Without Fail

"Upside?" Stuyvesant asked.

"Extensive," Froelich said. "Much better crowd security. Nobody can pull a weapon before they get near Armstrong, because they’re filtering through an agent screen the whole time until they’re right across the table from him. Whereupon if they wait to do it at that point, he’s got four agents right alongside him."

"Downside?"

"Limited. We’ll be screened on three sides by walls. But the yard is open at the front. There’s a block of five-story buildings directly across the street. Old warehousing. The windows are boarded, which is a huge bonus. But we’ll need to put an agent on every roof. So we’ll have to forget the budget."

Stuyvesant nodded. "We can do that. Good plan."

"The weather helped us for once," Froelich said.

"Is this basically a conventional plan?" Bannon asked. "Like normal Secret Service thinking?"

"I don’t really want to comment on that," Froelich said. "Secret Service doesn’t discuss procedure."

"Work with me, ma’am," Bannon said. "We’re all on the same side here."

"You can tell him," Stuyvesant said. "We’re already in hip-deep."

Froelich shrugged.

"OK," she said. "I guess it’s a conventional plan. Place like that, we’re pretty limited for options. Why are you asking?"

"Because we’ve done a lot of work on this," Bannon said. "A lot of thinking."

"And?" Stuyvesant said.

"We’re looking at four specific factors here. First, this all started seventeen days ago, correct?"

Stuyvesant nodded.

"And who’s hurting?" Bannon asked. "That’s the first question. Second, think about the demonstration homicides out in Minnesota and Colorado. How were you alerted? That’s the second question. Third, what were the weapons used out there? And fourth, how did the last message end up on Ms. Froelich’s hallway floor?"

"What are you saying?"

"I’m saying all four factors point in one single direction."

"What direction?"

"What’s the purpose behind the messages?"

"They’re threats," Froelich said.

"Who are they threatening?"

"Armstrong, of course."

"Are they? Some were addressed to you, and some were addressed to him. But has he seen any of them? Even the ones addressed directly to him? Does he even know anything about them?"

"We never tell our protectees. That’s policy, always has been."

"So Armstrong’s not sweating, is he? Who’s sweating?"

"We are."

"So are the messages really aimed at Armstrong, or are they really aimed at the United States Secret Service? In a real-world sense?"

Froelich said nothing.

"OK," Bannon said. "Now think about Minnesota and Colorado. Hell of a demonstration. Not easy to stage. Whoever you are, shooting people down takes nerve and skill and care and thought and preparation. Not easy. Not something you undertake lightly. But they undertook it, because they had some kind of point to make. Then what did they do? How did they tip you off? How did they tell you where to look?"

"They didn’t."

"Exactly," Bannon said. "They went to all that trouble, took all that risk, and then they sat back and did nothing at all. They just waited. And sure enough, the NCIC reports were filed by the local police departments, and the FBI computers scanned through NCIC like they’re programmed to do, and they spotted the word Armstrong like they’re programmed to do, and we called you with the good news."

"So?"

"So tell me, how many Joe Publics would know all that would happen? How many Joe Publics would sit back and take the risk that their little drama would go unconnected for a day or two until you read about it in the newspapers?"

"So what are you saying? Who are they?"

"What weapons did they use?"

"An H amp;K MP5SD6 and a Vaime Mk2," Reacher said.

"Fairly esoteric weapons," Bannon said. "And not legally available for sale to the public, because they’re silenced. Only government agencies can buy them. And only one government agency buys both of them."

"Us," Stuyvesant said, quietly.

"Yes, you," Bannon said. "And finally, I looked for Ms. Froelich’s name in the phone book. And you know what? She’s not there. She’s unlisted. Certainly there was no boxed ad saying, ‘I’m a Secret Service crew chief and this is where I live.’ So how did these guys know where to deliver the last message?"

There was a long silence.

"They know me," Froelich said, quietly.

