Page 126 of Bulletproof Jack: Hunting Lee Child's Jack Reacher

“How?”

“Neck snapped. Probably just one quick twist. Pretty neck, too.”

Kim frowned, even though Gaspar couldn’t see her. “State Department? Are you sure?”

“Yep. Just like those two guys who ambushed you in the vineyard. And three more were retrieved at the Punchbowl,” Gaspar replied. “One of the punchbowl guys was Nigel Morin. Right hand man to none other than Assistant Secretary of State Derrick Braxton.”

“Wow,” Kim said slowly.

“One wonders how they’ll manage to field a team, given the number of hands they lost on this operation. State usually runs a bit thinner than the CIA or the other three-letter agencies,” Gaspar said as if he were preoccupied by something else.

“Any news on Liam Stuart?”

“Not yet. Still searching.”

“He’s probably been whisked out of the country by now,” Kim mused.

“Or maybe buried somewhere like the others. He’ll turn up. Eventually.”

Kim moved to the kitchen to refill her coffee and make toast. She’d forgotten to eat for way too long. “Any news on Reacher?”

Gaspar snorted. “Yep. Found the Abominable Snowman. Nessie, too. Amelia Earhart. Jimmy Hoffa. Found them all.”

“Ha ha ha,” Kim deadpanned. “You’re hysterical, you know that?”

“Oh, and D.B. Cooper. We’re having a party. Everyone’s coming around for cocktails at seven. Wanna join?”

“So we have no idea where Reacher is. Again,” Kim said sourly, buttering the toast and refilling her coffee.

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Sunshine,” Gaspar replied.

“What about the drone?” Kim said, taking her toast and coffee back to her seat where she could stare at the box while he talked.

“Nothing you don’t already know. Liam Stuart and Ira Krause were engaged in their own little arms race to build the drone of their dreams. Krause is definitely dead. And Liam Stuart probably is, too. And you have the busted prototype. Case closed, I’d say. Wouldn’t you?”

Kim swallowed the toast with a swig of coffee so hot it scalded her tongue. Just the way she liked it. “And I keep meaning to ask about Michelle Chang?”

“She was taken to a hospital in Hamilton,” Gaspar said, warming to his subject. “I hacked into the CCTV at the hospital. She was banged up, but not critical. Admitted, treated, and released.”

“Huh.”

“You haven’t heard the best part,” Gaspar said. “They rolled her to the exit in a wheelchair where she was picked up after a few minutes wait. A fair-haired man driving an old Lincoln Town Car was behind the wheel.”

Kim nearly choked on her toast. “Reacher?”

“Possibly.”

“Where’s the Town Car now?”

“Great question.”

Kim sighed. Gaspar wasn’t being deliberately obtuse. Her questions, and many more simply had no available answers. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“What should we do with the drone? It can be reverse engineered if it falls into the wrong hands,” Kim said. “We need a secure place to store it. At least until I find Reacher or figure out why he gave it to me.”

“Or find another use for it.”

“Right,” she nodded. “I can’t just stuff it under the bed. The box is too big, for one thing.”

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