by Lee Child
She was screaming, “G-u-u-n!”
She was spinning in slow motion. Her spoon was loose in the air, arcing up over the table, glittering in the sun, spraying food. She was on Armstrong’s left. She was jumping sideways at him. Her left arm was scything up to shield him. She was jumping like a basketball player going for a hook shot. Twisting in midair. She got her right hand on his shoulder for a pivot and used the momentum of her left to turn herself around face-on to him. She drew her knees up and landed square on his upper chest. Breath punched out of him and his legs buckled and he was going down backward when the second silenced bullet hit her in the neck. There was no sound. No sound at all. Just a bright vivid backward spray of blood in the sunlight, as fine as autumn mist.
It hung there in a long conical cloud, like vapor, pink and iridescent. It stretched to a point as she fell. Her spoon came down through it, tumbling end over end, disturbing its shape. It lengthened in a long graceful curve. She went down and left her blood in the air behind her like a question mark. Reacher turned his head like it was clamped with an enormous weight and saw the slope of a shoulder far away on the roof, moving backward out of sight. He turned infinitely slowly back to the yard and saw the wet pink arrow of Froelich’s blood pointing down to a place now out of sight behind the tables.
Then time restarted and a hundred things happened all at once, all at high speed, all with shattering noise. Agents smothered Armstrong’s wife and hauled her to the ground. She was screaming loud. Shrieking desperately. Agents pulled their guns and started firing up at the warehouse roof. There was shouting and wailing from the crowd. People were stampeding. Running everywhere under the heavy repeated thumping of powerful handguns. Reacher clawed at the serving tables and hurled them behind him and fought his way through the wreckage to Froelich. Agents were dragging Armstrong out from underneath her. Auto engines were revving. Tires were squealing. Guns were firing. There was smoke in the air. Sirens were yelping. Armstrong disappeared off the floor and Reacher fell to his knees in a lake of blood next to Froelich and cradled her head in his arms. All her litheness was gone. She was completely limp and still, like her clothes were empty. But her eyes were wide open. They were moving slowly from side to side, searching, like she was curious about something.
“Is he OK?” she whispered.
Her voice was very quiet, but alert.
“Secure,” Reacher said.
He slid a hand under her neck. He could feel her earpiece wire. He could feel blood. She was soaked with it. It was pulsing out. More than pulsing. It was like a warm hard jet, driven by the whole of her blood pressure. It forced and bubbled its way out between his clamped fingers like a strong bathtub faucet being turned high and low, high and low. He raised her head and let it fall back a fraction and saw a ragged exit wound in the right front side of her throat. It was leaking blood. Like a river. Like a flood. It was arterial blood, draining out of her.
“Medics,” he called.
Nobody heard him. His voice didn’t carry. There was too much noise. The agents around him were firing up at the warehouse roof. There was a continuous crashing and booming of guns. Spent shell cases were ejecting and hitting him on the back and bouncing off and hitting the ground with small brassy sounds he could hear quite well.
“Tell me it wasn’t one of us,” Froelich whispered.
“It wasn’t one of you,” he said.
She dropped her chin to her chest. Welling blood flooded out between the folds of her skin. Poured down and soaked her shirt. Pooled on the ground and ran away between the ridges in the concrete. He flattened his hand hard against the back of her neck. It was slippery. He pressed harder. The flow of blood loosened his grip, like it was hosing his hand away. His hand was slipping and floating on the tide.
“Medics,” he called again, louder.
But he knew it was useless. She probably weighed about one-twenty, which meant she had eight or nine pints of blood in her. Most of them were already gone. He was kneeling in them. Her heart was doing its job, thumping away valiantly, pumping her precious blood straight out onto the concrete around his legs.
“Medics,” he screamed.
Nobody came.
She looked straight up at his face.
“Remember?” she whispered.
He bent closer.
“How we met?” she whispered.
“I remember,” he said.
She smiled weakly, like his answer satisfied her completely. She was very pale now. There was blood everywhere on the ground. It was a vast spreading pool. It was warm and slick. Now it was frothing and foaming at her neck. Her arteries were empty and filling with air. Her eyes moved in her head and then settled on his face. Her lips were stark white. Turning blue. They fluttered soundlessly, rehearsing her last words.
“I love you, Joe,” she whispered.
Then she smiled, peacefully.
“I love you too,” he said.
He held her for long moments more until she bled out and died in his arms about the same time Stuyvesant gave the cease-firing order. There was sudden total silence. The strong coppery smell of hot blood and the cold acid stink of gun smoke hung in the air. Reacher looked up and back and saw a cameraman shouldering his way toward him with his lens tilting down like a cannon. Saw Neagley stepping into his path. Saw the cameraman pushing her. She didn’t seem to move a muscle but suddenly the cameraman was falling. He saw Neagley catch the camera and heave it straight over the execution wall. He heard it crash to the ground. He heard an ambulance siren starting up far in the distance. Then another. He heard cop cars. Feet running. He saw Stuyvesant’s pressed gray pants next to his face. He was standing in Froelich’s blood.
