Without Fail

Chapter 7

It was exactly two miles from the Treasury Building to the Senate Offices and Froelich drove the whole way one-handed while she talked on her phone. The weather was gray and the traffic was heavy and the trip was slow. She parked at the mouth of the white tent on First Street and killed the motor and snapped her phone closed all at the same time.
"Can't the Labor guys come over here?" Reacher asked.
She shook her head. "It's a political thing. There are going to be changes over there and it's more polite if Armstrong makes the effort himself."
"Why does he want to walk?"
"Because he's an outdoors type. He likes fresh air. And he's stubborn."
"Where does he have to go, exactly?"
She pointed due west. "Less than half a mile that way. Call it six or seven hundred yards across Capitol Plaza."
"Did he call them or did they call him?"
"He called them. It's going to leak so he's trying to preempt the bad news."
"Can you stop him going?"
"Theoretically," she said. "But I really don't want to. That's not the sort of argument I want to have right now."
Reacher turned and looked down the street behind them. Nothing there except gray weather and speeding cars on Constitution Avenue.
"So let him do it," he said. "He called them. Nobody's luring him out into the open. It's not a trick."
She glanced ahead through the windshield. Then she turned and stared past him, through his side window, down the length of the tent. Flipped her phone open and spoke to people in her office again. She used abbreviations and a torrent of jargon he couldn't follow. Finished the call and closed her phone.
"We'll bring a Metro traffic chopper in," she said. "Keep it low enough to be obvious. He'll have to pass the Armenian Embassy, so we'll put some extra cops there. They'll blend in. I'll follow him in the car on D Street fifty yards behind. I want you out ahead of him with your eyes wide open."
"When are we doing this?"
"Within ten minutes. Go up the street and left."
"OK," he said. She restarted the car and rolled forward so he could step onto the sidewalk clear of the tent. He got out and zipped his jacket and walked away into the cold. Up First Street and left onto C Street. There was traffic on Delaware Avenue ahead of him and beyond it he could see Capitol Plaza. There were low bare trees and open brown lawns. Paths made from crushed sandstone. A fountain in the center. A pool to the right. To the left and farther on, some kind of an obelisk memorial to somebody.
He dodged cars and ran across Delaware. Walked on into the plaza. Grit crunched under his shoes. It was very cold. His soles were thin. It felt like there were ice crystals mixed in with the crushed stone underfoot. He stopped just short of the fountain. Looked around. Perimeters were good. To the north was open ground and then a semicircle of state flags and some other monument and the bulk of Union Station. To the south was nothing except for the Capitol Building itself far away across Constitution Avenue. Ahead to the west was a building he assumed was the Department of Labor. He looped around the fountain with his eyes focused on the middle distance and saw nothing that worried him. Poor cover, no close windows. There were people in the park, but no assassin hangs around all day just in case somebody's schedule changes unexpectedly.
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."
She drove down the ramp and stopped long enough for Reacher to jump out. Then she turned around in the crowded space and headed back up to the street. Reacher found the door with the wired glass porthole and walked up the stairs to the lobby with the single elevator. Rode it to the third floor and found Neagley waiting in the reception area. She was sitting upright on a leather chair.
"Stuyvesant around?" Reacher asked her.
She shook her head. "He went next door. To the White House."
"I want to go look at that camera."
They walked together past the counter toward the rear of the floor and came out in the square area outside Stuyvesant's office. His secretary was at her desk with her purse open. She had a tiny tortoiseshell mirror and a stick of lip gloss in her hands. The pose made her look human. Efficient, for sure, but like an amiable old soul, too. She saw them coming and put her cosmetic equipment away fast, like she was embarrassed to be caught with it. Reacher looked over her head at the surveillance camera. Neagley looked at Stuyvesant's door. Then she glanced at the secretary.
"Do you remember the morning the message showed up in there?" she asked.
"Of course I do," the secretary said.
"Why did Mr. Stuyvesant leave his briefcase out here?"
The secretary thought for a moment. "Because it was a Thursday."
"What happens on a Thursday? Does he have an early meeting?"
"No, his wife goes to Baltimore, Tuesdays and Thursdays."
"How is that connected?"
"She volunteers at a hospital there."
Neagley looked straight at her. "How does that affect her husband's briefcase?"
