“I apologize,” Stuyvesant said. “You probably did the right thing.”
Reacher shook his head. Breathed out.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’re clutching at straws here. Million to one we were ever going to get a location. It was a snap decision, really. Just a gut thing. If they’re puzzled about me, I want to keep them puzzled. Keep them guessing. And I wanted to make them mad at me. I wanted to take some focus off Armstrong. Better that they focus on me for a spell.”
“You want these people coming after you personally?”
“Better than have them coming after Armstrong personally.”
“Are you nuts? He’s got the Secret Service around him. You haven’t.”
Reacher smiled. “I’m not too worried about them.”
Froelich moved in her chair.
“So this is a pissing contest,” she said. “God, you’re just like Joe, you know that?”
“Except I’m still alive,” Reacher said.
There was a knock at the door. The duty officer put his head into the room.
“Special Agent Bannon is here,” he said. “Ready for the evening meeting.”
Stuyvesant briefed Bannon privately in his office about the telephone communications. They came back into the conference room together at ten past ten. Bannon still looked more like a city cop than a federal agent. Donegal tweed, gray flannel, stout shoes, red face. Like a wise old high-mileage detective from Chicago or Boston or New York. He was carrying a thin file folder, and he was acting somber.
“Nendick is still unresponsive,” he said.
Nobody spoke.
“He’s no better and no worse,” Bannon said. “They’re still worried about him.”
He sat heavily in the chair opposite Neagley’s. Opened his file folder and took out a thin stack of color photographs. Dealt them like cards around the table. Two each.
“Bruce Armstrong and Brian Armstrong,” he said. “Late of Minnesota and Colorado, respectively.”
The photographs were large inkjet prints done on glossy paper. Not faxes. The originals must have been borrowed from the families and then scanned and e-mailed. They were snapshots, basically, each blown up and then cropped down to a useful head-and-shoulders format in the local FBI lab, presumably. The results looked artificial. Two bluff open faces, two innocent smiles, two fond gazes directed toward something that should have been there in the shot with them. Their names were neatly written in ballpoint pen in the bottom border. By Bannon himself, maybe. Bruce Armstrong, Brian Armstrong.
They weren’t really similar to each other. And neither of them looked much like Brook Armstrong. Nobody would have had even a moment’s hesitation differentiating between the three of them. Not in the dark, not in a hurry. They were just three American men with fair hair and blue eyes, somewhere in their middle forties, that was all. But therefore, they were alike in another way. If you sliced and diced the human population of the world, you’d use up quite a few distinct divisions before you got around to separating the three of them out. Male or female, black or white, Asian or Caucasian or Mongoloid, tall or short, thin or fat or medium, young or old or middle-aged, dark or fair, blue eyes or brown eyes. You would have to make all those separate distinctions before you could say the three Armstrongs looked different from one another.
“What do you think?” Bannon asked.
“Close enough to make the point,” Reacher said.
“We agree,” Bannon said. “Two widows and five fatherless children between them. This is fun, isn’t it?”
Nobody replied to that.
“You got anything else for us?” Stuyvesant asked.
“We’re working hard,” Bannon said. “We’re running the thumbprint again. We’re trying every database in the known world. But we’re not optimistic. We canvassed Nendick’s neighbors. They didn’t get many visitors to the house. Seems like they socialized as a couple, mostly in a bar about ten miles from their place, out toward Dulles. It’s a cop bar. Seems like Nendick trades on his employment status. We’re trying to trace anybody he was seen talking to more than the average.”
“What about two weeks ago?” Stuyvesant said. “When the wife got taken away? Must have been some kind of commotion.”
Bannon shook his head. “There’s a fairly high daytime population in his street. Soccer moms all around. But it’s a dry hole. Nobody remembers anything. It could have happened at night, of course.”
“No, I think Nendick delivered her somewhere,” Reacher said. “I think they made him do it. Like a refinement of the torture. To underline his responsibility. To put an edge on the fear.”
“Possible,” Bannon said. “He’s afraid, that’s for damn sure.”
Reacher nodded. “I think these guys are real good at the cruel psychological nuances. I think that’s why some of the messages came here direct. Nothing worse for Armstrong than to hear from the people paid to protect him that he’s in big trouble.”
“Except he’s not hearing from them,” Neagley said.
Bannon made no comment on that. Stuyvesant paused a beat.
“Anything else?” he said.
“We’ve concluded you won’t get any more messages,” Bannon said. “They’ll strike at a time and place of their own choosing, and obviously they won’t tip you off as to where and when. Conversely if they try and fail, they won’t want you to have known about it ahead of time, otherwise they’d look ineffective.”
“Any feeling about where and when?”
“We’ll talk about that tomorrow morning. We’re working on a theory right now. I assume you’ll all be here tomorrow morning?”
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
“It’s Thanksgiving Day.”
“Armstrong’s working, so we’re working.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Being a nice guy at a homeless shelter.”
