Without Fail (39 page)

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 cancelling 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 round, got ready to go back in."

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

"It makes sense," Stuyvesant said. "Bismarck is Armstrong's home town. Home towns are the places to look for feuds."

Bannon made a face. "Description?"

"Tall," Reacher said. "Sandy hair going grey. Lean face, lean body. Long coat, some kind of a heavy twill, reddish-brown, open. Tweed jacket, white shirt, tie, grey 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 of 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.

"Good news and bad news," he said. "Good news is that Bismarck isn't the largest city on earth. Police department employs a hundred and thirty-eight people, of which thirty-two are civilian workers, leaving a hundred and six badged officers. Twelve of those are women, so we're down to ninety-four already. And thanks to the miracles of illicit intelligence and modern technology we'll have scanned and e-mailed mug shots of all ninety-four of them within ten minutes."

"What's the bad news?" Stuyvesant asked.

"Later," Bannon said. "After Reacher has wasted a little more of our time."

He looked around the room. Wouldn't say anything more. In the end the wait was a little less than ten minutes. An agent in a suit hurried in with a sheaf of paper. He stacked it in front of Bannon. Bannon pushed the pile across to Reacher. Reacher picked it up and flicked through. Sixteen sheets, some of them still a little wet from the printer. Fifteen sheets had six photographs each and the sixteenth had just four. Ninety-four faces in total. He started with the last sheet. None of the four faces was even close.

He picked up the fifteenth sheet. Glanced across the next six faces and put the paper down again. Picked up the fourteenth sheet. Scanned all six pictures. He worked fast. He didn't need to study carefully. He had the guy's features fixed firmly in his mind. But the guy wasn't on the fourteenth sheet. Or the thirteenth.

"How sure are you?" Stuyvesant asked.

Nothing on the twelfth sheet.

"I'm sure," Reacher said. "That was the guy, and the guy was a cop. He had a badge and he looked like a cop. He looked as much like a cop as Bannon."

Nothing on the eleventh sheet. Or the tenth. "I don't look like a cop," Bannon said. Nothing on the ninth sheet.

"You look exactly like a cop," Reacher said. "You've got a cop coat, cop pants, cop shoes. You've got a cop face."

Nothing on the eighth sheet.

"He acted like a cop," Reacher said.

Nothing on the seventh sheet.

"He smelled like a cop," Reacher said.

Nothing on the sixth sheet. Nothing on the fifth sheet. "What did he say to you?" Stuyvesant asked. Nothing on the fourth sheet.

"He asked me if the church was secure," Reacher said. "I asked him what was going on. He said some kind of big commotion. Then he yelled at me for leaving the church door open. Just like a cop would talk."

Nothing on the third sheet. Or the second. He picked up the first sheet and knew instantly that the guy wasn't on it. He dropped the paper and shook his head.

"OK, now for the bad news," Bannon said. "Bismarck PD had nobody there in plain clothes. Nobody at all. It was considered a ceremonial occasion. They were all in full uniform. All forty-two of them. Especially the brass. The captain and the lieutenant were in full dress uniform. White gloves and all."

"The guy was a Bismarck cop," Reacher said.

"No," Bannon said. "he guy was not a Bismarck cop. At best he was a guy impersonating a Bismarck cop."

Reacher said nothing.

"But he was obviously making a pretty good stab at it," Bannon said. "He convinced you, for instance. Clearly he had the look, and the mannerisms."

Nobody spoke.

"So nothing's changed, I'm afraid," Bannon said. "We're still looking at recent Secret Service ex-employees. Because who better to impersonate a provincial cop than some other law enforcement veteran who just worked his whole career alongside provincial cops at events exactly like that one?"

FIFTEEN

The staffer from the office of Protection Research was waiting when Reacher and Neagley and Stuyvesant got back to the Treasury Building. He was standing in the reception area wearing a knitted sweater and blue pants, like he had run straight in from the family dinner table. He was about Reacher's age and looked like a university professor except for his eyes. They were wise and wary, like he had seen a few things, and heard about plenty more. His name was Swain. Stuyvesant introduced him all round and disappeared. Swain led Reacher and Neagley through corridors they hadn't used before to an area that clearly doubled as a library and a lecture room. It had a dozen chairs set facing a podium and was lined on three walls with bookshelves. The fourth wall had a row of hutches with computers on desks. A printer next to each computer.

"I heard what the FBI's saying," Swain said.

"You believe it?" Reacher asked. Swain just shrugged.

"Yes or no?" Reacher asked.

"I guess it's not impossible," Swain said. "But there's no reason to believe it's likely. Just as likely that it's ex-FBI agents. Or current FBI agents. As an agency we're better than they are. Maybe they're trying to bring us down."

