Around her, the other desks sat empty, their surfaces cleared for the night. A few had left coffee mugs behind, or framed photos of families. The overhead lights cast everything in a flat, institutional glow that made it feel later than it was.
Through the window behind her, she could see the lights of DC and the Capitol dome illuminated in the distance, the Washington Monument rising like a pale needle against the dark sky.
She reached for her coffee mug and found it empty. Again. She'd need to make another pot if she was going to keep working, but the break room felt like a long walk right now, and she was close to something in the Miami files.
The phone rang.
The sound was jarring in the quiet. Ivy glanced at the clock on the wall—9:14 PM. Late for a work call. Most people who needed to reach her after hours had her pager number. A call to her desk phone at this hour meant either someone working late like she was, or something urgent.
She picked up the receiver.
"Harper."
"Ivy. It's Joe."
‘Hey, I thought you were gone for a while. Where are you?”
"Michigan."
"Michigan?" She frowned. "What are you doing in Michigan?"
"At the moment, not much," he said.
There was a pause. Long enough that she could hear background noise on his end—the faint sound of traffic, maybe a TV in another room. He was calling from somewhere public, or at least semi-public.
"We were supposed to meet a source today," Joe said carefully. "Someone got to them first."
Ivy understood immediately. The phone line wasn't secure. He couldn't say it outright, but the meaning was clear. The informant was dead. Probably murdered. And whoever killed them might still be in the area.
"So what now?" she asked. She'd worked with confidential sources before. You built relationships with them, relied on them, promised them protection. When something went wrong, it felt personal.
"That’s why I’m calling." Another pause. She could hear him breathing, could almost picture him standing in some dingy hotel room or gas station, trying to figure out his next move. "Listen, I need a favor. You have time to help me with some research? Without getting into trouble with Jenkins?"
"Of course," she said without hesitation. Then, because she needed to understand the situation: "What do you need?"
But before he could answer, another question occurred to her. "Why isn't the task force helping?" she asked. "Don't they have people for this?"
Joe was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was careful. "They do. But I need someone I trust. Either someone knew we were going to meet the outsource, or the timing was just a coincidence."
That told her enough. Clearly, Joe didn’t think it was random. So, as a result, he was working outside official channels, or at least outside the immediate chain of command. Maybe the task force had shut him down. Maybe he didn't trust them. Maybe he just needed someone who would ask questions later and help now. She didn't ask why. If Joe Reacher was doing it, he had a reason. She'd worked with him long enough to know that.
"Okay, what do you need?" she asked, pulling a notepad closer and uncapping her pen.
"I have a name,” Joe said. “It might be a weapon, a weapon manufacturer, a location or a person. The name is,” and he said it carefully, “Volkov. V-O-L-K-O-V."
Ivy wrote it down in block letters, underlining it twice. “Got it. Where are you right now?"
"Small hotel in northern Michigan," Joe said. "Middle of nowhere. No real way to do research from here."
Ivy understood. If you weren't near a major library or a government office with mainframe access, you were stuck. Just phone calls and legwork. And if Joe was in some rural town in northern Michigan, he probably didn't even have access to a decent library, let alone government databases.
"I'll see what I can find," Ivy said. "How do I reach you?"
Joe gave her a number—probably the hotel. She wrote it down beneath the name, then read it back to confirm.
"Thanks, Ivy," he said, and she could hear the genuine gratitude in his voice. "I owe you."
"I haven’t had a good steak in forever," she said. "You can take me to The Palm for a huge ribeye."
