She said, 'I got some news from Quantico. When I called them about Whiteman. We heard from the State Department again. But not from their PR people this time. I think this one is genuine.'
'What did they say?'
'They have no staffer named Lester L. Lester, Jr. Never did. They never heard of him.'
'CIA?'
'Likewise. Never heard of him. And we can believe them. Because right now all their cards are on the table. They're depending on us to keep quiet about the guy in the old pumping station.'
'Who was he?'
'He had worked in Pakistan and all over the Middle East. Except he wasn't running agents. They were running him. He had gone native. He was Wadiah's mole inside Langley.'
Delfuenso moved off the kerb and started south again.
McQueen said, 'Why did he attack us?'
'He attacked you personally. He had your name. Kansas City's security is poor, and the CIA watches what we do. They knew we had a mole inside Wadiah. Their mole reported back. The big boss told him to deal with you. So he lured you to a remote location for a meaningless meeting. Simple as that.'
'You did well,' Reacher said, from the back seat. 'Fast reactions. The smart money would have been on the other guy.'
McQueen said, 'Thank you.'
'The forehead thing was a bit retro, though.'
'It was the way it came out. That's all. I bent his arm and grabbed the knife, and the blade ended up pretty high, so I thought, why the hell not? Just for old times' sake.'
They came off Route 65 where it turned east, onto the small rural road, ready to cut the corner back to the Interstate exit. They passed the Civil War battlefield site, where Americans had fired cannons at Americans for nine long hours. McQueen turned in his seat and looked at Reacher and said, 'One last thing.'
Reacher said, 'What?'
'Tell me how you talk for a minute without using the letter A.'
Delfuenso said, 'You were asleep.'
McQueen said, 'I haven't slept for seven months.'
Reacher said, 'Easy. Just start counting. One, two, three, four, five, six. And so on. You don't hit a letter A until you get to a hundred and one. You can even do it real fast and still get nowhere near ninety-nine inside a minute.'
Delfuenso eased to a stop next to a ragged grassy shoulder. No one spoke. No doubt the FBI had appropriate banter for the occasion. The army sure did. But private jokes are private. So they all sat quiet for a minute. Then Reacher got out and walked away, without looking back, past the first ramp west towards Independence and Kansas City, and onward over the bridge to the eastbound ramp. He put one foot on the shoulder and one in the traffic lane, and he stuck out his thumb, and he smiled and tried to look friendly.