Chapter 960: In Washington, D.C. (Part )

"Ranger or Green Beret?" Reacher narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at the two people in front of him with a thoughtful look.

"Ranger." The woman in the black suit was not tall. She was a white woman in her early thirties. She had no special features in her appearance. Although she was dressed formally, she gave people the feeling of a female leopard ready to pounce.

The other man in the black suit was also not tall, but he had a very sturdy build. One could tell he was a strong man just by looking at his hairstyle. The front half of his head was shiny, and you could barely see some stubble on the back.

He simply ignored Jack standing beside him, and spoke in an impatient tone while standing in front of Reacher.

"The Senator has an offer for you, get in the car, just you."

"No." Reacher refused, "He is my friend. He goes wherever I go."

The man and the woman looked at each other. It seemed that the woman was indeed in charge of giving orders. She looked at Jack carefully, then nodded reluctantly, "Okay, you two come together."

"No." Reacher still refused.

"Any questions, Mr. Reacher?" The woman frowned.

"Call me Reacher." Reacher felt a little uncomfortable with the prefix "Mr."

"Okay, Reacher, do you have any questions?" The woman was a little confused.

"He's very rude." Reacher glanced at the bald man with a bad tone.

"OK, Hart, what's the magic word?" The woman looked at the bald man beside her.

As soon as a mocking expression appeared on the bald man's face, he noticed that the woman was looking at him with a strong warning look in her eyes.

He had to try hard to adjust his expression and respectfully extended his right hand, "Please get in the car."

Reacher showed a satisfied smile, walked to the GMC commercial vehicle in front with its door opened and got in. Jack shook his head speechlessly and walked to the other door to get in.

He didn't know how Reacher judged that the woman was from the Army, but the tattoo on the bald man's neck showed that he was a Navy SEAL, so only a guy who was a former Army Military Police would suddenly become so petty.

Two GMC business cars drove all the way into the Smithsonian National Zoo. It was not until the driver got out of the car that Jack noticed that he was an Asian man with the same skull and crossbones tattoo on his neck. He looked like a seal like the bald man.

The Navy SEALs and SEAL Team 6 where Clay is located are two completely different special forces. Their relationship is a bit like that between the Rangers and Delta. They are not subordinate to each other, but most of the members of the latter are selected from the former.

The current name of SEAL Team Six is ​​Naval Special Warfare Development Group, and the abbreviation has also changed from SEAL to DEVGRU.

After witnessing the conflict between the U.S. military's navy and land forces with his own eyes, Jack didn't know whether to describe it as childish or boring. After all, he was not even a soldier, and now he was just an insignificant guest. He followed the others leisurely into a room behind the cage.

The smell here is not very pleasant, the monkeys are making quite loud noises, and the sign at the entrance says "Primate Display Area".

"Isn't it a bit too much trouble to meet in a place like this?" Lei Che looked at the empty cages around him with a half-smile.

"Maybe you'll feel more comfortable with a gorilla as your company." The bald man finally got the chance to avenge the previous attack with his mouth, and then quickly retreated to the door of the room, leaving Reacher no chance to fight back.

At this time, a figure flashed in the corridor on the other side of the room. A white-haired man wearing a black windbreaker and shiny leather shoes walked out of the corridor and extended his hand to Reacher and Jack very enthusiastically.

"Mr. Reacher, my name is Malcolm Lavoie."

"He likes to be called Reacher directly." said the female ranger who was also standing at the door and performing bodyguard duties.

"No, if it's him, it must be prefixed with 'Mr.'" Reacher had no intention of shaking hands with the other party. He stood there stiffly and spoke in a tone as if the taxpayer was the boss.

A certain senator did not feel embarrassed at all. He naturally turned his outstretched right hand forward, as if he just wanted to make an emphasis, and put it back into his windbreaker pocket.

"Mr. Reacher, uh, is this Mr. Ryan? I'm sorry to invite you here in this way."

