Lee Child - Without Fail

He glanced upward. Saw another trapdoor in the bell chamber ceiling, and another ladder leading up to it. Next to the ladder there were heavy copper grounding straps coming down from the lightning rod. They were green with age. He had ignored the ceiling on his previous visit. He had experienced no desire to climb through and wait eight hours out in the cold. But for somebody looking for an unlimited field of fire on a sunny afternoon the trapdoor would be attractive. It was there for changing the flag, he guessed. The lightning rod and the weather vane might have been there since 1870, but the flag hadn’t. It had added a lot of stars since 1870.

He put the knife back between his teeth and started up the new ladder. It was a twelve-foot climb. The wood creaked and gave under his weight. He made it halfway and stopped. His hands were on the side rails. His face was near the upper rungs. They were ancient and dusty. Except for random patches, where they were rubbed perfectly clean. There were two ways to climb a ladder. Either you hold the side rails, or you touch each rung with an overhand grip. He rehearsed in his mind how the grip pattern would go. There would be contact, left and right on alternate rungs. He arched his body outward and looked down. Craned his neck and looked up. He could see clean patches in that exact pattern, to the left and right on alternate rungs. Somebody had climbed the ladder. Recently. Maybe within a day or two. Maybe within an hour or two. Maybe the church warden, hanging a laundered flag. Maybe not.

He hung motionless. Chatter from the crowd drifted up to him through the louvers. He was up above the bells. The maker had soldered his initials on top of each of them where the iron narrowed at the neck. AHB was written there three times over in shaky lines of melted tin.

He eased upward. Placed his fingertips as before on the wood above his head. But these were thick balks of timber, probably faced with lead on the outside surface. They were as solid as stone. A guy could be dancing a jig up above and he would never feel it. He eased up two more rungs. Hunched his shoulders and stepped up another rung until he was crouched at the top of the ladder with the trapdoor pressing down on his back. He knew it would be heavy. It was probably as thick as the roof itself and weatherproofed with lead. Some kind of a lip arrangement on it to stop rain leaking through. He twisted around to look at the hinges. They were iron. A little rusted. Maybe a little stiff.

He took a long wet breath around the knife handle and snapped his legs straight and exploded up through the trap. It crashed back and he scrambled up and out onto the roof into the blinding daylight. Grabbed the knife from his mouth and rolled away. His face grazed the roof. It was lead, pitted and dulled and grayed by more than a hundred and thirty winters. He snapped upright and spun a full circle on his knees.

There was nobody up there.

It was like a shallow lead-lined box, open to the sky at the top. The walls were about three feet high. The floor was raised in the center to anchor the flagpole and the weather vane post and the lightning rod. Up close, they were huge. The lead was applied in sheets, carefully beaten and soldered at the joints. There were shaped funnels in the corners to drain rainwater and snowmelt away.

He crawled on his hands and knees to the edge. He didn’t want to stand. He guessed the agents below were trained to watch for random movement taking place in high vantage points above them. He eased his head over the parapet. Shivered in the frigid air. He saw Armstrong directly below. The new senator was standing next to him. The six agents were surrounding them in a perfect circle. Then he saw movement in the corner of his eye. A hundred yards away across the field cops were running. They were gathering at a point near the back corner of the enclosure. They were glancing down at something and spinning away and hunching into their radio microphones. He looked directly down again and saw Froelich forcing her way out through the crowd. She had her index finger pressed onto her earpiece. She was moving fast. Heading toward the cops.

He crawled back again and clambered down through the trapdoor. Slammed it shut above his head and climbed down the ladder. Through the next trapdoor and down the next ladder. He picked up his coat and jacket and ran down the narrow winding stairs. Past the embroidered ends of the bell ropes and through to the main body of the church.

The oak door was standing wide open.

The lid of the hymnal box was up and the key was in the door lock from the inside. He stepped over and stood a yard inside the building. Waited. Listened. Sprinted out into the cold and stopped again six feet down the path. Spun around. There was nobody waiting to ambush him. Nobody there at all. The area was quiet and deserted. He could hear noise far away on the field. He shrugged into his coat and headed toward it. Saw a man running toward him across the gravel, fast and urgent. He was wearing a long brown coat, some kind of heavy twill, halfway between a raincoat and an overcoat. It was flapping open behind him. Tweed jacket and flannel pants under it. Stout shoes. He had his hand raised like a greeting. A gold badge palmed in the hand. Some kind of a Bismarck detective. Maybe the police captain himself.

“Is the tower secure?” he shouted from twenty feet away.

“It’s empty,” Reacher shouted back. “What’s going on?”

The cop stopped where he was and bent over, panting, his hands on his knees.

“Don’t know yet,” he called. “Some big commotion.”

Then he stared beyond Reacher’s shoulder at the church.

“Damn it, you should have locked the door,” he called. “Can’t leave the damn thing open.”

He raced on toward the church. Reacher ran the other way, to the field. Met Neagley running in from the entrance road.

“What?” she shouted.

“It’s going down,” he shouted back.

They ran on together. Through the gate and into the field. Froelich was moving fast toward the cars. They changed direction and cut her off.

“Rifle hidden at the base of the fence,” she said.

“Someone’s been in the church,” Reacher said. He was out of breath. “In the tower. Probably right on the roof. Probably still around someplace.”

Froelich looked straight at him and stood completely still for a second. Then she raised her hand and spoke into the microphone on her wrist.

“Stand by to abort,” she said. “Emergency extraction on my count of three.”

Her voice was very calm.

“Stand by all vehicles. Main car and gun car to target on my count of three.”

She paused a single beat.

“One, two, three, abort now, abort now.”

Two things happened simultaneously. First there was a roar of engines from the motorcade and it split apart like a starburst. The lead cop car jumped forward and the rear cop car slewed backward and the first two stretch limos hauled through a tight turn and accelerated across the gravel and straight out onto the field. At the same time the personal detail jumped all over Armstrong and literally buried him from view. One agent took the lead and the other two took an elbow each and the backup three piled on and threw their arms up over Armstrong’s head from behind and drove him bodily forward through the crowd. It was like a football maneuver, full of speed and power. The crowd scattered in panic as the cars bumped across the grass one way and the agents rushed the other way to meet them. The cars skidded to a stop and the personal detail pushed Armstrong straight into the first and the backup crew piled into the second.

The lead cop had his lights and siren started already and was crawling forward down the exit road. The two loaded limos fishtailed on the grass and turned around on the field and headed back to the pavement. They rolled up straight behind the cop car and then all three vehicles accelerated hard and headed out while the third stretch headed straight for Froelich.