Page 104 of Chain Reaction

“This morning has nothing to do with me,” Reacher said. “All I did was put her to sleep last night.”

“There must be more to it than that.”

“I’m sure there is, but it’s not me doing it.”

“Then who’s doing it?”

“What’s the difference between yesterday and today?”

“Tell me.”

“Yesterday you woke up thinking your husband was gone because of some sordid, ridiculous mugging that made no sense at all. Today you woke up knowing it wasn’t like that, and that the guilty men had been reduced to tiny particles of ash. A small degree of closure, and a small degree of grim satisfaction. The vibe has been dialed back about a hundred notches.”

Julia paused a beat.

“Actually I did feel good this morning,” she said. “The first time since, well, you know.”

“Amanda is a human Geiger counter,” Reacher said. “The front of her brain isn’t doing much yet. It’s all the back of the brain with her. She’s picking up on the transmissions from the back of your brain. Who else would she respond to more than her mother? It’s some kind of ancient animal instinct. She feels better today because you feel better today. Your husband is still gone, but at least now you know it wasn’t stupid, and you know they didn’t get away with it.”

“Then it is something to do with you. It was you who told me what happened. It was you who didn’t let them get away with it. Thank you.”

“It’s a back-of-the-brain thing with me too. I can’t accept thanks for that.”

“But I still don’t see how I can help you. You know more about it than I do. I mean, obviously. You’re the army police.”

Turner said, “I looked at your website, and followed a couple of links. You’re a major league coder. You’ve been right up there, ever since you left M.I.T.”

“I’ve done some OK work.”

“We’re clear about what happened to your husband,” Turner said. “And where, and when, and how. But we don’t know why it happened. We can’t identify the underlying crime. And we need to, because it could be a really big deal. That’s what you can help us with.”

“But how could I?”

“We know he was developing a very serious case. It involved data theft, or illicit copying of data, or both. He kept meticulous notes. But we can’t understand them.”

“Do you want me to translate?”

“Unfortunately you’re not allowed to see them. They’re classified at a pretty high level. If government data is being copied or stolen, that’s a serious national security risk.”

“He was part of a group. There were about twenty of them. He said they were all really smart. One of them can explain the notes.”

“We can’t ask them,” Turner said.

“They all have the same clearance.”

“I made a mistake. Day one of this case forced me to an apparently inescapable conclusion. Your husband’s destination was known to no one except the people in my section, which uses a giant walled-off computer that logs and tracks every keystroke, because digital forensics require it. Therefore one of my people extracted that information and passed it on.”

“You had a leak.”

“And I didn’t know who it was. Therefore I had to start my investigation in secret. Radio silence. Everything had to be off the grid. It continued that way for many days. Then eventually it was proved I was wrong. I didn’t have a leak.”

“You had been penetrated from the outside.”

“By then it was too late. I was so far down the rabbit hole there was no practical way to walk it back. Professional ruin would have been bad enough. Personal embarrassment would have been worse. So I need to finish this the way I started. And I need your help to do that.”

“I get how you feel,” Julia said. “I totally get the corporate dynamic. But I’m not involved with this. I’m not in the army. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Did your husband mention anything about it?”