"Why?" O'Donnell asked.
"Current production is specified as Mark Two," Neagley said. "They're junking what's left of the Mark Ones."
"Which just happens to be exactly six hundred and fifty units."
"You got it."
"What's the difference?"
"The Mark Twos have a small fluorescent arrow painted on them. To make loading easier in the dark."
"That's all?"
"You got it."
"It's a scam."
"Of course it's a scam. It's a way of making the paperwork look legal when Mahmoud's people drive them through the factory gate."
Reacher nodded. A gate guard would fight to the death to prevent the unauthorized removal of ordnance. But if he saw paperwork with a reason on it, he would pass the load through with a smile and a cheery wave. Even if the reason was the absence of a small painted arrow on something that cost more than he made in a year. Reacher had seen the Pentagon junk stuff for less.
He asked, "How do the electronics packs fit on?"
"In," Neagley said. "Not on. There's an access port in the side. You unscrew it and plug the pack in. Then there's some testing and calibration."
"Could I do it?"
"I doubt it. You'd need training. In the field it's going to be a specialist's job."
"So Mahmoud couldn't do it, either. Or his people."
"We have to assume they've got a guy. They wouldn't spend sixty-five million dollars without being shown how to put the things together."
"Can we nix that transport order?"
"Not without raising an alarm. Which would be the same thing as dropping the dime."
"You still got any markers left on your guy?"
"A couple."
"Tell him to have someone call you the second those units roll out."
"And until then?"
"Until then Mahmoud doesn't have the missiles. Until then we have complete freedom of action."
59
At that instant it became a race against time. When the warehouse door opened in Colorado, a door of a different kind would slam shut in LA. But there was still a lot to prepare. There was still a lot to discover. Including exact locations. Clearly New Age's glass cube in East LA wasn't the center of anything. For one thing, there was no helicopter there.
And they needed exact identities.
They needed to know who knew, and who flew.
"I want them all," Reacher said.
"Including the dragon lady?" Neagley asked.
"Starting with the dragon lady. She lied to me."
They needed equipment, clothing, communications, and alternative vehicles.
And training, Neagley thought.
"We're old, we're slow, and we're rusty," she said. "We're a million miles from what we used to be."
"We're not too bad," O'Donnell said.
"Time was when you'd have put a double tap through that guy's eyes," she said. "Not a lucky low shot to his leg."
They sat in the lounge like four out-of-towners discussing how to spend their day. As far as ordnance went, they had two Hardballers and the Daewoo DP-51 from Vegas. Thirteen rounds each for the Hardballers, eleven for the Daewoo. Not nearly good enough. O'Donnell and Dixon and Neagley had personal cell phones registered to their real names and real addresses and Reacher had nothing. Not nearly good enough. They had a Hertz Ford 500 rented in Dixon's real name and the captured Chrysler. Not nearly good enough. O'Donnell was in a thousand-dollar suit from his East Coast tailor and Neagley and Dixon had jeans, jackets, and evening wear. Not nearly good enough.
Neagley swore that budget was not a problem. But that didn't help with the time factor. They needed four untraceable pay-as-you-go cell phones, four anonymous cars, and work clothes. That was a day's shopping right there. Then they needed guns and ammunition. Best case, a free choice for each of them and a lot of spare rounds. Worst case, one more make-do handgun and a lot of spare rounds. That was another day's shopping. Like most cities, LA had a thriving black market in untraceable weapons, but it would take time to penetrate.
Two days of material preparation.
Maybe two days of surveillance and research.
"We don't have time to train," Reacher said.
Azhari Mahmoud had time for a leisurely lunch. He took it in a sidewalk cafe in Laguna Beach. He was staying in a rented townhouse a short walk away. Safe enough. The lease was legitimate. The development had a large transient population. It wasn't unusual to see U-Haul trucks parked overnight. Mahmoud's was two streets away, in a lot, locked up and empty.
It wouldn't be empty for long.
His contacts at New Age had insisted that Little Wing must not be used inside the United States. He had readily agreed. He had said he planned to use the weapon in Kashmir, on the border, against the Indian Air Force. He had lied, of course. He had been amazed that they had taken him for a Pakistani. He had been amazed that they cared what his intentions were. Maybe they were patriotic. Or maybe they had relatives who flew a lot, domestically.
But it had been politic to go along to get along. Hence the temporary inconvenience of the shipping container and the dockside location. But there was an easy remedy. Southern California was full of day laborers. Mahmoud calculated that loading the U-Haul would take them a little less than thirty minutes.
They figured the clothes and the phones would be easy. Any mall would have what they needed. Guns were guns, either obtainable in time or not. Dixon wanted a Glock 19. Neagley's hands were bigger, so she nominated a Glock 17. O'Donnell was a Beretta guy, by choice. Reacher didn't care. He wasn't planning on shooting anybody. He was planning on using his bare hands. But he said he would take a Glock or a SIG or a Beretta or an H amp;K, or anything that used 9mm Parabellums. That way, all four of them would be using the same ammunition. More efficient.
Cars were more difficult still. It was hard to find a truly anonymous car. In the end O'Donnell suggested that the best bet would be rice rockets, small Japanese sedans and coupes tricked out with loud big-bore mufflers and lowered suspensions and cotton-reel tires and blue headlights. And black windows. Three-or four-year-old examples would be cheap, and they were everywhere on the street. Close to invisible, in southern California. And O'Donnell figured they were a very effective disguise, psychologically. They were so closely identified in the public mind with Latino gangbangers that nobody would think a white ex-soldier was inside behind the darkened glass.
They gave the cars and the phones priority over the guns. That way two or three of them could start the surveillance, at least. And if they were going to Radio Shack for the phones, they might as well duck into the Gap or a jeans store for clothes, too. After that, wired and blending in, they could separate and hit used-car lots until they found the wheels they needed.
All of which required cash money. Lots of it. Which required a visit to a teller's window by Neagley. Reacher drove her in the captured Chrysler and waited outside a bank in Beverly Hills. Fifteen minutes later she came out with fifty thousand dollars in a brown sandwich bag. Ninety minutes later they had clothes and phones. The phones were straightforward talk-only pay-as-you-go cells, no camera function, no games, no calculators. They bought car chargers and earpieces to go with them. The clothes were soft gray denim shirts and pants and black canvas windbreakers bought from an off-brand store on Santa Monica Boulevard, two sets each for O'Donnell and Dixon and Neagley and one set for Reacher, plus gloves and watch caps and boots from a hiking store on Melrose.