Jack gave a fake smile, and raised the mustache on his lips, but did not respond. The other party called him Ryan, which meant that he had done some research in advance, but the information he found was slightly wrong.

"I think you chose this place because it's one of the few places in Washington DC where you can avoid being seen by others?" Reacher said with a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

"Yeah, you're really smart, Mr. Reacher, and that's exactly why I joined the board of directors of this zoo." Although Senator Lavoie has white hair, there are almost no wrinkles on his forehead. His well-maintained appearance gives people the illusion that he just has premature graying of hair.

After saying that, he turned around and snapped his fingers. The figure that appeared in the passage this time was one that Reacher was relatively familiar with. After all, they had just met last night.

"Ahaha, I believe you still remember my legislative director, Mr. Boyd?"

"Of course, the guy who likes cocaine." Reacher sneered unceremoniously.

The congressman still had that hypocritical smile that only politicians have, "You know, when I learned about this, I contacted a friend of mine in the FBI.

Imagine Mr. Boyd's embarrassment and relief when he discovered that he had revealed some of our little secrets to two people posing as federal agents.

So he made some small remedies, and fortunately this time the police surveillance did not fail at the critical moment like most of the time, and through facial recognition software, we matched you with a soldier's file. "

"Jack Reacher, graduated from West Point Military Academy, one bronze star, two silver stars, one purple star, blah blah." Daniel Boyd flipped through the files on his phone nonchalantly, completely losing his cowardly look from last night.

"Show some respect." The attitude of a certain rich second-generation rich man caused Malcolm Lavoie to mockly reprimand him.

He turned to Reacher with an apologetic look, "This is quite an impressive resume. Thank you very much for serving the country."

Lei Che watched the two of them performing a double act with an expressionless face, still without saying a word.

"I'm sorry to say that Boyd has made some small inquiries in private without your permission, although we don't know why the major gave up his bright future in the army and disappeared afterwards.

But a strange incident came to our attention a few years ago in the town of Margrave, Georgia, where your brother Joey nearly died while investigating a large-scale counterfeiting case.

But then the entire criminal group collapsed, all the people involved were killed, and even the factory that produced counterfeit money was burned down.

Officially, it all seemed to be the work of a retired soldier, a private investigator who had just been fired by the NYPD, and two local town police officers.

"I wasn't fired. I became a private detective after I voluntarily resigned." Jack corrected kindly. Although he made up the fake file himself, there is a big difference between resigning and being fired.

"Sorry, it's my bad." Lavoie even gave Jack an apologetic smile, which made him feel a chill in his heart.

"Get to the point, this place smells like monkey shit."

Reacher's patience was almost exhausted. He had never had a good impression of politicians. Now that the case was almost completed, he would not have bothered to say any more if Jack had not asked him to help "get rid of" the congressman in front of him.

"I know you guys did what happened in Margrave, Mr. Reacher, Mr. Lane, and I know you guys just went to DHS and asked Joey Reacher for help.

In fact, I can also provide similar help, intelligence, weapons and even human resources. I just hope you can do it again as you did in Margrave Town. "

Lavoie finally put away his hypocritical politician face and his expression became serious.

"Why?" Reacher began to act out his acting skills and subconsciously glanced at the three bodyguards at the door, as if they really had some leverage over him.

If this guy hadn't been watching Jack when he was forging the case files of Margrave Town and helped to add a lot of details, he would have almost believed it.

"Of course it's because of what you said to Boyd in Boston. You suspect that this weapon may have leaked out, right? I'm surprised that the directors of New Age Technology, who only know how to count money, know nothing about this.

So my people found one of the junior directors in charge of the Denver plant, and with a little trickery, he confessed everything."

Lavoie took out a USB drive from his pocket and handed it to Reacher. “This guy, who owed a lot of gambling debts, received $200 million in bearer bonds and installed GPS locators on vehicles transporting a batch of missiles.

Then I heard about how your guys tried to intercept the hijacked truck en route, and almost succeeded.

I am very surprised and happy to see that your 110 Special Investigation Team has been reorganized and is as capable as ever, even though some of its members have unfortunately passed away."

