Ли Чайлд - Without Fail

The office went quiet.

“I didn’t see anybody,” Froelich said.

“Me neither,” Neagley said.

“I had my eyes closed,” Reacher said.

“We wouldn’t have seen him,” Froelich said. “He hears a vehicle coming up the ramp, he ducks out of sight, surely.”

“I guess so,” Reacher said. “But we were real close to him, temporarily.”

“Shit,” Froelich said.

“Yeah, shit,” Neagley echoed.

“So what do we do?” Froelich asked.

“Nothing,” Reacher said. “Nothing we can do. This was more than forty minutes ago. If he’s an insider, he’s back home by now. Maybe tucked up in bed. If he’s an outsider, he’s already on I-95 or something, west or north or south, maybe thirty miles away. We can’t call the troopers in four states and ask them to look for a right-handed man in a car who doesn’t limp, no better description than that.”

“They could look for an overcoat and a hat on the backseat or in the trunk.”

“It’s November, Froelich. Everybody’s got a hat and a coat with them.”

“So what do we do?” she asked again.

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Concentrate on Armstrong, just in case this whole thing is for real. Keep him wrapped up tight. Like Stuyvesant said, threatening isn’t necessarily the same thing as succeeding.”

“What’s his schedule?” Neagley asked.

“Home tonight, the Hill tomorrow,” Froelich said.

“So you’ll be OK. You scored perfect around the Capitol. If Reacher and I couldn’t get to him there, no squat guy in an overcoat is going to. Assuming a squat guy in an overcoat wants to, instead of just shaking you up for the fun of it.”

“You think?”

“Like Stuyvesant said, take a deep breath and tough it out. Be confident.”

“Doesn’t feel good. I need to know who this guy is.”

“We’ll find out who he is, sooner or later. Until then, if you can’t attack at one end you have to defend at the other.”

“She’s right,” Reacher said. “Concentrate on Armstrong, just in case.”

Froelich nodded vaguely and took the tape out of the machine and put the first one back in. Restarted it and stared at the screen until the garage guard came back from his bathroom break and noticed the envelope and picked it up and hurried out of shot with it.

“Doesn’t feel good,” she said again.

An FBI forensic crew came by an hour later and photographed the sheet of paper on the conference room table. They used an office ruler for a scale reference and then used a pair of sterile plastic tweezers to lift the paper and the envelope into separate evidence bags. Froelich signed a form to keep the chain of evidence intact and they took both items away for examination. Then she got on the phone for twenty minutes and tracked Armstrong all the way out of the Marine helicopter at Andrews and all the way home.

“OK, we’re secure,” she said. “For now.”

Neagley yawned and stretched. “So take a break. Be ready for a hard week.”

“I feel stupid,” Froelich said. “I don’t know if this is a game or for real.”

“You feel too much,” Neagley said.

Froelich looked at the ceiling. “What would Joe do now?”

Reacher paused and smiled. “Go to the store and buy a suit, probably.”

“No, seriously.”

“He’d close his eyes for a minute and work it all out like it was a chess puzzle. He read Karl Marx, you know that? He said Marx had this trick of explaining everything with one single question, which was, who benefits?”

“So?”

“Let’s say it is an insider doing this. Karl Marx would say, OK, the insider plans to benefit from it. Joe would ask, OK, how does he plan to benefit from it?”

“By making me look bad in front of Stuyvesant.”

“And getting you demoted or fired or whatever, because that rewards him in some way. That would be his aim. But that would be his only aim. Situation like that, there’s no serious threat against Armstrong. That’s an important point. And then Joe would say, OK, suppose it’s not an insider, suppose it’s an outsider. How does he plan to benefit?”

“By assassinating Armstrong.”

“Which gratifies him in some other way. So Joe would say what you’ve got to do is proceed as if it’s an outsider, and proceed very calmly and without panicking, and above all successfully. That’s two birds with one stone. If you’re calm, you deny the insider his benefit. If you’re successful, you deny the outsider his benefit.”

Froelich nodded, frustrated. “But which is it? What did the cleaners tell you?”

“Nothing,” Reacher said. “My read is somebody they know persuaded them to smuggle it in, but they aren’t admitting to anything.”

“I’ll tell Armstrong to stay home tomorrow.”

Reacher shook his head. “You can’t. You do that, you’ll be seeing shadows every day and he’ll be in hiding for the next four years. Just stay calm and tough it out.”

“Easy to say.”

“Easy to do. Just take a deep breath.”

Froelich was still and silent for a spell. Then she nodded.

“OK,” she said. “I’ll get you a driver. Be back here at nine in the morning. There’ll be another strategy meeting. Exactly a week after the last one.”

The morning was damp and very cold, like nature wanted to be done with fall and get started with winter. Exhaust fumes drifted down the streets in low white clouds and pedestrians hurried by on the sidewalks with their faces ducked deep into scarves. Neagley and Reacher met at eight-forty at the cab line outside the hotel and found a Secret Service Town Car waiting for them. It was double-parked with the engine running and the driver standing next to it. He was maybe thirty years old, dressed in a dark overcoat and gloves, and he was up on his toes, scanning the crowd anxiously. He was breathing hard and his breath was pluming in the air.

“He looks worried,” Neagley said.

The inside of the car was hot. The driver didn’t speak once during the journey. Didn’t even say his name. Just bulled through the morning traffic and squealed into the underground garage. Led them at a fast walk into the interior lobby and into the elevator. Up three floors and across to the reception desk. It was manned by a different guy. He pointed down the corridor toward the conference room.

“Started without you,” he said. “You better hurry.”

The conference room was empty apart from Froelich and Stuyvesant sitting face-to-face across the width of the table. They were both still and silent. Both pale. On the polished wood between them lay two photographs. One was the official FBI crime scene eight-by-ten of the previous day’s ten-word message: The day upon which Armstrong will die is fast approaching . The other was a hasty Polaroid of another sheet of paper. Reacher stepped close and bent to look.

“Shit,” he said.

The Polaroid showed a single sheet of letter-sized paper, exactly like the first three in every detail. It followed the same format, a printed message neatly centered near the middle of the page. Nine words: A demonstration of your vulnerability will be staged today .

“When did it come?” he asked.

“This morning,” Froelich said. “In the mail. Addressed to Armstrong at his office. But we’re bringing all his mail through here now.”

“Where is it from?”

“Orlando, Florida, postmarked Friday.”

“Another popular tourist destination,” Stuyvesant said.

Reacher nodded. “Forensics on yesterday’s?”

“Just got a heads-up by phone,” Froelich said. “Everything’s identical, thumbprint and all. I’m sure this one will be the same. They’re working on it now.”