Danny arrived with a squad of NYPD officers to clean up the scene. Fortunately, since this was a cemetery, the only people around were the attendees of Franz's funeral and the Army honor guard, so containing the incident wouldn't be too difficult.
Originally, Jack had planned to send Franz's wife and son to Los Angeles for safety after the service. But Commissioner Reagan, looking more than a little embarrassed, firmly opposed the idea. Now, the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau would be taking over their protection detail.
To be honest, even though Jack had a good relationship with the Reagans, his trust in the NYPD remained limited. After all, it was the largest police department in the country—its sheer size bred inconsistency and frequent problems.
Still, considering Internal Affairs had just gone through a major housecleaning, and Reagan himself had arranged the detail, Jack didn't press the issue.
Danny personally oversaw the wounded being sent to the hospital and promised to keep the incident under wraps for the time being. Meanwhile, Reacher and the rest planned to follow the captured assassin to the drop site in Queens where the payment was supposed to be collected.
Jack, no longer in disguise, returned to the federal building with JJ and Hannah. Clay and Aubrey had been dispatched to Colorado by Jubal early that morning. Their mission: investigate New Dawn Technologies' manufacturing plant in Denver and figure out why "AM" had shown up there.
Inside the Operations Center, Alice and a team of over a dozen analysts were up to their eyeballs in work. The haul from last night's "heist" was massive: dozens of hard drives pulled from the server room, along with stacks of paper files.
To process everything quickly, manpower was the only solution. Jubal had cleared out a third of the operations floor and converted it into a temporary analysis zone. People were constantly shuttling in and out with armloads of documents.
Jack dropped two heavy bags on a desk—packed with coffee and pastries. Caffeine and sugar were brain fuel.
"Anything yet?" he asked, placing a hazelnut cappuccino on the desk next to Alice, who had her head buried in a mountain of files.
"Some, but not much. Most of it aligns with what you've already uncovered. It confirms things like the internal structure of New Dawn's security division.
Shane Langston and the guys he brought from NYPD's 3rd Precinct hold nearly every key position—except one."
Alice slapped a document onto the desk. Jack had seen this list before: names of New Dawn's security personnel. She'd painstakingly cross-referenced it with the list of dirty cops provided by Commissioner Reagan. Nearly every name was circled—except one.
"Yes, except for Deputy Director Tony Swann. We were just attacked at the funeral, by the way. The attackers claimed Swann hired them—but it's obviously a setup. I suspect Langston is the real puppet master."
"You were attacked?" Alice looked up in shock, just noticing the bandage on Hannah's cheek. "Are you guys okay?"
Hannah, chipper despite the nick on her face, smiled and pointed at Jack. "Just a scratch. But someone here has a bigger scar—his Hellcat got torn to pieces."
"It protected you two. Even if it costs me a new car, I'll fix it," Jack said softly. This was the federal building—PDA wasn't exactly encouraged—so he kept it low-key.
That earned warm smiles from both women. Alice, meanwhile, made a face like she'd just swallowed sour milk. "Ugh. Gross. Can we get back to work now?"
"I found something odd. A year ago, Tony Swann was just a private investigator. Then suddenly he's hired by a major defense contractor as deputy director of security. That alone seemed suspicious—he doesn't fit in with the rest of the ex-cops from Langston's crew.
So I dug through his corporate email, looking for something unusual."
"And?" Jack could tell from her tone—there was definitely something.
Alice turned her monitor toward him and clicked open a few emails. "See here? Most of Swann's messages are CC'd to Langston and the other department heads—standard procedure."
"Makes sense," JJ shrugged. "They're a team. Sharing info isn't weird."
Alice closed those emails and opened another. "Right. But then we have these—Swann exchanging messages with the Operations Director, Marlo Burns. None of them are copied to anyone."
"Personal messages?" Jack read them. They looked like idle chats about music. Odd, but not incriminating.
"Who's this Marlo Burns?" he asked. As Operations Director, she'd be a VP-level executive—just below the CEO. But in a defense contractor, the security division often functioned autonomously. Swann having some rapport with her wasn't that strange.
Still, thinking back on Alice's earlier remark—that Swann had been a PI just a year ago—Jack had a thought. "Could Swann have been planted there by Marlo Burns? Maybe to investigate something from the inside?"
"I don't know," Alice admitted. "But they're definitely not romantically involved. If they were, they'd use private phones—more secure, more convenient. The fact that they used corporate email suggests they thought phones were less secure."
She highlighted a line in one of the emails.
"Here—Swann writes: 'I think you might enjoy Hendrix's Axis: Bold as Love, especially track six. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.'"
"Hendrix?" Jack raised an eyebrow. "I don't know much about his stuff. What's the issue?"
Alice snapped her fingers. An analyst rushed over with a file.
"Track six on that album is Little Wing."
She flipped open the folder and pointed to a project name in bold: Little Wing.
"This was found in Marlo Burns' office. It's related to a defense contract. The biggest one New Dawn's ever signed—nine digits, almost ten."
Jack's eyes lit up as he grabbed the file—but his excitement quickly faded. It was only a memorandum. No specifics about what the project entailed. No weapon schematics. Just vague notes.
But one sentence stood out: the project had passed final testing and had been demonstrated to key figures in the military and Congress.
Jack skimmed the list of names. Most meant nothing to him—but one jumped out. A name he recognized.
"I've heard of this senator before—"
He turned to say something to Hannah and JJ, but was interrupted by the door swinging open. Jubal stood in the doorway, visibly tense.
"Jack," he said grimly. "Something may have happened to your friends."
The TV screen behind him switched to a live breaking news report.
Just moments ago, an abandoned building in a rundown Queens neighborhood had exploded. Multiple NYPD units were en route. Casualties unknown.
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter
For every 50 Power Stones, one extra chapter will be released on Saturday.