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the decoy vehicle? Do they know?”
    “The tire tracks were generic Firestones. On a million domestic products. Up to mid-size cars, and mid-range pick-up trucks. And before you ask, yes, the army uses them extensively. I checked, and there’s a set on the car I drove down in.”
    “You drove from Bragg?”
    “It’s not that far. Normal people like driving more than you do.”
    Reacher said, “They’re going to ask us for a list of shoe sizes at Fort Smith. That’s what’s coming next.”
    “Smith is all special forces. Those guys run smaller than normal. I bet they’re all size nine.”
    “That’s not the point. We can’t give them something like that. Not without lawyers. They’ll be talking for months. This thing is going to turn into a nightmare.”
    —
    Thirty minutes later the fine print from the autopsy came in on the fax machine, and then the telex chuntered into life with a new report from Fort Smith. The pathologist in Atlanta had weighed and measured and poked and prodded and X-rayed. Crawford had been slender but well toned. All her organs were in perfect working order. She had long-healed childhood breaks to her right collar bone and her right forearm. She had recent cosmetic dentistry. Toxicology was clear, and there was no evidence of recent sex, and she had never been pregnant. Heart and lungs like a teenager. Nothing wrong with her at all, except for the bullets.
    The telex from Smith showed some initiative. The MPs out there had done some good work, on a timeline for Crawford’s first week on post. Seven completed days. A lot of talking. A lot of meetings. Different agendas, different constituencies. Not just officers. She had talked to NCOs and enlisted men. She had eaten in the mess two nights, and gone out five. She had taken recommendations from the mess stewards. Which was smart. They had long-term postings, and could be relied upon to know the local joints. Which were mostly an hour away, at least, on the roads through the woods. Reacher checked back with the maps, and traced them all. Barbecue, bars, a family restaurant, and even a movie theater. No place had an obvious linear way to get there. Every destination could be arrived at by a number of different looping routes. The roads had been made for forestry purposes, not ease of transportation. There had been speculation that the low-slung Porsche wouldn’t handle them well. But Crawford had reported no problems. She had gone out and come back safe, five straight times. A young staff officer, for once outside the D.C. bubble, making the most of things. Reacher had seen it before.
    Neagley came in and said, “The protocol office can’t find the parents. They think the father might be deceased. But they’re not sure. And they don’t have a number for the mother. Or an address. They’re still looking.”
    Then the soft sergeant trailed in behind her, with a torn-off telex in his hand.
    The Georgia State Police had made an arrest.
    Not a soldier.
    Not a military veteran.
    —
    Reacher called Fort Smith direct for the skinny. The suspect was a black man who lived alone in a cabin on the muddy shore of a lake forty miles north and west of the post. He was six feet seven inches tall, and wore size fifteen shoes. He drove a Ford Ranger pick-up truck with Firestone tires, and he owned a nine-millimeter handgun.
    He denied everything.
    Reacher looked up at the soft sergeant standing in front of him and said, “You’re in charge now, soldier. Sergeant Neagley and I are going to Smith.”
    —
    Neagley drove, in her pool car from Bragg. It was a green Chevrolet, with Firestone tires. The trip was about a hundred and ten miles, more or less due east from Benning. Most of the scenery was woods. New spring-green leaves flashed by in the sun. Reacher said, “So we’ll call this the casting-the-net theory. Like fishing on a lazy afternoon. Once in a while the guy comes down from the lake and sets up on a back road and catches something. Like