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“Where’s your car?”
“At the airport.”
“Elwood’s too?”
“I assume.”
“Are you going straight to the office?”
“We have to.”
“OK, you ride with Elwood, and I’ll use your car in Crystal City. I’ll park somewhere and watch the building until you get there.”
“Could be all night and most of the morning.”
“I was an MP, remember. I sat in lots of government vehicles all night and most of the morning.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“For my service?”
“For making me feel better.”
—
Everything Everywhere Forever’s plane was a two-year-old Gulfstream, recently acquired, chosen because it had been immediately available and came with no names or logos on it. Nothing to paint over. They didn’t have time. They bought its crew with it and leased hangar space down at San Jose International. Moffett Field in Mountain View itself would have been more convenient, just a hop and a skip away, but it was a facility shared with the military, so Saxby Cameron had insisted it was better avoided.
The plane itself was in fine condition, in theory always ready to go at the turn of the key, but in practice it took time to get the paperwork done. Never less than an hour. First the crew had to drive in, and then file a flight plan, and book a departure slot, and check the weather en route, and make fuel and weight and center of gravity calculations, plus a dozen other cautious things. Then pay for the jet fuel, with the EEF corporate card.
The night crew waited in the private terminal. Aaron Mount, Mike Ortega, and Kyle Maguire, all dressed in black pants and black jackets, all with bulky black nylon duffels at their feet, none of which had passed through an X-ray machine.
Eventually the plane was ready to go, so the three of them carried their bags out across the apron and up the stairs to the cabin. They sat down and buckled up. The pilot spooled up the engines and was cleared to taxi. He said the flight time would be five hours and two minutes, arriving into Washington National, which was right next to Crystal City.
—
Turner laid her seat back a notch and went to sleep. Reacher checked over his shoulder and saw that Elwood had too. Sleep when you can. An old soldier’s rule. You never knew when your next chance would come. Reacher followed suit, warm, comfortable, lulled by the darkening sky outside and the peaceful drone of the engines.
—
The Gulfstream was forty minutes behind them, flying the same eastbound coast to coast track, at the same cruising speed, but two thousand feet higher. The three men in the cabin had stowed their bags and raided the snacks drawer. Now they were settling back in their plump and comfortable seats. They figured they should get some sleep. An old soldier’s rule. They could get a whole four hours. More than they sometimes got.
—
Reacher woke up when he smelled coffee and heard the clink of cups on saucers from the galley. The clock in his head said they had about an hour to go. It was full dark outside the window. Turner was still asleep. So was Elwood. So was the elegant woman beside him. The dog was awake. It stared out from behind its mesh barrier, balefully, right at Reacher. Right into his eyes. It tilted its head, as if it had asked a question and was waiting for an answer.
The attendant came by and Reacher asked her for coffee. She brought it with a warm chocolate chip cookie. Turner stirred beside him. She opened her eyes. She said, “You’re eating a cookie.”
“They didn’t have burgers.”
“Is it good?”
“I like it so far.”
Turner waved to the attendant and asked for the same. It arrived, and she tried a bite. She said, “It’s pretty good.”
“Not as good as your mom’s?”
“For sure not as good as my grandma’s.”
