They passed through an active cell and Neagley's phone rang. Diana Bond, all set to leave Edwards at a moment's notice. Reacher said, "Tell her to meet us at that Denny's on Sunset. Where we were before." Neagley made a face and he said, "It's going to taste like Maxim's in Paris after that place we just stopped."
So Neagley arranged the rendezvous and he kicked the transmission down and climbed onto Mount San Antonio 's first low slopes. Less than an hour later they were checking in at the Dunes Motel.
The Dunes was the kind of place where no room went even close to three figures for the night and where guests were required to leave a security deposit for the TV remote, which was issued with great ceremony along with the key. Reacher paid cash from his stolen wad for all four rooms, which got around the necessity for real names and ID. They parked the cars out of sight of the street and regrouped in a dark battered lounge next to a laundry room, as anonymous as four people could get in Los Angeles County.
Reacher's kind of place.
An hour later Diana Bond called Neagley to say she was pulling into the Denny's lot.
54
They walked a short stretch of Sunset and stepped into the Denny's neon lobby and found a tall blonde woman waiting for them. She was alone. She was dressed all in black. Black jacket, black blouse, black skirt, black stockings, black high-heeled shoes. Serious East Coast style, a little out of place on the West Coast and seriously out of place in a Denny's on the West Coast. She was slim, attractive, clearly intelligent, somewhere in her late thirties.
She looked a little irritated and preoccupied.
She looked a little worried.
Neagley introduced her all around. "This is Diana Bond," she said. "From Washington D.C. via Edwards Air Force Base."
Diana Bond had nothing with her except a small crocodile purse. No briefcase, not that Reacher expected notes or blueprints. They led her through the shabby restaurant and found a round table in back. Five people wouldn't fit in a booth. A waitress came over and they ordered coffee. The waitress came back with five heavy mugs and a flask, and poured. They each took a preliminary sip, in silence. Then Diana Bond spoke. She didn't start with small talk. Instead she said, "I could have you all arrested."
Reacher nodded.
"I'm kind of surprised you haven't," he said. "I was kind of expecting to find a bunch of agents here with you."
Bond said, "One call to the Defense Intelligence Agency would have done it."
"So why didn't you make that call?"
"I'm trying to be civilized."
"And loyal," Reacher said. "To your boss."
"And to my country. I really would urge you not to pursue this line of inquiry."
Reacher said, "That would give you another wasted journey."
"I'd be very happy to waste another journey."
"Our tax dollars at work."
"I'm pleading with you."
"Deaf ears."
"I'm appealing to your patriotism. This is a question of national security."
Reacher said, "Between the four of us here, we've got sixty years in uniform. How many have you got?"
"None."
"How many has your boss got?"
"None."
"Then shut up about patriotism and national security, OK? You're not qualified."
"Why on earth do you need to know about Little Wing?"
"We had a friend who worked for New Age. We're trying to complete his obituary."
"He's dead?"
"Probably."
"I'm very sorry."
"Thank you."
"But again, I would appeal to you not to press this."
"No deal."
Diana Bond paused a long moment. Then she nodded.
"I'll trade," she said. "I'll give you outline details, and in return you swear on those sixty years in uniform that they'll go no further."
"Deal."
"And after I talk to you this one time, I never hear from you again."
"Deal."
Another long pause. Like Bond was wrestling with her conscience.
"Little Wing is a new type of torpedo," she said. "For the Navy's Pacific submarine fleet. It's fairly conventional apart from an enhanced control capability because of new electronics."
Reacher smiled.
"Good try," he said. "But we don't believe you."
"Why not?"
"We were never going to believe your first answer. Obviously you were going to try to blow us off. Plus, most of those sixty years we mentioned were spent listening to liars, so we know one when we see one. Plus, some of those sixty years were spent reading all kinds of Pentagon bullshit, so we know how they use words. A new torpedo would more likely be called 'Little Fish.' Plus, New Age was a clean-sheet start-up with a free choice of where to build, and if they were working for the Navy they'd have chosen San Diego or Connecticut or Newport News, Virginia. But they didn't. They chose East LA instead. And the closest places to East LA are Air Force places, including Edwards, where you just came from, and the name is Little Wing, so it's an airborne device."
Diana Bond shrugged.
"I had to try," she said.
Reacher said, "Try again."
Another pause.
"It's an infantry weapon," she said. "Army, not Air Force. New Age is in East LA to be near Fort Irwin, not Edwards. But you're right, it's airborne."
"Specifically?"
"It's a man-portable shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile. The next generation."
"What does it do?"
Diana Bond shook her head. "I can't tell you that."
"You'll have to. Or your boss goes down."
"That's not fair."
"Compared to what?"
"All I'll say is that it's a revolutionary advance."
"We've heard that kind of thing before. It means it'll be out-of-date a year from now, rather than the usual six months."
"We think two years, actually."
"What does it do?"
"You're not going to call the newspapers. You'd be selling out your country."
"Try us."
"Are you serious?"
"As lung cancer."
"I don't believe this."
"Suck it up. Or your boss needs a new job tomorrow. As far as that goes, we'd be doing our country a favor."
"You don't like him."
"Does anyone?"
"The newspapers wouldn't publish."
"Dream on."
Bond was quiet for a minute more.
"Promise it will go no further," she said.
"I already have," Reacher said.
"It's complicated."
"Like rocket science?"
"You know the Stinger?" Bond asked. "The current generation?"
Reacher nodded. "I've seen them in action. We all have."
"What do they do?"
"They chase the heat signature of jet exhaust."
"But from below," Bond said. "Which is a key weakness. They have to climb and maneuver at the same time. Which makes them relatively slow and relatively cumbersome. They show up on downward-looking radar. It's possible for a pilot to outmaneuver them. And they're vulnerable to countermeasures, like decoy flares."
"But?"
"Little Wing is revolutionary. Like most great ideas, it starts with a very simple premise. It completely ignores its target on the way up. It does all its work on the way down."