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“I have his phone,” Reacher said. He took it out of his pocket. It was a low-rent burner, like a dozen others they had seen that week. It must have been set to silent, because it was showing a bunch of missed calls from the last few minutes. It hadn’t rung. The screen said the calls were from someone named Jed. Three in quick succession. There were no voicemails. No texts. The contacts list showed a total of six names, in three groups, a two, a three, and one on its own. The two at the top were Nico and Jed. Then came Aaron, Mike and Kyle. The name on its own at the bottom was Hennessy.
“H is for Hennessy,” Turner said. “Not Hugo. The commanding officer. The two names at the top are the other guys in his own crew. He didn’t need to put his own name in his own phone. So the three together are the night crew. I bet they went to San Jose. They knew we could have left through there.”
“Hennessy has got to be a last name,” Reacher said. “You should look him up in your computer.”
“He would know I was doing it.”
“Exactly. We should rattle their cages now. Like when we transmitted from the Lazarus Lorenzo office. I bet that freaked them out. We know more than they thought we did. We should keep pushing that. We should keep them off balance.”
Then boarding started, and they got to go ahead of everyone else, because two of them were serving military, and all of them were traveling first class.
—
Reacher sat next to Turner, in the seat that Elwood had booked, and Elwood took the random singleton that Reacher’s cash transaction had produced. Two rows back, on the other side of the cabin. Otherwise identical. Next to an elegant woman with a poodle in a basket. Elwood looked perfectly happy about it. Maybe he liked dogs.
Turner said, “By now they must know I looked at Julia Bisley’s background check.”
“Probably,” Reacher said.
“Will they guess why?”
“The safe assumption is always yes.”
“Then we put her in danger. They’ll call ahead.”
“They’re not in the freelance market anymore.”
“So Hennessy will send his own people.”
“He didn’t send them on this plane,” Reacher said. “Every single passenger just filed past us in the aisle. It was like a police line up. I didn’t see the day crew survivors. And none of the others looked like retired NCOs. Hennessy loses if we get there first. Which we will. He knows that. Why even try?”
“Maybe the night crew already flew out of San Jose. After they didn’t find us there.”
“Not many D.C. flights from San Jose.”
“I’m sure EEF can afford to rent a private jet. Actually I bet they already own one.”
“Bisley lived in Crystal City, right?”
Turner nodded.
“Julia is still there,” she said. “With the baby.”
“Crystal City is right next to the airport.”
“Just the parkway in between.”
“Does a private jet fly faster than this one?”
“About the same, I think.”
“What kind of a place do they live in?”
“It’s an apartment building with a doorman.”
“Plus your people.”
“Not at night. I was thinking emotional support and practical help, not security.”