"She drives," the secretary said. "She takes their car. They only have one. No department vehicle either, because Mr. Stuyvesant isn't operational anymore. So he has to come to work on the Metro."
Neagley looked blank. "The subway?"
The secretary nodded. "He has a special briefcase for Tuesdays and Thursdays because he's forced to place it on the floor of the subway car. He won't do that with his regular briefcase, because he thinks it gets dirty."
Neagley stood still. Reacher thought back to the videotapes, Stuyvesant leaving late on Wednesday evening, returning early on Thursday morning.
"I didn't notice a difference," he said. "Looked like the same case to me."
The secretary nodded in agreement.
"They're identical items," she said. "Same make, same vintage. He doesn't like for people to realize. But one is for his automobile and the other is for the subway car."
"Why?"
"He hates dirt. I think he's afraid of it. Tuesdays and Thursdays, he won't take his subway-car briefcase into his office at all. He leaves it out here all day and I have to bring him things from it. If it's been raining he leaves his shoes out here, too. Like his office was a Japanese temple."
Neagley glanced at Reacher. Made a face.
"It's a harmless eccentricity," the secretary said. Then she lowered her voice, as if she might be overheard all the way from the White House. "And absolutely unnecessary, in my opinion. The D.C. Metro is famous for being the cleanest subway in the world."
"OK," Neagley said. "But weird."
"It's harmless," the secretary said again.
Reacher lost interest and stepped behind her and looked at the fire door. It had a brushed-steel push bar at waist height, like the city construction codes no doubt required it to have. He put his fingers on it and it clicked back with silky precision. He pushed a little harder and it folded up against the painted wood and the door swung back. It was a heavy fireproof item and there were three large steel hinges carrying its weight. He stepped through to a small square stairwell. There were concrete stairs, newer than the stone fabric of the building. They ran up to the higher floors and down toward street level. They had steel handrails. There were dim emergency lights behind glass in wire cages. Clearly a narrow space had been appropriated in the back of the building during the modernization and dedicated to a full-bore fire escape system.
There was a regular knob on the back of the door that operated the same latch as the push bar. It had a keyhole, but it wasn't locked. It turned easily. Makes sense, he thought. The building was secure as a whole. They didn't need for every floor to be isolated as well. He let the door close behind him and waited in the gloom on the stairwell for a second. Turned the knob again and reopened the door and stepped back into the brightness of the secretarial area, one pace. Twisted and looked up at the surveillance camera. It was right there above his head, set so it would pick him up sometime during his second step. He inched forward and let the door close behind him. Checked the camera again. It would be seeing him by now. And he still had more than eight feet to go before he reached Stuyvesant's door.
"The cleaners put the message there," the secretary said. "There's no other possible explanation."
Then her phone rang and she excused herself politely and answered it. Reacher and Neagley walked back through the maze of corridors and found Froelich's office. It was quiet and dark and empty. Neagley flicked the halogen lights on and sat down at the desk. There was no other chair, so Reacher sat on the floor with his legs straight out and his back propped against the side of a file cabinet.
"Tell me about the cleaners," he said.
Neagley drummed a rhythm on the desk with her fingers. The click of her nails alternated with little papery thumps from the pads of her fingers.
"They're all lawyered up," she said. "The department sent them attorneys, one each. They're all Mirandized, too. Their human rights are fully protected. Wonderful, isn't it? The civilian world?"
"Terrific. What did they say?"
"Nothing much. They clammed up tight. Stubborn as hell. But worried as hell, too. They're looking at a rock and a hard place. Obviously very frightened about revealing who told them to put the paper there, and equally frightened about losing their jobs and maybe going to jail. They can't win. It wasn't attractive."
"You mention Stuyvesant's name?"
"Loud and clear. They know his name, obviously, but I'm not sure they know who he is, specifically. They're night workers. All they see is a bunch of offices. They don't see people. They didn't react to his name at all. They didn't really react to anything. Just sat there, scared to death, looking at their lawyers, saying nothing."
"You're slipping. People used to eat out of your hand, the way I recall it."
She nodded. "I told you, I'm getting old. I couldn't get a handle on them anywhere. The lawyers wouldn't let me, really. The civilian justice system is very off-putting. I never felt so disconnected."
Reacher said nothing. Checked his watch. "So what now?" Neagley asked.