“Is that wise?”
Stuyvesant just shrugged.
“No choice,” Froelich said. “It’s in the Constitution that politicians have to serve turkey dinners on Thanksgiving Day in the worst part of town they can find.”
“Well, wait until we talk tomorrow morning,” Bannon said. “Maybe you’ll want to change his mind. Or amend the Constitution.”
Then he stood up and walked around the table and collected the photographs again, like they were precious to him.
Froelich dropped Neagley at the hotel and then she and Reacher drove home. She was quiet all the way. Conspicuously and aggressively silent. He stood it until they reached the bridge over the river and then he gave in.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Got to be something,” he said.
She didn’t answer. Just drove on and parked as near her place as she could get, which was two streets away. The neighborhood was quiet. It was late at night before a holiday. People were inside, cozy and relaxed. She shut off the engine, but didn’t get out of the car. Just sat there, looking straight ahead through the windshield, saying nothing.
“What?” he asked again.
“I don’t think I can stand it,” she said.
“Stand what?”
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” she said. “Just like you got Joe killed.”
“Excuse me?” he said.
“You heard.”
“I didn’t get Joe killed.”
“He wasn’t cut out for that kind of stuff. But he went ahead and did it anyway. Because he was always comparing himself. He was driven to do it.”
“By me?”
“Who else? He was your brother. He followed your career.”
Reacher said nothing.
“Why do you people have to be like this?” she said.
“Us people?” he said back. “Like what?”
“You men,” she said. “You military people. Always charging headlong into stupidity.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“You know it is.�
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“I’m not the one sworn to take a bullet for some worthless politician.”
“Neither am I. That’s just a figure of speech. And not all politicians are worthless.”
“So would you take a bullet for him? Or not?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“And I’m not charging headlong into anything.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve been challenged. And God forbid you should stay cool and just walk away.”
“You want me to walk away?” he said. “Or do you want to get this thing done?”
“You can’t do it by butting heads, like you were all rutting deer or something.”
“Why not? Sooner or later it’s us or them. That’s how it is. That’s how it always is. Why pretend any different?”
“Why look for trouble?”
“I’m not looking for trouble. I don’t see it as trouble.”
“Well, what the hell else is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
He paused a beat.
“You know any lawyers?” he asked.
“Any what?”
“You heard,” he said.
“Lawyers? Are you kidding? In this town? It’s wall-to-wall lawyers.”
“OK, so picture a lawyer. Twenty years out of law school, lots of hands-on experience. Somebody asks him, can you write this slightly complex will for me? What does he say? What does he do? Does he start trembling with nerves? Does he think he’s been challenged? Is it a testosterone thing? No, he just says, sure, I can do that. And then he goes ahead and does it. Because it’s his job. Pure and simple.”
“This isn’t your job, Reacher.”
“Yes, it is, near as makes no difference. Uncle Sam paid me your tax dollars to do exactly this kind of stuff, thirteen straight years. And Uncle Sam sure as hell didn’t expect me to run away and get all psychological and conflicted about it.”
She stared forward through the windshield. It was misting fast, from their breath.
“There are hundreds of people on the other side of the Secret Service,” she said. “In Financial Crimes. Hundreds of them. I don’t know how many, exactly. Lots of them. Good people. We’re not really investigative, but they are. That’s all they are. That’s what they’re for. Joe could have picked any ten of them and sent them down to Georgia. He could have picked fifty of them. But he didn’t. He had to go himself. He had to go alone. Because he was challenged. He couldn’t back off. Because he was always comparing himself.”
“I agree he shouldn’t have done it,” Reacher said. “Like a doctor shouldn’t write a will. Like a lawyer shouldn’t do surgery.”
“But you made him.”
He shook his head.
“No, I didn’t make him,” he said.
She was silent.
“Two points, Froelich,” he said. “First, people shouldn’t have to choose their careers with one eye on what their brother might think. And second, the last time Joe and I had any significant contact I was sixteen years old. He was eighteen. He was leaving for West Point. I was a kid. The last thing on his mind was copying me. Are you nuts? And I never really saw him again after that. Funerals only, basically. Because whatever you think about me as a brother, he was no better. He paid no attention to me. Years would go by, I wouldn’t hear from him.”
“He followed your career. Your mother sent him stuff. He was comparing himself.”
“Our mother died seven years before he did. I barely had a career back then.”
“You won the Silver Star in Beirut right at the beginning.”
“I was in an explosion,” he said. “They gave me a medal because they couldn’t think what else to do. That’s what the Army is like. Joe knew that.”
“He was comparing himself,” she said.
Reacher moved in his seat. Watched small swirls of condensation form on the windshield glass.
“Maybe,” he said. “But not to me.”
“Who then?”
“Our dad, possibly.”
She shrugged. “He never talked about him.”
“Well, there you go,” Reacher said. “Avoidance. Denial.”
“You think? What was special about your dad?”
