CHAPTER ONE
Friday, November 19
6:43 AM
Charlotte, North Carolina
The Airbus pilot announced preparation for landing at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. I closed my eyes and gripped the armrests and tensed every muscle in my body, as usual. I thought about the US Airways Airbus A320 ditched by Chesley Sullenberger in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009. The Carolinas Aviation Museum at the Charlotte airport holds an unparalleled technological lead over other commercial aviation museums because it exhibits that plane. I hoped our pilot was as skilled as Sullenberger during our descent through the heavy black clouds.
The Airbus’s wings rocked and we hit the ground with a hard thud and a couple of bounces, but we made it and I believed the danger had passed. But you never see the disaster that gets you.
I gathered my bag, yanked its telescoping handle up and settled my laptop case atop it, and deplaned through the jetway. I’d taken only a few dozen steps of the long trek to the car rental when the aroma of freshly brewed coffee pulled me to the end of a twelve-deep queue of java hounds.
Travelers hustled past in the usual airport chaos while the coffee line inched ahead. I glanced at my Seiko. Only seven-fifteen.
Just as the customer holding up the line finally moved aside with his triple-shot soy caramel macchiato, the Boss’s secure cell phone vibrated in my pocket. His timing was perfect. Which meant he was monitoring my every move, as always. He delivered a new phone at the beginning of every assignment to which only he had access. This one had not rung before, but it was the same phone as all the others, so I knew what it was when I felt it jiggling inside my pocket.
“Otto,” I said into it from habit, distracted by the strength of caffeine addiction and my growing proximity to the heavenly brew’s source. As if anyone else might answer his phone. Or that he didn’t already know my name.
“FBI Special Agent Kim Otto, right?” A woman’s voice glazed by the hint of a Southern accent she might have acquired in childhood.
I blinked. How did she know this particular phone was in my pocket? Maybe she was calling at the Boss’s request, although he’d never allowed anyone else to call one of these secure phones before.
I pulled the phone down and looked at the display. I was good with numbers and the call was from one I didn’t recognize, but that didn’t mean anything. Randomizing source call numbers was a snap for the FBI. Which meant it was probably simple for the military, too.
I pressed the phone back to my ear. “Yes.” Wary. The phone was as secure as possible, but nothing was one hundred percent secure, especially inside an airport.
“This is Colonel Eunice Summer.” She was talking into a speaker. Background noises were present but muffled. “I understand you’re conducting a background check for the SPTF.”
I blinked again. My cover story was the Special Personnel Task Force background check on Jack Reacher. Colonel Summer was my subject. Her job provided access to high-level classified intel and I was scheduled to interview her today at Fort Bird, North Carolina.
“Yes.” I was standing in the middle of an airport terminal surrounded by strangers and subject to data collection by amateurs as well as multiple agencies, foreign and domestic. The very air was literally aware of every transmitted word. The less said, the better.
Summer spoke as if she were aware of the risks but unconcerned. “I’ve confirmed your assignment with the Chief of Staff. He’s ordered me to meet with you and answer all of your questions.”
I felt like I’d landed on a different planet. Never during my assignment to build the Reacher file had an interview subject contacted me in advance. Usually, they had to be coerced into speaking to me at all.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding as if she meant it.
Here it comes, I thought. The excuses. The delays. The refusals. No friend of Jack Reacher’s had been willing to tell me anything about him. Some of them wouldn’t have answered even one of my questions if their hair were in flames and I was standing two feet away with a fire hose. Why should Summer be different?
“I promised to meet you at ten-thirty in my office in Rock Creek. I’ve had a change of plans. Hang on.”
I heard dead air.
What was she talking about? I looked at my Seiko. It was seven twenty-five already. I couldn’t possibly drive to Rock Creek, Virginia, by ten-thirty this morning.
The Boss knew everything. Why had he sent me to Fort Bird if my subject was located four hundred miles north of here?
She came back on the line. “Sorry. Had to pass a slow-moving RV. Honestly, vehicles should stay in the right lane where they belong if they can’t keep up on these mountain roads.”
“No problem.” I frowned and shuffled ahead a few steps in the java line and waited for the coffee and for her to come to the point.
“Something came up. On a corruption case I’ve been working for a while. I’m driving to Fort Bird, North Carolina. I should arrive in the XO’s office about ten o’clock and I’ll be there the rest of the day.” She paused as if something had caught her attention again. “I don’t know where you’re located, but if you can come to Fort Bird instead of Rock Creek, we can do your interview there. It shouldn’t take long to tell you everything I know and it’s all old news, anyway. I haven’t seen Reacher in twenty years. Would that work for you?”
“Uh, yeah. I can make that happen. Hang on a minute.” I was now at the front of the line and a long queue had formed behind me.
The barista smiled at me and asked for my order. She seemed a little disappointed when I said, “Black coffee, please. The biggest size you’ve got.”
I reached into my pocket for a five-dollar bill just as a hyperactive ten-year-old plowed right into me and knocked me back against my bag.
