Reacher had gotten under her skin. She wanted to find him now. The assignment was no longer just a job. It was a point of pride for her. And if she died trying, well, everyone dies of something.
“Do you understand, Otto? I wonder. Because it seems like you’re losing your focus.” He slammed the palm of his hand onto the blue folder. The abrupt noise made her jump. “Your job is to find Reacher, when and where I send you. Period. No improvising.”
She stared at him.
“If you need more resources, you ask me. I decide how you do this job. Me.” His nostrils flared and his tone hardened as he jabbed the blue folder with his index finger to emphasize each clipped order. “You don’t make up your own rules. You don’t go rogue. You don’t follow your whims. You definitely do not ask your own contacts to get Reacher to help you, for crap’s sake!”
“I understand,” she said again, hurling clipped words and a frosty tone right back at him.
This would be the time to toss her badge on the table and walk out.
But she wasn’t ready to do that. And the simple fact was that he did have more resources than she could muster alone. He kept intel from her and refused backup. He had his reasons. She respected that. But she didn’t see the reason for it and she didn’t like it.
She didn’t believe in the no-win scenario.
He withheld the tools she needed for the job. She’d find other tools. Simple as that. After she’d accomplished the mission, the rest of the chips could fall where they may.
“Let me be crystal clear.” The Boss stuck out his pugnacious chin. “It’s not your job to rescue Reacher’s friends, or his maybe babies, or his nephew. We’re not paying you to bond with his girlfriends. Or any of the rest of the crap you’ve been doing.”
He was simply thumping his chest. Charles Cooper had been an army general and then the Deputy Director of the FBI for more years than she’d been alive. He could end her life as she knew it right here, right now.
It was a point worth keeping in mind.
“And another thing,” he said coldly, “You work for me. Not Lamont Finlay. If your project needs to be run up the chain of command, I’ll do it myself. Are we clear?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Wednesday, May 11
Washington, DC
9:55 a.m.
His complaints were so outrageous that she could barely hold her wrath. Lips pursed into a hard line, she simply nodded. For more than a full second, she considered throwing her badge at his head.
But raging and throwing tantrums was not her style.
Nor would expressing her anger have solved the core issue.
The problem was that he didn’t like her going off his book to follow the leads she dug up on Reacher, sometimes getting help from Finlay or Gaspar or a third party to do it.
She wouldn’t change her methods. She was the agent in charge of this mission. He was The Boss. Those facts didn’t make her his toady.
So if he wanted one of his buttoned-up boys who did nothing but follow his orders, he could get someone else. And she might have tossed restraint out the window and said so.
But she could tell by the expression on his face that she didn’t need to.
He already understood.
She could get the job done. And she would. And she’d do it her way.
And if she didn’t make it back?
Well, too bad. He’d chosen her because she was expendable. They both knew the score.
He was just blowing off steam.
He wasn’t about to destroy her.
Not yet, anyway.
She held his gaze and her tongue and waited.
After more glaring, nostrils flared, he said, “You’re going to Carter’s Crossing, Mississippi. The file contains all you need to know about the last case Reacher worked there before the army kicked him out.”
“Kicked him out? They didn’t actually do that.” She cocked her head, puzzled. “He was honorably discharged. No court-martial. Not even a dishonorable. The files don’t contain anything suggesting he was expelled, not for any reason. That means they didn’t have enough on him to do anything, let alone kick him out.”
He gave her a curt nod, barely more than a quick jerk of the chin. “There’s official records available for posterity, and then there’s true facts. You should know the difference.”
She did know. Certain types of files were always sanitized, one way or another. And Reacher’s army files were exceptionally thin. Someone had surgically removed everything remotely embarrassing. Or useful.
Which wasn’t unusual for sensitive employment files. Especially when it came to decorated officers who had been allowed to slip away quietly when they should have been canned.
Reacher had been a hero. He’d collected more than his share of medals for bravery in combat.
Of course, no written record explained why he’d had to leave the army. Because senior officers would have had things to answer for. Maybe even a few high-ranking civilians, too.
Guaranteed mutual destruction if such things were ever committed to reports and the right people came looking.
But they’d made him leave the army.
For sure.
Otherwise, he’d still be a soldier.
He was that kind of guy. Do or die.
To him, leaving the army would have been the same as dying. He’d never have resigned voluntarily without pressure. She’d learned that and much more about Reacher over the past few weeks.
So what the Boss meant was that someone higher up persuaded Reacher it was time to go and he agreed. For reasons of his own.
“I see,” she said between gritted teeth. “What’s in Carter’s Crossing, Mississippi?”
“An army base. Slated for closure soon. They’ve started drawing down personnel. Kelham won’t exist much longer.”
“Why?”
“Outlived its usefulness. The world has changed. We don’t need all that real estate anymore. We don’t need to staff it, either,” he said.
“Why did Reacher go there?” Kim asked.
“Back then, it was a dead woman that called Reacher down. He was still in the 110th Special Investigative Unit, but he went in undercover.”
“Why?”
“Because his CO thought a person or persons attached to the local army base might have had something to do with the murder.”
“They thought Army Rangers killed a female civilian?” she shuddered, head cocked. “Were they? Responsible?”
“Final reports are a little fuzzy,” he said with a scowl. “Her throat had been cut. The way Army Rangers are taught to do it. One cut. Straight and deep. Does the job fairly quickly. Rangers know that. Which meant the suggestion that a Ranger did the deed was…plausible.”
“How many dead at the end of Reacher’s investigation? Total,” she asked. With Reacher, death and mayhem were as common as dust in the aftermath of a sandstorm.
“The final numbers aren’t in the files,” the Boss said.
“There’s a shock,” she quipped, earning a deeper scowl in response.
Reacher was probably responsible for the increased body count, one way or another. He’d likely found the killer and did what Reacher always did. Dispensed his own brand of justice.