Seeing that Reacher looked a little strange, Senator Lavoie, who felt that he had taken the initiative, was reserved and complacent, "Don't be so surprised, Mr. Reacher. I am a senator in Congress, and I am very efficient in doing things."

Reacher's mouth curled up slightly, "The reason why I was shocked is precisely because I didn't expect that congressmen would be so efficient."

“Hahahaha” the complacency on Lavoie’s face turned into self-mockery, “In fact, I’m used to being criticized like this.”

After he finished speaking, his expression became serious again. "The key is not to let these weapons fall into the hands of terrorists. I think we have the same demands on this point. What do you think, Mr. Reacher?"

Reacher sneered, "Of course, because the DHS has already noticed that this matter is related to terrorism, you may be able to cover it up for now, but once domestic civilian airliners are attacked by such missiles, or such weapons are discovered in our enemy countries, someone will get to the bottom of it.

Then someone will find out that you were involved in the shady dealings related to the Little Wings project from the beginning, and then no one will be able to save you."

"So get rid of the bad guys and let me get clean at the same time, which we call a win-win in Washington." Lavoie spread his hands and his voice became extremely infectious, as if he was giving a speech on Capitol Hill.

"I did everything I could to give this country the strong tools it needed to defend its democracy, and I just used a few tricks along the way to avoid a lot of red tape so that no one could question my motives."

"And make a fortune in the process, right?" Reicher snorted.

"Let me reiterate, this is also a win-win situation." Lavoie showed no shame on his face, and even took a half step forward and stared into Reacher's eyes.

"I want to make it clear to you that I don't want to see innocent people die because of this weapon. I am a politician, not a perverted killer, Mr. Reacher.

And I’m not asking for your help, I’m offering you help.”

Lavoie pointed his finger at Reacher and said, "I know what kind of person you are. You will never give up until you are vengeful, and you will be ruthless. Both your record in the army and everything you did in Margrave Town prove this.

I like your style, keep it up and kill those bad guys, and you can always call me for help when you need it.

I also promise you that when this is all over, all records will be erased, just like before.

Use your violence to destroy everything, smash everything into pieces, kill all the bad guys, leaving no evidence, and then you can continue to disappear, no one will pursue it, no one will try to find you, and your friends can return to their peaceful lives. "

-

"Huh!" It was not until the two of them left the monkey exhibition area and blended into the crowd of zoo visitors that Reacher let out a long sigh of relief and raised his arm to look at his fist with bulging veins.

"It was just a little bit, just a little bit, and I was so close to punching that bastard to death."

"This is the first time I've seen a politician say such a long string of true words in one breath. What else are you dissatisfied with?" Jack joked, then took out his cell phone and called Joey.

“How is the recording? OK, it is your job as DHS to turn these recordings into legal wiretapping evidence.

In addition, the congressman also provided us with a new piece of evidence. The reason why 'AM' appeared in Denver was found out. He went to bribe a board member who was in charge of the factory.

He must have arranged for someone to do the carjacking. This was the delivery method that both parties had agreed on in advance. Now we just need to find the chips in Lanston's hands, or follow the missing missiles to find 'AM'."

After the call, Jack counted on his fingers, "Dixon doesn't have any important relatives alive, O'Donnell's family is on vacation, and Negley has an old father in poor health who is not convenient to move, but the FBI has sent people to help protect him.

The Special Investigation Team is currently impeccable, but we are still missing an important witness. Perhaps she can help us solve the final mystery, especially the part about Tony Swan. "

"Then call O'Donnell. It's time for us to go back to New York. I hope your two girlfriends are helpful enough and have found the whereabouts of Marlo Burns."

Reacher pouted and fished out a few coins from his pocket to buy two ice cream cones for himself and Jack.

"Shut up, Jack. If you mention this again, I'll call Roscoe to come to New York. I'm sure she'll be happy to come and help when she hears your name."

Jack bit off half of the cone with one vicious bite.