The Enemy Read Online Free PDF

and sound. The widow would ask for them, eventually. And things can disappear, on a big base like Bird, which can be embarrassing. Then I walked over to the O Club and looked for MPs eating late breakfasts or early lunches. They usually cluster well away from everybody else, because everybody else hates them. I found a group of four, two men and two women. They were all in woodland-pattern BDUs, standard on-post dress. One of the women was a captain. She had her right arm in a sling. She was having trouble eating. She would have trouble driving too. The other woman had a lieutenant’s bar on each lapel and
Summer
on her nametape. She looked to be about twenty-five years old and she was short and slender. She had skin the same color as the mahogany table she was eating off.
    “Lieutenant Summer,” I said.
    “Sir?”
    “Happy New Year,” I said.
    “Sir, you too.”
    “You busy today?”
    “Sir, general duties.”
    “OK, out front in thirty minutes, Class As. I need you to hug a widow.”

    I put my own Class As on again and called the motor pool for a sedan. I didn’t want to ride all the way to Virginia in a Humvee. Too noisy, too uncomfortable. A private brought me a new olive-green Chevrolet. I signed for it and drove it around to post headquarters and waited.
    Lieutenant Summer came out halfway through the twenty-eighth minute of her allotted thirty. She paused a second and then walked toward the car. She looked good. She was very short, but she moved easily, like a willowy person. She looked like a six-foot catwalk model reduced in size to a tiny miniature. I got out of the car and left the driver’s door open. Met her on the sidewalk. She was wearing an expert sharpshooter badge with bars for rifle, small bore rifle, auto rifle, pistol, small bore pistol, machine gun, and submachine gun hanging on it. They made a little ladder about two inches long. Longer than mine. I only have rifle and pistol. She stopped dead in front of me and came to attention and fired off a perfect salute.
    “Sir, Lieutenant Summer reports,” she said.
    “Take it easy,” I said. “Informal mode of address, OK? Call me Reacher, or nothing. And no saluting. I don’t like it.”
    She paused. Relaxed.
    “OK,” she said.
    I opened the passenger door and started to get in.
    “I’m driving?” she asked.
    “I was up most of the night.”
    “Who died?”
    “General Kramer,” I said. “Big tank guy in Europe.”
    She paused again. “So why was he here? We’re all infantry.”
    “Passing through,” I said.
    She got in on the other side and racked the driver’s seat all the way forward. Adjusted the mirror. I pushed the passenger seat back and got as comfortable as I could.
    “Where to?” she said.
    “Green Valley, Virginia,” I said. “It’ll be about four hours, I guess.”
    “That’s where the widow is?”
    “Home for the holidays,” I said.
    “And we’re breaking the news? Like, Happy New Year, ma’am, and by the way, your husband’s dead?”
    I nodded. “Lucky us.” But I wasn’t really worried. Generals’ wives are as tough as they come. Either they’ve spent thirty years pushing their husbands up the greasy pole, or they’ve endured thirty years of fallout as their husbands have climbed it for themselves. Either way, there’s not much left that can get to them. They’re tougher than the generals, most of the time.
    Summer took her cap off and tossed it onto the backseat. Her hair was very short. Almost shaved. She had a delicate skull and nice cheekbones. Smooth skin. I liked the way she looked. And she was a fast driver. That was for damn sure. She clipped her belt and took off north like she was training for NASCAR.
    “Was it an accident?” she asked.
    “Heart attack,” I said. “His arteries were bad.”
    “Where? Our VOQ?”
    I shook my head. “A crappy little motel in town. He died with a twenty-dollar hooker wedged somewhere underneath him.”
    “We’re not telling the widow that