Child, Lee – Without Fail

works. They were in the business. They’ll have understood his

statement was a trap. So they won’t show up.’

Reacher nodded. ‘Won’t be the first trip I ever wasted.’

‘I’m warning you against independent action.’

I’here won’t be any action, according to you.’

Bannon nodded. ‘Ballistics tests are in,’ he said. The rifle we

found in the warehouse is definitely the same gun that fired the

Minnesota bullet.’

‘So how did it get here?’ Stuyvesant asked.

‘We burned more than a hundred man-hours last night,’

Bannon said. ‘All I can tell you for sure is how it didn’t get here.

It didn’t fly in. We checked all commercial arrivals into eight

airports and there were no firearms manifests at all. Then we

traced all private planes into the same eight airports. Nothing

even remotely suspicious.’

‘So they drove it in?’ Reacher said.

Bannon nodded. ‘But Bismarck to D.C. is more than thirteen

hundred miles. That’s more than twenty hours absolute

minimum, even driving like a lunatic. Impossible, in the time

frame. So the rifle was never in Bismarck. It came in direct from

Minnesota, which was a little more than eleven hundred miles

in forty-eight hours. Your grandmothercould do that.’

‘My grandmother couldn’t drive,’ Reacher said. ‘Still figuring

on three guys?’

Bannon shook his head. ‘No, on reflection we’re sticking at

two. The whole thing profiles better that way. We figure the

team was split one and one between Minnesota and Colorado

327

on Tuesday and it stayed split afterwards. The guy pretending

to be the Bismarck cop was acting solo at the church. We figure

he had the sub-machine gun only. Which makes sense, because

he knew Armstrong was going to be buried in agents as soon as

the decoy rifle was discovered. And a sub-machine gun is better

than a rifle against a cluster of people. Especially an H&K MP5.

Our people say it’s as accurate as a rifle at a hundred yards

and a lot more powerful. Thirty-round magazines, he would

have chewed through six agents and gotten to Armstrong easy

enough.’

‘So why was the other guy bothering to drive here at the

time?’ Stuyvesant asked.

‘Because these are your people,’ Bannon said. qhey’re realistic

professionals. They knew the odds. They knew they couldn’t

guarantee a hit in any one particular place. So they went through

Armstrong’s schedule and planned to leapfrog ahead of each

other to cover all the bases.’

Stuyvesant said nothing.

‘But they were together yesterday,’ Reacher said. ‘You’re

saying the first guy drove the Vaime here and I saw the guy

from Bismarck on the warehouse roof.’

Bannon nodded. ‘No more leapfrogging, because yesterday

was the last good opportunity for a spell. The Bismarck guy

must have flown in, commercial, not long after the air force

brought you back.’

‘So where’s the H&K? He must have abandoned it in

Bismarck somewhere between the church and the airport. You

find it?’

‘No,’ Bannon said. ‘But we’re still looking.’

‘And who was the guy the State trooper saw in the subdivision?’

‘We’re discounting him. Almost certainly just a civilian.’

Reacher shook his head. ‘So this solo guy hid the decoy rifle

and legged it back to thee church with the H&K all by himself?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘Have you ever hidden out and lined up to shoot a man?’

‘No,’ Bannon said.

‘I have,’ Reacher said. ‘And it’s not a lot of fun. You need to be

comfortable, and relaxed, and alert. It’s a muscle thing. You get

328

there well ahead of time, you settle in, you adjust your position,

you figure out your range, you check the wind, you assess the

angle of elevation or depression, you calculate the bullet drop.

Then you lie there, staring through the sight. You get your

breathing slow, you let your heart rate drop. And you know

what you want at that point, more than anything else in the

whole world?’

‘What?’

‘You want somebody you trust watching your back. All of

your concentration is out there in front Of you, and you start

to feel an itch in your spine. If these guys are realistic professionals

like you say they are, then no way would one of them

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