"We wait," he said.
The wait went slowly. Froelich came back after an hour and a half and reported that Armstrong was safely back in his own office. She had persuaded him to come with her in the car. She told him she understood that he preferred to walk, but she made the point that her team needed operational fine-tuning and there was no better time to do it than right now. She pushed it to the point where a refusal would have seemed like a prima-donna pain in the ass, and Armstrong wasn't like that, so he climbed into the Suburban quite happily. The transfer through the tent at the Senate Offices had worked without incident.
"Now make some calls," Reacher said. "See if anything's happened that we need to know about."
She checked with the D.C. cops first. There was the usual list of urban crimes and misdemeanors, but it would have been a stretch to categorize any of them as a demonstration of Armstrong's vulnerability. She transferred to the precinct holding the crazy guy and took a long verbal report on his status. Hung up and shook her head.
"Not connected," she said. "They know him. IQ below eighty, alcoholic, sleeps on the street, barely literate, and his prints don't match. He's got a record a yard long for jumping on anybody he's ever seen in the newspapers he sleeps under. Some kind of a bipolar problem. I suggest we forget all about him."
"OK," Reacher said.
Then she opened up the National Crime Information Center database and looked at recent entries. They were flooding in from all over the country at a rate faster than one every second. Faster than she could read them.
"Hopeless," she said. "We'll have to wait until midnight."
"Or one o'clock," Neagley said. "It might happen on Central time, out there in Bismarck. They might shoot up his house. Or throw a rock through the window."
So Froelich called the cops in Bismarck and asked for immediate notification of anything that could be even remotely connected to an interest in Armstrong. Then she made the same request to the North Dakota State Police and the FBI nationwide.
"Maybe it won't happen," she said.
Reacher looked away. You better hope it does, he thought.
Around seven o'clock in the evening the office complex began to quiet down. Most of the people visible in the corridors were drifting one way only, toward the front exit. They were wearing raincoats and carrying bags and briefcases.
"Did you check out of the hotel?" Froelich asked.
"Yes," Reacher said.
"No," Neagley said. "I make a terrible houseguest."
Froelich paused a beat, a little taken aback. But Reacher wasn't surprised. Neagley was a very solitary person. Always had been. She kept herself to herself. He didn't know why.
"OK," Froelich said. "But we should take some time out. Rest up and regroup later. I'll drop you guys off and then go try to get Armstrong home safely."
They rode together down to the garage and Froelich fired up her Suburban and drove Neagley to the hotel. Reacher walked with her as far as the bell captain's stand and reclaimed his Atlantic City clothes. They were packed with his old shoes and his toothbrush and his razor, folded up inside a black garbage bag he had taken from a maid's cart. It didn't impress the bellboy. But he carried it out to the Suburban anyway and Reacher took it from him and gave him a dollar. Then he climbed back in alongside Froelich and she drove on. It was cold and dark and damp and the traffic was bad. There was congestion everywhere. Long lines of red brake lights streamed ahead of them, long lines of bright white headlights streamed toward them. They drove south across the Eleventh Street Bridge and fought through a maze of streets to Froelich's house. She double-parked with the motor running and fiddled behind the steering wheel and took her door key off its ring. Handed it to him.
"I'll be back in a couple of hours," she said. "Make yourself at home."
He took his bag and got out and watched her drive off. She made a right to loop back north over a different bridge and disappeared from sight. He crossed the sidewalk and unlocked her front door. The house was dark and warm. It had her perfume in it. He closed the door behind him and fumbled for a light switch. A low-wattage bulb came on inside a yellow shade on a lamp on a small chest of drawers. It gave a soft, muted light. He put the key down next to it and dropped his bag at the foot of the stairs and stepped into the living room. Switched on the light. Walked on into the kitchen. Looked around.
There were basement stairs behind a door. He stood still for a second with his ritual curiosity nagging at him. It was an ingrained reflex, like breathing. But was it polite to search your host's house? Just out of habit? Of course not. But he couldn't resist. He walked down the stairs, switching lights on as he went. The basement itself was a dark space walled with smooth old concrete. It had a furnace and a water softener in it. A washing machine and an electric dryer. Shelving units. Old suitcases. Plenty of miscellaneous junk stacked all around, but nothing of any great significance. He walked back up. Turned off the lights. Opposite the head of the stairs was an enclosed space right next to the kitchen. It was larger than a closet, smaller than a room. Maybe a pantry, originally. It had been fitted out as a tiny home office. There was a rolling chair and a desk and shelves, all of them a few years old. They looked like chain-store versions of real office furniture, with plenty of wear and tear on them. Maybe they were secondhand. There was a computer, fairly old. An inkjet printer connected to it with a fat cable. He moved back into the kitchen.
