Page 49 of The Secret

Roberta leaned on the gas. “When I was in Pritchard’s house I let the fourth agent cuff me. I put myself at a total disadvantage. So how was I able to send the watchers away? How come he was on the floor, unconscious, when you arrived? Because he underestimated me. A woman. Men are always underestimating women. And now what are you doing? Susan Kasluga is smart. Capable. Resourceful. Probably curious and inquisitive, too. She must be, to have achieved everything she has. Who knows what she saw over there? What she heard? What dots she was able to privately join? I bet no one bothered to ask, because she’s a woman. She was young. And even if she doesn’t realize the significance of it, she could havethe secret locked away in her brain. We can’t call this thing quits until we at least find out.”

“OK. I see the logic. But how do we get close enough to ask? She’s the CEO of a gazillion-dollar corporation. Her husband is the Secretary of Defense. We can’t just stroll into her office. We can’t just knock on her front door.”

“We’ll do what we always do. Watch. Wait. And when we see an opportunity, we’ll take it.”

—

The phone inthe Pentagon rang at 2:27p.m. Eastern. Not a scheduled time for a call.

The guy who answered it listened, hung up, then dialed the number for the study at the rear of Charles Stamoran’s home.

Stamoran was sitting in his armchair, lost in thought, when the jangling sound disturbed him, so it took him several rings to move across the room and pick up. He cleared his throat and said, “What now?”

The guy recited the message he had memorized a minute before. “Neville Pritchard is dead. The cause was carbon monoxide poisoning. He was in an RV and a hosepipe had been attached to its exhaust, presumably by himself, though no note has been found. His body was recovered following an anonymous call to 911. The ME provisionally estimates that he’s been deceased for four days.”

Stamoran stood still and held the receiver down by his side for a moment. This wasn’t suicide. If Neville Pritchard was going to kill anyone it would have been the agents who broke into his house, or the women who were gunning for him. Not himself. And something was off with the timeline. If he had been dead for four days, he’d have had to be killed the same day as Geoff Brown, down in New Orleans. That had been an intricate affair. All decoy phone calls andtoad venom. It would have taken time to set up. And it was too far away. The logistics wouldn’t work. The ME must have been out with his conclusion. Just by a few hours. Pritchard must have been killed the same night he bolted from his house. The women must have followed him. It’s hard to outrun someone in an RV, after all. It must have been the women who spooked him. Not the agents he’d sent to bring Pritchard in. But that was a minor wrinkle. The real question was whether Pritchard had talked. Whether he had revealed the secret. Probably not, given that the women went on to kill the other scientists.Probablynot. Which was very different fromdefinitelynot. And it would make a kind of sense for them to leave the biggest prize till last.

Stamoran raised the handset. He said, “Three things. Find out if there were any signs of torture or coercion on the body when Pritchard’s autopsy is done. Stand down the agents at his house. And leave the task force in place. Tell them to redouble their efforts at identifying these women.”

Stamoran didn’t like to waste resources. But if there was a chance a pair of killers was coming for him, it wouldn’t hurt to know who they were.

—

Reacher and Smithfinished pulling together their list of places where Pritchard could be hiding in his RV. It ran to two sheets of paper. Smith tucked them inside her map and started toward the door, then her pager began to beep. So did Reacher’s. His was a semitone lower and it was a fraction out of sync.

—

Christopher Baglin wasstanding, looking out of the boardroom window. His back was to the table. Reacher and Smith took theirplaces. Walsh followed them in. Baglin turned and glared at the door. The expression on his face was somewhere between anger and fear.

He said, “Is Neilsen joining us?”

Reacher said, “He’s following up on a lead. Could be out for a while.”

“Then we’ll start without him. I’ll keep this brief. Neville Pritchard is dead. He was found in an RV at a campsite thirty-five miles from his house. A hosepipe had been hooked up to the exhaust.”

Smith said, “So our killers are six for six and the other team is fresh out of hitters. Do we get to go back to our day jobs now?”

Baglin scowled. “You’re lucky to have day jobs. You’ve all been as effective as toupees in a hurricane. So, no. Not yet. We have a pair of serial killers on the loose. We couldn’t stop them, but we can damn well catch them. You know what to do. Go.”

Walsh raised his hand. A moment of awkward silence followed, then he said, “I have something.”

Baglin was halfway out of his seat. He paused, then lowered himself back down. Reacher and Smith exchanged a glance.

“I know I haven’t made much of a contribution when it comes to identifying suspects and I feel bad about that. And I was getting bored of the view out of the window, so I did what I do. I went sniffing for money. I did a deep dive into all the victims’ affairs. They were all pretty messed up. Poor balance between income and expenses. Inconsistent approach to assets and debts. Which is to say, normal. Except for Pritchard. To use a technical term, the guy was loaded.”

Baglin said, “How loaded?”

“Seriously loaded. I can get you the numbers if you want them.”

“Yes. Do that. Where did the money come from?”

“That’s the second interesting thing. The superficial answer isinterest and dividends from a bunch of fairly conservative investments. But that’s chicken feed compared to what the original seed money must have looked like. And where that originated I haven’t found out yet.”

“OK. Good. Keep working on that. See where it leads. Reacher and Smith—get me an ID on our killers.”

Reacher said, “A question first. Pritchard’s body. Did it have any physical injuries? Any sign of electrocution? Any drugs in his system?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

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