Reacher looked away. Closed his eyes.
“He was a Marine,” he said. “Korea and Vietnam. Very compartmentalized guy. Gentle, shy, sweet, loving man, but a stone-cold killer, too. Harder than a nail. Next to him I look like Liberace.”
“Do you compare yourself with him?”
Reacher shook his head. Opened his eyes.
“No point,” he said. “Next to him I look like Liberace. Always will, no matter what. Which isn’t necessarily such a bad thing for the world.”
“Didn’t you like him?”
“He was OK. But he was a freak. No room for people like him anymore.”
“Joe shouldn’t have gone to Georgia,” she said.
Reacher nodded.
“No argument about that,” he said. “No argument at all. But it was nobody’s fault except his own. He should have had more sense.”
“So should you.”
“I’ve got plenty of sense. Like for instance I joined the Military Police, not the Marine Corps. Like for instance I don’t feel compelled to rush around trying to design a new hundred dollar bill. I stick to what I know.”
“And you think you know how to take out these guys?”
“Like the garbage man knows how to take out the trash. It ain’t rocket science.”
“That sounds pretty arrogant.”
He shook his head. “Listen, I’m sick of justifying myself. It’s ridiculous. You know your neighbors? You know the people who live around here?”
“Not really,” she said.
He rubbed mist off the glass and pointed out his window with his thumb. “Maybe one of them is an old lady who knits sweaters. Are you going to walk up to her and say, oh my God, what’s with you? I can’t believe you actually have the temerity to know how to knit sweaters.”
“You’re equating armed combat with knitting sweaters?”
“I’m saying we’re all good at something. And that’s what I’m good at. Maybe it’s the only thing I’m good at. I’m not proud of it, and I’m not ashamed of it, either. It’s just there. I can’t help it. I’m genetically programmed to win, is all. Several consecutive generations.”
“Joe had the same genes.”
“No, he had the same parents. There’s a difference.”
“I hope your faith in yourself is justified.”
“It is. Especially now, with Neagley here. She makes me look like Liberace.”
Froelich looked away. Went quiet.
“What?” he said.
“She’s in love with you.”
“Bullshit.”
Froelich looked straight at him. “How would you know?”
“She’s never been interested.”
Froelich just shook her head.
“I just talked to her about it,” he said. “The other day. She said she’s never been interested. She told me that, words of one syllable.”
“And you believed her?”
“Wasn’t I supposed to?”
Froelich said nothing. Reacher smiled, slowly.
“What, you think she is interested?” he asked.
“You smile just like Joe,” she answered. “A little shy, a little lopsided. It’s the most incredibly beautiful smile I ever saw.”
“You’re not exactly over him, are you?” he said. “At the risk of being the last to know. At the risk of stating the bloody obvious.”
She didn’t answer. Just got out of the car and started walking. He followed after her. It was cold and damp on the street. The night air was heavy. He could smell the river, and jet fuel from somewhere. They reached her house. She unlocked the door. They stepped inside.
There was a sheet of paper lying on the hallway floor.
12
It was the familiar high
-white letter-size sheet. It was lying precisely aligned with the oak flooring strips. It was in the geometric center of the hallway, near the bottom of the stairs, exactly where Reacher had dumped his garbage bag of clothes two nights previously. It had a simple statement printed neatly on it, in the familiar Times New Roman computer script, fourteen point, bold. The statement was five words long, split between two lines in the center of the page: It’s going to happen soon. The three words It’s going to made up the first line on their own. The happen soon part was alone on the second line. It looked like a poem or a song lyric. Like it was divided up that way for a dramatic purpose, like there should be a pause between the lines, or a breath, or a drum roll, or a rim shot. It’s going to . . . bam! . . . happen soon. Reacher stared at it. The effect was hypnotic. Happen soon. Happen soon.
“Don’t touch it,” Froelich said.
“Wasn’t going to,” Reacher replied.
He ducked his head back out the door and checked the street. All the nearby cars were empty. All the nearby windows were closed and draped. No pedestrians. No loiterers in the dark. All was quiet. He came back inside and closed the door slowly and carefully, so as not to disturb the paper with a draft.
“How did they get it in here?” Froelich said.
“Through the door,” Reacher said. “Probably at the back.”
Froelich pulled the SIG Sauer from her holster and they walked through the living room together and into the kitchen. The door to the backyard was closed, but it was unlocked. Reacher opened it a foot. Scanned the outside surroundings and saw nothing at all. Eased the door back wide so the inside light fell onto the exterior surface. Leaned close and looked at the scratch plate around the keyhole.
“Marks,” he said. “Very small. They were pretty good.”
“They’re here in D.C.,” she said. “Right now. They’re not in some Midwest bar.”
She stared through the kitchen into the living room.
“The phone,” she said.
It was pulled out of position on the table next to the fireside chair.
“They used my phone,” she said.
“To call me, probably,” Reacher said.
“Prints?”
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