“Couldn’t do it,” Froelich said. “It’s a landmark building. Can’t be touched.”
“Then we should have changed the venue.”
“I looked for alternatives first time around. Every other place was worse.”
“You should have had an agent on the roof,” Neagley said.
“No budget,” Stuyvesant said. “Until after the inauguration.”
“If you get that far,” Neagley said.
“What was the rifle?” Reacher asked, in the silence.
Stuyvesant squared the paper in front of him. “Your guess?”
“Something disposable,” Reacher said. “Something they weren’t actually planning on using. In my experience something that gets found that easily is supposed to get found that easily.”
Stuyvesant nodded. “It was barely a rifle at all. It was an ancient .22 varmint gun. Badly maintained, rusty, probably hadn’t been used in a generation. It was not loaded and there was no ammunition with it.”
“Identifying marks?”
“None.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Of course not.”
Reacher nodded.
“Decoy,” he said.
“The unlocked door is persuasive,” Stuyvesant said. “What did you do when you went in, for instance?”
“I locked it again behind me.”
“Why?”
“I like it that way, for surveillance.”
“But if you were going to be shooting?”
“Then I would have left it open, especially if I didn’t have the key.”
“Why?”
“So I could get out fast, afterward.”
Stuyvesant nodded. “The unlocked door means they were in there to shoot. My take is they were waiting in there with the MP5 or the Vaime Mk2. Maybe both weapons. They imagined the junk gun would be spotted far away at the fence, the bulk of the police presence would move somewhat toward it, we would move Armstrong toward the motorcade, whereupon they would have a clear shot at him.”
“Sounds right to me,” Reacher said. “But I didn’t actually see anybody in there.”
“Plenty of places to hide in a country church,” Stuyvesant said. “Did you check the crypt?”
“No.”
“The loft?”
“No.”
“Plenty of places,” Stuyvesant said again.
“I sensed somebody.”
“Yes,” Stuyvesant said. “They were in there. That’s for sure.”
There was silence for a beat.
“Any unexplained attendees?” Froelich asked.
Stuyvesant shook his head. “It was pure chaos. Cops running everywhere, the crowd scattering. By the time order was restored at least twenty people had left. It’s understandable. You’re in a crowd on an open field, somebody finds a gun, you run like hell. Why wouldn’t you?”
“What about the man on foot in the subdivision?”
“Just a guy in a coat,” Stuyvesant said. “State cop couldn’t really come up with anything more than that. Probably just a civilian out walking. Probably nobody. My guess is our guys were already in the church by that time.”
“Something must have aroused the trooper’s suspicions,” Neagley said.
Stuyvesant shrugged. “You know how it is. How does a North Dakota State Trooper react around the Secret Service? He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Somebody looks suspicious, he’s got to call it in even if he can’t articulate exactly why afterward. And we can’t moan at him for it. I’d rather he erred on the side of caution. Don’t want to make him afraid to be vigilant.”
“So we’ve still got nothing,” Froelich said.
“We’ve still got Armstrong,” Stuyvesant said. “And Armstrong’s still got a pulse. So go eat dinner and be back here at ten for the FBI meeting.”
First they went back to Froelich’s office to check on Neagley’s NCIC search. It was done. In fact it had been done before they even stepped away from the desk. The rubric at the top of the screen said the search had lasted nine-hundredths of a second and come up with zero matches. Froelich called up the inquiry box again and typed thumbprint on letter. Clicked on search and watched the screen. It redrew immediately and came up with no matches in eight-hundredths of a second.
“Getting nowhere even faster now,” she said.
She tried thumbprint on message. Same result, no matches in eight-hundredths of a second. She tried thumbprint on threat. Identical result, identical eight-hundredths of a second. She sighed with frustration.
“Let me have a go,” Reacher said. She got up and he sat down in her chair and typed a short letter signed with a big thumbprint.
“Idiot,” Neagley said.
He clicked the mouse. The screen redrew instantly and reported that within the seven-hundredths of a second it had spent looking the software had detected no matches.
“But it was a new speed record,” Reacher said, and smiled.
Neagley laughed, and the mood of frustration eased a little. He typed thumbprint and squalene and hit search again. A tenth of a second later the search came back blank.
“Slowing down,” he said.
He tried squalene on its own. No match, eight-hundredths of a second.
He typed squalane with an a. No match, eight-hundredths of a second.
“Forget it,” he said. “Let’s go eat.”
“Wait,” Neagley said. “Let me try again. This is like an Olympic event.”
She nudged him out of the chair. Typed single unexplained thumbprint. Hit search. No match, six-hundredths of a second. She smiled.
“Six hundredths,” she said. “Folks, we have a new world record.”
“Way to go,” Reacher said.
She typed solo unexplained thumbprint. Hit search.
“This is kind of fun,” she said.
No match, six-hundredths of a second.
“Tied for first place,” Froelich said. “My turn again.”
She took Neagley’s place at the keyboard and thought for a long moment.
