Child, Lee – Without Fail

the room. Came back three minutes later with a file folder. He

opened it up and laid the six official FBI photographs in a neat

line down the centre of the table. He was still wearing his pink

sweater. The bright colour was reflected in the glossy surfaces of the eight-by-tens as he leaned over them. Neagley moved

round the table and all three of them sat side by side so they

could read the messages the right way up.

‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Examine them. Everything about

them. And remember why you’re doing it. You’re doing it for

Froelich.’

The line of photographs was four feet long,, and they had to

stand up and shuffle left to right along the table to inspect them

all.

You are going to die.

281

Vice-President-elect Armstrong is going to die.

The day upon which Armstrong will die is fast approaching.

A demonstration of your vulnerability will be staged today.

Did you like the demonstration?

It’s going to happen soon. ‘So?’ Stuyvesant asked.

‘Look at the fourth message,’ Reacher said. ‘Vulnerability is

correctly spelled.’

‘So?’

q’hat’s a big word. And look at the last message. The

apostrophe in it’s is correct. Lots of people get that wrong, you

know, it’s and its. There are periods at the ends, except for the

question mark.’

‘So?’

qhe messages are reasonably literate.’

‘OK.’

‘Now look at the third message.’

‘What about it?’

‘Neagley?’ Reacher asked.

‘It’s a little fancy,’ she said. ‘A little awkward and old

fashioned. The upon which thing. And the fast approaching.’ ‘Exactly,’ Reacher said. ‘A little archaic.’

‘But what does all this prove?’ Stuyvesant asked.

‘Nothing, really,’ Reacher said. ‘But it suggests something.

Have you ever read the Constitution?’

‘Of what? The United States?’

‘Sure.’

‘I guess I’ve read it,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘A long time ago,

probably.’

The too,’ Reacher said. ‘Some school I was at gave us a copy

each. It was a thin little book, thick cardboard covers. Very

narrow when it was shut. The edges were hard. We used to

karate-chop each other with it. Hurt like hell.’

‘So?’

‘It’s a legal document, basically. Historical, too, of course, but

it’s fundamentally legal. So when somebody prints it up as

a book, they can’t mess with it. They have to reproduce it

exactly word for word, otherwise it wouldn’t be valid. They can’t

modernize the language, they can’t clean it up.’

282

‘Obviously not.’

¢I’he early parts are from 1787. The last amendment in my

copy was the twenty-sixth, from 1971, lowering the voting age

to eighteen. A span of a hundred and eighty-four years. With

everything reproduced exactly like it was written down at the

particular time.’

‘So?’

‘One thing I remember is that in the first part, Vice President is written without a hyphen between the two words. Same in

the latest part. No hyphen. But in the siuff that was written

in the middle period, there is a hyphen. It’s Vice-President with a

hyphen between the words. $o clearly from about the 1860s up

to maybe the 1930s it was considered correct usage to have a

hyphen there.’

¢Fhese guys use a hyphen,’ Stuyvesant said.

¢Fhey sure do,’ Reacher said. ‘Right there in the second

message.’

‘So what does that mean?’

ff’wo things,’ Reacher said. ‘We know they paid attention in

class, because they’re reasonably literate. So the first thing it

means is that they went to school someplace where they used

old textbooks and old style manuals that were way out of date.

Which explains the third message’s archaic feel, maybe. And

which is why I figured they might be from a poor rural area

with low school taxes. Second thing it means is they never

worked for the Secret Service. t3ecause you guys are buried in

paperwork. I’ve never seen anything like it, even in the army.

Anybody who worked here would have written Vice President a million times over in their career. All with the modern usage

without the hyphen. They would have gotten totally used to it

that way.’

There was quiet for a moment.

‘Maybe the other guy wrote it,’ Stuyvesant said. “The one who

didn’t work here. The one with the thumbprint.’

‘Makes no difference,’ Reacher said. ‘Like Bannon figured,

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