Chapter 4
The elevator let him out into the late-afternoon gray, and Reacher walked out of the building without looking back.
No tail.
Which bothered him more than if there had been.
He crossed the lot, unlocked his car, and slid behind the wheel. Only then did he unfold the slip of paper Chambers had given him.
Typed address. No letterhead. No phone number. Just a location and a time.
He checked his watch.
Twenty-eight minutes.
Chambers hadn’t asked if Reacher could make it. Chambers had already calculated that he would.
The drive took him across the river and south, away from the tourist version of Washington and into a stretch of the city that felt purely functional. Industrial buildings. Utility yards. Scrap fences and loading docks.
The Potomac slid past on his right, dark and slow, like it was carrying secrets it had learned not to repeat.
Buzzard Point. It was the FBI’s DC field office, different from the Hoover building, which was mostly administrative.
The name fit.
Reacher pulled in front of a blocky concrete building with no marquee and minimal signage. An American flag snapped sharply in the wind, the sound sharp and impatient. Two uniformed guards stood at the entrance beneath a seal bolted into the stone above the doors.
They looked like guards who didn’t get surprised.
Reacher showed his ID.
One of them barely glanced at it. “Reacher,” he said. Not a question. “They’re expecting you.”
Of course they are, Joe thought.
Inside, the air smelled like a government office. Old carpet, burnt coffee and lots of paperwork.
The lighting was harsh. The walls were scuffed. Nothing decorative, nothing unnecessary. This wasn’t a place meant to impress anyone.
They waved him past the security desk and into a hallway that opened into a larger operations room. Phones rang in clipped bursts. A dot-matrix printer chattered somewhere behind him. Voices stayed low.
Joe walked into the room and wasn’t surprised by what he saw.
By the wall map stood a man in a conservative navy suit, early fifties, clearly FBI. Domestic side. Reacher recognized the type instantly. He was career Bureau, quiet authority, the look of someone used to being in charge even when he technically wasn’t.
Nearby, leaning over a metal table, was an ATF agent. He was in his mid-forties, sleeves rolled up, jacket draped neatly over a chair with the yellow letters partially visible. He was studying photographs laid out in a grid pattern: weapons, detonators, serial numbers.
Off to one side stood Army Intelligence. He had no rank displayed. Close-cropped hair. Neutral posture. Hands behind his back. Counterintelligence, without a doubt. The kind that monitored leaks and loyalties.
And then there was the fourth man.
No badge visible. No jacket on a chair. No paperwork in front of him. He stood farther back than the rest, near the shadows, doing nothing but watching the room.
Reacher felt the click happen in his head.
When he’d asked Chambers who he worked for, Chambers hadn’t evaded the question.
He’d answered it.
All of them.
This wasn’t a turf war. It was a convergence.
A woman peeled away from the FBI man and walked toward Reacher. Early forties. Dark suit. Practical shoes. Badge already out.
“Mr. Reacher,” she said. “Special Agent Winthrow. FBI.”
“Thanks for the invite,” Reacher said. “This looks like fun.”
She didn’t react. “Thank you for coming on short notice.”
“I’m all about inter-agency cooperation.”
A small smile.
She gestured toward a conference room with frosted glass walls just off the operations floor. Inside, a single table. Chairs all around.
As they walked, Joe felt the group’s scrutiny. Everyone in the room knew he was there now. No curiosity. No surprise. Just assessment.
He understood the structure immediately. One voice per agency. No overlap. No arguing chains of command. Whatever they were dealing with had crossed jurisdictions cleanly enough that no single agency could claim it, and seriously enough that none of them dared ignore it.
Which meant the situation was not good. Not good at all.
Winthrow opened the conference room door. “We’ll get you up to speed.”
Reacher stepped inside.
As the door closed behind him, sealing off the noise of the operations floor, he knew one thing for certain:
Chambers hadn’t sent him here to answer questions.
They’d brought him in because someone had crossed lines. It could be legal, operational, or institutional. And the people in this room needed someone who understood all of them.
Someone who knew what to do when an operation went balls-up.
Someone who could think like the people they were no doubt hunting.
Someone like Joe Reacher.