Get Back Jack (7 page)

Gaspar leaned forward and studied her face as if he could persuade her to his point of view if she would only pay attention. “After all that, I’m sorry, Sunshine, but unless we can prove he’s certifiably nuts, I just don’t see the guy betraying members of his handpicked special investigations unit at all. Ever. No matter what.”

“It’s not the Marines. No
Semper Fi
and ‘once a Marine, always a Marine’ and all of that,” Kim reminded him quietly.

He seemed to consider her comment seriously, but soon rejected it. “These nine had formed a special unit. They not only worked together, they relied upon each other for everything. That sort of bond—I don’t know if it
can
be
severed.”

Gaspar had offered no new facts, nothing Kim didn’t already know, nothing she hadn’t already rejected. “All things are possible, Chico. Maybe the question we should be looking at is how that bond
could have been
severed. Because something out of the ordinary definitely happened.”

He shook his head hard, even more firmly entrenched now. “Reacher might be hunting and taking out their killers. That makes a certain kind of sense. But you want to assume that Reacher killed members of his own unit?” He stood to pace the room in his slow, limping way that suggested pain Kim couldn’t fathom.

Gaspar continued pacing and as always, the stretching seemed to lessen his pain and give him more control over his right leg. Kim had determined to let him tell her about his disability in his own way and his own time. But they’d been together ten days now and he hadn’t once acknowledged the weak leg at all. How much longer should she wait? She didn’t know, but she felt now was not the time. Something else was bothering him, too. So she waited. For now.

He grabbed a bottle of water and settled again onto the inadequate divan. Finally, he said, “About the only wild ass guess I can come up with is maybe—maybe, mind you—unavoidable self-defense
might
make Reacher kill his team. I’m not persuaded, though. I don’t see how that could happen even once, let alone repeatedly and separated by years of time and miles of distance.”

“I agree,” she said.

“Why the hell let me struggle with that, then?” His face suffused red and his nostrils flared and real anger bubbled over, which confirmed her gut. Gaspar was struggling with something. This was the first time she’d seen him so volatile. But she felt certain it wasn’t her theories on Reacher that caused his reaction. What had pushed his buttons?

She waited until he managed to control himself once more, then said, as if he’d never lost his Latin temper, “Because I love watching your mind work. Or not work.”

Ignoring his glare, she went on. “The theory’s an obvious non-starter because it skips right over the most relevant issue in your setup. Basic criminal law. You know it as well as I do. Killing isn’t self-defense unless the opponent presents an immediate threat of deadly harm. Meaning Reacher couldn’t kill his team in self-defense unless they attacked him first.”

She paused to give her point a fighting chance to breach the steam fairly billowing out of his ears and land in his brain. “Despite your unflagging belief in my creative abilities,” she said, grinning at him, “I can’t figure anything their former leader might have done to incite a cold, lethal mutiny in Reacher’s team. Can you?”

Gaspar leaned his head forward and rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand. He squeezed his eyes shut as if forcing them closed might somehow reinvigorate him.

Kim had been studying Gaspar in the way she wanted to study Reacher. All of Gaspar’s data points were melding together like molten chocolate she could smell and almost taste. He was slowly becoming predictable, which she found comforting. Predictable meant reliable in Kim Otto’s world.

She wondered what he really thought about Reacher’s old unit. Were they as loyal to Reacher as Gaspar seemed to expect? Maybe they were. Maybe that’s why they were dead. Maybe Reacher didn’t kill them literally, but maybe something they learned from him or about him had proved fatal.

Gaspar said, “Let’s move on. There were eight plus Reacher originally. We’ve accounted for half of them. What about the remaining four?”

“Well, Jorge Sanchez disappeared around the same time Swan, Franz and Orozco died,” Kim replied.

Gaspar raised his eyebrow again. “Could be your answer right there.”

Kim wagged her head. “Not likely. It’s possible Sanchez
could
have killed the first four. Once Reacher found out about it, he
could
have made it his business to avenge his team.
If
we assume that happened, then Sanchez would have been a walking dead man for a very short while until Reacher caught up with him and made it a permanent condition.”

