Bad Luck and Trouble

56

Diana Bond left for the second time and Reacher went back to his pie. The apples were cold and the crust was leathery and the ice cream had melted all over the plate. But he didn’t care. He wasn’t really tasting anything.

O’Donnell said, “We should celebrate.”

“Should we?” Reacher said.

“Of course we should. We know what happened now.”

“And that means we should celebrate?”

“Well, doesn’t it?”

“Lay it out for me and see for yourself.”

“OK, Swan wasn’t pursuing some private concern here. He was investigating his own company. He was checking why the success rate fell away so badly after the first three months. He was worried about insider involvement. Therefore he needed clerical help on the outside because of eavesdropping and random data monitoring in his office. Therefore he recruited Franz and Sanchez and Orozco. Who else would he trust?”

“And?”

“First they analyzed the production figures. Which were all those numbers we found. Seven months, six days a week. Then they ruled out sabotage. New Age had no rivals that stood to gain anything and the Pentagon wasn’t working against them behind the scenes.”

“So?”

“What else was there? They figured the quality control guy had falsely condemned six hundred and fifty working units and the firm was booking them in as destroyed but actually selling them out the back door for a hundred grand apiece to someone called Azhari Mahmoud, a.k.a. whoever. Hence the list of names and the note on Sanchez’s napkin.”

“And?”

“They confronted New Age prematurely and got killed for it. The firm cooked up a story to cover Swan’s disappearance and the dragon lady fed it to you.”

“So now we should celebrate?”

“We know what happened, Reacher. We always used to celebrate.”

Reacher said nothing.

“It’s a home run,” O’Donnell said. “Isn’t it? And you know what? It’s almost funny. You said we should talk to Swan’s old boss? Well, I think we already did. Who else could it have been on that cell phone? That was New Age’s Director of Security.”

“Probably.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“What did you say way back in that Beverly Hills hotel room?”

“I don’t know. Lots of things.”

“You said you wanted to piss on their ancestors’ graves.”

“And I will.”

“You won’t,” Reacher said. “And neither will I, or any of us. Which isn’t going to feel good. That’s why we can’t celebrate.”

“They’re right here in town. They’re sitting ducks.”

“They sold six hundred and fifty working electronics packs out the back door. Which has implications. Somebody wants the technology, they buy one pack and copy it. Somebody buys six hundred and fifty, it’s because they want the missiles themselves. And they don’t buy the electronics down here unless they’re also buying the rockets and the launch tubes up there in Colorado. That’s what we’ve got to face here. Some guy called Azhari Mahmoud now owns six hundred and fifty brand-new latest-generation SAMs. Whoever he is, we can guess what he wants them for. It’ll be some kind of a big, big deal. So we have to tell someone, folks.”

Nobody spoke.

“And a thin minute after we drop that dime, we’re buried up to our armpits in federal agents. We won’t be able to cross the street without permission, let alone go get these guys. We’ll have to sit back and watch them get lawyers and eat three squares a day for the next ten years while they run through all their appeals.”

Nobody spoke.

“So that’s why we can’t celebrate,” Reacher said. “They messed with the special investigators and we can’t lay a glove on them.”