. Although I really liked the Humvee's chances, head-on against a civilian ride.
The motel was part of a knot of low commercial structures clustered in the darkness near a big highway interchange. There was a truck stop as a centerpiece. It had a greasy spoon that was open on the holidays and a gas station big enough to take eighteen-wheelers. There was a no-name cinder-block lounge bar with lots of neon and no windows. It had an Exotic Dancers sign lit up in pink and a parking lot the size of a football field. There were diesel spills and rainbow puddles all over it. I could hear loud music coming out of the bar. There were cars parked three-deep all around it. The whole area was glowing sulfurous yellow from the streetlights. The night air was cold and full of fog. The motel itself was directly across the street from the gas station. It was a run-down swaybacked affair about twenty rooms long. It had a lot of peeling paint. It looked empty. There was an office at the left-hand end with a token vehicle porch and a buzzing Coke machine.
First question: Why would a two-star general use a place like this? I was pretty sure there wouldn't have been a DoD inquiry if he had checked into a Holiday Inn.
There were two town police cruisers parked at careless angles outside the motel's last-but-one room. There was a small plain sedan sandwiched between them. It was cold and misted over. It was a base-model Ford, red, four cylinder. It had skinny tires and plastic hubcaps. A rental, for sure. I put the Humvee next to the right-hand police cruiser and slid out into the chill. I heard the music from across the street, louder. The last-but-one room's lights were off and its door was open. I figured the cops were trying to keep the interior temperature low. Trying to stop the old guy from getting too ripe. I was anxious to take a look at him. I was pretty sure I had never seen a dead general before.
Three cops stayed in their cars and one got out to meet me. He was wearing tan uniform pants and a short leather jacket zipped to his chin. No hat. The jacket had badges pinned to it that told me his name was Stockton and his rank was deputy chief. He was gray, about fifty. He was medium height and a little soft and heavy but the way he was reading the badges on my coat told me he was probably a veteran, like a lot of cops are.
"Major," he said, as a greeting.
I nodded. A veteran, for sure. A major gets a little gold-colored oak leaf on the epaulette, one inch across, one on each side. This guy was looking upward and sideways at mine, which wasn't the clearest angle of view. But he knew what they were. So he was familiar with rank designations. And I recognized his voice. He was the guy who had called me, at five seconds past midnight.
"I'm Rick Stockton," he said. "Deputy Chief."
He was calm. He had seen heart attacks before.
"I'm Jack Reacher. MP duty officer tonight."
He recognized my voice in turn. Smiled.
"You decided to come out," he said. "After all."
"You didn't tell me the DOA was a two-star."
"Well, he is."
"I've never seen a dead general," I said.
"Not many people have," he said, and the way he said it made me think he had been an enlisted man.
"Army?" I asked.
"Marine Corps," he said. "First sergeant."
"My old man was a Marine," I said. I always make that point, talking to Marines. It gives me some kind of genetic legitimacy. Stops them from thinking of me as a pure army dogface. But I keep it vague. I don't tell them my old man had made captain. Enlisted men and officers don't automatically see eye to eye.
"Humvee," Stockton said.
He was looking at my ride.
"You like it?" he asked.
I nodded. Humvee was everyone's best attempt at saying HMMWV, which stands for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, which about says it all. Like the army generally, what you're told is what you get.
"It works as advertised," I said.
"Kind of wide," he said. "I wouldn't like to drive it in a city."
"You'd have tanks in front of you," I said. "They'd be clearing the way. I think that would be the basic plan."
The music from the bar thudded on. Stockton said nothing.
"Let's look at the dead guy," I said to him.