Bad Luck and Trouble

sticky fragments.
    “No wonder the record business is in trouble,” he said. “They don’t make these things very easy to enjoy.”
    Dixon asked, “What are we going to do?”
    “What did the e-mail say?”
    “You know what it said.”
    “But do you?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “What did it say?”
    “Find the sixth track on the second Hendrix album.”
    “And?”
    “And nothing.”
    “No, it said “‘Please call soonest.’”
    “That’s ridiculous,” Neagley said. “If he won’t tell me by e-mail, why would he tell me on the phone?”
    “It didn’t say, ‘Please call me. ’ A coded note like that, every word counts.”
    “So who am I supposed to call?”
    “There must be somebody. He knows you know somebody that can help.”
    “Who’s going to help with a thing like this? If he won’t?”
    “Who does he know you know? Maybe from Washington, since he used that word, and every word counts?”
    Neagley opened her mouth to say Nobody. Reacher saw the denial forming in her throat. But then she paused.
    “There’s a woman,” she said. “She’s called Diana Bond. We both know her. She’s a staffer for a guy on the Hill. The guy is on the House Defense Committee.”
    “There you go. Who’s the guy?”
    Neagley said a familiar but unloved name.
    “You’ve got a friend who works for that asshole?”
    “Not exactly a friend.”
    “I should hope not.”
    “Everyone needs a job, Reacher. Except you, apparently.”
    “Whatever, her boss is signing the checks, so he’ll have been briefed. He’ll know what Little Wing is. Therefore she will, too.”
    “Not if it’s secret.”
    “That guy can’t spell his own name without help. Believe me, if he knows, she knows, too.”
    “She’s not going to tell me.”
    “She is. Because you’re going to play hardball. You’re going to call her and tell her that Little Wing’s name is out there, and you’re about to tell the papers that the leak came from her boss’s office, and the price for your silence is everything she knows about it.”
    “That’s dirty.”
    “That’s politics. She can’t be exactly unfamiliar with the process, working for that guy.”
    “Do we really need to do this? Is it relevant?”
    “The more we know the luckier we get.”
    “I don’t want to involve her.”
    “Your Pentagon buddy wants you to,” O’Donnell said.
    “That’s just Reacher’s guess.”
    “No, it’s more than that. Think about the e-mail. He said the sixth track was dynamically brilliant. That’s a weird phrase. He could have just said it was great. Or amazing. Or brilliant on its own. But he said dynamically brilliant, which is the letters d and b. Like this Diana Bond woman’s initials.”

38
    Neagley insisted on making the call to Diana Bond alone. When they got back to the hotel she parked herself in a far corner of the lobby and did a whole lot of dialing and redialing. Then some serious talking. She came back a long twenty minutes later. Slight distaste on her face. Slight discomfort in her body language. But a measure of excitement, too.
    “Took me some time to track her down,” she said. “Turns out she’s not far away. She’s up at Edwards Air Force Base for a few days. Some big presentation.”
    O’Donnell said, “That’s why your guy said call her soonest. He knew she was in California. Every word counts.”
    “What did she say?” Reacher asked.
    “She’s coming down here,” Neagley said. “She wants to meet face-to-face.”
    “Really?” Reacher said. “When?”
    “Just as soon as she can get away.”
    “That’s impressive.”
    “You bet your ass it is. Little Wing must be important.”
    “Feel bad about the call?”
    Neagley nodded. “I feel bad about everything.”

    They went up to Neagley’s room and looked at maps and figured out Diana Bond’s earliest possible arrival time. Edwards was on the other side of the San Gabriel Mountains, out in the Mojave, about seventy miles north and east, past Palmdale and Lancaster, about halfway to Fort Irwin. A two-hour wait, minimum, if Bond got away immediately. Longer if she didn’t.
    “I’m going for a walk,” Reacher said.
    O’Donnell said, “I’ll come with you.”
    They headed east on Sunset again to where West Hollywood met regular Hollywood. It was early afternoon and Reacher felt the sun burning his head through his shaved hair. It was like the rays had extra intensity after bouncing around through glittering particles of air