Without Fail

He walked on. C Street restarted on the far side of the plaza, just about opposite the obelisk. It was more of an upright slab, really. There was a sign pointing toward it: Taft Memorial. C Street crossed New Jersey Avenue and then Louisiana Avenue. There were crosswalks. Fast traffic. Armstrong was going to spend some time standing still waiting for lights. The Armenian Embassy was ahead on the left. A police cruiser was pulling up in front of it. It parked on the curb and four cops got out. He heard a distant helicopter. Turned around and saw it low in the north and west, skirting the prohibited airspace around the White House. The Department of Labor was dead ahead. There were plenty of convenient side doors.

He crossed C Street to the north sidewalk. Strolled back fifty yards to where he could see into the plaza. Waited. The helicopter was stationary in the air, low enough to be obvious, high enough not to be deafening. He saw Froelich’s Suburban come around the corner, tiny in the distance. It pulled over and waited at the curb. He watched people. Most of them were hurrying. It was too cold for loitering. He saw a group of men way on the far side of the fountain. Six guys in dark overcoats surrounded a seventh in a khaki raincoat. They walked in the center of the sandstone path. The two agents on point were alert. The others crowded tight, like a moving huddle. They passed the fountain and headed for New Jersey Avenue. Waited at the light. Armstrong was bareheaded. The wind blew his hair. Cars streamed past. Nobody paid attention. Drivers and pedestrians occupied different worlds, based on relative time and space. Froelich kept her distance. Her Suburban idled along in the gutter fifty yards back. The light changed and Armstrong and his team walked on. So far, so good. The operation was working well.

Then it wasn’t.

First the wind pushed the police helicopter slightly off station. Then Armstrong and his team were halfway across the narrow triangular spit of land between New Jersey Avenue and Louisiana Avenue when a lone pedestrian did a perfect double take from ten yards away. He was a middle-aged guy, lean from neglect, bearded, long-haired, unkempt. He was wearing a belted raincoat greasy with age. He stood completely still for a split second and then launched himself toward Armstrong with his legs taking long bouncing strides and his arms windmilling uselessly and his mouth wide open in a snarl. The two nearest agents jumped forward to intercept him and the other four pulled back and crowded around Armstrong himself. They jostled and maneuvered until they had all six bodies between the crazy guy and Armstrong. Which left Armstrong totally vulnerable from the opposite direction.

Reacher thought decoy and spun around. Nothing there. Nothing anywhere. Just the cityscape, still and cold and indifferent. He checked windows for movement. He looked for the flash of sun on glass. Nothing. Nothing at all. He looked at cars on the avenues. All of them oblivious and moving fast. None of them slowing. He turned back and saw the crazy guy on the ground with two agents holding him down and two more with guns covering him. He saw Froelich’s Suburban speeding up and taking the corner fast. She stopped hard on the curb and two agents bundled Armstrong straight across the sidewalk and into the backseat.

But the Suburban didn’t go anywhere. It just sat there with traffic spilling around it. The helicopter drifted back on station and lost a little altitude and came down for a closer look. Its noise beat the air. Nothing happened. Then Armstrong got back out of the car. The two agents got out with him and walked him over to the crazy guy on the ground. Armstrong squatted down. Rested his elbows on his knees. It looked like he was talking. Froelich left her motor running and joined him on the sidewalk. Raised her hand and spoke into her wrist microphone. After a long moment a Metro cruiser came around the corner and pulled up behind the Suburban. Armstrong stood up straight and watched the two agents with the guns put the guy in the back of the cop car. The cop car drove away and Froelich went back to her Suburban and Armstrong regrouped with his escort and walked on toward the Department of Labor. The helicopter drifted above them. As they finally crossed Louisiana Avenue one way Reacher crossed it the other and jogged down to Froelich in her car. She was sitting in the driver’s seat with her head turned to watch Armstrong walk away. Reacher tapped on the window and she whirled around in surprise. Saw who it was and buzzed the glass down.

"You OK?" he asked her.

She turned back again to watch Armstrong. "I must be nuts."

"Who was the guy?"