Stuyvesant did nothing at all. Just stood there for what felt like a very long time, until they all heard the ambulance in the yard. Then he bent down and tried to pull Reacher away. Reacher waited until the paramedics got very close. Then he laid Froelich’s head gently on the concrete. Stood up, sick and cramped and unsteady. Stuyvesant caught his elbow and walked him away.
“I didn’t even know her name,” Reacher said.
“It was Mary Ellen,” Stuyvesant told him.
The paramedics fussed around for a moment. Then they went quiet and gave it up and covered her with a sheet. Left her there for the medical examiners and the crime-scene investigators. Reacher stumbled and sat down again, with his back to the wall, his hands on his knees, his head in his hands. His clothes were soaked with blood. Neagley sat down next to him, an inch away. Stuyvesant squatted in front of them both.
“What’s happening?” Reacher asked.
“They’re locking the city down,” Stuyvesant said. “Roads, bridges, the airports. Bannon’s in charge of it. He’s got all his people out, and Metro cops, U.S. marshals, cops from Virginia, state troopers. Plus some of our people. We’ll get them.”
“They’ll use the railroad,” Reacher said. “We’re right next to Union Station.”
Stuyvesant nodded.
“They’re searching every train,” he said. “We’ll get them.”
“Was Armstrong OK?”
“Completely unharmed. Froelich did her duty.”
There was a long silence. Reacher looked up.
“What happened on the roof?” he asked. “Where was Crosetti?”
Stuyvesant looked away.
“Crosetti was decoyed somehow,” he said. “He’s in the stairwell. He’s dead too. Shot in the head. With the same silenced rifle, probably.”
Another long silence.
“Where was Crosetti from?” Reacher asked.
“New York, I think,” Stuyvesant said. “Maybe Jersey. Somewhere up there.”
“That’s no good. Where was Froelich from?”
“She was a Wyoming girl.”
Reacher nodded.
“That’ll do,” he said. “Where’s Armstrong now?”
“Can’t tell you that,” Stuyvesant said. “Procedure.”
Reacher raised his hand and
looked at his palm. It was rimed with blood. All the lines and scars were outlined in red.
“Tell me,” he said. “Or I’ll break your neck.”
Stuyvesant said nothing.
“Where is he?” Reacher repeated.
“The White House,” Stuyvesant said. “In a secure room. It’s procedure.”
“I need to go talk to him.”
“Now?”
“Right now.”
“You can’t.”
Reacher looked away, beyond the fallen tables. “I can.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“So try to stop me.”
Stuyvesant was quiet for a long moment.
“Let me call him first,” he said.
He stood up awkwardly and walked away.
“You OK?” Neagley asked.
“It’s like Joe all over again,” Reacher said. “Like Molly Beth Gordon.”
“Nothing you could have done.”
“Did you see it?”
Neagley nodded.
“She took a bullet for him,” Reacher said. “She told me that was just a figure of speech.”
“Instinct,” Neagley said. “And she was unlucky. Must have missed her vest by half an inch. Subsonic bullet, it would have bounced right off.”
“Did you see the shooter?”
Neagley shook her head. “I was facing front. Did you?”
“A glimpse,” Reacher said. “One man.”
“Hell of a thing,” Neagley said.
Reacher nodded and wiped his palms on his pants, front and back. Then he ran his hands through his hair. “If I wrote insurance I wouldn’t touch any of Joe’s old friends. I’d tell them to commit suicide and save the bad guys the trouble.”
“So what now?”
He shrugged. “You should go home to Chicago.”
“You?”
“I’m going to stick around.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“The FBI will get them.”
“Not if I get them first,” Reacher said.
“You made up your mind?”
“I held her while she bled to death. I’m not going to just walk away.”
“Then I’ll stick around, too.”
“I’ll be OK on my own.”
“I know you will,” Neagley said. “But you’ll be better with me.”
Reacher nodded.
“What did she say to you?” Neagley asked.
“She said nothing to me. She thought I was Joe.”
He saw Stuyvesant picking his way back through the yard. Hauled himself upright with both hands against the wall.
“Armstrong will see us,” Stuyvesant said. “You want to change first?”
Reacher looked down at his clothes. They were soaked with Froelich’s blood in big irregular patches. It was cooling and drying and blackening.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want to change first.”
They used the Suburban that Stuyvesant had arrived in. It was still Thanksgiving Day and D.C. was still quiet. They saw almost no civilian activity. Almost everything out and moving was law enforcement. There was a double ring of hasty police roadblocks on every thoroughfare around the White House. Stuyvesant kept his strobes going and was waved through all of them. He showed his ID at the White House vehicle gate and parked outside the West Wing. A Marine sentry passed them to a Secret Service escort who led them inside. They went down two flights of stairs to a vaulted basement built from brick. There were plant rooms down there. Other rooms with steel doors. The escort stopped in front of one of them and knocked hard.
The door was opened from the inside by one of Armstrong’s personal detail. He was still wearing his Kevlar vest. Still wearing his sunglasses, although the room had no windows. Just bright fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. Armstrong and his wife were sitting together on chairs at a table in the center of the room. The other two agents were leaning against the walls. The room was silent. Armstrong’s wife had been crying. That was clear. Armstrong himself had a smudge of Froelich’s blood on the side of his face. He looked deflated. Like this whole White House thing was no longer fun.
