Page 142 of Chain Reaction

“Billion.”

“You had a man killed for that. An army officer named Bisley.”

“No,” Brill said. “The lawyer did that. He was bent. We didn’t know.”

“He was bent for sure,” Turner said. “But you did know. That was the whole point. That was why you hired him. Wrong choice. You should have bailed right then. You would have gotten by just fine without the extra two hundred. You didn’t need to kill my guy. But you got greedy.”

“No, we got bad advice from the lawyer.”

“Did he advise you to fire him and hire Hennessy in his place? And to order him to go kill an innocent woman and a baby? Right after you had failed to kill me? Which I got to say, I’m also taking kind of personally.”

No answer from Brill.

“What do you want?” Cameron asked again.

“Ten million dollars,” Reacher said. “For Bisley’s widow and his fatherless child. I want to see you hack into her bank account and dump ten million dollars in it, from the Caymans or wherever.”

“Bermuda.”

“I don’t care. Get to work.”

Cameron turned a laptop around and fired it up. His fingers danced over the keyboard, fast, deft, confident. Reacher watched the screen, pretending to understand what he was seeing. Pretending to police it. He saw Cameron copy an account number and paste it into the recipient box in a different window. He saw him type 10,000,000.00 and hit send.

“Done,” Cameron said.

“You can have more,” Brill said.

“She doesn’t need more,” Reacher said.

“For yourself, bro. We could reach an understanding.”

“I already understand. I don’t care that you were stealing ridiculous imaginary money or scamming stupid greedy investors. Someone has to. This is the modern world, after all. But I do care that you killed a good man so you could keep on doing it. A brother officer. A talented investigator. A husband and a father. That was a bridge too far. There is no way back from that.”

“C’mon, bro,” Brill said. “Let’s be serious. You should take the money. Honestly, you should get something out of this for yourself. Because you won’t get a win. EEF is an incredibly complex legal structure. It will take you ten years just to untangle who owns what. Our names never appear. We’re not dumb. We’ll never be charged with a crime. Not in a million years. No point dragging us out in handcuffs. Let the stupid greedy investors compensate you for your time and trouble.”

“That’s sweet,” Reacher said.

“Isn’t it?” Turner said. “He thinks we’re here to arrest him.”

She unzipped her bag and took out her MPX. SIG Sauer’s finest. The K variant. Collapsible stock, pistol grip, a four-and-a-half-inch barrel, and a long, fat, black suppressor. Brill stared at it. Cameron stared at it.

Turner said, “Go sit on the sofa.”

They froze. Both of them. Didn’t move at all. Reacher stepped behind Brill’s desk and grabbed him by the collar. He dragged him out and threw him down on the sofa. Whereupon Cameron scuttled over unassisted. He sat down next to Brill. Side by side. Shoulder to shoulder. Staring forward. Still hoping.

“Just like the old days,” Turner said. “The two of you against the world.”

No answer.

“But guess what?” she said. “This time the world won.”

She put a short purring burst into each guy’s chest. First Brill, then Cameron. Tight patterns. You could have covered them with a business card.

“John James Bisley,” she said. “Rest in peace.”

—

They left through a different corridor and found the stairwell. They hustled down to the lobby, which was deserted by then. No more wait staff, no more hostesses. They went out to the street and walked the S-bend until they were out of sight. Reacher dug through his pockets and came out with his burner phone and Adam Tow’s business card. The journalist from Palo Alto. He dialed the number. Tow answered.