He looked at all the usual places women hide things in kitchens and found five hundred dollars in mixed bills inside an earthenware casserole on a high shelf inside a cupboard. Emergency cash. Maybe an old Y2K precaution that she decided to stick with afterward. He found an M9 Beretta nine-millimeter sidearm in a drawer, carefully hidden under a stack of place mats. It was old and scratched and stained with dried oil in random patches. Probably Army surplus, redistributed to another government department. Last-generation Secret Service issue, without a doubt. It was unloaded. The magazine was missing. He opened the next drawer to the left and put his hand on four spares laid out in a line under an oven glove. They were all loaded with standard jacketed cartridges. Good news and bad news. The layout was smart. Pick up the gun with your right hand, access the magazines with your left. Sound ergonomics. But storing magazines full of bullets was a bad idea. Leave them long enough, the spring in the magazine learns its compressed shape and won't function right. More jams are caused by tired magazine springs than any other single reason. Better to keep the gun with a single shell locked in the chamber and all the other bullets loose. You can fire once right-handed while you thumb loose shells into an empty magazine with your left. Slower than the ideal, but a lot better than pulling the trigger and hearing nothing at all except a dull click.
He closed the kitchen drawers and moved back into the living room. Nothing there, except a hollowed-out book on the shelves, and it was empty. He turned on the TV, and it worked. He had once known a guy who hid things inside a gutted TV set. The guy's quarters had been searched eight times before anybody thought to check that everything was exactly as it seemed.
There was nothing in the hallway. Nothing taped under the drawers in the little chest. Nothing in the bathrooms. Nothing of significance in the bedrooms except a shoe box under Froelich's bed. It was full of letters addressed in Joe's handwriting. He put them back without reading them. Went back downstairs and carried his garbage bag up to the guest room. Decided to wait an hour and then eat alone if she wasn't back. He would send for the hot and sour and the General Tso's again. It had been pretty good. He put his bathroom items next to the sink. Hung his Atlantic City clothes in the closet next to Joe's abandoned suits. He looked at them and stood still for a long moment and then selected one at random and pulled it off the rail.
The plastic wrap tore as he stripped it away. It was stiff and brittle. The label inside the suit coat had a single Italian word embroidered in fancy script. Not a brand he recognized. The material was some kind of fine wool. It was very dark gray and had a faint sheen to it. The lining was acetate made to look like dark red silk. Maybe it was silk. There was no vent in the back. He laid it on the bed and put the pants next to it. The pants were very plain. No pleats, no cuffs.
He went back to the closet and took out a shirt. Lifted the plastic off it. It was pure white broadcloth. No buttons on the collar. A small label inside the neckband with two names in copperplate script, too obscure to read. Somebody amp; Somebody. Either an exclusive London shirtmaker, or some sweatshop faking it. The fabric was hefty. Not thick like fatigues, but there was some weight to it.
He unlaced his shoes. Took off his jacket and jeans and folded them over a chair. Followed it with his T-shirt and his underwear. Stepped into the bathroom and set the shower running. Stepped into the stall. There was soap and shampoo in there. The soap was dried rock-hard and the shampoo bottle was stuck shut with old suds. Clearly Froelich didn't have frequent houseguests. He soaked the bottle under the stream of hot water and forced it open. Washed his hair and soaped his body. Leaned out and grabbed his razor and shaved carefully. Rinsed all over and got out and dripped on the floor and searched for a towel. He found one in a cupboard. It was thick and new. Too new to be any good at drying. It just slid the water around on his skin. He did his best with it and then wrapped it around his waist and combed his hair with his fingers.
