Page 117 of Chain Reaction

An ever-decreasing distance west of them, inside the glass cube in Mountain View, up on the executive floor, Axel Brill called Saxby Cameron, down on the nerd floor. He said, “Bro, I have a question.”

Cameron said, “Fire away.”

“Seems to me we’re in the endgame now. If Hennessy does his job, this will be over in a day or two. We’ll be free and clear. Except that Bisley’s wife still knows what she knows. So that’s my question. What could Bisley have figured out and told her?”

“That’s two questions. First, what did he figure out, and then second, how much did he pass on to her.”

“What are the answers?”

“I was out sick the day they taught clairvoyance.”

“Best guess?”

“I’ve read Bisley’s notes a dozen times. They’re a list of things it couldn’t be. Nothing about what it could be.”

“That’s good, then.”

“He could still have figured it out. But he would have been embarrassed to write it down too soon, just in case he was wrong. He would have been ridiculed for the rest of his professional career. That’s our strength, bro. Never forget it. Our concept was so bold no rational person would entertain it.”

“Did he figure it out?”

“He took a trip out there. That has to mean something.”

“Did he tell his wife?”

“That’s a double maybe. Maybe he figured it out, maybe he told her.”

“Maybe he was too embarrassed to tell her.”

“It’s probably different with a partner.”

“So maybe she’s still a loose end.”

“I suppose,” Cameron said. “The last of four, as of now.”

Brill said, “I’m going to talk to Hennessy again.”

—

They dozed the rest of the way. Sleep when you can. Reacher reclined his soft and comfortable chair and settled in. Turner did the same, opposite him. Across the aisle Elwood closed his eyes but stayed bolt upright with his seat belt fastened. The perfect colonel. Stiff-necked, strict, self-denying. A stick up his ass the size of a baseball bat.

They woke up again one by one as the plane began its descent. First Reacher, then Turner, then Elwood. The cloud layer had disappeared. Five miles below them were tawny August plains stretching into the distance in every direction. Tiny ribbons of road ran through the landscape. Tiny brief winks of reflected sunlight came up at them, from invisible car windshields and invisible metal roofs. Turner took out her personal phone and used the wifi to check Aurora Stone and Gravel’s location.

“Ten minutes from Buckley,” she said. “Right by I-70. Good for big trucks.”

“Why are we going there?” Elwood asked her.

“Reacher likes gravel.”

“Why?”

Reacher didn’t answer. Instead he said, “Get the number for the Summertown motel, too. I should call the kid who runs it. He can be our eyes and ears. EEF knows Bisley went there. They’ll assume Julia told us why. They’ll assume we’ll go there next. Hennessy might even try to get there first. It would be a smart move. One road in, one road out, we’d be sitting ducks.”

“What do we do if he does get there first?” Turner said.

“Depends what kind of truck the 743rd loans us.”

“It won’t be bulletproof.”