have an M16 each, with the grenade launcher on it. Plus some
other full-auto long guns. Maybe even M60 machine-guns on
tripods. We certainly had enough time to set them up. We’d
have put phosphorus grenades into the building with the M16s,
simultaneously front and back, one each, ground floor, and
either Armstrong would burn up in bed or we’d shoot him down
as he ran out the door or jumped out the window. We’d have
timed it for maybe four in the morning. Shock would have been
total. Confllsion would have been tremendous. We could have
taken your agents out in the m16e, easy as anything. We could
have chewed the whole house to splinters. We’d have probably
exfiltrated OK too, and then it would have boiled down to a
standard manhunt situation, which wouldn’t have been ideal out there in the boonies, but we’d probably have made it, with a bit
of luck. Edward Fox again.’
There was silence.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Froelich said. She stared at the pictures.
‘This can’t be Friday night. This was some other night. You
weren’t really there.’
Reacher said nothing.
‘Were you?’ she asked.
‘Well, check this out,’ Reacher said. He handed her another
photograph. It was a telephoto shot. It showed her sitting in the
apartment window above the garage, staring out into the darkness,
holding her cell phone. Her heat signature was picked up
in strange reds and oranges and purples. But it was her. No
doubt about it. Like she was close enough to touch.
‘I was calling New Jersey,’ she said, quietly. ‘Your musician
friends got away OK.’
‘Good,’ Reacher said. q’hanks for arranging it.’
61
She stared at the three infrared pictures, one after the other,
and said nothing.
‘So the ballroom and the family house were definites,’
Reacher said. q’wo-zip for the bad guys. But the next day was
the real clincher. Yesterday. That rally at the church.’
He passed the last photo across. It was regular daylight film,
taken from a high angle. It showed Armstrong in his heavy
overcoat walking across the community centre lawns. The late
golden sun threw a long shadow out behind him. He was
surrounded by a loose knot of people, but his head was clearly
visible. It had another crude gunsight inked round it.
‘I was in the church tower,’ Reacher said.
if’he church was locked.’
‘At eight o’clock in the morning. I’d been in there since five.’
‘It was searched.’
‘I was up where the bells were. At the top of a wooden ladder,
behind a trapdoor. I put pepper on the ladder. Your dogs lost
interest and stayed on the ground floor.’
‘It was a local unit.’
Fhey were sloppy.’
‘I thought about cancelling the event.’
‘You should have.’
en I thought about asking him to wear a vest.’
‘Wouldn’t have mattered. I would have aimed at his head. It
was a beautiful day, Froelich. Clear sky, sunny, no wind at all.
Cool, dense air. True air. I was a couple hundred feet away. I
could have shot his eyes out.’
She went quiet.
‘John Malkovich or Edward Fox?’ she asked.
‘I’d have hit Armstrong and then as many other people as I
could, three or four seconds. Cops mostly, I guess, but women
and children too. I’d have aimed to wound them, not kill
them. In the stomach, probably. More effective that way. People
flopping around and bleeding all over the place, it would have
created mass panic. Enough to get away, probably. I’d have
busted out of the church within ten seconds and gotten away
into the surrounding subdivision fast enough. Neagley was standing by in a car. She’d have been rolling soon as she heard
the shots. So I’d probably have been Edward Fox.’
62
Froelich stood up and walked to the window. Put her hands
palms down on the sill and stared out at the weather.
This is a disaster,’ she said.
Reacher said nothing.
‘I guess I didn’t anticipate your level of focus,’ she said. ‘I
didn’t know it was going to be all-out guerrilla warfare.’
Reacher shrugged. ‘Assassins aren’t necessarily going to be the gentlest people you’ll ever meet. And they’re the ones who