back. Reacher stepped forward and gave their names.
"We're here to see Nash Newman," he said.
The sergeant looked surprised and picked up a clipboard and peeled thin sheets of paper back. He slid a thick finger along a line and nodded. Picked up a phone and dialed a number. Four digits. An internal call. He announced the visitors and listened to the reply, and then he looked puzzled. He covered the phone with his palm and turned back to Jodie.
"How old are you, miss?" he asked.
"Thirty," Jodie said, puzzled in turn.
"Thirty," the MP repeated into the phone. Then he listened again and hung it up and wrote something on the clipboard. Turned back to the window.
"He'll be right out, so come on through."
They squeezed through the narrow gap between the gatehouse wall and the heavy counterweight on the end of the vehicle barrier and waited on the hot pavement six feet away from where they had started, but now it was military pavement, not Hawaii Department of Transportation pavement, and that made a lot of difference to the look on the sergeant's face. The suspicion was all gone, replaced by frank curiosity about why the legendary Nash Newman was in such a big hurry to get these two civilians inside the base.
There was a low concrete building maybe sixty yards away with a plain personnel door set in the blank end wall. The door opened up and a silver-haired man stepped out. He turned back to close it and lock it and then set out at a fast walk toward the gatehouse. He was in the pants and the shirt of an Army tropical-issue uniform, with a white lab coat flapping open over them. There was enough metal punched through the collar of the shirt to indicate he was a high-ranking officer, and nothing in his distinguished bearing to contradict that impression. Reacher moved to meet him and Jodie followed. The silver-haired guy was maybe fifty-five, and up close he was tall, with a handsome patrician face and a natural athletic grace in his body that was just beginning to yield to the stiffness of age.
"General Newman," Reacher said. "This is Jodie Garber."
Newman glanced at Reacher and took Jodie's hand, smiling.
"Pleased to meet you, General," she said.
"We already met," Newman said.
"We did?" she said, surprised.
"You wouldn't recall it," he said. "At least I'd be terribly surprised if you did. You were three years old at the time, I guess. In the Philippines. It was in your father's backyard. I remember you brought me a glass of planter's punch. It was a big glass, and a big yard, and you were a very little girl. You carried it in both hands, with your tongue sticking out, concentrating. I watched you all the way, with my heart in my mouth in case you dropped it."
She smiled. "Well, you're right, I'm afraid I don't recall it. I was three? That's an awful long time ago now."
Newman nodded. "That's why I checked how old you looked. I didn't mean for the sergeant to come right out and ask you straight. I wanted his subjective impression, is all. It's not the sort of thing one should ask a lady, is it? But I was wondering if you could really be Leon's daughter, come to visit me."
He squeezed her hand and let it go. Turned to Reacher and punched him lightly on the shoulder.
"Jack Reacher," he said. "Damn, it's good to see you again."
Reacher caught Newman's hand and shook it hard, sharing the pleasure.
"General Newman was my teacher," he said to Jodie. "He did a spell at staff college about a million years ago. Advanced forensics, taught me everything I know."
"He was a pretty good student," Newman said to her. "Paid attention at least, which is more than most of them did."
"So what is it you do, General?" she asked.
"Well, I do a little forensic anthropology," Newman said.
"He's the best in the world," Reacher said.
Newman waved away the compliment. "Well, I don't know about that."
"Anthropology?" Jodie said. "But isn't that studying remote tribes and things? How they live? Their rituals and beliefs and so on?"
"No, that's cultural anthropology," Newman said. "There are many different disciplines. Mine is forensic anthropology, which is a part of physical anthropology."
"Studying human remains for clues," Reacher said.
"A bone doctor," Newman said. "That's about what it amounts to."
They were drifting down the sidewalk as they talked, getting nearer the plain door in the blank wall. It opened up and a younger man was