make the rules here.’
Froelich nodded. ‘And I didn’t know you were going to get
help, especially not from a woman.’
‘I kind of warned you,’ Reacher said. ‘I told you it couldn’t
work if you were watching for me coming. You can’t expect
assassins to call ahead with their plans.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I was imagining a lone man, is all.’
‘It’s always going to be a team,’ Reacher said. There are no
lone men.’
He saw an ironic half-smile reflected in the glass.
‘So you don’t believe the Warren Report?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘Neither do you,’ he said. ‘No professional
ever will.’
‘I don’t feel like much of a professional today,’ she said.
Neagley stood up and stepped over and perched on the sill,
next to Froelich, her back against the glass.
‘Context,’ she said. ‘That’s what you’ve got to think about. It’s
not so bad. Reacher and I were United States Army Criminal
Investigation Division specialists. We were trained in all kinds
of ways. Trained to think, mostly. Trained to be inventive. And
to be ruthless, for sure, and self-confident. And tougher than
the people we were responsible for, and some of them were
plenty tough. So we’re very unusual. People as specialized as
us, there’s not more than maybe ten thousand in the whole
country.’
Ten thousand is a lot,’ Froelich said. ‘
‘Out of two hundred and eighty-one million? And how many
of them are currently the right age and available and motivated?
It’s a statistically irrelevant fraction. So don’t sweat it. Because
you’ve got an impossible job, anyway. You’re ‘equired to leave
him vulnerable. Because he’s a politician. He’s got to do all this
63
visible stuff. We would never have dreamed of letting anybody
do what Armstrong does. Never in a million years. It would
have been completely out of the question.’
Froelich turned round and faced the room. Swallowed once
and nodded vaguely into the middle distance.
qhanks,’ she said. ‘For trying to make me feel better. But I’ve
got some thinking to do, haven’t I?’
‘Perimeters,’ Reacher said. ‘Keep the perimeters to a half-mile
all round, keep the public away from him, and keep at least four
agents literally within touching distance at all times. That’s all
you can do.’
Froelich shook her head. ‘Can’t do it,’ she said. ‘It would be considered unreasonable. Undemocratic, even. And there are
going to be hundreds of weeks like this one over the next
three years. After three years it’ll start to get worse because
they’ll be in their final year and they’ll be trying to get
re-elected and everything will have to be looser still. And about
seven years from now Armstrong will start looking for the
nomination in his own right. Seen how they do that? Crowd
scenes all over the place from New Hampshire onward? Town
meetings in shirtsleeves? Fund-raisers? It’s a complete nightmare.’
The room went quiet. Neagley peeled off the window sill and
walked across the room to the credenza. Took two thin files out
of the drawer the photographs had been in. She held up the
first.
‘A written report,’ she said. ‘Salient points and recommenda
tions, from a professional perspective.’
‘OK,’ Froelich said.
Neagley held up the second file.
‘And our expenses,’ she said. qey’re all accounted for.
Receipts and all. You should make the cheque payable to
Reacher. It was his money.’
‘OK,’ Froelich said again. She took the files and clasped them
to her chest, as if they offered her protection from something.
‘And there’s Elizabeth Wright from New Jersey,’ Reacher
said. ‘Don’t forget her. She needs to be taken care of. I told her
to make up for missing the reception you’d probably invite
her to the Inauguration Ball.’
64
‘OK,’ Froelich said for the third time. ‘The Ball, whatever. I’ll
speak to somebody about it.’
Then she just stood still.
‘his is a disaster,’ she said again.
‘You’ve got an impossible job,’ Reacher said. ‘Don’t beat up
on yourself.’
She nodded. ‘Joe used to tell me the same thing. He said, in
the circumstances, we should consider a ninety-five per cent
success rate a triumph.’
‘Ninety-four per cent,’ Reacher said ‘You’ve lost one