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Four rings later Hennessy answered.
Reacher said, “How’s your boy doing now? I hope his side hustle wasn’t playing the piano in a bar.”
“You broke his skull.”
“I don’t care.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the guy who’s going to put a bullet in your head. Whether sooner or later is entirely up to you. If you opt for later, then you need to think strategically. You can’t win here in Crystal City. Your target is already in a safe location under G-99 protection. She’s already talking. You lost that race. The mission will not be accomplished. So now you need a tactical withdrawal. A hard abort. Top speed back to the airport.”
Hennessy said, “Well, that ain’t going to happen.”
“Then I’ll give you three more pointless casualties. I’ll pull their skulls out through their noses with a buttonhook. Ask yourself if I mean it. Ask yourself what happened to all those guys Hugo Blackwell sent. You need to understand, whoever you think you are, I’m smarter than you. And whoever you think you are, I’m nastier than you. So if you want to fight me, go right ahead, but you need to think much harder than you’re thinking tonight.”
No answer.
“This is why you didn’t make it through officer training school. A better command decision would be to wait for better terrain. Better control. Five against one. Or even six, if you’re feeling brave and want to join in. You know this ain’t over yet. You know you’ll see me again soon enough. You’ll get a run at me.”
No answer.
“You have five minutes to decide, Hennessy. Then I start knocking your guys down one by one. Until there are none left. Then I’ll come for you. You won’t know where, and you won’t know when. But you can be sure it will be slow and messy.”
He clicked off the call. The psychological classic. Live to fight another day. Everyone took that deal. Human nature.
Julia Bisley said nothing.
“Watch the cross streets up ahead,” Reacher said. “Watch for a black town car heading for the airport.”
“Who are these people?”
“They crawled out from under the rock.”
“But what have they got to do with us? My husband was killed by a mugger in Colorado.”
“General Turner never believed that,” Reacher said. “Did you?”
“I didn’t understand why he would go to that bar. He liked a cocktail now and then, or a glass of pinot noir. Why would he want domestic beer in a biker bar? They said it wasn’t for work.”
“He was taken there against his will. The location made for a believable story.”
“Who took him there?”
“Two brothers from Denver.”
“Then what happened?”
“They killed him and tried to make it look like a mugging gone wrong.”
“How do you know this?”
“They confessed.”
“To the police?”
“To me.”
“Did you arrest them?”
