" What do you think?” Summer said. “I think they’re full of shit,” I said. “Important shit or regular flag-rank shit?” “They’re lying,” I said. “They’re uptight, they’re lying, and they’re stupid. Why am I worried about Kramer’s briefcase?” “Sensitive paperwork,” she said. “Whatever he was carrying to California.” I nodded. “They just defined it for me. It’s the conference agenda itself.” “You’re sure there was one?” “There’s always an agenda. And it’s always on paper. There’s a paper agenda for everything. You want to change the dog food in the K-9 kennels, you need forty-seven separate meetings with forty-seven separate paper agendas. So there was one for Irwin, that’s for damn sure. It was completely stupid to say there wasn’t. If they’ve got something to hide, they should have just said it’s too secret for me to see.” “Maybe the conference really wasn’t important.” “That’s bullshit too. It was very important.” “Why?” “Because a two-star general was going. And a one-star. And because it was New Year’s Eve, Summer. Who flies on New Year’s Eve and spends the night in a lousy stopover hotel? And this year in Germany was a big deal. The Wall is coming down. We won, after forty-five years. The parties must have been incredible. Who would miss them for something unimportant? To have gotten those three guys on a plane on New Year’s Eve, this Irwin thing had to be some kind of a very big deal. "
― Lee Child , The Enemy (Jack Reacher, #8)