“What’s wrong with that? I like that idea. Makes sense.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Kim stood up. Stretched. Gaspar was tired. She was tired. They weren’t going anywhere tonight because of the storm and the analysis wasn’t going anywhere, either, as far as she could tell. Maybe it was time to give it up. But then again, what else did they have to do? “If Reacher killed Sanchez five years ago, who killed O’Donnell last week?”

Gaspar opened his eyes. “Reacher again, most likely. Maybe he finally figured out that Sanchez and O’Donnell worked together to kill the others.”

“Wow, Chico. Tangled web you’re weaving just so you can give Reacher the benefit of the doubt.”

He shrugged. “Killing any one of those three dropped from the helicopter was definitely more than a one-person job.”

She nodded to concede that point. “Which means Reacher would only have needed the right accomplice to help him. Sanchez, say, who Reacher then takes out after he’s through with him. And then maybe O’Donnell looks into it and gets too close, so Reacher takes him out, too. We could look into O’Donnell’s notes, look for signs of him sniffing around the other killings.”

“Who’s got the tangled web now?” Gaspar said. After a second or two of brow-knitting, he shrugged. “Mostly, I just don’t like to think about criminal behavior by military personnel at all, and certainly not distinguished officers like Reacher. Or military cops like his team.”

She felt the same. Kim was a cop, too. And a damn good one. She worked side-by-side with some of the bravest veterans anywhere in the world. She didn’t like chasing these angles, either. But it would fit the facts and she knew she’d be a fool to ignore them. She’d learned the hard way to take the facts as they came.

Kim moved on. “Whatever happened to Franz, Snow, and Orozco, only three and at most four members of the unit remain alive. Reacher, Sanchez, who is almost certainly dead, Karla Dixon, who is probably dead.” Kim took a quick breath before concluding: “And Francis Neagley.”

Gaspar noticed. “What scares you about Neagley?”

“What do you mean?”

He flashed her his knitted-brows-over-the-nose thing, which she knew was annoyance, but said nothing.

She laughed at him. “Does that stink-eye work to keep your kids in line? That’s the best don’t-mess-with-me look you can manage?”

A small grin parted his lips and wrinkled his nose. But he didn’t back off. “What’s your problem with Neagley?”

“Oh, come on. You can’t tell me you think she’s anything but an enormous toxic problem. Even you aren’t that clueless, Cheech.”

Gaspar shrugged. “Of course not. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her, but I agree she’s far from whatever passes for normal in a woman with her resume. But what’s your problem with her?”

Good question. At some point, she might answer.

Before she’d been ordered not to do so, Kim had pulled Army personnel files for all the members of Reacher’s Special Operations Unit. All would have been immediately expelled from the Gandhi School of Change by Passive Resistance, but Neagley’s file was particularly disturbing. Perhaps more disturbing than Reacher’s, depending on why you were comparing the two.

Sergeant Frances L. Neagley was a small but frightening woman. She’d refused Officer Candidate School four times during her years in the Army. That was odd, right there. Ten of those years were spent in close proximity to Reacher. From the files, it was impossible to determine which one had influenced the other. Reacher chose her for his Special Operations Unit, where she excelled during two crucial years. He’d praised her performance as smart, resourceful, thorough, and one particularly worrisome phrase that even now sent a taser-like charge up Kim’s spine: “strangely uninhibited.”

Neagley had been fearless herself and frightening to others. Early on, a few complaints of excessive force were lodged and dismissed when the facts showed a much larger man grabbed Neagley first. Several reported that Neagley didn’t seem to move a muscle, but suddenly, they found themselves falling. Later in her Army tenure, word had gotten around and men had stopped touching her, for their own safety. Kim found the list of busted heads had overshadowed almost everything else in Neagley’s file, and the woman’s behavior was too often lethal for Kim’s taste.

Maybe the most interesting point about Neagley was that she seemed to be the closest to Reacher. The crucial years she spent in his unit paired them together on every tough case the unit handled. When Kim asked one of the generals, he said there had been an odd connection between Reacher and Neagley that wasn’t sexual. Which, Kim felt, was odd in itself. From what she’d seen so far, Reacher seemed to relate to women as sexual partners or rescue victims, and sometimes both. Neagley was neither. Not even close.

