The Secret

The gripping new Jack Reacher thriller from the #1 1992. All across the United States respectable, upstanding citizens are showing up dead. These deaths could be accidents, and they don’t appear to be connected--until a fatal fall from a high-floor window attracts some unexpected attention. That attention comes from the secretary of defense. All of a sudden he wants an interagency task force to investigate. And he wants Jack Reacher as the army’s representative. If Reacher gets a result, great. If not, he’s a convenient fall guy. But office politics isn’t Reacher’s thing. Three questions quickly emerge: Who’s with him, who’s against him, and will the justice he dispenses be the official kind . . . or his own kind?

Auteur

Lee Child and Andrew Child

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Don’t miss the hit streaming series Reacher! 
 
A string of mysterious deaths. A long-classified mission. A young MP with nothing to lose.

1992. All across the United States respectable, upstanding citizens are showing up dead. These deaths could be accidents, and they don’t appear to be connected—until a fatal fall from a high-floor window attracts some unexpected attention.
       
      That attention comes from the secretary of defense. All of a sudden he wants an interagency task force to investigate. And he wants Jack Reacher as the army’s representative. If Reacher gets a result, great. If not, he’s a convenient fall guy.
       
      But office politics isn’t Reacher’s thing. Three questions quickly emerge: Who’s with him, who’s against him, and will the justice he dispenses be the official kind . . . or his own kind?

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Chapter 1

Keith Bridgeman was alone in his room when he closed his eyes. The morning medical rounds were over. Lunch had been delivered and eaten and cleared away. Other people s visitors had clattered along the corridor in search of relatives and friends. A janitor had swept and mopped and hauled off the day s trash. And finally a little peace had descended on the ward.

Bridgeman had been in the hospital for a month. Long enough to grow used to its rhythms and routines. He knew it was time for the afternoon lull. A break from getting poked and prodded and being made to get up and move around and stretch. No one was going to bother him for another three hours, minimum. So he could read. Watch TV. Listen to music. Gaze out of the window at the sliver of lake that was visible between the next pair of skyscrapers.

Or he could take a nap.

Bridgeman was sixty-­two years old. He was in rough shape. That was clear. He could debate the cause ­the kind of work he had devoted his life to, the stress he had suffered, the cigarettes and alcohol he had consumed ­but he couldn t deny the effect. A heart attack so massive that no one had expected him to survive.

Defying odds that great is tiring work. He chose the nap.

These days he always chose the nap.

Bridgeman woke up after only an hour. He was no longer alone. Two other people were in the room with him. Both were women. Maybe in their late twenties. They were the same height. The same slim build. One was on the left side of his bed, nearer to the door. The other was level with her on the right, nearer to the window. They were standing completely still. In silence. Staring at him. Their hair was pulled back, smooth and dark and tight. Their faces were expressionless like mannequins and their skin shone in the harsh artificial light as if it were molded from plastic.

The women were wearing white coats over hospital scrubs. The coats were the correct length. They had all the necessary pockets and badges and tags. The scrubs were the right shade of blue. But the women weren t medics. Bridgeman was sure about that. His sixth sense told him so. It told him they shouldn t be there. That they were trouble. He scanned each of them in turn. Their hands were empty. Their clothes were not bulging. There was no sign of guns or knives. No sign of any hospital equipment they could use as weapons. But Bridgeman still wasn t happy. He was in danger. He knew it. He could feel it as keenly as a gazelle that had been ambushed by a pair of lions.

Bridgeman glanced at his left leg. The call button was where the nurse had left it, lying on the sheet between his thigh and the safety rail. His hand darted toward it. It was a fluid movement. Smooth. Fast. But the woman was faster. She snatched the button then dropped it, leaving it dangling on its wire, almost to the floor, well out of Bridgeman s reach.

Bridgeman felt his heart quiver and tremble in his chest. He heard an electronic beep. It came from a piece of equipment on a stand near the head of the bed. It had a screen with a number in the center of the top half and two jagged lines that zigzagged across the full width of the lower half. The first line showed his pulse. It was spiking wildly. Its peaks were surging closer together like they were chasing one another. The number showed his heart rate. It was climbing. Fast. The beeps grew louder. More frequent. Then the sound became continuous. Insistent. Impossible to ignore. The number stopped rising. It began to flash. It changed direction. And it kept going down until it reached 00. The lines flattened out. First at the left of the screen and then all the way across until both were perfectly horizontal. The display was inert. Lifeless. Except for the desperate electronic howl.

It told of total cardiac failure.

But only for a moment.

The