Lee Child - Bad Luck and Trouble

“How do we find out?”

“Neagley hits up her Pentagon guy. She calls in whatever markers she’s holding. He organizes some kind of audit out in Colorado. If anything is missing up there, then it’s game over for us. But if everything is still present and correct and accounted for, then it’s game on.”

Neagley checked her watch. Just after six in the west, just after nine in the east. The Pentagon would have been humming for an hour. She took out her phone and dialed.

Neagley’s buddy wasn’t dumb. He insisted on calling back from outside the building, and not on his own cell phone, either. And he was smart enough to realize that any pay phone within a mile radius of the Pentagon would be continuously monitored. So there was a whole hour’s delay while he got himself across the river and halfway across town to a phone on a wall outside a bodega on New York Avenue.

Then the fun began.

Neagley told him what she wanted. He gave her all kinds of reasons why it wasn’t possible. She started calling in her markers, one by one. The guy owed her a lot of heavy-duty favors. That was clear. Reacher felt a certain amount of sympathy for him. If your balls were in a vise, better that it wasn’t Neagley’s hand on the lever. The guy caved and agreed within ten minutes. Then it became a logistical discussion. How should the job be done, by whom, what should be considered proof positive. Neagley suggested Army CID should roll up unannounced and match the books with physical inventory. Her guy agreed, and asked for a week. Neagley gave him four hours.

Reacher spent the four hours asleep. Once the plan was settled and the decision was made he relaxed to the point where he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He went back to his room and lay down on the bed. A maid came in after an hour. He sent her away again and went back to sleep. Next thing he knew Dixon was at his door. She told him that Neagley was waiting in the lounge, with news.

Neagley’s news was neither good nor bad. It was somewhere in between. New Age had no physical plant in Colorado. Just an office. They contracted out their raw missile production, to one of the established aerospace manufacturers in Denver. That manufacturer had a number of Little Wing assemblies available for inspection. An Army CID officer had seen them all and counted them all, and his final tally was precisely what the books said it should be. Everything was present, correct, and accounted for. No problem. Except that exactly six hundred and fifty of the units were currently stored in a separate secure warehouse, crated up and awaiting transport to a facility in Nevada, where they were due to be decommissioned and destroyed.

“Why?” O’Donnell asked.

“Current production is specified as Mark Two,” Neagley said. “They’re junking what’s left of the Mark Ones.”

“Which just happens to be exactly six hundred and fifty units.”

“You got it.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The Mark Twos have a small fluorescent arrow painted on them. To make loading easier in the dark.”

“That’s all?”

“You got it.”

“It’s a scam.”

“Of course it’s a scam. It’s a way of making the paperwork look legal when Mahmoud’s people drive them through the factory gate.”

Reacher nodded. A gate guard would fight to the death to prevent the unauthorized removal of ordnance. But if he saw paperwork with a reason on it, he would pass the load through with a smile and a cheery wave. Even if the reason was the absence of a small painted arrow on something that cost more than he made in a year. Reacher had seen the Pentagon junk stuff for less.

He asked, “How do the electronics packs fit on?”

“In,” Neagley said. “Not on. There’s an access port in the side. You unscrew it and plug the pack in. Then there’s some testing and calibration.”

“Could I do it?”

“I doubt it. You’d need training. In the field it’s going to be a specialist’s job.”

“So Mahmoud couldn’t do it, either. Or his people.”

“We have to assume they’ve got a guy. They wouldn’t spend sixty-five million dollars without being shown how to put the things together.”

“Can we nix that transport order?”

“Not without raising an alarm. Which would be the same thing as dropping the dime.”

“You still got any markers left on your guy?”

“A couple.”

“Tell him to have someone call you the second those units roll out.”

“And until then?”

“Until then Mahmoud doesn’t have the missiles. Until then we have complete freedom of action.”

At that instant it became a race against time. When the warehouse door opened in Colorado, a door of a different kind would slam shut in LA. But there was still a lot to prepare. There was still a lot to discover. Including exact locations. Clearly New Age’s glass cube in East LA wasn’t the center of anything. For one thing, there was no helicopter there.

And they needed exact identities.

They needed to know who knew, and who flew.

“I want them all,” Reacher said.

“Including the dragon lady?” Neagley asked.

“Starting with the dragon lady. She lied to me.”

They needed equipment, clothing, communications, and alternative vehicles.

And training, Neagley thought.

“We’re old, we’re slow, and we’re rusty,” she said. “We’re a million miles from what we used to be.”

“We’re not too bad,” O’Donnell said.

“Time was when you’d have put a double tap through that guy’s eyes,” she said. “Not a lucky low shot to his leg.”

They sat in the lounge like four out-of-towners discussing how to spend their day. As far as ordnance went, they had two Hardballers and the Daewoo DP-51 from Vegas. Thirteen rounds each for the Hardballers, eleven for the Daewoo. Not nearly good enough. O’Donnell and Dixon and Neagley had personal cell phones registered to their real names and real addresses and Reacher had nothing. Not nearly good enough. They had a Hertz Ford 500 rented in Dixon’s real name and the captured Chrysler. Not nearly good enough. O’Donnell was in a thousand-dollar suit from his East Coast tailor and Neagley and Dixon had jeans, jackets, and evening wear. Not nearly good enough.

Neagley swore that budget was not a problem. But that didn’t help with the time factor. They needed four untraceable pay-as-you-go cell phones, four anonymous cars, and work clothes. That was a day’s shopping right there. Then they needed guns and ammunition. Best case, a free choice for each of them and a lot of spare rounds. Worst case, one more make-do handgun and a lot of spare rounds. That was another day’s shopping. Like most cities, LA had a thriving black market in untraceable weapons, but it would take time to penetrate.

Two days of material preparation.

Maybe two days of surveillance and research.

“We don’t have time to train,” Reacher said.

Azhari Mahmoud had time for a leisurely lunch. He took it in a sidewalk café in Laguna Beach. He was staying in a rented townhouse a short walk away. Safe enough. The lease was legitimate. The development had a large transient population. It wasn’t unusual to see U-Haul trucks parked overnight. Mahmoud’s was two streets away, in a lot, locked up and empty.

It wouldn’t be empty for long.

His contacts at New Age had insisted that Little Wing must not be used inside the United States. He had readily agreed. He had said he planned to use the weapon in Kashmir, on the border, against the Indian Air Force. He had lied, of course. He had been amazed that they had taken him for a Pakistani. He had been amazed that they cared what his intentions were. Maybe they were patriotic. Or maybe they had relatives who flew a lot, domestically.