“What’s the situation?” he asked.
“Two casualties,” Stuyvesant said quietly. “The sentry on the warehouse roof, and M.E. herself. They both died at the scene.”
Armstrong’s wife turned away like she had been slapped.
“Did you get the people who did it?” Armstrong asked.
“The FBI is leading the hunt,” Stuyvesant said. “Just a matter of time.”
“I want to help,” Armstrong said.
“You’re going to help,” Reacher said.
Armstrong nodded. “What can I do?”
“You can issue a formal statement,” Reacher said. “Immediately. In time for the networks to get it on the evening news.”
“Saying what?”
“Saying you’re canceling your holiday weekend in North Dakota out of respect for the two dead agents. Saying you’re holing up in your Georgetown house and going absolutely nowhere at all before you attend a memorial service for your lead agent in her hometown in Wyoming on Sunday morning. Find out the name of the town and mention it loud and clear.”
Armstrong nodded again.
“OK,” he said. “I could do that, I guess. But why?”
“Because they won’t try again here in D.C. Not against the security you’re going to have at your house. So they’ll go home and wait. Which gives me until Sunday to find out where they live.”
“You? Won’t the FBI find them today?”
“If they do, that’s great. I can move on.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then I’ll find them myself.”
“And if you fail?”
“I don’t plan to fail. But if I do, then they’ll show up in Wyoming to try again. At Froelich’s service. Whereupon I’ll be waiting for them.”
“No,” Stuyvesant said. “I can’t allow it. Are you crazy? We can’t secure a situation out West on seventy-two hours’ notice. And I can’t use a protectee as bait.”
“He doesn’t have to actually go,” Reacher said. “There probably won’t even be a service. He just has to say it.”
Armstrong shook his head. “I can’t say it if there isn’t going to be a service. And if there is a service, I can’t say it and not show up.”
“If you want to help, that’s what you’ve got to do.”
Armstrong said nothing.
They left the Armstrongs in the West Wing basement and were escorted back to the Suburban. The sun was still shining and the sky was still blue. The buildings were still white and golden. It was still a glorious day.
“Take us back to the motel,” Reacher said. “I want to get a shower. Then I want to meet with Bannon.”
“Why?” Stuyvesant asked.
“Because I’m a witness,” Reacher said. “I saw the shooter. On the roof. Just a glimpse of his back as he moved away from the edge.”
“You got a description?”
“Not really,” Reacher said. “It was only a glimpse. I couldn’t describe him. But there was something about how he moved. I’ve seen him before.”
14
He peeled off his clothes. They were stiff and cold and clammy with blood. He dropped them on the closet floor and stepped into the bathroom. Set the shower going. The tray under his feet ran red and then pink and then clear. He washed his hair twice and shaved carefully. Dressed in another of Joe’s shirts and another of his suits and chose the regimental tie that Froelich had bought, as a tribute. Then he went back out to the lobby.
Neagley was waiting for him there. She had changed, too. She was wearing a black suit. It was the old Army way. If in doubt, go formal. She had a cup of coffee ready for him. She was talking to the U.S. marshals. They were a new crew. The day shift, he guessed.
“Stuyvesant’s coming back,” she told him. “Then we go meet with Bannon.”
He nodded. Th
e marshals were quiet around him. Almost respectful. Toward him or because of Froelich, he didn’t know.
“Tough break,” one of them said.
Reacher looked away.
“I guess it was,” he replied.
Then he looked back.
“But hey, shit happens,” he said.
Neagley smiled, briefly. It was the old Army way. If in doubt, be flippant.
Stuyvesant showed up an hour later and drove them to the Hoover Building. The balance of power had changed. Killing federal agents was a federal crime, so now the FBI was firmly in charge. Now it was a straightforward manhunt. Bannon met them in the main lobby and took them up in an elevator to their conference room. It was better than Treasury’s. It was paneled in wood and had windows. There was a long table with clusters of glasses and bottles of mineral water. Bannon was conspicuously democratic and avoided the head of the table. He just dumped himself down in one of the side chairs. Neagley put herself on the same side, two places away. Reacher sat down opposite her. Stuyvesant chose a place three away from Reacher and poured himself a glass of water.
“Quite a day,” Bannon said in the silence. “My agency extends its deepest sympathies to your agency.”
“You haven’t found them,” Stuyvesant said.
“We got a heads up from the medical examiner,” Bannon said. “Crosetti was shot through the head with a NATO 7.62 round. Died instantly. Froelich was shot through the throat from behind, same gun, probably. The bullet clipped her carotid artery. But I guess you already know that.”
“You haven’t found them,” Stuyvesant said again.
Bannon shook his head.
“Thanksgiving Day,” he said. “Pluses and minuses. Main minus was that we were short of personnel because of the holiday, and so were you, and so were the Metro cops, and so was everybody else. Main plus was that the city itself was very quiet. On balance it was quieter than we were short-handed. The way it turned out we were the majority population all over town five minutes after it happened.”