Without Fail

"Because I had no idea it was serious," he said. "I really didn’t, I promise you, on my daughter’s life. Don’t you see? I just thought it was supposed to remind me or unsettle me. I wondered whether maybe in their minds they still thought I was in the wrong back then, and it was supposed to be a threat of political embarrassment or exposure or something. Obviously I wasn’t worried about that because I wasn’t in the wrong back then. Everybody would understand that. And I couldn’t see any other logical reason for sending it. I was thirty years older, so were they. I’m a rational adult, I assumed they were. So I thought it was maybe just an unpleasant joke. I didn’t conceive of any danger in it. I absolutely promise you that. I mean, why would I? So it unsettled me for an hour, and then I dropped it. Maybe I half-expected some kind of lame follow-up, but I figured I’d deal with that when it happened. But there was no follow-up. It didn’t happen. Not as far as I knew. Because nobody told me. Until now. Until you told me. And according to Stuyvesant you shouldn’t be telling me even now. And people have suffered and died. Christ, why did he keep me out of the loop? I could have given him the whole story if he’d just asked."

Nobody spoke.

"So you’re right and you’re wrong," he said. "I knew who and why, but I didn’t know all along. I didn’t know the middle. I knew the beginning, and I knew the end. I knew as soon as the shooting started, believe me. I mean, I just knew. It was an unbelievable shock, out of the blue. Like, this is the follow-up? It was an insane development. It was like half-expecting a rotten tomato to be thrown at me one day and getting a nuclear missile instead. I thought the world had gone mad. You want to blame me for not speaking out, OK, go ahead and blame me, but how could I have known? How could I have predicted this kind of insanity?"

Silence for a beat.

"So that’s my guilty secret," Armstrong said. "Not that I did anything wrong thirty years ago. But that I didn’t have the right kind of imagination to see the implications of the package three weeks ago."

Nobody spoke.

"Should I tell Stuyvesant now?" Armstrong asked.

"Your choice," Reacher said.

There was a long pause. Armstrong the man faded away again, and Armstrong the politician came back to replace him.

"I don’t want to tell him," he said. "Bad for him, bad for me. People have suffered and died. It’ll be seen as a serious misjudgment on both our parts. He should have asked, I should have told."

Reacher nodded. "So leave it to us. You’ll know our secret and we’ll know yours."

"And we’ll all live happily ever after."

"Well, we’ll all live," Reacher said.

"Descriptions?" Neagley asked.

"Just kids," Armstrong said. "Maybe my age. I only remember their eyes."

"What’s the name of the town?"

"Underwood, Oregon," Armstrong said. "Where my mother still lives. Where I’m going in an hour."

"And these kids were from the area?"

Armstrong glanced at Reacher. "And you predicted they’ll go home to wait."

"Yes," Reacher said. "I did."

"And I’m heading right there."

"Don’t worry about it," Reacher said. "That theory is way out of date now. I assume they expected you’d remember them, and I assume they didn’t anticipate the communication breakdown between yourself and the Secret Service. And they wouldn’t want you to be able to lead them right to their door. Therefore their door has changed. They don’t live in Oregon anymore. That’s one thing we can be absolutely sure of."

"So how are you going to find them?"

Reacher shook his head. "We can’t find them. Not now. Not in time. They’ll have to find us. In Wyoming. At the memorial service."

"I’m going there too. With minimal cover."

"So just hope it’s all over before you arrive."

"Should I tell Stuyvesant?" Armstrong asked again.

"Your choice," Reacher said again.

"I can’t cancel the appearance. That wouldn’t be right."

"No," Reacher said. "I guess it wouldn’t."

"I can’t tell Stuyvesant now."

"No," Reacher said. "I guess you can’t."

Armstrong said nothing. Reacher stood up to leave, and Neagley did the same.

"One last thing," Reacher said. "We think these guys grew up to be cops."

Armstrong sat still. He started to shake his head, but then he stopped and looked down at the desk. His face clouded, like he was hearing a faint thirty-year-old echo.

"Something during the beating," he said. "I only half-heard it, and I’m sure I discounted it at the time. But I think at one point they claimed their dad was a cop. They said he could get us in big trouble."

