When Reacher got the terse, cryptic call from Army Intelligence, he was minding his own business behind his desk at the 110th Military Police HQ in northern Virginia. He only knew where the call was from because he recognized the number on caller ID. They had called before. When Reacher answered, the anonymous male voice at the other end did not identify himself. He assumed that Reacher knew.

Forty-one minutes later, as instructed, Reacher stood in front of an address on Independence Avenue in downtown Washington, D.C. He was wearing civilian clothes and carrying a single folded section of the Post under his arm. (They had said it did not matter which section.)

He did not wait long. A man in a dark suit with a folded section of the Post under his arm walked toward Reacher. Then sat down on a nearby bus stop bench. There was no one else waiting for the bus. Reacher sat down beside him. Without a word, the man laid his newspaper on the bench between them. Reacher put his own paper on top of it. After a long half minute of silence, the man took Reacher's paper and left.

Reacher sat for a couple of seconds before idly fingering the remaining newspaper. Then he picked it up and unfolded it. There was a circled article about a new NASA exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which was only a block away. Reacher stood, put the paper under his arm and headed for the museum.

The exhibit was relatively crowded, this being its first day. A model of the Mars Lander was on display. It was surrounded by enlarged photos of the Martian surface taken by the real lander. Reacher stood at the edge of the crowd.

He did not know who he was meeting. Being six-foot-six, though, he assumed the ball was in the other guy's court. Before long, a middle-aged man walked up and fell in at Reacher's right elbow. He had on a white polo shirt. A camera hung from around his neck and a "Martian Lander" exhibit catalog was tucked under his arm.

"You with the 110th?" whispered the man without looking at Reacher.

"I think you know I am."

"Ditch the newspaper."

Reacher looked around and tossed the paper into the bin immediately behind him.

"Now take hold of the left side of this catalog," said the man in a low voice. He offered the open booklet to Reacher. Reacher grabbed it. He looked down. It was open to a two-page centerfold. It was a copy of the large Martian landscape on display before them. A rusty brown, rock-strewn plain led the eye toward a distant horizon. It was somewhat obscured by far-off dust eddies. Storms, Reacher thought. Above this plain, the Martian sky was pink.

Underneath the page, on his side, was an eight-by-ten folder that just poked out from underneath the picture.

"What's this about?" asked Reacher.

"You're holding everything you need to know."

"Why me?"

The man flashed an annoyed look at Reacher. After a pause he said, "You were recommended by General Sheppard."

"How will I get in touch with you?"

"We'll call you. Be available."

With that, the make-believe tourist peeled away and walked toward the exit, leaving Reacher holding the catalog with the file tucked between its pages. After a few moments, Reacher exited, too. He took the first available taxi and asked the driver to take him to Union Station. It would be a short ride, but the dossier in the folder was pretty thin. There were only two photographs and two pages of text. Reacher also found a fresh credit card with his name on it, rubber-glued to the inside of the file folder.

He looked at the photos first. One was a mug shot of a man who glowered at the camera. He had stitches all over his face—across the top of his forehead, diagonally across both cheeks, and on his neck. The front and side views displayed the jagged stitches mercilessly. Despite the scars, he had regular features and a full head of dark hair. The name of the arrestee, according to the board he was holding, was "Doe, John," and the year was 1968. The location was some place in Maine that Reacher never heard of.

The other photo was more recent. It was taken at an airport terminal. It was a grainy blow-up. Probably the original was not focused on the extremely tall man at the center of the blow-up.

Reacher looked back and forth at the mug shot and the blow-up. Although the differences were more striking than the similarities, it was the same man in both pictures.

The scars were gone in the more recent photo. Reacher reflected that if those had been his scars, he would have given his last penny to the plastic surgeon who promised to get rid of them.

The other differences were that the man's hair was now gray—almost white. He wore a suit at the airport whereas, in 1968, he had on some kind of ratty shirt or thin sweater, but everything else was the same. The ears, the profile, everything.

Reacher guessed that somebody must have been looking for this guy well before they ran across the airport photo. They recognized the man in the photo and blew up the picture to highlight him for comparison to the mug shot. It was a good catch.

But why was Army Intelligence looking for this man? The two-page dossier said nothing about John Doe having a military jacket or a government file of any kind. In fact, several whole sentences were blacked out. This was an excerpt from a larger, unidentified file. There was no way for Reacher to tell where the dossier came from. It might have originated with Army Intelligence or some higher governmental power.

Reacher had no idea who he was ultimately working for. Except that it was some cloak-and-dagger agency that General Ralph Sheppard had told, "Oh, sure, Reacher is your man." Reacher had met Sheppard but did not know him well. He made a mental note not to send the general a Christmas card. Not that he ever had or planned to, but if it ever came up, this was his resolution.

According to the dossier, the second photo had been taken at BWI seven months ago. That was why they—whoever they were—could not lay hands on the guy. By the time somebody recognized him from the original photo, he was long gone.

So, nobody knew when this guy was born or what his real name was. The name on the mug shot was "Doe, John," but the first sheet of paper claimed his name was "Adam" with no last name. No source was given for that information.

There was no clue as to why anybody might want him now. Just confirmation that he was arrested in Collinsport, Maine in 1968. The original charge was not in the dossier. Reacher guessed that the statute of limitations would have expired a long time ago, unless it was a murder case.

Reacher guessed, too, from the mug shot that Adam was between twenty-five and thirty in 1968. Maybe he was older or younger than he looked. Reacher thought that the expression beneath the scars and anger might actually be innocence. As if the guy did not understand why he was being arrested.

Reacher looked at the BWI photo again. So maybe he was in his fifties now. He looked to be in pretty good shape. Maybe too good for somebody older than sixty, which is what he guessed the first time he saw the white hair.

Reacher further guessed that Army Intelligence did not know whether the guy had been passing through or lived in the D.C. area. They must have made inquiries at the airport, but nobody remembered the man—even though he was, according to the dossier, six-foot-six. Just like Reacher. He could see from the photo that the guy was a giant compared to everyone around him. The government drew a blank, and that was when they decided to reach out to anybody with a reputation for finding missing persons. That led them to Reacher. He did not have to brag. He had tracked down hundreds of people when others had given up. Of course, he usually had more to go on than this.

Reacher eyed the credit card. They were expensing him to the tune of whatever the limit was on the card. How far did they think he would have to go to find Adam No-last-name?