"Think we should look in that direction?"

"You're Joe Reacher's brother, aren't you?" Reacher nodded. "I worked with him," Swain said. "Way back."

"And?"

"He used to encourage random observations."

"So do I," Reacher said. "You got any?"

"My job is strictly academic," Swain said. "You understand? I'm purely a researcher. A scholar, really. "I'm here to analyse."

"And?"

"This situation feels different from anything else I've seen. The hatred is very visible. Assassinations fall into two groups, ideological or functional. A functional assassination is where you need to get rid of a guy for some specific political or economic reason. An ideological assassination is where you murder a guy because you hate him, basically. There have been plenty of attempts along those lines, over the years. I can't tell you about any of them except to say that most don't get very far. And that there's certainly always plenty of hatred involved. But usually it's well hidden, down at the conspirator level. They whisper among themselves. All we ever see is the result. But this time the hatred is right there in our face. They've gone to a lot of trouble and taken a lot of risks to make sure we know all about it."

"So what's your conclusion?"

"I just think the early phase was extraordinary. The messages? Think about the risks. Think about the energy required to minimize those risks. They put unbelievable resources into the early phase. So I have to assume they felt it was worthwhile."

"But it wasn't," Neagley said. "Armstrong has never even seen any of the messages. They were wasting their time."

"Simple ignorance," Swain said. "Were you aware we absolutely won't discuss threats with a protectee?"

"No," Neagley said. "I was surprised."

"Nobody's aware," Swain said. "Everybody's surprised. These guys thought they were getting right to him. So I'm convinced it's personal. Aimed at him, not us."

"So are we," Reacher said. "You got a specific reason?"

"You'll think I'm naive," Swain said. "But I don't believe anybody who works or has worked for us would have killed the other two Armstrongs. Not just like that."

Reacher shrugged. "Maybe you're naive. Maybe you aren't. But it doesn't matter. We're convinced anyway."

"What's your reason?"

"The hyphen in the second message."

"The hyphen?" Swain said. Then he paused. "Yes, I see. Plausible, but a little circumstantial, wouldn't you say?"

"Whatever, we're working with the assumption it was personal."

"OK, but why? Only possible answer is they absolutely hate him. They wanted to taunt him, scare him, make him suffer first. Just shooting him isn't enough for them."

"So who are they? Who hates him that bad?"

Swain made a gesture with his hand, like he was pushing that question aside.

"Something else," he said. "This is a little off the wall, but I think we're miscounting. How many messages have there been?"

"Six," Reacher said.

"No," Swain said. "I think there have been seven."

"Where's the seventh?"

"Nendick," Swain said. "I think Nendick delivered the second message, and was the third message. You see, you got here and forty-eight hours later you got to Nendick, which was pretty quick. But with respect, we'd have gotten there anyway, sooner or later. It was inevitable. If it wasn't the cleaners, it had to be the tapes. So we'd have gotten there. And what was waiting for us? Nendick wasn't just a delivery system. He was a message in himself. He showed what these people are capable of. Assuming Armstrong was in the loop, he'd have been getting pretty shaky by that point."

"Then there are nine messages," Neagley said. "On that basis, we should add in the Minnesota and the Colorado situations."

"Absolutely," Swain said. "You see what I mean? Everything has fear as its purpose. Every single thing. Suppose Armstrong was in the loop all along. He gets the first message, he's worried. We get the second message, he's more worried. We trace its source, and he starts to feel better, but no, it gets even worse, because we find Nendick paralysed with fear. Then we get the demonstration threat, he's worried some more. Then the demonstration happens, and he's devastated by how ruthless it was."

Reacher said nothing. Just stared at the floor.

"You think I'm over-analytical," Swain said.

Reacher shook his head, still looking at the floor. "No, I think I'm under-analytical. Maybe. Possibly. Because what are the thumbprints about?"

"They're a taunt of a different sort," Swain said. They're a boast. A puzzle. A tease. Can't catch me sort of thing."

"How long did you work with my brother?"

"Five years. I worked for him, really. I say with him as a vain attempt at status."

"Was he a good boss?"

"He was a great boss," Swain said. "Great guy all round."

"And he ran random-observation sessions?"

Swain nodded. "They were fun. Anybody could say anything."

"Did he join in?"

"He was very lateral."

Reacher looked up. "You just said everything has fear as its purpose, every single thing. Then you said the thumbprints are a taunt of a different sort. So not everything is the same, right? Something's different.",

Swain shrugged. "I could stretch it. The thumbprints induce the fear that these guys are too clever to be caught. Different sort of fear, but it's still fear."