"Just some street person. We’ll follow it up, but I can tell you right now it’s not connected. No way. If that guy had sent the messages we’d still be smelling the bourbon on the paper. Armstrong wanted to talk to him. Said he felt sorry for him. And then he insisted on sticking with the walkabout. He’s nuts. And I’m nuts for allowing it."

"Is he going to walk back?"

"Probably. I need it to rain, Reacher. Why doesn’t it ever rain when you want it to? A real downpour an hour from now would help me out."

He glanced up at the sky. It was gray and cold, but all the clouds were high and unthreatening. It wasn’t going to rain.

"You should tell him," he said.

She shook her head and turned to face front. "We just don’t do that."

"Then you should get one of his staff to call him back in a hurry. Like something’s real urgent. Then he’d have to ride."

She shook her head again. "He’s running the transition. He sets the pace. Nothing’s urgent unless he says it is."

"So tell him it’s another rehearsal. A new tactic or something."

Froelich glanced across at him. "I guess I could do that. It’s still the pregame period. We’re entitled to rehearse with him. Maybe."

"Try it," he said. "The walk back is more dangerous than the walk there. There’ll be a couple hours for somebody to find out he’s going to do it."

"Get in," she said. "You look cold."

He walked around the Suburban’s hood and climbed in on the passenger side. Unzipped his jacket and held it open to allow the warm air from the heater to funnel up inside it. They sat and watched until Armstrong and his minders disappeared inside the Labor building. Froelich immediately called her office. Left instructions that she was to be informed before Armstrong moved again. Then she put the car in gear and took off south and west toward the East Wing of the National Gallery. She made a left and drove past the Capitol Building’s reflecting pool. Then a right onto Independence Avenue.

"Where are we going?" Reacher asked.

"Nowhere in particular," she said. "I’m just killing time. And trying to decide if I should resign today or keep on beating my brains out."

She drove past all the museums and made a left onto Fourteenth Street. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing rose up on their right, between them and the Tidal Basin. It was a big gray building. She pulled up at the curb opposite its main entrance. Kept the engine running and her foot on the brake. Gazed up at one of the high office windows.

"Joe spent time in there," she said. "Back when they were designing the new hundred-dollar bill. He figured if he was going to have to protect it, he should have some input on it. A long time ago, now."

Her head was tilted up. Reacher could see the curve of her throat. He could see the way it met the opening of her shirt. He said nothing.

"I used to meet him here sometimes," she said. "Or on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial. We’d walk around the Basin, late in the evening. In spring or summer."

Reacher looked ahead to his right. The memorial crouched low among the bare trees and was reflected perfectly in the still water.

"I loved him, you know," Froelich said.

Reacher said nothing. Just looked at her hand resting on the wheel. And her wrist. It was slim. The skin was perfect. There was a trace of a faded summer tan.

"And you’re very like him," she said.

"Where did he live?"

She glanced at him. "Don’t you know?"

"I don’t think he ever told me."

Silence in the idling car.

"He had an apartment in the Watergate," she said.

"Rented?"

She nodded. "It was very bare. Like it was only temporary."

"It would be. Reachers don’t own property. I don’t think we ever have."

"Your mother’s family did. They had estates in France."

"Did they?"

"You don’t know that either?"

He shrugged. "I know they were French, obviously. Not sure I ever heard about their real-estate situation."

Froelich eased her foot off the brake and glanced in the mirror and gunned the motor and rejoined the traffic stream.

"You guys had a weird idea of family," she said. "That’s for damn sure."

"Seemed normal at the time," he said. "We thought every family was like that."

Her cell phone rang. A low electronic trill in the quiet of the car. She flipped it open. Listened for a moment and said OK and closed it up.

"Neagley," she said. "She’s finished with the cleaners."

"She get anything?"

"Didn’t say. She’s meeting us back at the office."

She looped around south of the Mall and drove north on Fourteenth Street. Her phone rang again. She fumbled it open one-handed and listened as she drove. Said nothing and snapped it shut. Glanced at the traffic ahead on the street.

"Armstrong’s ready to get back," she said. "I’m going to go try and make him ride with me. I’ll drop you in the garage."