By the time Jack and Reacher returned to New York, Hannah and JJ had already brought Marlo Burns and her daughter back to the small office building of the Most Wanted Fugitive Task Force.
The mother and daughter hadn't gone far; they were hiding in Newburgh, located just over 70 kilometers north of New York, along the upper Hudson River.
Langston and his men weren't as omnipotent as they seemed. What they relied on were mostly leftover connections within the NYPD.
Now, with Commissioner Frank Reagan personally getting involved, it had become extremely difficult for anyone to find Marlo Burns—who had discarded her phone and fled—let alone locate Reacher or any of the Special Investigation Unit members.
Jack's suggestion to place the families of the unit members under protection wasn't just to guard against Langston and his people getting desperate—it was to preempt any moves by a certain senator's shadowy influence.
"So you really weren't working with Langston?" Jack pushed a coffee cup in front of the still-shaken middle-aged woman.
"Of course not. The moment he handed me that big bag of money, I knew I couldn't stay home anymore—I had to protect my daughter."
Marlo Burns looked pale and worn. Western women often aged hard after forty, and clearly, she hadn't been thinking about skincare while on the run. She looked nothing like the woman in her photos, appearing now without makeup.
"So all that cash in your house—Langston forced it on you. But you could have refused it and gone to the police," Dixon said casually, gently sniffing the scent of her passionfruit tea.
She had discovered that Jack's giant refrigerator was a treasure trove. He could grab any jar from it and whip up a drink that instantly won over the ladies.
Marlo Burns broke down at that remark, her eyes brimming with tears.
"Langston used to be a cop—served more than twenty years as a commander in the NYPD. He helped plenty of crooked people escape prison, and now they all work for him. Like that ruthless hitman and his crew."
The members of the task force exchanged looks. Reacher said coolly, "We took care of him in Atlantic City."
Marlo paused briefly, then continued, "There were also some professional gunmen..."
"They were taken down at Greenwood Cemetery—only two survived, and they're now under protection at a hospital in New Jersey," Danny added.
"And a whole biker gang," she said again, caught off guard.
"Not sure how many made it out, but federal prison will be their final stop," Jubal chimed in with a grin.
"But I was just one person. The things he threatened to do to me and my daughter... God, I can't even bring myself to repeat them. That's why I ran," Marlo said, trembling as she cried, completely overwhelmed by fear and emotion.
"Okay. But you're safe now. We've got the FBI, righteous NYPD detectives, and a group of ex-soldiers who want Langston to pay in blood," Jack said, handing her a pack of tissues to calm her down. "Let's start with Tony Swann. What role did he play in all this? Was he Langston's accomplice, or...?"
Marlo had just quietly thanked Jack when the question made her eyes go wide with shock.
"Of course not! He was the one who tried to stop everything. If you knew Swann, you'd know—he could never be part of something so vile."
"Yes, some of us never doubted it," Reacher said, shooting a glare at his teammates, who awkwardly avoided his gaze.
"We know you placed Swann in the 'New Era' security department. Care to explain why?" Jack continued.
"Yes, that's right. It was over a year ago. I hired Swann and made him Langston's deputy because the security team at 'New Era' was a monolith.
They were all former NYPD cops from the same precinct, and nearly everyone followed Langston without question."
Hearing that, Hannah flashed JJ a proud "V" sign—it confirmed her analysis back when they searched Marlo Burns's home.
"So you thought the security department had to be brought back under company control. You planted Swann to investigate quietly and he discovered something wrong with the 'Little Wings' project?" JJ asked.
Marlo looked surprised. "How do you know that?"
"We know about the 'Little Wings' project. We know about the man-portable anti-air missiles. We even know about Senator Lavoie," Jack said as he spread out some printouts of strange data from Franz's USB drive in front of her. "Do you know what these numbers mean?"
"Of course," she said after just a glance. "These are statistics of defective chips. Swann discovered that the number of faulty chips during testing—specifically ones running the 'Little Wings' software—had far exceeded the expected range, especially in recent months.
I asked the quality control department, but they couldn't explain it. The CEO and the board told me not to worry about those details—as long as the order was delivered on time, nothing else mattered.
Since the missiles performed well in field tests, we chalked it up to manufacturing issues instead of a design flaw. We simply increased the procurement volume to weed out more usable chips."
"Of course—because the missiles were never meant to actually work. They were dummy units meant to fool people," Reacher said coldly.
Marlo was momentarily speechless, clearly shaken. As Operations Director, she was aware of some shady aspects of the 'Little Wings' project.
"Go on. What did Swann believe?" Reacher pressed.
"Swann believed someone in the engineering department was deliberately manipulating the test boards—randomly flagging functional chips as defective."
Marlo hugged her head, crying again. "I did everything I could. I reported it, but no one cared. The board only cared about the R&D team and future defense contracts.
I warned Swann to be cautious. He reassured me, said he'd bring in some trusted military buddies to help... and then we lost contact."
"Yeah," O'Donnell said, wiping his eyes, looking solemn and downcast. "They were our friends, too."
Negley put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a firm shake to comfort him. "We'll make them pay."
With the final piece of the puzzle provided by Marlo Burns, the full picture finally came into focus.
"New Era Tech" had developed a promising piece of military software—at least, that's what they believed.
To secure enough funding to keep the project going, they designed a flashy-looking man-portable missile system to accompany it.
As a relatively new player in the defense industry, New Era clearly didn't have the muscle to compete with veteran contractors on more established military programs.
So they took a different approach, creating this eye-catching piece of "black tech" to draw attention.
Maybe the live demo was a little too convincing—some small country or faction took an interest in the system, and that kicked off the chain of chaos that followed.
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