Page 112 of Chain Reaction

“Your guys do a kind of logistics. They move stuff from place to place. I saw the MP5 you took from the fake DIA guy. Kennedy wouldn’t tell me what she did with him and his car.”

“People owe us favors. Vehicles go to a crusher in West Virginia. They get recycled along with legitimate scrap. Bodies go to a hog farm in North Carolina. They get eaten up pretty quick. Small fragments of bone is all that’s left.”

“I guess that’s recycling too.”

“Think about that next time you order bacon.”

“Kennedy is giving us fifteen items including three long guns and a lot of ammunition. I would guess four big duffel bags minimum. How do we get them to Colorado?”

“With my integrated suite of complementary ideas. You just did the first one. I just did the other two. We’re paying a courtesy visit to the 743rd Military Intelligence Battalion. We have a working relationship. They do signals intelligence for us, mostly stripped out of satellite traffic. A one-star is entitled to an army plane for a trip like that. We’ll be on a private jet confiscated from a drug dealer and painted green. Two pilots up front and us in the back. No one else. No X-rays, either.”

“Outstanding.”

“Then idea three is on arrival the 743rd loans us a truck and we drive away. Meanwhile they log the visit like it actually happened. I was wrapping that part up when you came in.”

“Is the 743rd based in Colorado?”

“At Buckley Air Force Base,” she said. “Now Buckley Space Force Base, technically. Hence their capability with satellites. You know where it is?”

“I was in the army, not the air force. Certainly not the space force.”

“It’s in the Denver metro area. A few miles north and east of downtown Denver itself. In the next-door municipality, which is named Aurora. There’s a stone and gravel business nearby.”

Chapter 38

Turner finished her work an hour later. Her arrest team had been briefed and was en route to the Middle East. Reports had been checked and filed. Memos had been written. Emails had been read. The Chief of Staff had been updated on pertinent matters. Elwood had volunteered as duty officer until midnight. She told Reacher it was safe to go.

They walked out together to South Parking and headed for her car. She had a bay of her own, which helped, because all the general officers were parked there, and they all had blue Dodges. Reacher couldn’t tell the difference.

“You hungry?” she asked him.

“Less than usual,” he said. “I had a big lunch.”

“Don’t tell me what it was.”

“I won’t.”

“We’ll get delivery later.”

“Later than what?”

“You know what,” she said. “At least I hope so.”

She drove out of the lot and began threading through traffic.

—

She hit the clicker on her sun visor as she turned in to her street, so her garage door was all the way up by the time they got there. She drove right in and hit the clicker again and the door came down behind them. They got out of the car and went in the house through the mud room. To the kitchen. To the hallway. Up the stairs. They started in the shower. Seemed like the right thing to do, after a long day in D.C. in August. The stall was big enough for two. The jets were fierce. There were all kinds of soaps and shampoos, all foamy, and slippery, and fragrant. He took care of every inch of her, and then she took care of him.

They moved on to the bedroom, damp, and slick, and dripping. The bed was a king and they soaked every inch. The frame creaked and the headboard battered the wall. They kept it going, on and on, waiting, edging, holding back, all the way to a final gasping explosion. Then they rolled on their backs, spent, breathing hard, boneless and unwilling to move.

Eventually Turner asked, “What did you eat for lunch?”

“Now you want to know?”

“Whatever it was, it was worth it.”

Reacher didn’t answer. He was living in the moment. Couldn’t remember lunch, wasn’t interested in dinner. Didn’t care about yesterday, had no sense of tomorrow. Every time could be the last time. Make the most of it, he thought.