Bannon nodded. "I’m sorry, folks, but as of now the FBI is looking for Secret Service people. Not current employees, because current employees would have been aware of the early arrival of the demonstration threat and would have acted a day sooner. So we’re focusing on recent ex-employees who still know the ropes. People who knew you wouldn’t tell Armstrong himself. People who knew Ms. Froelich. People who knew Nendick, too, and where to find him. Maybe people who left under a cloud and are carrying some kind of grudge. Against the Secret Service, not against Brook Armstrong. Because our theory is that Armstrong is a means, not an end. They’ll waste a Vice President-elect just to get at you, exactly like they wasted the other two Armstrongs."

The room was silent.

"What would be the motive?" Froelich asked.

Bannon made a face. "Embittered ex-employees are walking, talking, living, breathing motives. We all know that. We’ve all suffered from it."

"What about the thumbprint?" Stuyvesant said. "All our people are printed. Always have been."

"Our assumption is that we’re talking about two guys. Our assessment is that the thumbprint guy is an unknown associate of somebody who used to work here, who is the latex gloves guy. So we’re saying they and them purely as a convenience. We’re not saying they both worked here. We’re not suggesting you’ve got two renegades."

"Just one renegade."

"That’s our theory," Bannon said. "But saying they and them is useful and instructive, too, because they’re a team. We need to look at them as a single unit. Because they share information. Therefore what I’m saying is, only one of them worked here, but they both know your secrets."

"This is a very big department," Stuyvesant said. "Big turnover of people. Some quit. Some are fired. Some retire. Some get asked to."

"We’re checking now," Bannon said. "We’re getting personnel lists direct from Treasury. We’re going back five years."

"You’ll get a long list."

"We’ve got the manpower."

Nobody spoke.

"I’m real sorry, people," Bannon said. "Nobody likes to hear their problem is close to home. But it’s the only conclusion there is. And it’s not good news for days like today. These people are here in town right now and they know exactly what you’re thinking and exactly what you’re doing. So my advice is to cancel. And if you’re not going to cancel, then my advice is to take a great deal of care."

Stuyvesant nodded in the silence.

"We will," he said. "You can count on that."

"My people will be in place two hours in advance," Bannon said.

"Ours will be in place an hour before that," Froelich replied.

Bannon smiled a tight little smile and pushed back his chair and stood up.

"See you there," he said.

He left the room and closed the door behind him, firmly, but quietly.

Stuyvesant checked his watch. "Well?"

They had sat quiet for a moment, and then strolled out to the reception area and got coffee. Then they regrouped in the conference room, in the same seats, each of them looking at the place Bannon had vacated like he was still there.

"Well?" Stuyvesant said again.

Nobody spoke.

"Inevitable, I guess," Stuyvesant said. "They can’t pin the thumbprint guy on us, but the other one is definitely one of ours. It’ll be all smiles over at the Hoover Building. They’ll be grinning from ear to ear. Laughing up their sleeves at us."

"But does that make them wrong?" Neagley asked.

"No," Froelich said. "These guys know where I live. So I think Bannon’s right."

Stuyvesant flinched, like the umpire had called strike one.

"And you?" he said to Neagley.

"Worrying about DNA on envelopes sounds like insiders," Neagley said. "But one thing bothers me. If they’re familiar with your procedures, then they didn’t interpret the Bismarck situation very well. They expected the cops would move toward the decoy rifle and Armstrong would move toward the cars, thereby traversing their field of fire. But that didn’t happen. Armstrong waited in the blind spot and the cars came to him."

Froelich shook her head.

"No, I’m afraid their interpretation was correct," she said. "Normally Armstrong would have been well out in the middle of the field, letting people get a good look at him. Right there in the center of things. We don’t usually make them skulk around the edges. It was a last-minute change to keep him near the church. Based on Reacher’s input. And normally there’s absolutely no way I would allow a rear-wheel-drive limo on the grass. Too easy to bog down and get stuck. That’s an article of faith. But I knew the ground was dry and hard. It was practically frozen. So I improvised. That maneuver would have struck an insider as completely off the wall. It would have been the very last thing they were expecting. They would have been totally surprised by it."