The Sentinel (Jack Reacher #25) - Lee Child Page 0,95
all upped and left, out of the blue. At first people thought one of the big Silicon Valley corporations was on a recruitment rampage. Then there was a theory that some start-up was throwing crazy money around. But finally someone found out the government was behind it. An emergency response. To the Russians having a new weapon that could totally shred our election systems. Everywhere in the country was vulnerable. No results could be trusted. The guys at Quantico did some modelling. They figured the fallout from even one compromised general election could be anything from civil disobedience to full-scale rioting to possible insurrection. Imagine some of these foil-hat militia guys if they had evidence someone stole an election. Some of them have serious firepower and are already a hair’s breadth from using it.’
‘You’re about on the money,’ Reacher said. ‘The Sentinel is the only thing that can stop this weapon. The Russians can’t defeat it. So they’re trying to steal it.’
‘How?’ Rutherford said.
‘They have a spy inside Oak Ridge Laboratory. Where The Sentinel was designed.’
‘Why don’t they arrest him?’
‘Because they only know a spy exists. They don’t know who it is. The Bureau thinks it’s a sleeper. With some kind of connection to this area. Which is where things start cutting close to the bone. A document surfaced in the town archive which could have revealed the spy’s ID.’
‘The archive burned down.’
‘Not a coincidence.’
‘The online archive had the same documents. It got locked by the ransomware attack.’
‘Also not a coincidence.’
‘And my server has some of those documents on it. Because Cerberus protected them.’
‘Which is why you almost got kidnapped. The Russians want those records. To destroy whichever one could incriminate their guy.’
‘How do you know all this, Reacher?’ Sands said.
‘You thought the rendezvous at the old factory was a set-up. It was. Only not in the way you expected. The woman who showed up? She’s an FBI agent. Undercover. She’s infiltrated the Russian cell that’s tasked with recovering the server. She has two jobs. To get a copy of it for the Bureau so they can ID the spy. And to protect Rusty. She lured me there to ask for our help.’
‘And you’re only telling us now?’
Reacher shrugged. ‘There was no point telling you before we had the server. What if it had been destroyed? I’d have revealed the agent’s existence for nothing. And the fewer people who know about her the better.’
‘Fair, I guess,’ Sands said.
‘One other thing,’ Reacher said. ‘Full disclosure. Because I messed up their attempt to grab Rusty on Monday the Russians are bringing in a new guy. From Moscow. To try again. So the bottom line is this. If we want to avoid all the bad things that would follow a compromised election, and if we want to stop this new Russian going after Rusty, we have one option. Give a copy of the server to the Bureau.’
Rutherford jumped off the bed and picked up a pair of the extra servers they had brought from the protection guy’s unit at Norm’s. ‘Sarah, what are you waiting for? Help me. We need two more power outlets over here.’
It took Rutherford ten minutes to get the extra servers fixed up the way he wanted them. Reacher used the time to call a number Agent Fisher had given him for Wallwork in case of emergencies or breakthroughs. He figured this qualified. Wallwork answered on the first ring and Reacher cut straight to the chase: the server had been found; the data was intact. Wallwork was all business in return. No thanks. No congratulations. Just a pair of rapid-fire questions: where are you, and how soon can we meet. Reacher told Wallwork to be in the vicinity of the truck stop in one hour, and that he would call back shortly with a precise location.
Reacher excused himself and hurried to the office. He rapped on the counter. The long-haired kid appeared. This time he looked surprised and worried. He no doubt had visions of the balance of his thousand in cash evaporating before it ever saw the inside of his pocket.
‘Let’s talk about your room rates again,’ Reacher said. ‘Your standard is ninety-five dollars a day. Which works out to about four bucks an hour. So if I wanted another room for two hours, no questions asked, no records kept, how much would that cost me?’
‘Fifty bucks. Cash. Up front.’
‘What’s your name, son?’
‘Carmichael.’
‘Well, Carmichael, I believe in the illustrative power of stories. Do you?’