All of which meant Neagley was an enigma greater than Reacher himself. In a contest between Reacher and Neagley, Kim would have bet on her.

Bottom line? Neagley was unpredictable, and unpredictable meant terrifying in Kim Otto’s world. Confronting Neagley would be foolhardy at best. Kim had deliberately planned to approach Neagley last, hoping the interview would not be necessary. But now Neagley was the only member of Reacher’s unit left and Kim had no choice.

One choice, right choice.

Maybe.

What was her problem with Neagley? What wasn’t? For now, though, she chose to change the subject. “I suppose you think Dixon and Reacher were lovers.”

His eyebrow popped up again. “You think otherwise?”

“Just confirming how your mind works, Chico.”

He laughed. “Don’t think I failed to notice how you dodged my question.”

Kim shrugged. Said nothing.

He said, “Check your phone, will you? Let’s get a look at the rest of Silver’s stuff so I can get some sleep. Long day tomorrow.”

Kim bent and twisted and practically stood on her head reaching behind the television to check the battery level on her phone. She saw the little icon just as Gaspar’s personal cell phone chimed a salsa tune across the room. She pulled the plug on her charger and stood, feeling a bit lightheaded.

He said, “I need to take this call and it’ll be a while. Do you mind?” The salsa tune chimed again. “I’ll call you when I’m finished, if it’s not too late.”

“No problem. I’ll download Silver’s stuff and forward to you. Digest it. We can’t do anything more tonight anyway. We can talk in the morning.”

Another salsa chime interrupted and this time he nodded and brought the phone to his ear.

“I’m here,” he said quietly.

Kim let herself out and checked to be sure the door locked behind her.

Gaspar’s physical handicaps made him about half the partner Kim needed even when he wasn’t distracted by personal matters. Whatever his wife was calling about, Kim knew the problem was serious. Definitely something to worry about. Phone calls on the job can get people killed. No cop’s wife ever calls his work with good news. Good news from home can always wait.

She wrestled with her decision as she slid the key card to unlock her room. Loyalty went a long way with Kim. Gaspar hadn’t failed yet and he’d managed to be there whenever she’d needed him so far. He deserved the benefit of the doubt. For now.

She entered the room, double-locked the door, and kicked off her shoes while she argued with herself over the short list of possible solutions if Gaspar failed.

Kim felt the Boss’s burner cell phone vibrating in her pocket. She knew his call was no coincidence. He’d probably tapped the hotel’s security system and watched her enter her room on the corridor cameras. Which meant that he’d been watching her since she’d entered the hotel. Didn’t he have anything better to do? Was it just last month when being watched by the FBI made Kim feel protected instead of threatened? It felt like another lifetime.

“Yes?” she said, too tired to joust with him.

“Neagley’s back in Chicago. She’s been traveling, but she returned yesterday. She’s due out again Sunday. Your flight from Kennedy won’t give you much turnaround. You leave again from National at 9:30 a.m. Don’t miss it.”

“Good to know Neagley’s still alive,” Kim said.

A beat passed. Two.

He replied, “Is it?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Friday, November 12

4:55 p.m.

Chicago, IL

Neagley was the easiest member of Reacher’s old team to locate, probably because she wasn’t afraid that psychos might find her. She owned the top private security firm in Chicago. According to her website advertising, her clients were distributed around the country and the globe. Outwardly, at least, her professional life appeared somewhat unremarkable.

Kim had discovered no evidence that Neagley had a personal life of any kind, normal or otherwise. Which worried Kim because it meant Neagley remained detached and still had nothing to lose. A woman with Neagley’s talents who had nothing to lose could be deadly.

Three high-rise offices in three cities with only one connection: each tenant had at one time been a member of Reacher’s special investigative unit.

Earlier today, they’d arrived unannounced in Neagley’s lobby twice, both times posing as potential clients. The first two visits had yielded nothing. Neagley wasn’t in, her receptionist falsely claimed, simultaneously suggesting they make an appointment next month or with another member of Neagley’s team.