“OK, here we go,” she said. “This one either wins me the gold medal, or it’ll keep us here all night long.”
She typed a single word: thumb. Hit search. The inquiry box disappeared and the screen paused for a whole second and came back with a single entry. A single short paragraph. It was a police report from Sacramento in California. An emergency room doctor from a city hospital had notified the local police department five weeks ago that he had treated a man who had severed his thumb in a carpentry accident. But the doctor was convinced by the nature of the wound that it had been deliberate albeit amateur surgery. The cops had followed up and the victim had assured them it had indeed been an accident with a power saw. Case closed, report filed.
“Weird stuff in this system,” Froelich said.
“Let’s go eat,” Reacher said again.
“Maybe we should try vegetarian,” Neagley said.
They drove out to Dupont Circle and ate at an Armenian restaurant. Reacher had lamb and Froelich and Neagley stuck to various chickpea concoctions. They had baklava for dessert and three small cups each of strong muddy coffee. They talked a lot, but about nothing. Nobody wanted to talk about Armstrong, or Nendick, or his wife, or men capable of frightening a person to the point of death and then shooting down two innocent civilians who happened to share a name. Froelich didn’t want to talk about Joe in front of Reacher, Neagley didn’t want to talk about Reacher in front of Froelich. So they talked about politics, like everybody else in the restaurant and probably everybody else in the city. But talking about politics in late November was pretty much impossible without mentioning the new administration, which led back toward Armstrong, so they generalized it away again toward personal views and beliefs. That needed background information, and before long Froelich was asking Neagley about her life and career.
Reacher tuned it out. He knew she wouldn’t answer questions about her life. She never did. Never had. He had known her
many years, and had discovered absolutely nothing about her background. He assumed there was some unhappiness there. It was pretty common among Army people. Some join because they need a job or want to learn a trade, some join because they want to shoot heavy weapons and blow things up. Some like Reacher himself join because it’s preordained. But most join because they’re looking for cohesion and trust and loyalty and camaraderie. They’re looking for the brothers and the sisters and the parents they haven’t got anyplace else.
So Neagley skipped her early life and ran through her service career for Froelich and Reacher ignored it and looked around the restaurant. It was busy. Lots of couples and families. He guessed people who were cooking big Thanksgiving meals tomorrow didn’t want to cook tonight. There were a couple of faces he almost recognized. Maybe they were politicians or television reporters. He tuned the conversation back in again when Neagley started talking about her new career in Chicago. It sounded pretty good. She was partnered with a bunch of people from law enforcement and the military. It was a big firm. They offered a whole range of services from computer security to kidnap protection for traveling executives overseas. If you had to live in one place and go to work every day, that was probably the way to do it. She sounded satisfied with her life.
They were about to order a fourth cup of coffee when Froelich’s cell phone rang. It was just after nine o’clock. The restaurant had gotten noisy and they missed it at first. Then they became aware of the low insistent trilling inside her purse. Froelich got the phone out and answered the call. Reacher watched her face. Saw puzzlement, and then a little concern.
“OK,” she said, and closed the phone. Looked across at Reacher. “Stuyvesant wants you back in the office, right now, immediately.”
“Me?” Reacher said. “Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
Stuyvesant was waiting for them behind one end of the reception counter just inside the main door. The duty officer was busy at the other end. Everything looked completely normal except for a telephone directly in front of Stuyvesant. It had been dragged up out of position and was sitting on the front part of the counter, facing outward, trailing its wire behind it. Stuyvesant was staring at it.
“We got a call,” he said.
“Who from?” Froelich asked.
“Didn’t get a name. Or a number. Caller ID was blocked. Male voice, no particular accent. He called the switchboard and asked to speak with the big guy. Something in the voice made the duty officer take it seriously, so he patched it through, thinking perhaps the big guy was me, you know, the boss. But it wasn’t. The caller didn’t want to speak with me. He wanted the big guy he’s been seeing around recently.”
“Me?” Reacher said.
“You’re the only big guy new on the scene.”
“Why would he want to speak with me?”
“We’re about to find out. He’s calling back at nine-thirty.”
Reacher glanced at his watch. Twenty-two minutes past.
“It’s them,” Froelich said. “They saw you in the church.”
“That’s my guess,” Stuyvesant said. “This is our first real contact. We’ve got a recorder set up. We’ll get a voice print. And we’ve got a trace on the line. You need to talk for as long as you can.”
Reacher glanced at Neagley. She looked at her watch. Shook her head.
“Not enough time now,” she said.
Reacher nodded. “Can we get a weather report for Chicago?”
“I could call Andrews,” Froelich said. “But why?”
“Just do it, OK?”
She stepped away to use another line. The Air Force meteorological people took four minutes to tell her Chicago was cold but clear and expected to stay that way. Reacher glanced at his watch again. Nine twenty-seven.
“OK,” he said.
“Remember, talk as long as you can,” Stuyvesant said. “They can’t explain you. They don’t know who you are. They’re worried about that.”
