Bad Luck and Trouble characters

Also known as Franz

Appears from the start

A large and powerful man who appears with both legs broken and bound to a stretcher aboard a helicopter. Three men cut him loose and force him through the open door over remote desert country, apparently murdering him.

Appears from the start

The pilot who flies the helicopter carrying Calvin Franz and three other men into remote desert country. He holds the aircraft in a high hover while the passengers force Franz through the open door.

Also known as Reacher

First appears in chapter 2

A former Army military policeman who travels without a fixed address or planned destination. Nearly out of money in Portland, he recognizes an unexpected $1,030 bank deposit as an old urgent-assistance signal and sets out to identify the sender.

Also known as Neagley

First appears in chapter 2

The sender of the coded $1,030 deposit that summons Jack Reacher. She is a capable former colleague whose difficult and expensive way of reaching him convinces him that her request is urgent, although the nature of the emergency is not yet known.

Also known as Angela

First appears in chapter 4

Calvin Franz's contact during the opening inquiry into his disappearance. The sheriff's department encourages her to approach Frances Neagley, a step intended to draw Franz's former special-investigations colleagues into examining the case.

Also known as Dixon

First appears in chapter 4

A former member of Jack Reacher's special investigations unit with financial expertise. She studies Calvin Franz's seven months of spreadsheets and calculates that their worsening results contain 650 excess failures, matching a separate $65 million clue.

Also known as Swan

First appears in chapter 4

A former special-investigations member who later worked at New Age Defense Systems. He met Franz, Sanchez, and Orozco shortly before the disappearances, but New Age says it recently dismissed him and destroyed his computer drive under company procedure.

Also known as Sanchez

First appears in chapter 4

A former special-investigations member and Las Vegas security operator. He joined Franz, Swan, and Orozco at a meeting shortly before the disappearances, and a note from his apartment records 650 units at $100,000 each.

Also known as Orozco

First appears in chapter 4

A former special-investigations member and Jorge Sanchez's partner in a Las Vegas security business. He attended the meeting with Sanchez, Franz, and Swan shortly before the disappearances and is consequently part of the inquiry into the unexplained 650-unit transaction.

Also known as Mauney

First appears in chapter 4

A Los Angeles County sheriff who supervises Thomas Brant and is conducting an independent investigation into the former unit members' deaths and disappearances. He confirms their recent meeting and supplies Sanchez's note about a $65 million transaction.

Also known as Brant

First appears in chapter 4

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy serving under Curtis Mauney. After an earlier fight with Jack Reacher, Brant attempts to retaliate, but Mauney intervenes and stops him while the investigation into the missing former unit members continues.

Also known as Berenson

First appears in chapter 4

A human-resources representative at New Age Defense Systems. She tells the investigators that Tony Swan was dismissed more than three weeks earlier and that his computer drive was physically destroyed under the company's strict paperless security rules.

Also known as O'Donnell

First appears in chapter 5

A former special-investigations member working alongside Jack Reacher in the field. When two armed men attack them in Hollywood, O'Donnell helps disarm and incapacitate the assailants, then joins the pursuit of the investigation's Las Vegas connection.

Also known as Bond

First appears in chapter 5

A staffer for a member of the House Defense Committee who can access restricted information about Little Wing, New Age Defense Systems' classified product. A coded response from Frances Neagley's Pentagon contact identifies her as the investigators' next government contact.

Also known as Adrian Mount, Alan Mason, Andrew MacBride, Anthony Matthews

First appears in chapter 5

A traveller using four identities that appear together on an unofficial Homeland Security watch list. Records place one of those identities in New York and another en route to Las Vegas, but his purpose and any connection to the former unit members' deaths remain unknown.

First appears in chapter 5

A former FBI agent who manages security for a Las Vegas casino. He knew Sanchez and Orozco through their work for smaller casinos and directs Jack Reacher's group to Milena, a woman who was close to Sanchez.

First appears in chapter 6

A worker at the Fire Pit bar and Jorge Sanchez's longtime on-and-off partner. She recognizes the former unit members because Sanchez had told her that they would come if he was ever in trouble, making her a direct lead in the search for him.

First appears in chapter 6

Manuel Orozco's wife and the mother of their three children. She explains that Orozco and Sanchez had no active clients, and that their sudden assignment began when a former Army colleague in California appealed to them for help.

First appears in chapter 6

The name on the wallet carried by a dark-blue-suited gunman who attacks the investigators in Las Vegas. The man uses a shell-company vehicle, and his phone records connect him to an unidentified superior in Los Angeles.

Also known as Seropian

First appears in chapter 8

A lower-ranking New Age Defense Systems guard named in the company directory. The investigators identify him as the man found dead after the Las Vegas attack, whose wallet carried the name Seropian.

Also known as Lamaison

First appears in chapter 8

New Age Defense Systems' security chief and a former LAPD robbery-homicide officer. He is the Los Angeles superior linked to the Las Vegas attack and is identified as the organizer who used threats against employees' children to conceal the electronics scheme.

Also known as Dean

First appears in chapter 8

New Age Defense Systems' original development engineer and current quality-control director. Allen Lamaison has apparently forced him, through threats against his daughter, to certify functioning Little Wing electronics packs as rejects.

First appears in chapter 8

A former LAPD officer in the upper ranks of New Age security beneath Allen Lamaison. Margaret Berenson identifies him as one of the people aware of the scheme and as a participant in the helicopter operation.

First appears in chapter 8

A former LAPD officer in New Age security who serves beneath Allen Lamaison. Margaret Berenson identifies him among the limited group that knows about the scheme and says he took part in the helicopter operation.