Lee Child - Without Fail

The picture cut to tape of an outdoors location Reacher recognized as the West Wing’s parking lot. Armstrong was standing there with his wife. They were both still in their casual clothes, but they had taken their Kevlar vests off. Somebody had cleaned Froelich’s blood from Armstrong’s face. His hair was combed. He looked resolute. He spoke in low, controlled tones, like a plain man wrestling with strong emotions. He talked about his extreme sadness that two agents had died. He extolled their qualities as individuals. He offered sincere sympathy to their families. He went on to say he hoped it would be seen that they had died protecting democracy itself, not just himself in person. He hoped their families might take some small measure of comfort from that, as well as a great deal of justified pride. He promised swift and certain retribution against the perpetrators of the outrage. He assured America that no amount of violence or intimidation could deter the workings of government, and that the transition would continue unaffected. But he finished by saying that as a mark of his absolute respect, he was remaining in Washington and canceling all engagements until he had attended a memorial service for his personal friend and protection team leader. He said the service would be held on Sunday morning, in a small country church in a small Wyoming town called Grace, where no finer metaphor for America’s enduring greatness could be found.

“Guy’s full of shit,” the duty officer said.

“No, he’s OK,” Reacher said.

The bulletin cut to first-quarter football highlights. The duty officer muted the sound and turned away. Reacher closed his eyes. Thought of Joe, and then of Froelich. Thought of them together. Then he rehearsed his upward glance once again. The curved spray of Froelich’s blood, the curve of the shooter’s shoulder, retreating, swinging away, swooping away. The coat flowing with him. The coat . He ran it all again, like the TV station had rerun its tape. He froze on the coat. He knew . He opened his eyes wide.

“Figured how yet?” he asked.

“Can’t get past Bannon’s take,” Neagley answered.

“Say it.”

“Crosetti saw somebody he knew and trusted.”

“Man or woman?”

“Man, according to you.”

“OK, say it again.”

Neagley shrugged. “Crosetti saw some man he knew and trusted.”

Reacher shook his head. “Two words short. Crosetti saw some type of man he knew and trusted.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Who can get in and out of anywhere without suspicion?”

Neagley looked at him. “Law enforcement?”

Reacher nodded. “The coat was long, kind of reddish-brown, faint pattern to it. Too thin for an overcoat, too thick for a raincoat, flapping open. It swung as he ran.”

“As who ran?”

“That Bismarck cop. The lieutenant or whatever he was. He ran over to me after I came out of the church. It was him on the warehouse roof.”

“It was a cop ?”

“That’s a very serious allegation,” Bannon said. “Based on a quarter-second of observation from ninety yards during extreme mayhem.”

They were back in the FBI’s conference room. Stuyvesant had never left it. He was still in his pink sweater. The room was still impressive.

“It was him,” Reacher said. “No doubt about it.”

“Cops are all fingerprinted,” Bannon said. “Condition of employment.”

“So his partner isn’t a cop,” Reacher said. “The guy on the garage video.”

Nobody spoke.

“It was him,” Reacher said again.

“How long did you see him for in Bismarck?” Bannon asked.

“Ten seconds, maybe,” Reacher said. “He was heading for the church. Maybe he’d seen me inside, ducked out, saw me leave, turned around, got ready to go back in.”

“Ten and a quarter seconds total,” Bannon said. “Both times in panic situations. Defense counsel would eat you up.”

“It makes sense,” Stuyvesant said. “Bismarck is Armstrong’s hometown. Hometowns are the places to look for feuds.”

Bannon made a face. “Description?”

“Tall,” Reacher said. “Sandy hair going gray. Lean face, lean body. Long coat, some kind of a heavy twill, reddish-brown, open. Tweed jacket, white shirt, tie, gray flannel pants. Big old shoes.”

“Age?”

“Middle or late forties.”

“Rank?”

“He showed me a gold badge, but he stayed twenty feet away. I couldn’t read it. He struck me as a senior guy. Maybe a detective lieutenant, maybe even a captain.”

“Did he speak?”

“He shouted from twenty feet away. Couple dozen words, maybe.”

“Was he the guy on the phone?”

“No.”

“So now we know both of them,” Stuyvesant said. “A shorter squat guy in a herringbone overcoat from the garage video and a tall lean cop from Bismarck. The squat guy spoke on the phone, and it’s his thumbprint. And he was in Colorado with the machine gun because the cop is the marksman with the rifle. That’s why he was heading for the church tower. He was going to shoot.”

Bannon opened a file. Pulled a sheet of paper. Studied it carefully.

“Our Bismarck field office listed all attending personnel,” he said. “There were forty-two local cops on the field. Nobody above the rank of sergeant except for two, firstly the senior officer present, who was a captain, and his second-in-command, who was a lieutenant.”

“Might have been either one of them,” Reacher said.

Bannon sighed. “This puts us in a difficult spot.”

Stuyvesant stared at him. “Now you’re worried about upsetting the Bismarck PD? You didn’t worry too much about upsetting us.”

“I’m not worried about upsetting anybody,” Bannon said. “I’m thinking tactically, is all. If it had been a patrolman out there I could call the captain or the lieutenant and ask him to investigate. Can’t do that the other way around. And alibis are going to be all over the place. Senior ranks will be off-duty today for the holiday.”

“Call now,” Neagley said. “Find out who’s not in town. They can’t be home yet. You’re watching the airports.”

Bannon shook his head. “People aren’t home today for lots of reasons. They’re visiting family, stuff like that. And this guy could be home already. He could have gotten through the airports easy as anything. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Mayhem like we had today, multiple agencies out and looking, nobody knows each other, all he’s got to do is hustle along holding his badge up and he walks straight through anywhere. That’s obviously how they got into the immediate area. And out again. What’s more natural in the circumstances than a cop running full speed with his badge held up?”

The room went quiet.

“Personnel files,” Stuyvesant said. “We should get Bismarck PD to send us their files and let Reacher look at the photographs.”

“That would take days,” Bannon said. “And who would I ask? I might be speaking directly to the bad guy.”

“So speak to your Bismarck field office,” Neagley said. “Wouldn’t surprise me if the local FBI had illicit summaries on the whole police department, with photographs.”

Bannon smiled. “You’re not supposed to know about things like that.”

Then he stood up slowly and went out to his office to make the necessary call.

“So Armstrong made the statement,” Stuyvesant said. “Did you see it? But it’s going to cost him politically, because I can’t let him go.”

“I need a decoy, is all,” Reacher said. “Better for me if he doesn’t really show up. And the last thing I care about right now is politics.”

Stuyvesant didn’t answer. Nobody spoke again. Bannon came back into the room after fifteen minutes. He had a completely neutral look on his face.