Never Go Back

guessed out loud, but thin . Your voice is all in your throat . She had laughed out loud and asked: You saying I’m flat-chested? He had laughed back and said, 34A at best . She had said, Damn .
    But the reality was better than the telephone guesses. Live and in person she was something else entirely.
    Totally worth it.
    She said, ‘What was the important part of what Morgan said?’
    ‘The two missed radio checks.’
    ‘Because?’
    ‘Your guys checked in on the day you were arrested, but then they missed the next day, and the next.’
    ‘As did I, because I was in jail. You know that. It was a concerted plan. They shut us down, both ends, over there and over here, simultaneously.’
    ‘But it wasn’t simultaneous,’ Reacher said. ‘That’s my point. Afghanistan is nine hours ahead of Rock Creek. That’s practically a whole day’s worth of daylight in the winter. And no one walks on a goat trail in the Hindu Kush after dark. That would be a bad idea for a huge number of reasons, including falling down and accidentally breaking your leg. So your guys were out there getting shot in the head during daylight hours. That’s for damn sure. No question about it. And daylight hours end by about six o’clock local.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Six o’clock in the evening in Afghanistan is nine o’clock in the morning here.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘But my lawyer said you opened your bank account in the Cayman Islands at ten o’clock in the morning, and the hundred grand arrived at eleven o’clock in the morning, and you were arrested at noon.’
    ‘I remember that last part.’
    ‘Which means your guys were dead at least an hour before they started messing with you. Many hours, most likely. Minimum of one, maximum of eight or nine.’
    ‘OK, so not exactly simultaneous. Not two things at once, but one thing after the other. Does that make a difference?’
    ‘I think it does,’ Reacher said. ‘But first we have to step back a day. You sent Weeks and Edwards into the hills, and the reaction was instantaneous. The whole thing was over by noon the next day. How did they react so fast?’
    ‘Luck?’
    ‘Suppose it was something else.’
    ‘You think they have a mole in the 110th?’
    ‘I doubt it. Not with our kind of people. It would have been impossible in my day, and I can only imagine things have gotten better.’
    ‘Then how?’
    ‘I think your comms were penetrated.’
    ‘A tap on the Rock Creek phones? I don’t think that’s possible. We have systems in place.’
    ‘Not Rock Creek,’ Reacher said. ‘It makes no sense to tap the local ends of the network. There are too many of them. Better to concentrate on the centre of the web. Where the spider lives. I think they’re reading everything that goes in and out of Bagram. Very senior staff officers, with access to anything they want. Which back at that point was everything. Which was exactly what they got. They sifted through all the chatter, and they got the original rumour, and your orders, and your guys’ reactions, and the whole back and forth.’
    ‘Possible,’ Turner said.
    ‘Which makes a difference.’
    ‘But only as a background detail.’
    ‘No, more than that,’ Reacher said. ‘They had already stopped Weeks and Edwards, between one and nine hours previously, so why did they still go ahead and come after you?’
    ‘You know why. They thought I knew something I actually didn’t.’
    ‘But they didn’t need to think anything. Or guess, or plan for the worst. Not if they were reading stuff in and out of Bagram. No speculation was required. They knew what Weeks and Edwards told you. They knew for sure. They had it in black and white. They knew what you knew, Susan.’
    ‘But I knew nothing. Because Weeks and Edwards told me nothing.’
    ‘If that’s true, then why did they go ahead and come after you? Why would they do that? Why would they go ahead with a very complex and very expensive scam for no reason at all? Why would they risk that hundred grand?’
    ‘So what are you saying?’
    ‘I’m saying Weeks and Edwards did tell you something. I’m saying you do know something. Maybe it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, and maybe you don’t remember it now, but Weeks and Edwards gave you some little nugget, and as a result someone got his panties in a real big wad.’

THIRTY-FIVE
    TURNER PUT HER bare feet up on the bed and leaned back on the pillow. She said, ‘I’m not senile, Reacher. I remember what they told me.