The bag fell.
I fell on top of the bag.
The kid fell on top of me.
The Boss’s cell phone went flying out of my hand.
The kid’s twin brother came running to a halt inches away from our pile.
He kicked the phone.
The phone smashed into the wall and busted apart.
The pieces were stomped and pushed by shuffling feet and rolling travel bags.
The mother jogged behind the twins, yelling, “Stevie! Larry! Stop!”
Stevie jumped up and dashed farther into the airport with Larry and Mom in hot pursuit.
By the time my well-meaning co-travelers hauled me off the floor, the phone’s pieces were nowhere to be found. They had probably been kicked around and trampled on and who knew what else.
I dusted myself off and righted my luggage and paid for my coffee and moved to the side of the counter out of the melee.
I stretched all my limbs and examined myself for bleeding, but saw none. There would be bruises, especially on my hip where I’d landed on that hard suitcase wheel. But bruises weren’t lethal.
Briefly, I thought about how the Boss had learned Summer was on her way to Fort Bird and who else knew her plans. And then I shrugged and pulled out my personal phone and sent him a text. “Phone destroyed.” He’d know what to do.
CHAPTER TWO
Friday, November 19
11:43 AM
Fort Bird, North Carolina
Colonel Eunice Summer, recently promoted Commanding Officer of the Army’s 110th Special Investigations Unit, had been married to the Army her whole life. Twenty-five years of her service was dedicated to investigating crimes and assuring that punishment was swiftly delivered.
Which was how she’d met Jack Reacher. The Boss sent me to interview her while my partner, Carlos Gaspar, was temporarily occupied in Miami.
Before and after her call, my plan was the same. A quick trip to Fort Bird to learn whatever the Boss believed Summer knew and get out of the mountains ahead of the coming ice storm.
For the first time in eighteen days, I’d chosen the four-wheel drive rental vehicle suited to my size and mission. I flipped on the headlights and windshield wipers, and ran the defrosters full blast. I made slow progress through the dreary weather from the Charlotte airport onward, which churned my stomach at the two-antacid level.
I hadn’t called Summer after the lost phone because I’d already told her I’d meet her at Fort Bird. Nor did I want to risk any security breaches from my personal phone.
The GPS sent me north on the Interstate and directed me to exit behind a line of assorted vehicles before I reached New Haven.
The sign at the entrance said:
Fort Bird
Home of The Airborne
and
Special Operations Forces
I followed a trail of vehicles until it backed up at the main gate. The digital clock on the SUV’s dashboard said I was fifteen minutes behind schedule.
I reached into my pocket for another antacid and placed it under my tongue.
Being late is about the worst thing an FBI Special Agent can be, in my book. Tardiness says, “I’m more important than you are. I have no respect for your time.” Never a good way to start an interview when what I needed was a lot of cooperation from any witness, and especially a powerful one like Colonel Summer.
Gaspar had been behind the wheel, driving us around as my number two, from the outset of our off-the-books assignment. My driving skills were rusty, so I’d been too cautious on the road. That’s why I was late and popping antacids.
As it turned out, my being on time would have made no difference at all.
When it was my turn to be logged in, I pulled up to the sentry station and lowered my window to talk to the soldier inside. A frigid breeze blew cold rain in my face.
“FBI Special Agent Kim Otto,” I told the soldier in the booth. “I have an appointment with Colonel Summer.”
“Colonel Summer is not posted here at Fort Bird, Ma’am.”
I nodded. “She’s driving down from Rock Creek.”
“She hasn’t arrived since I came on duty at zero-nine-thirty.” He found my name on the visitors list. Three minutes for paperwork and he gave me a pass and waved me through.
I kept my gun. Army personnel weren’t allowed to carry personal weapons on base, but I’m FBI. Which normally wouldn’t grant me any kind of special treatment, but the Boss had worked his magic on this issue before I arrived.
I followed signs to the visitor parking lot in front of the low block building that housed Fort Bird’s Military Police. I used my personal phone to dial the number I’d memorized from Summer’s earlier call. The phone rang several times and went to voicemail. I kept the message cryptic, just in case: “Otto here. I’ve arrived. I’ll wait for you inside the XO’s office.”
I slipped the transmission into park, turned off all the SUV’s dials and buttons, scooped up my phone and my briefcase and hurried inside where it felt good to be warmed by central heat again.
A sergeant seated behind a spotlessly clean and empty desk greeted me with slightly surly disinterest. Maybe he didn’t want the FBI on his turf or something.
Church, according to the nametape on his uniform located about where a pocket for cigarettes could have been when my dad was in the Army. He stammered slightly when he said Colonel Summer was running late. My stomach settled a bit. The sentry had been right. At least I’d arrived before she did.
Colonel Eunice Summer was a lead. A solid lead. And she had been ordered to answer my questions by none other than the Army Chief of Staff. A refreshing change.
