Danny sent Uncle Ed, the postal officer, off and followed Jack into the back seat of the Hellcat. Curious, he tried to poke his cheek with his finger.
"How did you do that?"
"Just some simple disguise." Jack turned away, baring his teeth at him, revealing the prosthetic implant hidden beneath his cheek.
He'd only slightly altered his facial features with a fake beard, which might fool standard facial recognition software, but wasn't very effective against the human eye, especially when the person was someone he knew.
Danny wasn't stupid. Although he immediately recognized Jack with his squared-off cheeks and fake beard, he didn't point it out. Instead, he spent a fortune, using his father's treasured collection, and quickly tricked Uncle Ed, who had been called in for help, away.
He knew that any case that could allow Jack to disguise himself in New York must be quite serious. After all, the guy had deliberately avoided the media during the Central Park bombing.
Jack introduced the two men as he drove. When Danny heard the case involved a murder case involving a member of the Army Special Investigations Unit, his eyes lit up.
Putting aside the delicate psychology of a retired fourth-class officer like Ma Runneng being involved in a murder case involving Army military police, hearing about torture and the helicopter dumping of bodies instantly intrigued him as an NYPD detective.
Reacher, sitting in the passenger seat, had been silently rummaging through the pile of mail he had just taken out of the mailbox. Finally, he found a USB drive in an envelope and finally smiled at Jack.
"Did I ever tell you you're smart?"
"Some things don't need to be said, everyone knows." Jack took the USB drive and examined it, his expression suddenly becoming serious.
"There's something wrong with this USB drive. It's been tampered with."
"What do you mean?" Reacher took the USB drive back, turned on the small overhead light, and examined it carefully. Sure enough, he found signs of resealing the USB drive's casing.
"We'll talk about it when we get back. We have experts who can handle this." Jack turned the steering wheel and pulled onto the highway heading towards Long Island.
"
You guessed right. The USB drive has indeed been tampered with. The circuit board has been altered, presumably to burn the memory chip if necessary."
Alice finally spoke after studying the disassembled USB drive under a desktop magnifying glass for a long time.
"If necessary, do you mean entering the wrong password?" Jack, now stripped of his disguise, asked, leaning against the door.
Beef dumplings were simmering on the gas stove in the kitchen. Inside the restaurant, besides Reacher and Danny, who had hitched a ride, everyone from the Most Wanted team was present.
"It seems so. I can remove the memory chip and replace it with a new USB drive to prevent it from burning. But if I want to read the information inside, I'd better be able to figure out the password. Brute-forcing it might require the Bureau's supercomputer resources."
Alice held out her hand, and Aubrey, who had gathered beside her to watch the action, quickly handed her the already-powered soldering iron, looking extremely servile.
"Damn it, I hate guessing passwords," Reacher muttered in frustration from his seat on the sofa.
"You've already said that, but you're the one here who knows Franz best. You can try analyzing him like a criminal."
Jack said, then walked back to the kitchen, turned down the heat, lifted the lid of the pot, added some cold water, and replaced the lid.
Soon, when Jiejie and Hannah brought two large plates of dumplings to the table, everyone rushed over, holding large bowls and digging into their own. Jack left a large bowl for Reacher, enough for four or five people.
Aubrey looked at Reacher in surprise as he wolfed down the
food, unable to believe that someone could eat more than him. "I thought you might need this." While everyone was eating, Jack cooked another pot, then went upstairs to get an empty picture frame and handed it to Reacher.
They didn't leave Franz's office empty-handed; Reacher took the smashed picture frame with him.
"Thank you." While Reacher didn't show his emotions easily, he wasn't one to be pretentious. He put down his half-eaten dumplings and washed his hands. Then, he carefully opened the damaged frame and replaced the photo.
"Done." Elsewhere, Alice had already inserted the USB drive with the new chip into her laptop, and a password input box popped up on the screen.
Everyone gathered around Alice, their dumplings in hand, and then turned their gazes to Reacher.
"Are you sure you can try the password unlimited times?" Jack served himself a plate of dumplings, then, to everyone's astonishment, dumped the rest into Reacher's large bowl.
Alice glanced at the seven or eight large dumplings still steaming in the bowl reserved for her, gasping in amazement. After gathering her composure, she replied.
"No problem. The original setting was that you could enter the password three times within two minutes. If you made a mistake or the timer expired, the memory chip would be completely burned. I've bypassed that limit now."
Jack gestured to Reacher, who immediately turned a sour face, his beef dumplings no longer fragrant. After a long while, he managed to compose a single word: "Pittsburgh, Franz's hometown."
Wrong password.
"Pirates? Steelers?"
The former refers to Pittsburgh's famous Major League Baseball team, the latter to its football team. Unfortunately, neither was correct.
"The Plimanti Brothers? Uh, Plimanti," Reacher continued to guess.
"What's that?" Danny asked curiously.
Before Reacher could say anything, Aubrey jumped in with a quick answer. "A famous fast food restaurant in Pittsburgh. They put fries on sandwiches. It's quite unique."
Unfortunately, it still wasn't right, and Reacher tore at his hair in agony.
"What kind of person is this Franz? What's his greatest strength?" Jubal piqued his interest.
"Intelligent and cautious?" Jiejie felt that those two traits were the only qualities someone could possess to hide such a secret.
"The 110 Special Investigations Unit is very intelligent and very cautious," Reacher said proudly.
"It's loyalty," Jack suddenly chimed in. "It's loyalty stemming from love and admiration. He even taught your group's slogan to his children, so it should be specific to someone."
Reacher's eyes lit up. "You're right. Roberto Clemente. Try both first and last name."
Roberto Clemente was the Pittsburgh Pirates' most famous hitter, who died in a plane crash in 1972 while on a disaster relief mission in Nicaragua.
Unfortunately, the password still came back as an error.
"Willis Tagle?" Jubal mentioned another famous star of the Pirates.
Alice was about to type, but was stopped by Jack, "I want to say Jack Reacher, try both the first name and the last name."
"That's impossible." Reacher shook his head repeatedly, "Don't joke."
"I'm not kidding." Jack picked up the photo he had just put aside and pointed out Franz on it to everyone.
"Look at this young man, who do you think of? The same hairstyle, the same unkempt beard, although they are both wearing military uniforms, but look at the way he rolls up his trouser legs, who do you think this young man is imitating?"
"..." Reacher wanted to say something, but Alice was already typing quickly on the keyboard. The name was wrong, but after typing the word "Reacher", the folder was opened.
Everyone was silent for a while, and Jack patted Reacher on the shoulder. Some things don't need to be said explicitly, and the heavy responsibility contained in it is self-evident.
(End of this chapter)