He stepped back into the bedroom and picked up Joe's shirt. Hesitated a second, and then put it on. Flipped the collar up and buttoned it at the neck. Buttoned it down the front. Opened the closet door and checked the fit in the mirror. It was perfect, more or less. Could have been tailored for him. He buttoned the cuffs. Sleeve length was excellent. He twisted left and right. Caught sight of a shelf behind the rail. The space where the suit and the shirt had been let him see it. There were neckties neatly rolled and placed side by side. Tissue-paper packages from a laundry, sealed with sticky labels. He opened one and found a pile of clean white boxers. Opened another and found black socks folded together in pairs.
He moved back to the bed and dressed in his brother's clothes. Selected a dark maroon tie with a discreet pattern. British, like it represented a regimental association or one of those expensive high schools. He put it on and cracked the shirt collar down over it. Put on a pair of boxers and a pair of socks. Stepped into the suit pants. Shrugged into the jacket. He put his new shoes on and used the discarded tissue paper to scrub the scuffs off them. Stood up straight and walked back to the mirror. The suit fit very well. It was maybe a fraction long in the arms and legs, because he was a fraction shorter than Joe had been. And it was maybe a fraction tight, because he was a little heavier. But overall he looked very impressive in it. Like a completely different person. Older. More authoritative. More serious. More like Joe.
He bent down and picked up the cardboard box. It was heavy. Then he heard a sound down in the hallway. Somebody out on the step, knocking on the front door. He put the box back on the closet floor and headed down the stairs. Opened up. It was Froelich. She was standing in the evening mist with her hand raised ready to knock again. Light from the street behind her put her face in shadow.
"I gave you my key," she said.
He stepped back and she stepped in. Looked up and froze. She fumbled behind her back and pushed the door shut and leaned hard up against it. Just stared at him. Something in her eyes. Shock, fear, panic, loss, he didn't know.
"What?" he said.
"I thought you were Joe," she said. "Just for a second."
Her eyes filled with tears and she laid her head back against the wood of the door. She blinked against the tears and looked at him again and started crying hard. He stood still for a second and then stepped forward and took her in his arms. She dropped her purse and burrowed into his chest.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I tried on his suit."
She said nothing. Just cried.
"Stupid, I guess," he said.
She moved her head, but he couldn't tell if she was saying yes, it was or no, it wasn't. She locked her arms around his body and just held on. He put one hand low on her back and used the other to smooth her hair. He held her like that for minutes. She fought the tears and then gulped twice and pulled away. Swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Not your fault," she said.
He said nothing.
"You looked so real. I bought him that tie."
"I should have thought," Reacher said.
She ducked down to her purse and came back with a tissue. Blew her nose and smoothed her hair.
"Oh, God," she said.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"Don't worry," she said. "I'll be OK."
He said nothing.
"You looked so good, is all," she said. "Just standing there."
She was staring at him quite openly. Then she reached out and straightened his tie. Touched a spot on his shirt where her tears had dampened it. Ran her fingers behind the lapels of his jacket. Stepped forward on tiptoe and locked her hands behind his neck and kissed him on the mouth.
"So good," she said, and kissed him again, hard.
He held still for a second and then kissed her back. Hard. Her mouth was cool. Her tongue was swift. She tasted faintly of lipstick. Her teeth were small and smooth. He could smell perfume on her skin and in her hair. He put one hand low on her side and the other behind her head. He could feel her breasts against his chest. Her ribs, yielding slightly under his hand. Her hair, between his fingers. Her hand was cold and urgent on the back of his neck. Her fingers were raking upward into the stubble from his haircut. He could feel her nails on his skin. He slid his hand up her back. Then she stopped moving. Held still. Pulled away. She was breathing heavily. Her eyes were closed. She touched the back of her hand to her mouth.
"We shouldn't do this," she said.
He looked at her.
"Probably not," he said.
She opened her eyes. Said nothing.
"So what should we do?" he asked.
She moved sideways and stepped into her living room.
"I don't know," she said. "Eat dinner, I guess. Did you wait?"
He followed her into the room.
"Yes," he said. "I waited."
"You're very like him," she said.
"I know," he said.
"Do you understand what I mean?"
He nodded. "What you saw in him you see in me, a little bit."
"But are you like him?"
He knew exactly what she was asking. Did you see things the same? Did you share tastes? Were you attracted to the same women?
"Like I told you," he said. "There are similarities. And there are differences."
"That's no answer."
"He's dead," Reacher said. "That's an answer."
"And if he wasn't?"
"Then a lot of things would be different."
