by Lee Child
He nodded. Didn’t speak.
“So you can start with a blank slate,” she said. “How you react to me can be about you and me, not about you and me and Joe. He took himself out of the picture. It was his choice. So it’s none of his business, even if he was still around.”
He nodded again.
“But how blank is your slate?” he asked.
“He was a great guy,” she said. “I loved him once. But you’re not him. You’re a separate person. I know that. I’m not looking to get him back. I don’t want a ghost.”
She took one step into the room.
“That’s good,” he said. “Because I’m not like him. Hardly at all. You need to be real clear about that from the start.”
“I’m clear about it,” she said. “The start of what?”
She took another step into the room and then stood still.
“The start of whatever,” he said. “But the end will turn out the same, you know. You need to be real clear about that, too. I’ll leave, just like he did. I always do.”
She came closer. They were a yard apart.
“Soon?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”
“I’ll take my chances,” she said. “Nothing lasts forever.”
“Doesn’t feel right,” he said.
She glanced at his face. “What doesn’t?”
“I’m standing here wearing your ex-lover’s clothes.”
“Not many of them,” she said. “And it’s a situation that can be easily remedied.”
He paused.
“Is it?” he said. “Want to show me how?”
He stepped forward again and she put her hands on his waist. Slipped her fingers under the elastic waistband of his boxers and remedied the situation. Stepped back a little and raised her arms above her head. Her nightgown slipped off very easily. Fell to the floor. They barely made it to the bed.
They got three hours’ sleep and woke up at seven when her alarm started ringing in her own room. It sounded far away and faint through the guest room wall. He was on his back and she was curled under his arm. Her thigh was hooked over his. Her head was resting against his shoulder. Her hair touched his face. He felt comfortable in that position. And warm. Warm and comfortable. And tired. Warm and comfortable and tired enough that he wanted to ignore the noise and stay put. But she struggled free and sat up in the bed, dazed and sleepy.
“Good morning,” he said.
There was gray light from the window. She smiled and yawned and pulled her elbows back and stretched. The clock in the next room kept on making noise. Then it went into a new mode and got louder. He slid his hand flat against her stomach. Moved it up to her breasts. She yawned again and smiled again and twisted around and ducked her head and nuzzled into his neck.
“Good morning to you too,” she said.
The alarm blared on through the wall. It clearly had a feature that made it get more and more urgent if it was ignored. He pulled her down on top of him. Smoothed her hair away from her face and kissed her. The distant clock started chirping and howling like a cop car. He was glad he wasn’t in the same room with it.
“Got to get up,” she said.
“We will,” he said. “Soon.”
He held her. She stopped struggling. They made love breathlessly, like the alarm clock was spurring them on. It sounded like they were in a nuclear bunker with missile sirens ticking off the last moments of their lives. They finished, panting, and she heaved herself out of bed and ran through to her own room and shut the noise off. The silence was deafening. He lay back on the pillow and looked up at the ceiling. An oblique bar of gray light from the window showed some imperfections in the plaster. She came back, naked, walking slowly.
“Come back to bed,” he said.
“Can’t,” she said. “Got to go to work.”
“He’ll be OK for a spell. And if he isn’t, they can always get another one. That Twentieth Amendment thing. They’ll be lining up around the block.”
“And I’ll be lining up for a new job. Maybe flipping burgers.”
“You ever done that?”
“What, flipped burgers?”
“Been out of work.”
She shook her head. “Never.”
He smiled. “I haven’t really worked for five years.”
She smiled back. “I know. I checked the computers. But you’re working today. So get your ass out of bed.”
She gave him a fine view of her own ass as she walked away to her own bathroom. He lay still for a second longer with Dawn Penn’s old song coming back at him: you don’t love me, yes I know now. He shook it out of his head and threw back the covers and stood up and stretched. One arm up to the ceiling, then the other. He arched his back. Pointed his toes and stretched his legs. That was the whole of his fitness routine. He walked to the guest bathroom and went for the full twenty-two minute ablution sequence. Teeth, shave, hair, shower. He dressed in another of Joe’s old suits. This one was pure black, same brand, same tailoring details. He paired it with another fresh shirt, same Somebody & Somebody label, same pure white cotton. Clean boxers, clean socks. A dark blue silk tie with tiny silver parachutes all over it. There was a British manufacturer’s label on it. Maybe it was from the Royal Air Force in England. He checked himself in the mirror and then ruined the look by putting his new Atlantic City coat over the suit. It was coarse and clumsy in comparison and the colors didn’t match, but he figured to be spending some time out in the cold today, and it didn’t seem that Joe had left any overcoats behind. He must have skipped out in summer.
He met Froelich at the bottom of the stairs. She was in a feminine version of his own outfit, a black pant suit with an open-necked white blouse. But her coat was better. It was dark gray wool, very formal. She was putting her earpiece in. It had a curly wire that straightened after six inches to run down her back.
