Page 125 of Bulletproof Jack: Hunting Lee Child's Jack Reacher

Chapter 49

Monday, June 6

Detroit, Michigan

Holding a mug of steaming hot coffee, Kim sat staring at the distressed cardboard box occupying her tabletop. She listened with half an ear to the television news that played in the background. The main story was, once again, the island nation, Quan.

Quan’s ambassador to Canada had collapsed suddenly at the parade in Ottawa late on Sunday afternoon and died a few hours later. Deputy Secretary of State Derrick Braxton’s controversial trip abroad to the island country of Quan was interrupted to allow him to extend deepest condolences to the ambassador’s brother, the Emperor of Quan.

The deceased brother had been first in line to the throne. Now, the line of succession was snarled beyond simple explanation.

Braxton’s diplomatic mission to Quan had been pushing aside more interesting news for more than a week. The country was always in a state of distress, often on the verge of war. And especially so now.

Kim and quite a few news pundits and world leaders speculated endlessly again. Why had Braxton made the trip to Quan?

The entire diplomatic mission had raised tensions in the region to the breaking point. The death of Quan’s only royal heir fanned the flames.

Many feared open rebellion or a peremptory coup fueled by anti-democracy influences.

The story went to commercial break without supplying answers to even the most serious of questions. Kim tuned out the sales pitch for laundry soap and returned her full attention to the cardboard box.

Before she moved it into the helo in Niagara Falls and several times since, she’d searched the box thoroughly. She’d confirmed that the only thing inside was the drone.

No weapons. No tracking devices. No thumb drives or keys or postcards from Reacher or anything else.

No remote-control devices, either.

Which meant she couldn’t operate the drone, even if she wanted to.

Before turning the problem over to Gaspar, she had scoured the internet for news of Liam Stuart. Or the drone. Or Reacher.

She found nothing.

Which was odd. But not the only odd thing.

Kim had been looking over her shoulder both literally and electronically for months, wary of Cooper and Finlay and Reacher. They’d been keeping constant surveillance on her activities, one way or another, each for their own suspicious reasons.

Yet, she’d heard nothing from Cooper since Lucas Stuart fell dead on her doorstep.

Finlay had stepped aside shortly after she’d called him about the dead man.

And Reacher. He’d involved her in the case, lured her to Niagara Falls to collect the drone, and ghosted her once she found it.

“Now what?” Kim said aloud, sipping the scalding hot coffee, watching the box as if a snake might slither out.

Didn’t happen.

Gaspar called on a fresh encrypted burner. Again, she flipped on the sophisticated anti-surveillance devices she’d installed to block surveillance inside her home and picked up. “What’s happening?”

“Too much.”

“Such as?”

“A US State Department operative was found murdered inside an abandoned hunting cabin near Devil’s Punchbowl in Ontario early this morning. Female. Audrey Ruston,” Gaspar said. “She must have been quite a looker. Even her corpse was attractive.”

“Who killed her?”

“Who knows?” Gaspar added dryly, “The list of enemies one acquires in her line of work must be endless.”

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