No Plan B

Co-written by Lee Child and Andrew Child, this twenty-seventh Jack Reacher novel opens with a secret meeting inside the Minerva Correctional Facility, a privately run prison in Winson, Mississippi. Bruno Hix, Minerva's CEO; Damon Brockman, the COO; warden Curtis Riverdale; and police chief Rod Moseley debate whether a stranger in Colorado saw the contents of an envelope retrieved from a woman they killed. The envelope contains documents about a prisoner named Anton Begovic and his imminent release. Hix orders round-the-clock surveillance: If the stranger sets foot in Winson, they will deal with him.

Two days earlier, Jack Reacher, a former military police officer who drifts across the country with no fixed address, arrives in Gerrardsville, Colorado, to visit a Civil War exhibition. The next morning, he witnesses a murder: A man in a gray hoodie shoves a woman under the wheels of a passing bus, then retrieves her purse. Reacher chases him into an alley and knocks him unconscious. Before police arrive, Reacher examines the purse and finds a Mississippi driver's license identifying the victim as Angela St. Vrain, a Minerva Correctional work ID, and a manila envelope addressed to Danny Peel, a Winson resident. The envelope holds a mug shot of a young man with a missing earlobe and documents tracing the wrongful conviction and upcoming release of Anton Begovic, set for Friday at 10:00 A.M. A second assailant arrives in a black BMW. During a gunfight, a fire escape collapses on Reacher. When he frees himself, both men and the purse are gone.

A parallel storyline follows Jed Starmer, a fifteen-year-old foster child in Los Angeles whose dying mother reveals the truth about his father. Jed discovers online that his father was wrongly convicted and imprisoned in Mississippi. He takes cash from his foster home and buys a Greyhound ticket to Jackson. Along the way, a pickpocket steals his money, his backpack is stolen, and he nearly collapses from hunger, but a fellow passenger helps him continue.

Reacher reports the murder to Detective Harewood. That night, two armed men from Winson break into his motel room. Reacher has set a decoy under the covers and subdues them both, learning they were sent to find out what he knows. The next morning, Harewood reveals the case has been closed as a suicide. Another witness claims Angela jumped deliberately, a suicide note was found at her home, and police believe she came to rekindle a romance with a former boss named Sam Roth, who died of a heart attack the previous night. Reacher visits Hannah Hampton, Roth's ex-wife, who dismantles this theory: Roth was gay, and Angela contacted him about an accounting discrepancy at Minerva, not a love affair. All emails from Angela on Roth's laptop have been deleted and replaced with fabricated romantic messages on Minerva's server. Reacher concludes that the killers intercepted Angela, staged her death, murdered Roth, and planted fake emails. He shares his findings with Harewood and announces he is heading to Winson.

A third storyline introduces Lev Emerson, a Chicago-based arsonist-for-hire who runs a fire safety business as a front. While watching a storage unit he has just incinerated in Savannah, Georgia, Emerson learns from Graeber, his right-hand man, that his son Kyle has died after a failed medical procedure. Emerson vows to hunt down the supply chain responsible, tracing a path that leads toward Mississippi.

Hannah verifies Reacher's story with Harewood, then drives him to Mississippi in Roth's truck. Along the way, Minerva sentries ambush them at multiple points, but Reacher neutralizes each team. In Winson, they find that Danny Peel died in a suspicious house fire. Reacher discovers a forged letter designed to lure him away from town on Friday morning, when the release ceremony is scheduled. Anticipating a Minerva hit squad, Reacher sets a trap across three hotel rooms. At 2:30 A.M. Friday, Harold "Tiny" Keane, a former strongman competitor, leads five men into the hotel. Through coordinated ambushes and Hannah's marksmanship, Reacher and Hannah take down all six, killing Harold, and escape in the night clerk's VW.

That morning, Reacher, Hannah, and Jed, whom they picked up on the road outside Winson, attend the release ceremony. Hix delivers a speech, and a man emerges from the prison as "Anton Begovic." Jed tries to rush the barrier, but Reacher restrains him: The real Begovic has a missing earlobe visible in the mug shot, and ears do not grow back. The released man is an impostor.

Reacher scales the wall of Hix's estate. In the trees, he encounters Maurice, a young journalist investigating Minerva's high inmate death rate. Inside, Reacher subdues Brockman and the impostor, then forces Hix to reveal the full conspiracy: The impostor is a middleman called Carpenter who facilitated organ sales between Minerva and outside buyers. Minerva harvests organs from prisoners in S1, the prison's operational segregation wing. Carpenter needed a new identity because a man he once betrayed had returned seeking revenge, so Minerva used Begovic's court-ordered release to provide one. The real Begovic is still alive but scheduled for harvesting within the hour. Reacher instructs Hannah to guard the prisoners and call the FBI through Harewood, sends Maurice to watch over Jed, and heads for the prison.

Meanwhile, Emerson and Graeber trace Carpenter to Hix's address after recognizing him on television. They overpower Hannah and Jed, string up Hix, Brockman, and Carpenter on a backyard lighting gantry, and prepare napalm for interrogation.

Using Hix's ID and BMW, Reacher infiltrates the prison. He triggers a perimeter alarm as a diversion, coerces control room operators into unlocking the path to S1, and finds Begovic, catatonic but alive, near an organ-harvesting preparation area. When the power is cut and all doors revert to their locked state, Reacher improvises an electromagnetic device from copper wire, a defibrillator, and a battery to force the locks open. He confronts Warden Riverdale and two guards on the other side, disarms the guards, rejects Riverdale's bribes, and kills the warden. After triggering the fire alarm as a diversion, Reacher passes through a unit where inmates run counterfeiting and forgery operations for Minerva's profit, and escapes in a van.

Returning to the estate with Begovic, Reacher finds Emerson's hostage scene. He fires into the napalm barrel, igniting it. The blast engulfs Graeber, whom Reacher shoots as a mercy. Emerson, wounded and doused in napalm, strikes a match and sets himself on fire; Reacher shoots him as well. Hannah and Jed are unconscious but unharmed; Hix, Brockman, and Carpenter remain alive. Reacher calls 911. Police Chief Moseley arrives alone and, learning the conspiracy is exposed, draws a revolver to execute Hix. Reacher steps out with his gun drawn while Maurice films Moseley's self-incriminating monologue.

The FBI takes custody of all conspirators. Hannah offers Jed and Begovic temporary housing in Roth's home in Gerrardsville. Jed asks if Reacher is coming too. Reacher declines: He has been there before, and it is time for somewhere new.