nothing at all to them, but something that meant a lot to you.’ Armstrong said nothing.
‘I think it came first,’ Reacher said. ‘Right at the very
beginning, maybe, before the Secret Service even caught on.
I think it was like an announcement, that only you would
understand. So I think you’ve known about all this all along. I
think you know who’s doing it, and I think you know why.’
‘People have died,’ Armstrong said. Fhat’s a hell of an
accusation.’
‘Do you deny it?’
Armstrong said nothing.
Reacher leaned forward. ‘Some crucial words were never
spoken,’ he said. ing is, if I was standing there serving
turkey and then somebody started shooting and somebody else
was suddenly bleeding to death on top of me, sooner or later I’d
be asking, who the hell were they? What the hell did they want? Why the hell were they doing that? Those are fairly basic
questions. I’d be asking them loud and clear, believe me. But
337
you didn’t ask them. We saw you twice, afterwards. In the White
House basement, and then later at the office. You said all kinds
of things. You asked, had they been captured yet? That was
your big concern. You never asked who they might be or what
their possible motive was. And why didn’t you ask? Only one
possible explanation. You already knew.’
Armstrong said nothing.
‘I think your wife knows, too,’ Reacher said. ‘You conveyed
her anger at you for putting people at risk. I don’t think she was
generalizing. I think she knows you know, and she thinks you
should have told somebody.’
Armstrong was silent.
‘So I think you’re feeling a little guilty now,’ Reacher said. ‘I
think that’s why you agreed to make the television statement
for me and that’s why you suddenly want to go to the service
itself. Some kind of a conscience thing. Because you knew, and
you didn’t tell anybody.’
‘I’m a politician,’ Armstrong said. ‘We have hundreds of
enemies. There was no point in speculating.’
‘Bullshit,’ Reacher said. qhis isn’t political. This is personal.
Your kind of political enemy is some North Dakota soybean
grower you made ten cents a week poorer by altering a subsidy.
Or some pompous old senator you declined to vote with. The
soybean grower might make a half-hearted effort against you at
election time and the senator might bide his time and screw you
on some big floor issue but neither one of them is going to do
what these guys are doing.’
Armstrong said nothing.
‘I’m not a fool,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m an angry man who watched
a woman I was fond of bleed to death.’
‘I’m not a fool either,’ Armstrong said.
‘I think you are. Something’s coming back at you from the
past and you think you can just ignore it and hope for the
best? Didn’t you realize it would happen? You people have no
perspective. You thought you were world famous already just
because you were in the House and the Senate? Well, you
weren’t. Real people never heard of you until the campaign this
summer. You thought all your little secrets were already out?
Well, they weren’t, either.’
338
Armstrong said nothing.
‘Who are they?’ Reacher asked.
Armstrong shrugged. ‘Your guess?’
Reacher paused.
‘I think you’ve got a temper problem,’ he said. ‘Same as your
dad. I think way back before you learned to control it you made
people suffer, and some of them forgot about it, but some of
them didn’t. I think it’s a part of some particular person’s life
that somebody once did something bad to them. Maybe hurt
them, or hurt their self-esteem, or screwed them up in some
other kind of a big way. I think that particular person repressed
it deep down inside until they turned on the TV one day and
saw your face for the first time in thirty years.’
Armstrong sat still for a long moment.
‘How far along is the FBI with this?’ he asked.
I’hey’re nowhere. They’re out beating the bushes for people
that don’t exist. We’re way ahead of them.’
‘And what are your intentions?’
‘I’m going to help you,’ Reacher said. ‘Not that you deserve it