Bad Luck and Trouble

dozen?”
    “That’s all they’re averaging right now. Nine or ten or twelve or thirteen a day.”
    “When did they start bench assembly?”
    “Is this the fourth question?”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “They started bench assembly about seven months ago.”
    “How did it go?”
    “Is this the fifth question?”
    “No, it’s a follow-up.”
    “It went fine for the first three months. They hit their targets.”
    “Six days a week, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “When did they hit problems?”
    “About four months ago.”
    “What kind of problems?”
    “Is this the last question?”
    “No, it’s another follow-up.”
    “After assembly the units are tested. More and more of them weren’t working.”
    “Who tests them?”
    “They have a quality control director.”
    “Independent?”
    “No. He was the original development engineer. At this stage he’s the only one who can test them because he’s the only one who knows how they’re supposed to work.”
    “What happens to the rejects?”
    “They get destroyed.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    Diana Bond said, “Now I really have to go.”
    “Last question,” Reacher said. “Did you cut their funding because of their problems? Did they fire people?”
    “Of course not,” Bond said. “Are you nuts? That’s not how it works. We maintained their budget. They maintained their staff. We had to. They had to. We have to make this thing work.”

56
    Diana Bond left for the second time and Reacher went back to his pie. The apples were cold and the crust was leathery and the ice cream had melted all over the plate. But he didn’t care. He wasn’t really tasting anything.
    O’Donnell said, “We should celebrate.”
    “Should we?” Reacher said.
    “Of course we should. We know what happened now.”
    “And that means we should celebrate?”
    “Well, doesn’t it?”
    “Lay it out for me and see for yourself.”
    “OK, Swan wasn’t pursuing some private concern here. He was investigating his own company. He was checking why the success rate fell away so badly after the first three months. He was worried about insider involvement. Therefore he needed clerical help on the outside because of eavesdropping and random data monitoring in his office. Therefore he recruited Franz and Sanchez and Orozco. Who else would he trust?”
    “And?”
    “First they analyzed the production figures. Which were all those numbers we found. Seven months, six days a week. Then they ruled out sabotage. New Age had no rivals that stood to gain anything and the Pentagon wasn’t working against them behind the scenes.”
    “So?”
    “What else was there? They figured the quality control guy had falsely condemned six hundred and fifty working units and the firm was booking them in as destroyed but actually selling them out the back door for a hundred grand apiece to someone called Azhari Mahmoud, a.k.a. whoever. Hence the list of names and the note on Sanchez’s napkin.”
    “And?”
    “They confronted New Age prematurely and got killed for it. The firm cooked up a story to cover Swan’s disappearance and the dragon lady fed it to you.”
    “So now we should celebrate?”
    “We know what happened, Reacher. We always used to celebrate.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “It’s a home run,” O’Donnell said. “Isn’t it? And you know what? It’s almost funny. You said we should talk to Swan’s old boss? Well, I think we already did. Who else could it have been on that cell phone? That was New Age’s Director of Security.”
    “Probably.”
    “So what’s the problem?”
    “What did you say way back in that Beverly Hills hotel room?”
    “I don’t know. Lots of things.”
    “You said you wanted to piss on their ancestors’ graves.”
    “And I will.”
    “You won’t,” Reacher said. “And neither will I, or any of us. Which isn’t going to feel good. That’s why we can’t celebrate.”
    “They’re right here in town. They’re sitting ducks.”
    “They sold six hundred and fifty working electronics packs out the back door. Which has implications. Somebody wants the technology, they buy one pack and copy it. Somebody buys six hundred and fifty, it’s because they want the missiles themselves. And they don’t buy the electronics down here unless they’re also buying the rockets and the launch tubes up there in Colorado. That’s what we’ve got to face here. Some guy called Azhari Mahmoud now owns six hundred and fifty brand-new latest-generation SAMs.