Page 115 of Chain Reaction

“I’m good,” Reacher said. “Thanks again.”

“Give them hell, major, whoever they are.”

“That’s the plan.”

He picked up the bags two in each hand. They were heavy and wide and clanked as he walked. He had to go through the door and down the steps sideways. Turner saw him coming in the mirror and popped the trunk. He got three bags in there and laid the fourth across the back seat. The long guns, very obvious. He hoped they didn’t get in a traffic stop. He got in the front and clipped his belt. The car complained if he didn’t. Turner moved off and turned south, away from the traffic. Aiming to meet the Beltway at the six o’clock position, he figured.

He said, “Andrews Air Force Base?”

“It’s Joint Base Andrews now,” she said. “The navy has a part of it, and we have a couple of units there. You’re out of date.”

“Like the man said, nothing is permanent except change.”

“What man said that?”

“An ancient Greek philosopher named Heraclitus. He also said you can’t step in the same river twice, because the water will be different water, and you will be a different you. He claimed it couldn’t be the same experience. Personally I think he’s full of shit. Last night proved it.”

“You calling me a river?”

“You were very wet.”

She smiled a wistful happy-memories smile, but she didn’t say anything. She was watching the road ahead. They hit the Beltway and joined it counterclockwise. Alexandria on their left, Huntington and then the Jones Point lighthouse on their right. Then the bridge over the slow Potomac, and into Maryland, toward the rising sun. They turned south at Woods Corner, off the Beltway and onto Route 5. Andrews was on their left. They drove in and Turner showed ID at the gate. The barrier came up. They followed signs that said U.S. Army Priority Air Transport. They arrived at a nondescript terminal building with parking outside.

Elwood was already there, leaning on his car. An old sedan, but very clean. His POV, presumably. His privately owned vehicle. Maybe colonels didn’t get government cars. Probably not. Too many of them. Turner parked next to him and they got out.

Elwood said, “Ma’am.”

“Good morning,” Turner said.

“I arranged we should drive our cargo to the plane ourselves. And load it ourselves. The fewer people who see it or handle it the better. No one takes four bags of heavy metal on a visit to an intelligence battalion.”

“Copy that,” Turner said. “You and Reacher do it while I sign the papers and find the pilots.”

Elwood drove, obviously. Reacher had no license. They waited at a gate until it rolled back. They drove out on the apron. Their plane was a dark green business jet. The stairs were down. There was a dark green doormat laid on the concrete at the bottom. Standing near it was a member of the ground crew. An E4 specialist. Elwood stopped well short of the plane. He popped the trunk. Reacher lifted the three bags out. Elwood hauled the long guns off the back seat.

The ground crew guy walked over.

“Let me help you with those, sir,” he said.

“We got it, soldier,” Elwood said. “But I could use your help with the car. You could go park it for me, if you would, out front, near the door. Give the key to the general in the terminal. She’s in civilian attire.”

“Yes, sir,” the kid said. He got in the seat and backed the car away slowly. He maneuvered with extreme caution. A fender bender with an airplane would cost the army a million bucks, and him his chance of promotion. His progress was slow and painstaking. Reacher and Elwood were able to haul all four duffels into the cabin unobserved. They put them on the floor in the back of the plane, in front of the extra seats they weren’t going to need. Then they moved to the front of the cabin and leaned on the luggage rack to wait.

Turner got there a minute later. She came up the stairs and ducked inside. Two pilots followed her. They headed straight to the cockpit without a greeting. Protocol, Reacher assumed, for priority air transport. As if discretion and confidentiality were their main concerns. Turner took a seat, whereupon Elwood and Reacher followed suit. Protocol of their own. Reacher sat opposite Turner, with Elwood across the aisle. They fastened their belts. The engines whined into life. The plane started rolling. The pilot came on the PA and said, “The computer is showing four hours to Buckley Field.”

Chapter 39

They spent the first half hour of the flight time checking the weapons. They unzipped the bags and laid everything out on four unoccupied seats. Sergeant Orla Kennedy had done a fine job. Everything was there, dewy with new oil, in good operational order. Everything had spare magazines, more than they could possibly need, all fully loaded. Plus extra boxes of nine-millimeter rounds for reloads if necessary. There were two types of twelve gauge ammunition for the shotguns. Mostly double-ought buckshot, for anti-personnel scenarios, and solid steel slugs, for soft-skinned vehicles. The M110A1 marksman rifle came with 7.62 boat tail hollow points, for maximum precision at long range, and maximum damage when they got there.

“You run a fine unit,” Reacher said.

“We do our best,” Turner said.

They repacked the bags in a logical sequence, and stacked them back in place, and returned to their seats. The plane droned onward, small, tight, stable, high above the clouds, full of unfiltered sunlight. Turner updated Elwood on the conversation with Julia Bisley. No feasible technical explanation, hence a physical explanation as the only remaining option. Hence Bisley’s abandonment of darkened rooms and screens full of code, in favor of an actual in-person visit to the site.

“Physical how?” Elwood said. “We need to know what we’re looking for.”

“We’ll know it when we see it,” Reacher said.