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She walked back up her path and back in her house. She used the landline in her kitchen to call the team she needed. Who coincidentally worked out of the old 110th MP building. It was not far away. They answered and she identified herself and said, “I need a clean-up on aisle four. A phony DIA agent just committed suicide in his car outside my home address.”

Then she left for the Pentagon.

—

Thirty minutes later Reacher’s phone rang on the bedside table. He picked up and Turner said, “I’m in my office.”

“Everything OK?”

“It is now.”

“What happened?”

“Hugo sent a man to my door with a silenced submachine gun. He arrived just as I was leaving. He posed as a DIA agent. He said he wanted to come in and talk about my problem in Summertown.”

“DIA can’t know about you and Summertown. It’s off the books.”

“That was his fatal mistake.”

“You OK?”

“I have people cleaning up after me.”

“Who?”

“We have a crew for things like that. Bigger than your old 110th all by itself.”

“Outstanding,” he said. “Good work.”

“He confirmed Hugo’s name is Hugo. He didn’t know his second name. He didn’t know the client’s identity, beyond guessing it’s a tech guy with money to spend.”

“Hugo is a fairly rare name.”

He heard her keyboard. She said, “There are about forty-five thousand Hugos in the United States.”

“Pro rata that would be about five thousand in California. There’s got to be a bar association list or something.”

“I’ll be there tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”

“You OK?” he asked again.

“I got my retaliation in first. It is what it is. I’m OK.”

“Watch your back, from here on in. They keep on losing. They’re going to escalate soon.”

“To what? Two silenced submachine guns? Four? Nuclear weapons?”

“What kind of a submachine gun was it?”

“An H&K MP5SD with a retractable stock. Painted black. Old and worn but well maintained and in good order. It had a Delta Force feel to it. The guy said he was a retired first sergeant. He could have been bullshitting, but I don’t think he was. He had the look.”

“No call for private armies anymore, now we’re out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Those guys have to make a living somehow.”

“A living is the opposite of what my guy made.”

“He took the risk. Life is a roll of the dice.”

“I guess he thought a woman wouldn’t do it.”