Without Fail

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."