first picture. It was a low-angle shot of Armstrong standing
outside the Stock Exchange with the carved lintel inscription
floating like a halo over his head.
‘Neagley’s,’ Reacher said. ‘Good picture, I thought. Maybe
we should sell it to a magazine, defray some of the twenty
grand.’
He stepped back to the bed and sat down and passed the photograph to Froelich. She took it and stared at it.
‘Point is I was four feet away,’ Neagley said. ‘I could have
gotten to him if I’d wanted to. A John Malkovich situation again,
but what the hell.’
Froelich nodded blankly. Reacher dealt the next print, like a
playing card. It was a grainy telephoto picture clearly taken
from a great distance, looking down from way above street
level. It showed Armstrong outside the Stock Exchange, tiny in
the centre of the frame. There was a crude gunsight drawn
round his head with a ballpoint pen.
q’his is the half,’ Reacher said. ‘I was on the sixtieth floor of
an office building three hundred yards away. Inside the police
perimeter, but higher than they were checking.’
‘With a rifle?’
He shook his head. ‘With a piece of wood the same size and
shape as a rifle. And another camera, obviously. And a big lens.
But I played it out for real. I wanted to see if it was possible. I
figured people wouldn’t like to see a rifle-shaped package, so
I got a big square box from a computer monitor and put the
wood in diagonally, top corner to bottom corner. Then I just
59
wheeled it into the elevator on a hand truck, pretended it was
real heavy. I saw a few cops. I was wearing these clothes
without the fake pin or the earpiece. I guess they thought I was
a delivery driver or something. Friday after the closing bell, the
district’s getting quiet enough to be convenient. I found a
window in an empty conference room. It wouldn’t open, so I
guess I’d have had to cut out a circle of glass. But I could have
taken a shot, just like I took the picture. And I’d have been
Edward Fox. I could have gotten clean away.’
Froelich nodded, reluctantly. ‘Why only a half?’ she asked.
‘Looks like you had him fair and square.’
‘Not in Manhattan,’ Reacher said. ‘I was about nine hundred
feet away and six hundred feet up. That’s an eleven-hundred
foot shot, give or take. Not a problem for me ordinarily, but the
wind currents and the thermals around those towers turn it into
a lottery. They’re always changing, second to second. Swirling,
up and down and side to side. They make it so you can’t
guarantee a hit. That’s the good news, really. No competent
rifleman would try a distance shot in Manhattan. Only an idiot
would, and an idiot’s going to miss anyway.’
Froelich nodded again, a little relieved. ‘OK,’ she said.
So she’s not uorried about an idiot, Reacher thought. Must be
a professional.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Call it a total score of three, if you want, and
forget the half. Don’t worry about New York at all. It was
tenuous.’
‘But Bismarck wasn’t tenuous,’ Neagley said. ‘We got there
about midnight. Commercial flights, through Chicago.’
‘I called you from a mile away,’ Reacher said. ‘About the
musicians.’
He dealt the next two photographs.
‘Infrared film,’ he said. ‘In the dark.’
The first picture showed the back of the Armstrong family
house. The colours were washed out and distorted, because of
the infrared photography. But it was a fairly close shot. Every
detail was clearly visible. Doors, windows. Froelich could even
see one of her agents, standing in the yard.
‘Where were you?’ she asked.
‘On the neighbour’s property,’ Reacher said. ‘Maybe fifty feet
6O
away. Simple night manoeuvre, infiltration in the dark. Standard
infantry techniques, quiet and stealthy. Couple of dogs barked
some, but we got around them. The State troopers in the cars
didn’t see a thing.’
Neagley pointed to the second picture. It showed the front of
the house. Same colours, same detail, same distance.
‘I was across the street, at the front,’ she said. ‘Behind
somebody’s garage.’
Reacher sat forward on the bed. ‘Plan would have been to