"Suppose I'd never known him. Suppose I'd gotten your name some other way."
"Then I might not be here at all."
"Suppose you were anyway."
He looked at her. Took a deep breath, and held it, and let it out.
"Then I doubt if we'd be standing here talking about dinner," he said.
"Maybe you wouldn't be a substitute," she said. "Maybe you'd be the real thing and Joe was the substitute."
He said nothing.
"This is too weird," she said. "We can't do this."
"No," he said. "We can't."
"It was a long time ago," she said. "Six years."
"Is Armstrong OK?"
"Yes," she said. "He's OK."
Reacher said nothing.
"We broke up, remember?" she said. "A year before he died. It's not like I'm his tragic widow or something."
Reacher said nothing.
"And it's not like you're really his grieving brother either," she said. "You hardly knew him."
"Mad at me about that?"
She nodded. "He was a lonely man. He needed somebody. So I'm a little mad about it."
"Not half as much as I am."
She said nothing in reply. Just moved her wrist and checked her watch. It was a strange gesture, so he checked his, too. The second hand hit nine-thirty exactly. Her cell phone rang inside her open purse out in the hallway. It was loud in the silence.
"My people checking in," she said. "From Armstrong's house."
She stepped back to the hallway and bent down and answered the call. Hung up without comment.
"All quiet," she said. "I told them to call every hour."
He nodded. She looked anywhere but straight at him. The moment was gone.
"Chinese again?" she asked.
"Suits me," he said. "Same order."
She called it in from the kitchen phone and disappeared upstairs to take a shower. He waited in the living room and took the food from the delivery guy when he eventually showed up with it. She came down again and they ate across from each other at the kitchen table. She brewed coffee and they drank two cups each slowly, not talking. Her cell phone rang again at exactly ten-thirty. She had it next to her at the table and answered it immediately. Just a short message.
"All quiet," she said. "So far, so good."
"Stop worrying," he said. "It would take an air strike to get him in his house."
She smiled suddenly. "Remember Harry Truman?"
"My favorite president," Reacher said. "From what I know about him."
"Ours, too," she said. "From what we know about him. One time around 1950 the White House residence was being renovated and he was living in Blair House across Pennsylvania Avenue. Two men came to kill him. One was taken out by the cops on the street, but the other made it to the door. Our people had to pull Truman off the assassin. He said he was going to take his gun away and stick it up his ass."
"Truman was like that."
"You bet he was. You should hear some of the old stories."
"Would Armstrong be like that?"
"Maybe. Depends how the moment struck him, I guess. He's pretty gentle physically, but he's not a coward. And I've seen him very angry."
"And he looks tough enough."
Froelich nodded. Checked her watch. "We should get back to the office now. See if anything's happened anyplace else. You call Neagley while I clear up here. Tell her to be ready to roll in twenty minutes."
They were back in the office before eleven-fifteen. The message logs were blank. Nothing of significance from the D.C. police department. Nothing from North Dakota, nothing from the FBI. Updates were still streaming into the National Crime Information Center's database. Froelich started combing through the day's reports. She found nothing of interest. Her cell phone rang at eleven-thirty. All was quiet and peaceful in Georgetown. She turned back to the computer. Nothing doing. Time ticked around to midnight. Monday finished and Tuesday started. Stuyvesant showed up again. He just appeared in the doorway like he had before. Said nothing. The only chair in the room was Froelich's own. Stuyvesant leaned against the door frame. Reacher sat on the floor. Neagley perched on a file cabinet.
Froelich waited ten minutes and called the D.C. cops. They had nothing to report. She called the Hoover Building and the FBI told her nothing significant had happened before midnight in the East. She turned back to the computer screen. Called out occasional incoming stories but neither Stuyvesant nor Reacher nor Neagley could twist them into any kind of a connection with a potential threat to Armstrong. The clock moved on to one in the morning. Midnight, Central time. She called the police department in Bismarck. They had nothing for her. She called the North Dakota State Police. Nothing at all. She tried the FBI again. Nothing reported from their field offices in the last sixty minutes. She put the phone down and scooted her chair back from her desk. Breathed out.
"Well, that's it," she said. "Nothing happened."
"Excellent," Stuyvesant said.
"No," Reacher said. "Not excellent. Not excellent at all. It's the worst possible news we could have gotten."