Joe grinned. “I know you can. I’ve seen it firsthand.”
Ivy turned and headed down the hall.
Joe watched her go, then headed the other direction toward his office.
Like always, he kept his feelings in check, but inside, he was confused and angry.
The task force had to be wrong. There was no way Bill Kinsman was planning the deaths of innocent people.
He wasn’t that kind of man.
Plus, he had saved Joe’s life.
Joe knew he owed him the benefit of the doubt.
Task force be damned.
7
Joe Reacher’s apartment at the Watergate East was quiet in the way only well-insulated concrete buildings could be.
The city was still there, traffic moving along Virginia Avenue, a siren somewhere down by Foggy Bottom, but inside his place the sounds arrived muted, as if the world were being kept deliberately at arm’s length.
He worked out of habit rather than urgency.
The suitcase lay open on the bed, a hard-sided black Samsonite he’d owned since his Army days, scuffed enough not to attract attention but still solid. He placed items inside methodically, not because he needed a checklist, but because the act of packing gave his mind something to do while the rest of it replayed the meeting he hadn’t yet had time to properly absorb.
The room in Buzzard Point and the way Agent Winthrow had looked at him. The Army Intelligence officer’s stillness. The mysterious command of the man at the back of the room.
Joe folded a few shirts and set them aside, none of them anything that would pass for Treasury work. No suits, no ties, nothing that suggested federal office space or committee rooms. Whatever this was, it wasn’t happening behind desks, and he wasn’t walking into it wearing a badge clipped to his belt.
Soft cover.
As the meeting had gone on, that’s the term they used for Joe’s role in the operation. It made sense. If Kinsman was in the mix, Joe couldn’t afford to be recognized. Not in passing. Not on surveillance. Not in a half-lit room where memory might do more damage than confirmation ever could.
Joe had been told he would be partnered with Simmons, and since he was working in soft cover, it meant Simmons would take the lead in the field.
Joe didn’t love that, but it wasn’t negotiable. Simmons was younger, with long hair, easier to disappear into places that didn’t expect law enforcement to show up in person.
Joe did.
They were tasked to travel to Michigan. Not Detroit. Not Grand Rapids. Somewhere much farther off the map, the kind of place that barely registered as a dot, where strangers noticed you because they had nothing better to do.
East Bumfuck Michigan, Joe thought, and shook his head slightly as he zipped one side of the bag and moved on to the other.
Weapons came next.
He opened the closet safe and knelt, the motion automatic, practiced over years of repetition. The SIG Sauer P226 came out first, solid and familiar in his hand despite its relative newness in federal service.
Nine-millimeter. Reliable. Manageable. A sign that the old mishmash of revolvers and personal preferences was finally giving way to something resembling standardization, even if not everyone had made the switch yet.
He set it on the bed, then added two magazines, checked, loaded but not chambered.
The revolver followed. Smith & Wesson Model 66, .357 Magnum. Personally owned. Old habits died hard, especiallywhen they worked. He hadn’t carried it every day since Treasury, but he still trusted it implicitly, and there were situations where familiarity mattered more than policy.
Next came the heavier gear.
The MP5 stayed broken down, wrapped discreetly in plain cloth, the kind of thing that would attract no attention at a glance and plenty if someone actually knew what they were seeing. Nine-millimeter. Compact. The weapon of choice for jobs that went bad fast and didn’t allow much room for correction.