“Want to help?” she said. She pulled her elbows back in the same gesture she had used when she woke up. It pushed her jacket collar off the back of her neck. He dropped the wire down between her jacket and her blouse. The tiny plug on the end acted like a counterweight and took it all the way to her waist. She pulled her coat and her jacket aside and he found a black radio unit clipped to her belt in the small of her back. The microphone lead was already plugged in and threaded up her back and down her left sleeve. He plugged the earpiece in. She let her jacket and her coat fall back into place and he saw her gun in a holster clipped to her belt near her left hip, butt forward for easy access by her right hand. It was a big, boxy SIG-Sauer P226, which he was happy about. Altogether a better proposition than the previous-issue Beretta in her kitchen drawer.
“OK,” she said. Then she took a deep breath. Checked her watch. Reacher did the same thing. It was nearly a quarter to eight.
“Sixteen hours and sixteen minutes to go,” she said. “Call Neagley and tell her we’re on our way.”
He used her mobile as they walked back to her Suburban. The morning was damp and cold, exactly the same as the night had been except now there was some grudging gray light in the sky. The Suburban’s windows were all misted over with dew. But it started on the first turn of the key and the heater worked fast and the interior was warm and comfortable by the time Neagley climbed on board outside the hotel.
Armstrong slipped a leather jacket over his sweater and stepped out of his back door. The wind caught his hair and he zipped the coat as he walked to his gate. Two paces before he got there he was picked up in the scope. The scope was a Hensoldt 1.5-6×42 BL originally supplied with a SIG SSG 3000 sniper rifle, but it had been adapted by the Baltimore gunsmith to fit its new home, which was on top of a Vaime Mk2. Vaime was a word registered by Oy Vaimennin Metalli Ab, which was a Finnish weapons specialist that correctly figured it needed a simplified name if it was going to sell its excellent products in the West. And the Mk2 was an excellent product. It was a silenced sniper rifle that used a low-powered version of the standard 7.62 millimeter NATO round. Low-pow
ered, because the bullet had to fly at subsonic speeds to preserve the silence that the built-in suppressor created. And because of the low power and the suppressor’s complex exhaust gas management scheme there was very little recoil. Almost none at all. Just the gentlest little kick imaginable. It was a fine rifle. With a good scope like the Hensoldt it was a guaranteed killer at any range up to two hundred yards. And the man with his eye to the scope was only a hundred and twenty-six yards from Armstrong’s back gate. He knew that for an exact fact, because he had just checked the distance with a laser range finder. He was exposed to the weather, but he was adequately prepared. He knew how to do this. He was wearing a dark green down coat and a black hat made of synthetic fleece. He had gloves made from the same material, with the right-hand fingertips cut off for control. He was lying down out of the wind, which kept his eyes clear of tears. He anticipated absolutely no problems at all.
The way a man goes through a gate works like this: he stops walking momentarily. He stands still. He has to, whichever way the gate hinges. If it hinges toward him, he reaches out for the latch and flips it open and pulls the gate and kind of stands on tiptoe and arches his legs so the gate can swing past them. If it hinges away from him, he stands still while he finds the latch and pushes it open. That’s faster, but there’s still a moment where there’s no real forward motion at all. And this particular gate opened toward the house. That fact was clearly visible through the Hensoldt. There was going to be a two-second window of perfect opportunity.
Armstrong reached the gate. Stopped walking. One hundred and twenty-six yards away the man with his eye to the scope nudged the rifle a fraction left until the target was exactly centered. Held his breath. Eased his finger back. Took up the slack in the trigger. Then he squeezed it all the way. The rifle coughed loudly and kicked gently. The bullet took a hair over four-tenths of a second to travel the hundred and twenty-six yards. It hit Armstrong with a wet thump high on the forehead. It penetrated his skull and followed a downward angle through his frontal lobe, through his central ventricles, through his cerebellum. It shattered his first vertebra and exited at the base of his neck through soft tissue near the top of his spinal cord. It flew on and struck the ground eleven feet farther back and buried itself deep in the earth.
Armstrong was clinically dead before he hit the ground. The bullet’s path caused massive brain trauma and its kinetic energy pulsed outward through brain tissue and was reflected back by the inside of the skull bones like a big wave in a small swimming pool. The resulting damage was catastrophic. All brain function ceased before gravity dropped the body.
One hundred and twenty-six yards away the man with his eye to the scope lay perfectly still for a second. Then he cradled the rifle flat against his torso and rolled away until it was safe to stand. He racked the rifle’s bolt and caught the hot shell case in his gloved hand and dropped it into his pocket. Moved backward into cover and then walked away, completely shielded from view.
Neagley was uncharacteristically quiet in the car. Maybe she was worried about the day ahead. Maybe she could sense the altered chemistry. Reacher didn’t know, and either way he wasn’t in a hurry to find out. He just sat quiet while Froelich battled the traffic. She looped northwest and used the Whitney Young bridge across the river and drove past the RFK football stadium. Then she took Massachusetts Avenue and stayed away from the congestion around the government part of town. But Mass. Ave. was slow itself, and it was nearly nine o’clock before they arrived in Armstrong’s Georgetown street. She parked behind another Suburban near the mouth of the tent. An agent stepped off the sidewalk and rounded the hood to talk with her.
“The spook just got here,” he said. “They’ll be into Spying 101 by now.”