Reacher looked away. Went quiet. Thirty seconds, a whole minute.

"I'm going to cave in," he said. "Finally. I'm going to be like Joe. I'm wearing his suit. I was sleeping with his girlfriend. I keep meeting his old colleagues. So now I'm going to make a lateral random off-the-wall observation, just like he did, apparently."

"What is it?" Neagley said.

"I think we missed something," Reacher said. "Just skated right on by it."

"What?"

"I've got all these weird images going round in my head. Like for instance, Stuyvesant's secretary doing things at her desk."

"What things?"

"I think we've got the thumbprint exactly ass-backward. All along we've assumed they knew it was untraceable. But I think we're completely wrong. I think it's just the opposite. I think they expected it would be traceable."

"Why?"

"Because I think the thumbprint thing is exactly the same as the Nendick thing. I met a watchmaker today. He told me where squalene comes from."

"Sharks" livers," Neagley said.

"And people's noses," Reacher said. "Same stuff. That gunk you wake up with in the morning is squalene. Same chemical exactly."

"So?"

"So I think our guys gambled and got unlucky. Suppose you picked a random male person aged about sixty or seventy. What are the chances he'd have been fingerprinted at least once in his lifetime?"

"Pretty good, I guess," Neagley said. "All immigrants are printed. American born, he'd have been drafted for Korea or Vietnam and printed even if he didn't go. He'd have been printed if he'd ever been arrested or worked for the government."

"Or for some private corporations," Swain said. "Plenty of them require prints. Banks, retailers, people like that."

"OK," Reacher said. "So here's the thing. I don't think the thumbprint comes from one of the guys themselves. I think it comes from somebody else entirely. From some innocent bystander. From somebody they picked out at random. And it was supposed to lead us directly to that somebody."

The room went quiet. Neagley stared at Reacher.

"What for?" she said.

"So we could find another Nendick," he said. "The thumbprint was on every message, and the guy it came from was a message, just like Swain says Nendick was. We were supposed to trace the print and find the guy and find an exact replica of the Nendick situation. Some terrified victim, too scared to open his mouth and tell us anything. A message in himself. But by pure accident our guys hit on somebody who had never been printed, so we didn't find him."

"But there were six paper messages," Swain said. "Probably twenty days between the first one going in the mail and the last one being delivered to Froelich's house. So what does that mean? All the messages were prepared in advance? That's way too much planning ahead, surely."

"It's possible," Neagley said. "They could have printed dozens of variations, one for every eventuality."

"No," Reacher said. "I think they printed them up as they went along. I think they kept the thumbprint available to them at all times."

"How?" Swain asked, "They abducted some guy and took him hostage? They've stashed him somewhere? They're taking him everywhere with them?"

"Couldn't work," Neagley said. "Can't expect us to find him if he's not home."

"He's home," Reacher said. "But his thumb isn't."

Nobody spoke.

"Fire up a computer," Reacher said. "Search NCIC for the word thumb." "We've got a big field office in Sacramento," Bannon said. "Three agents are already mobile. A doctor, too. We'll know in an hour."

This time Bannon had come to them. They were in the Secret Service conference room, Stuyvesant at the head of the table, Reacher and Neagley and Swain together on one side, Bannon alone on the other.

"It's a bizarre idea," Bannon said. "What would they do? Keep it in the freezer?"

"Probably," Reacher said. "Thaw it a bit, rub it down their nose, print it on the paper. Just like Stuyvesant's secretary with her rubber stamp. It's probably drying out a bit with age, which is why the squalene percentage keeps getting higher."

"What are the implications?" Stuyvesant said. "Assuming you're right?"

Reacher made a face. "We can change one major assumption. Now I would guess they've both got prints on file, and they've both been wearing the latex gloves."

"Two renegades," Bannon said.

"Not necessarily ours," Stuyvesant said.

"So explain the other factors," Bannon said. Stuyvesant was silent. Bannon shrugged.

"Come on," he said. "We've got an hour. And I don't want to be looking in the wrong place. So convince me. Show me these are private citizens gunning for Armstrong personally."

Stuyvesant glanced at Swain, but Swain said nothing. "Time is ticking by," Bannon said.

"This isn't an ideal context," Swain said.

Bannon smiled. "What, you only preach to the choir?" Nobody spoke.

"You've got no case," Bannon said. "I mean, who cares about a vice president? They're nobodies. What was it, a bucket of warm spit?"

"It was a pitcher," Swain said. "John Nance Garner said the vice presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit. He also called it a spare tyre on the automobile of government. He was FDR's first running mate. John Adams called it the most insignificant office man had ever invented, and he was the first vice president of all."