Night School Read Free

But we did it.”
    “A service to our nation?”
    “What’s this about?”
    “I’m comparing the two of you. And there’s not much difference. You’re very good agents, already fairly senior, seen as loyal and reliable and trustworthy, and hence you’re given something useful to do. But then this is your reward for doing it. Which means one of two things.”
    “Which are?” White said.
    “Maybe the thing you did was embarrassing in certain circles. Maybe now it needs to be deniable. Maybe you need to be hidden away. Out of sight and out of mind.”
    White shook his head. He said, “No, it was well regarded. It will be for years. I got a secret decoration. And a personal letter from the Secretary of State. And it doesn’t need to be deniable anyway, because it was completely secret. No one in those circles knew anything about it.”
    Reacher looked at Waterman and said, “Was there anything embarrassing about your manhunt?”
    Waterman shook his head, and said, “What’s the second possibility?”
    “This is not a school.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “It’s a place where they send good agents fresh off a big win.”
    Waterman paused a beat. A new thought. He said, “Are you the same as us? I don’t see why you wouldn’t be. Why draft two the same and not three?”
    Reacher nodded. “I’m the same. I’m fresh off a big win. That’s for damn sure. I got a medal this morning. On a ribbon around my neck. For a job well done. All clean and tidy. Nothing to get embarrassed about.”
    “What kind of job was it?”
    “I’m sure it’s classified. But I’m reliably informed it might have involved someone breaking into a house and shooting the occupant in the head.”
    “Where?”
    “One in the forehead and one behind the ear. Never fails.”
    “No, where was the house?”
    “I’m sure that’s classified, too. But overseas, I expect. And I’m reliably informed there were a lot of consonants in the name. Not many vowels at all. And then the same someone did the same thing the next night. At a different house. All for good reasons. Which taken together means I would expect him to get better than this afterward. I would expect him to get some input into his next deployment, at least. Maybe even a choice.”
    “Exactly,” White said. “And my choice wouldn’t have been this. It would have been to do what I should be doing right now.”
    “Which sounds challenging.”
    “Very.”
    “Which is typical. As a reward we want a challenge. We don’t want the easy commands. We want to step up.”
    “Exactly.”
    “Maybe we have,” Reacher said. “Let me ask you a question. Think back to when you got these orders. Was it face to face, or written?”
    “Face to face. It had to be, for a thing like this.”
    “Was there a third person in the room?”
    White said, “As a matter of fact there was. It was humiliating. An administrative assistant, waiting to deliver a stack of papers. He told her to stay. She was just standing there.”
    Reacher looked at Waterman, who said, “Same for me. He kept his secretary in the room. Normally he wouldn’t. How did you know?”
    “Because the same thing happened to me. His sergeant. A witness. But also a gossip. That was the whole point. They all talk to each other. Within seconds everyone knew I wasn’t going anywhere interesting. Just a meaningless course with a bullshit title. I was instantly yesterday’s news. Immediately off the radar. I’m sure it’s far and wide by now. I’m a non-person. I disappeared into the bureaucratic fog. And maybe you did, too. Maybe administrative assistants and FBI secretaries have networks of their own. If they do, then the three of us are the three most invisible people on the planet right now. No one is asking questions about us. No one is curious about us. No one can even remember us. There’s nothing more boring than where we are now.”
    “You’re saying they moved three unrelated but in-form operatives completely