The contents of the USB drive weren't extensive, so Alice wasted no time connecting a Bluetooth printer and printing everything out.
Meanwhile, everyone had finished dinner. Jack retrieved a small box, and one by one, the team powered down their phones and placed them inside. It was a precaution—not foolproof, but enough to keep casual eavesdroppers at bay.
"Any progress on the vehicle that was tailing us?" Jack turned his attention to Clay and Aubrey.
Aubrey looked frustrated. "We got there as soon as you called, but the moment we arrived, they took off. We tried running a counter-surveillance maneuver, but they were pros—fake plates, evasive driving, the whole deal."
Jack and Reacher had noticed the tail shortly after leaving Franz's house. It took them nearly 20 minutes to reach his office—not just because of traffic but also to give Aubrey and Clay time to set up.
Unfortunately, by the time they exited the office, the black SUV shadowing them had already disappeared.
Jack reassured them, "That's not on you. I asked you guys not to involve Bureau resources. Just one vehicle trying to track them in NYC's evening rush? That's a tall order."
Jubal, still puzzled, leaned forward. "I have to ask—why all the secrecy? You don't want anyone to know we're involved, not even internally. Did you catch wind of something?"
Jack smiled and shook his head. He couldn't exactly tell them that, knowing Reacher, any case involving him would be anything but simple.
Last time in Margrave, there had already been an FBI mole. This time, Jack was simply being cautious.
He gestured toward Reacher. "Let's put it this way."
Jack formally introduced Reacher's background to the team before continuing.
"There's no inside scoop—just my instincts. The Army's 110th Special Investigations Unit weren't exactly amateurs. These were the guys who had the guts to investigate $10,000 toilet seats and $1,200 CIA coffee mugs while federal agents kept getting killed."
"But Reacher's team? In three years, they put over 200 corrupt Army personnel behind bars and walked away unscathed. That tells you something."
"Ahem…" Reacher cleared his throat awkwardly. "We were forcibly disbanded."
Jack waved dismissively. "Doesn't matter. What does matter is that none of you mysteriously died afterward. The only one who did was a guy who died in a car crash years ago—that's one casualty in all this time."
"But suddenly, out of nowhere, one of you gets killed over some buried secret. And he didn't even have time to ask for help?" Jack let that sink in before concluding, "Doesn't add up. My gut tells me something's very wrong, so I'm keeping things discreet.
To the outside world, this case just looks like a neglected NYPD homicide. Anyone sniffing around will assume we've written it off."
Jack's logic was a bit flimsy, but his team trusted him. If Jack had a hunch, it was usually worth listening to—after all, he'd predicted the Central Park explosion before it even happened.
—
Hannah picked up a freshly printed sheet from the stack and frowned.
"Can anyone tell me what these names mean? Andrew McBride, Alan Mason, Alejandro Mendez, Alexander Markopoulos…"
"Aliases," Jack and Reacher said in unison.
Reacher raised a hand, signaling for Jack to continue.
"All these names have the initials 'AM.' That's deliberate—whoever used these names could sign any of them with just 'A' and a squiggly line."
Jack had learned this trick from Emily, who had worked in the international special task force JTF-12. Her aliases all had the initials 'AJ' for the same reason.
"Okay, but what about these random numbers?" Aubrey flipped through the stack, perplexed.
There were only two files on the USB. One listed eight different names, all with the initials 'AM.' The other contained seven pages filled with seemingly random numbers—each entry had two two-digit numbers, one larger than the other.
For example:
15/1713/19
There was no obvious pattern.
The entire team passed the sheets around, but no one had even a theory about what the numbers meant.
"It's probably not a password," Reacher muttered. "Franz went through a hell of a lot of trouble to hide this information—he wouldn't go through additional encryption unless the numbers had meaning on their own.
Whatever this is, it was important enough for him to die protecting it."
Jack hated dealing with numbers.
If neither Aubrey, who had worked on Wall Street, nor Alice, their resident computer expert, could make sense of them, Jack wasn't about to waste more time.
"I'll run this by someone good with numbers—and trustworthy."
That meant Chris and Reid.
If even those two couldn't crack the pattern, then damn few people in the world could.
—
With no clear leads, Jack wrapped up the meeting.
Everyone had their assignments for the next day.
Hannah and JJ would protect Franz's widow and son. Theoretically, if they were in danger, something would've happened already. But since the black SUV had been waiting outside Franz's house, Jack wasn't taking chances. They'd watch over them discreetly and see if the enemy made another move.
Jubal would pick up a fugitive case and check in with Dana Mosier at the NY FBI office to maintain appearances. That way, any internal observers would think the fugitive task force was preoccupied elsewhere.
Alice would dig into Franz's digital footprint—emails, social media, anything that left a trail. They hadn't found his phone or laptop, but if he had any online activity, they might find something useful.
Danny had a similar role to Jubal. Officially, the NYPD was still in charge of the case. Danny would play the part of an incompetent detective, making the case seem like a dead-end. If anyone snooped around his desk, they'd only find a couple of thin case files—nothing more.
Clay and Aubrey were backup support. Whether Jack and Reacher needed reinforcement or Hannah and JJ needed extraction, they had to stay ready.
—
With all that settled, Jack leaned back, exhaling deeply.
They had a murdered investigator, aliases, cryptic numbers, and enemies already watching them.
Whatever Franz had uncovered—someone was willing to kill to keep it buried.
______
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