Night School Read Online Free PDF Page B

might not be. It’s one sentence plucked out of the air. It could be a joke. Or some kind of insider sarcasm. Could be obscure rope-climbing Yemeni slang for not very much at all. But if it’s real, then yes, the price tag suggests a problem.”
    The waitress came over, and they ordered. Neagley said, “Congratulations on the medal.”
    Reacher said, “Thank you.”
    “You OK?”
    “Never better.”
    “You sure?”
    “What are you, my mother?”
    “What did you think of Sinclair?”
    “I liked her.”
    “Who else have we got?”
    “A guy named Waterman from the FBI. He’s an old-school prowler. And a guy named White from CIA. He’s a highly stressed individual. Probably with good cause. So far they’ve been adequate in several respects. They’ve had sensible things to say. Presumably they’ll bring in their own staffers now. And presumably above all of us will be some kind of a National Security Council supervisor, babysitting us and relaying our messages to Sinclair.”
    “Why did you like her?”
    “She was honest. Ratcliffe, too. They’re running around with their hair on fire.”
    “You should call your brother. At Treasury. He could watch for wire transfers. A hundred million dollars might be visible at government level.”
    “I would have to go through Sinclair.”
    “Are you going to stick to that?”
    Reacher said, “She thinks it could be anyone. She doesn’t want us to betray ourselves to the wrong person. But she’s missing a point. It isn’t anyone. It’s everyone. More or less. This is a broad sweep. No doubt our guy will prove to be one of many. We’re going to catch all kinds of people in and out of secret meetings, and in and out of Switzerland with suitcases full of cash, all of them up to no good, buying and selling and trading all kinds of stuff. We’re going to make a lot of enemies. Both military and civilian. But we can’t afford too much background noise. Not yet, anyway. Secrecy will delay it. So right now I think we should stick with Sinclair. We’ll reconsider as and when we need to.”
    “Understood,” Neagley said.
    The waitress brought their plates, and they started eating. Eight o’clock in the evening, in McLean, Virginia.
    —
    Eight o’clock in the evening in McLean, Virginia, was two o’clock the next morning in Hamburg, Germany. Late, but the American was still awake. He was on his back in bed staring at a ceiling he had never seen before. A naked hooker lay in the crook of his arm. It was her place. It was clean, and neat, and fragrant, and vaguely house-proud. Not cheap, but then neither was she. Which was OK. He was about to become a very rich man. Therefore a small celebration had been in order. And he liked expensive women. They were a bigger thrill. His tastes were fairly simple. It was the degree of enthusiasm that counted. She had shown plenty. And then they had talked. Pillow-talk, literally. They snuggled. She had been interested in him. She had been a good listener.
    He had said too much.
    He figured hookers were better psychologists than real psychologists, and could tell the difference between bluster and boasting and bullshit and manic dreams. Which left a small category of truth. Not confessional truth. More like a happy thing. Like a bursting-to-tell-someone truth. It just came out, on a wave of excitement. He had been feeling great. She was worth the money. He was floating. He had mentioned his plan to buy a ranch in Argentina. About bigger than Rhode Island, he had said.
    Which didn’t mean much, but she would remember. And in Germany hookers weren’t afraid of the cops. It was a welfare state. Everything was tolerated as long as it was regulated. So when the hunt began, she would be happy to drop by and tell them about the American she met, who was fixing to buy a ranch on the pampas bigger than Rhode Island. Some kind of compensation there, she would say. A take-me-seriously kind of thing. Because he was never real hard. And then the