Reacher said nothing.

The protection agents showed them out. They walked the length of the canvas tent and stepped off the curb into the street. Turned east and got back on the sidewalk and settled in for the trek to the subway. It was late morning and the air was clear and cold. The neighborhood was deserted. Nobody was out walking. Neagley opened the envelope Stuyvesant had given her. It contained a check for five thousand dollars. The memo line was written up as professional consultation. Reacher’s envelope contained two checks. One was for the same five-grand fee and the other was for his audit expenses, repaid to the exact penny.

"We should go shopping," Neagley said. "We can’t go hunting in Wyoming dressed like this."

"I don’t want you to come with me," Reacher said.

Chapter 17

They had the argument right there on the street as they walked through Georgetown.

"Worried about my safety?" Neagley asked. "Because you shouldn’t be. Nothing’s going to happen to me. I can look after myself. And I can make my own decisions."

"I’m not worried about your safety," Reacher said.

"What then? My performance? I’m way better than you."

"I know you are."

"So what’s your problem?"

"Your license. You’ve got something to lose."

Neagley said nothing.

"You’ve got a license, right?" Reacher said. "To be in the business you’re in? And you’ve got an office and a job and a home and a fixed location. I’m going to disappear after this. You can’t do that."

"Think we’re going to get caught?"

"I can afford to take the risk. You can’t."

"There’s no risk if we don’t get caught."

Now Reacher said nothing.

"It’s like you told Bannon," she said. "I’m lying there lined up on these guys, I’m going to get an itch in my spine. I need you to watch my back."

"This isn’t your fight."

"Why is it yours? Because some woman your brother once dumped got herself killed doing her job? That’s tenuous."

Reacher said nothing.

"OK, it’s your fight," Neagley said. "I know that. But whatever thing you’ve got in your head that makes it your fight makes it my fight too. Because I’ve got the same thing in my head. And even if we didn’t think the same, if I had a problem, wouldn’t you help me out?"

"I would if you asked."

"So we’re even."

"Except I’m not asking."

"Not right now. But you will be. You’re two thousand miles from Wyoming and you don’t have a credit card to buy a plane ticket with, and I do. You’re armed with a folding knife with a three-inch blade and I know a guy in Denver who will give us any weapons we want, no questions asked, and you don’t. I can rent a car in Denver to get us the rest of the way, and you can’t."

They walked on, twenty yards, thirty.

"OK," Reacher said. "I’m asking."

"We’ll get the clothes in Denver," she said. "I know some good places."

They made it to Denver before three in the afternoon Mountain Time. The high plains lay all around them, tan and dormant. The air was thin and bitter cold. There was no snow yet, but it was coming. The runway plows were lined up and ready. The snowdrift fences were prepared. The car rental companies had shipped their sedans south and brought in plenty of new four-wheel-drives. Neagley signed for a GMC Yukon at the Avis counter. They shuttled to the lot and picked it up. It was black and shiny and looked a lot like Froelich’s Suburban except it was two feet shorter.

They drove it into the city. It was a long, long way. Space seemed infinitely available even after D.C., which wasn’t the most crowded place in the East. They parked in a downtown garage and walked three blocks and Neagley found the store she was looking for. It was an all-purpose outdoor equipment place. It had everything from boots and compasses to zinc stuff designed to stop you getting sunburn on your nose. They bought a bird-watcher’s spotting scope and a hiker’s large-scale map of central Wyoming and then they moved to the clothing racks. They were full of the kind of stuff you could use halfway up the Rockies and then wear around town without looking like a complete idiot. Neagley went for a walker’s heavy-duty outfit in greens and browns. Reacher duplicated his Atlantic City purchases at twice the price and twice the quality. This time he added a hat, and a pair of gloves. He dressed in the changing cubicle. Left Joe’s last surviving suit stuffed in the garbage can.

Neagley found a pay phone on the street and stopped in the cold long enough to make a short call. Then they went back to the truck and she drove it out of the garage and through the city center toward the dubious part of town. There was a strong smell of dog food in the air.