Running Blind by Lee Child Read Free Book Online

different."
    "Different how?"
    "Different time, different place. It was overseas. She was having sex with some colonel. Had been for a year. It looked consensual to me. She only called it harassment later, when she didn't get promoted."
    "How is that different?"
    "Because it was unconnected. The guy was screwing her because she was happy to let him, and he didn't promote her because she wasn't good enough at her job. The two things weren't connected."
    "Maybe she saw the year in bed as an implied bargain."
    "Then it was a contractual issue. Like a hooker who gets bilked. That's not harassment."
    "So you did nothing?"
    Reacher shook his head. "No, I arrested the colonel, because by then there were rules. Sex between people of different rank was effectively outlawed."
    "And?"
    "And he was dishonorably discharged and his wife dumped him and he killed himself. And Cooke quit anyway."
    "And what happened to you?"
    "I transferred out of NATO HQ."
    "Why? Upset?"
    "No, I was needed someplace else."
    "You were needed? Why you?"
    "Because I was a good investigator. I was wasted in Belgium. Nothing much happens in Belgium."
    "You see much sexual harassment after that?"
    "Sure. It became a very big thing."
    "Lots of good men getting their careers ruined?" Lamarr asked.
    Reacher turned to face her. "Some. It became a witch-hunt. Most of the cases were genuine, in my opinion, but some innocent people were caught up. Plenty of normal relationships were suddenly exposed. The rules had suddenly changed on them. Some of the innocent victims were men. But some were women, too."
    "A mess, right?" Blake said. "All started by pesky little women like Callan and Cooke?"
    Reacher said nothing. Cozo was drumming his fingers on the mahogany.
    "I want to get back to the business with Petrosian," he said.
    Reacher swiveled his gaze the other way. "There is no business with Petrosian. I never heard of anybody called Petrosian."
    Deerfield yawned and looked at his watch. He pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.
    "It's past midnight, you know that?" he said.
    "Did you treat Callan and Cooke with courtesy?" Blake asked.
    Reacher squinted through the glare at Cozo and then turned back to Blake. The hot yellow light from the ceiling was bouncing off the red tint of the mahogany and making his bloated face crimson.
    "Yes, I treated them with courtesy."
    "Did you see them again after you turned their cases over to the prosecutor?"
    "Once or twice, I guess, in passing."
    "Did they trust you?"
    Reacher shrugged. "I guess so. It was my job to make them trust me. I had to get all kinds of intimate details from them."
    "You had to do that kind of thing with many women?"
    "There were hundreds of cases. I handled a couple dozen, I guess, before they set up special units to deal with them all."
    "So give me a name of another woman whose case you handled."
    Reacher shrugged again and scanned back through a succession of offices in hot climates, cold climates, big desks, small desks, sun outside the window, cloud outside, hurt and outraged women stammering out the details of their betrayal.
    "Rita Scimeca," he said. "She would be a random example."
    Blake paused and Lamarr reached down to the floor and came up with a thick file from her briefcase. She slid it sideways. Blake opened it and turned pages. Traced down a long list with a thick finger and nodded.
    "OK," he said. "What happened with Ms. Scimeca?"
    "She was Lieutenant Scimeca," Reacher said. "Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The guys called it hazing, she called it gang rape."
    "And what was the outcome?"
    "She won her case. Three men spent time in military prison and were dishonorably discharged."
    "And what happened to Lieutenant Scimeca?"
    Reacher shrugged again. "At first she was happy enough. She felt vindicated. Then she felt the Army had been ruined for her. So she mustered out."
    "Where is she now?"
    "I have no idea."
    "Suppose you saw her again someplace? Suppose you