“Is the Thanksgiving thing on the website?” Reacher asked.
“Yes,” Froelich said.
“Specific location?”
“Yes,” she said again.
Nine twenty-eight.
“What else is upcoming?” Reacher asked.
“Wall Street again in ten days,” Froelich said. “That’s all.”
“What about this weekend?”
“Back to North Dakota with his wife. Late tomorrow afternoon.”
“Is that on the website?”
Froelich shook her head.
“No, that’s completely private,” she said. “We haven’t announced it anywhere.”
Nine twenty-nine.
“OK,” Reacher said again.
Then the phone rang, very loud in the silence.
“A little early,” Reacher said. “Somebody’s anxious.”
“Talk as long as you can,” Stuyvesant said. “Use their curiosity against them. Keep it going.”
Reacher picked up the phone.
“Hello,” he said.
“You won’t get that lucky again,” a voice said.
Reacher ignored it and listened hard to the background sounds.
“Hey,” the voice said. “I want to talk to you.”
“But I don’t want to talk to you, asshole,” Reacher said, and put the phone down.
Stuyvesant and Froelich just stared at him.
“Hell are you doing?” Stuyvesant asked.
“I wasn’t feeling very talkative,” Reacher said.
“I told you to talk as long as you could.”
Reacher shrugged. “You wanted it done different, you should have done it yourself. You could have pretended to be me. Talked to your heart’s content.”
“That was deliberate sabotage.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was a move in a game.”
“This isn’t a damn game.”
“That’s exactly what it is.”
“We needed information.”
“Get real,” Reacher said. “You were never going to get information.”
Stuyvesant was silent.
“I want a cup of coffee,” Reacher said. “You dragged us out of the restaurant before we were finished.”
“We’re staying here,” Stuyvesant said. “They might call back.”
“They won’t,” Reacher said.
They waited five minutes at the reception counter and then gave it up and took plastic cups of coffee with them to the conference room. Neagley was keeping herself to herself. Froelich was very quiet. Stuyvesant was very angry.
“Explain,” he said.
Reacher sat down alone at one end of the table. Neagley occupied neutral territory halfway down one side. Froelich and Stuyvesant sat together at the far end.
“These guys use faucet water to seal their envelopes,” Reacher said.
“So?” Stuyvesant said.
“So there’s not one chance in a million they’re going to make a traceable call to the main office of the United States Secret Service, for God’s sake. They would have cut the call short. I didn’t want to let them have the satisfaction. They need to know if they’re tangling with me, then I take the upper hand, not them.”
“You blew it because you think you’re in a pissing contest?”
“I didn’t blow anything,” Reacher said. “We got all the information we were ever going to get.”
“We got absolutely nothing.”
“No, you got a voice print. The guy said thirteen words. All the vowel sounds, most of the consonants. You got the sibilant characteristics, and some of the fricatives.”
“We needed to know where they were, you idiot.”
“They were at a pay phone with caller ID blocked. Somewhere in the Midwest. Think about it, Stuyvesant. They were in Bismarck today with heavy weapons. Therefore they’re driving. They’re on a four-hundred-mile radius by now. They’re somewhere in one of about six huge states, in a bar or a country store, using the pay phone. And anybody smart enough to use
faucet water to seal an envelope knows exactly how short to keep a phone call to make it untraceable.”
“You don’t know they’re driving.”
“No,” Reacher said. “You’re quite right. I don’t know for sure. There is a slight possibility that they were frustrated about today’s outcome. Annoyed, even. And they know from the website that there’s another chance tomorrow, right here. And then nothing much for a spell. So it’s possible they ditched their weapons and aimed to fly in tonight. In which case they might be at O’Hare right now, waiting for a connection. It might have been worthwhile putting some cops in place to see who’s using the pay phones. But I only had eight minutes. If you had thought about it earlier it might have been practical. You had a whole half hour. They gave you notice, for God’s sake. You could have arranged something easily. In which case I would have talked their damn ears off, to let the cops get a good look around. But you didn’t think about it. You didn’t arrange it. You didn’t arrange anything. So don’t talk to me about sabotage. Don’t be telling me I’m the one who blew something here.”
Stuyvesant looked down. Said nothing.
“Now ask him why he wanted the weather report,” Neagley said.
Stuyvesant said nothing.
“Why did you want the weather report?” Froelich asked.
“Because there might still have been time to get something together. If the weather was bad the night before Thanksgiving in Chicago the airport would be so backed up they’d be sitting around there for hours. In which case I would have provoked some kind of a call-back later, for after we got some cops in place. But the weather was OK. Therefore no delays, therefore no time.”
Stuyvesant said nothing.
“Accent?” Froelich asked, quietly. “Did the thirteen words you granted them give you a chance to pick anything out?”
“You made a recording,” Reacher said. “But nothing jumped out at me. Not foreign. Not Southern, not East Coast. Probably one of those other places where they don’t have much of an accent.”
The room was quiet for a long moment.
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