“Should be 201 by now, surely,” Froelich said. “He’s been doing it long enough.”
“No, CIA stuff is awful complicated,” the guy said. “For plain folks, anyway.”
Froelich smiled and the guy walked away. Took up station again on the sidewalk. Froelich buzzed her window up and half-turned to face Reacher and Neagley equally.
“Foot patrol?” she said.
“Why I wore my coat,” Reacher said.
“Four eyes are better than two,” Neagley said.
They got out together and left Froelich in the warmth of the car. The street side of the house was quiet and well covered so they walked north and turned right to get a view of the back. There were cop cars top and bottom of the alley. Nothing was happening. Everything was buttoned up tight against the cold. They walked onward to the next street. There were cop cars there, too.
“Waste of time,” Neagley said. “Nobody’s going to get him in his house. I assume the police would notice somebody hauling in an artillery piece.”
“So let’s get breakfast,” Reacher said. They walked back to the cross street and found a doughnut shop. Bought coffee and crullers and perched on stools in front of a long counter built inside the store window. The window was misted with condensation. Neagley used a napkin and wiped crescent shapes to see through.
“Different tie,” she said.
He glanced down at it.
“Different suit,” she said.
“You like it?”
“I would if we still lived in the 1990s,” she said.
He said nothing. She smiled.
“So,” she said.
“What?”
“Ms. Froelich collected the set.”
“You could tell?”
“Unmistakable.”
“Free will on my part,” Reacher said.
Neagley smiled again. “I didn’t think she raped you.”
“You going to be all judgmental now?”
“Hey, your call. She’s a nice lady. But so am I. And you never come on to me.”
“You ever wanted me to?”
“No.”
“That’s the point. I like my interest to be welcome.”
“Which must limit your options some.”
“Some,” he said. “But not completely.”
“Apparently not,” Neagley said.
“You disapprove?”
“Hell no. Be my guest. Why do you think I stayed on in the hotel? I didn’t want to get in her way, is all.”
“Her way? Was it that obvious?”
“Oh please,” Neagley said.
Reacher sipped his coffee. Ate a cruller. He was hungry and it tasted great. Iced hard on the outside, light in the middle. He ate another and sucked his fingertips clean. Felt the caffeine and the sugar hit his bloodstream.
“So who are these guys?” Neagley asked. “You got any feelings?”
“Some,” Reacher said. “I’d have to concentrate hard to line them up. Not worth starting with that until we know if we’re staying on the job.”
“We won’t be,” Neagley said. “Our job ends with the cleaners. And that’s a waste of time in itself. No way will they have a name for us. Or if they do, it’ll be phony. Best we’ll get is a description. Which is bound to be useless.”
Reacher nodded. Finished his coffee.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Once around the block for form’s sake.”
They walked as slowly as they could bear to in the cold. Nothing was happening. Everything was quiet. There were cop cars or Secret Service vehicles on every street. Their exhaust fumes clouded white and drifted in the still air. Apart from that absolutely nothing was moving. They turned corners and came up on Armstrong’s street from the south. The white tent was ahead of them on the right. Froelich was out of her car, waving to them urgently. They hurried up the sidewalk to meet her.
“Change of plan,” she said. “There was a problem on the Hill. He cut the CIA thing short and headed up there.”
“He left already?” Reacher asked.
Froelich nodded. “He’s rolling now.”
Then she paused and listened to a voice in her earpiece.
“He’s arriving,” she said.
She lifted her wrist and spoke into
her microphone.
“Situation report, over,” she said, and listened again.
There was a wait. Thirty seconds. Forty.
“OK, he’s inside,” she said. “Secure.”
“So what now?” Reacher said.
Froelich shrugged. “Now we wait. That’s what this job is. It’s about waiting.”
They drove back to the office and waited the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. Froelich received regular situation reports. Reacher built up a pretty good picture of how things were organized. Metro cops were stationed outside the Senate Office buildings in cars. Secret Service agents held the sidewalk. Inside the street doors were members of the Capitol’s own police force, one officer manning each metal detector, plenty more patrolling the hallways. Mingled in with them were more Secret Service. The transition business itself took place in upstairs offices with pairs of agents outside every door. Armstrong’s personal detail stayed with him at all times. The radio reports spoke of a fairly static day. There was a lot of sitting around and talking going on. Plenty of deals being made. That was clear. Reacher recalled the phrase smoke-filled rooms, except he guessed nobody was allowed to smoke anymore.
At four o’clock they drove over to Neagley’s hotel, which was being used again for the contributor function. Start time was scheduled for seven in the evening, which gave them three hours to secure the building. Froelich had a preplanned protocol that involved a squeeze search starting in the kitchen loading bay and the penthouse suites simultaneously. Metro cops with dogs were accompanied by Secret Service people and worked patiently, floor by floor. As each floor was cleared three cops took up permanent station, one at each end of the bedroom corridor and one covering the elevator bank and the fire stairs. The two search teams met on the ninth floor at six o’clock, by which time temporary metal detectors were in place inside the lobby and at the ballroom door. The cameras were set up and recording.
“Ask for two forms of ID this time,” Neagley said. “Driver’s license and a credit card, maybe.”