I’d planned to ask Summer every question on my three-page list, to squeeze every ounce of information from her until she was drier than a well-juiced lemon. If I was really lucky, she might still have a phone number for Reacher. Even a long-outdated last known address would be the camel’s nose under the tent. A place to start.
No matter what, when I left here I’d vowed to have learned something about Jack Reacher that would lead me in a straight line right to the end of this assignment.
Sitting there in the warm room, drinking coffee, waiting for Summer, I let myself believe I was on the right side and success was finally headed my way.
CHAPTER THREE
A slight touch on my shoulder and a deeply sexy male voice pulled me from concentration like being gently awakened from an engrossing dream. “Is everything satisfactory, Agent Otto?”
The effect of the man’s sudden physical manifestation, however, was anything but gentle. More like an excruciating five-second Taser shock to my system that seemed to temporarily short-out my faculty of speech. After blinking like an idiot for several dumb seconds, I managed to focus on the MP with the mega-watt smile standing directly in front of me. A man who could only be described as dangerously hot.
The realization was not welcome.
I’m not indifferent to men. I’ve been surrounded by men my whole life. I have three brothers. I went to law school and business school. I work in the mostly male FBI as a field agent. I’d even been married to a man once, a long time ago.
But I never mixed business with pleasure.
And I don’t trust handsome men. Intelligence, honor, compassion, integrity and most of all, reliability. Those are my aphrodisiacs now.
Yet there he was, definitely impressive as hell. Green eyes. Black hair. Dark skin. Tall enough. And the voice. A melodious baritone like a radio personality or maybe the old-fashioned crooners my grandmother enjoyed. Until now, I hadn’t fully appreciated their appeal.
He squeezed my shoulder and bent his knees to place his gaze at my eye level. “Agent Otto, are you all right?”
“Yes. Of course.” I jerked my head quickly and blinked and cleared my throat. “Sorry.”
He released his grip on my shoulder and pushed himself upright. He moved aside to give me room to stand and extend my right hand. His handshake was appropriately firm and brief, no more, no less.
“Major Anthony Clifton. Tony to my friends.” He had flashed the mega-watt smile again before he got down to business. “I’m the duty officer today. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to meet you. Sergeant Church tells me you’ve been waiting awhile. I’ve been briefed on your mission. Maybe I can help you until Colonel Summer arrives.”
He led the way into a strictly utilitarian office decorated in Army-shabby. Probably ten by twelve. Smallish desk, two visitor chairs, a phone and a computer on the desk, a small window that overlooked a side yard. There was nothing remotely personal or comfortable anywhere in the room, which made me wonder how long Clifton had occupied it—and whether it had looked exactly the same when Reacher worked here.
He waved me to the chair closest to the window and settled himself in the desk chair. Sergeant Church brought three mugs of steaming black coffee and placed them on the desk and closed the door on his way out.
“I know the Army’s short on manpower these days,” I said, glad to hear that my voice worked, “but why is a sergeant on desk duty and serving coffee? Seems like high-priced talent for a reception job.”
“Our clerk’s position was eliminated. Church is having a problem with his social life or something. He’s been late for duty two days in a row, yesterday and today.” Clifton shrugged. “The XO figured he could do with some mild discipline.”
“How’s he taking that?” He’d been a little surly to me when I first arrived, which I’d thought at the time was due to the FBI invading the Military Police’s turf. But maybe he was pissed off at his situation.
Clifton grinned. “He’s taking it about as well as you would, I suspect.”
“Aren’t you the XO? I didn’t take you for such a hard-ass.”
“You’ve only just met me.” He flashed the mega-watter again. “Wait until you get to know me better.”
I frowned. Was he flirting with me? Whatever charm he’d exuded in the first five minutes had most definitely worn off. I drank my coffee and offered no witty banter.
A quick rap rattled the door before it opened and a middle-aged woman, maybe about forty-five, stepped inside. She was all bone and sinew, hard, not an ounce of fat on her. Dressed in jeans, work boots, and a leather bomber jacket, her posture said she’d been Army once. Through and through.
She glanced my way before she pulled off her leather gloves and stuffed them into the back pocket of her jeans. She grabbed one of the coffee mugs, sniffed appreciatively, and shook hands with Clifton.
She raised her cup. “I really do miss Army coffee. Best in the world, no question.”
He raised his own mug in a silent toast and sipped with her before he nodded in my direction. “Sergeant Major Madeline Jones, this is FBI Special Agent Kim Otto.”
“Sergeant Major Madeline Jones, retired,” she corrected him. Her accent was a thick drawl, so it sounded like re-tarrrrred. Her hand was calloused and her grip was as tough as the rest of her. “My pleasure, Agent Otto.”
“Good to meet you as well,” I replied, baffled by her presence but unwilling to ask about it just yet.
Jones settled into the second visitor chair, the one closest to the door. She smelled piney like she’d been outside in the woods for a couple of hours. Her hair was short and it looked like she’d cut it herself with nail scissors. She’d recently been wearing a hat, too, which didn’t help the hairstyle any.
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