Child, Lee – Without Fail

it and moved fast up the street. The second police cruiser

brought up the rear. All five vehicles turned east right in front

of Reacher’s coffee shop. Tyres squealed on the blacktop. The

cars accelerated. He watched them disappear. Then he turned

back and watched the small crowd in the street disperse. The

whole neighbourhood went quiet and still.

They watched the motorcade drive away from a vantage

point about eighty yards from where Reacher was sitting. Their

surveillance confirmed what they already knew. Professional

pride prevented them from writing off his commute to work as

actually impossible, but as a viable opportunity it was going to

be way down on their list. Way, way down. Right there at the

bottom. Which made it all the more fortunate that the transition

web site offered so many other tempting choices.

They walked a circuitous route through the streets and made

it back to their rented red Sable without incident.

Reacher finished his last mouthful of coffee and walked down

towards Armstrong’s house. He stepped off the sidewalk where

the tent blocked it. It was a white canvas tunnel leading directly

to Armstrong’s front door. The door was closed. He walked on

and stepped back on the sidewalk and met Neagley coming up

from the opposite direction.

‘OK?’ he asked her.

‘Opportunities,’ she said. ‘Didn’t see anybody about to exploit

any of them.’

The neither.’

‘I like the tent and the armoured car.’

Reacher nodded. Fakes rifles out of the equation.’

‘Not entirely,’ Neagley said. ‘A .50 sniper rifle would get

123

through the armour. With the Browning AP round, or the

API.’

He made a face. Either bullet was a formidable proposition.

The standard armour-piercing item just blasted through steel

plate, and the alternative armour-piercing incendiary burned its

way through. But in the end he shook his head.

‘No chance to aim,’ he said. ‘First you’d have to wait until the

car was rolling, to be sure he was in it. Then you’re putting a

bullet into a large moving vehicle with dark windows. Hundred

to one you’d hit Armstrong himself inside.’ ‘So you’d need an AT-4.’

‘What I thought.’

‘Either with the high-explosive against the car, or else you

could use it to put a phosphorus bomb into the house.’

‘From where?’

‘I’d use an upper-floor window in a house behind Armstrong’s.

Across the alley. Their defence is mostly concentrated

on the front.’

‘How would you get in?’

‘Phony utility guy, water company, electric company. Any

body who could get in carrying a big tool box.’

Reacher nodded. Said nothing.

‘It’s going to be a hell of a four years,’. Neagley said.

‘Or eight.’

Then there was the hiss of tyres and the sound of a big

engine behind them and they turned to see Froelich easing up

in her Suburban. She stopped alongside them, twenty yards

short of Armstrong’s house. Gestured them into the vehicle.

Neagley got in the front and Reacher sprawled in the back.

‘See anybody?’ Froelich asked.

‘Lots of people,’ Reacher said. ‘Wouldn’t buy a cheap watch

from any of them.’

Froelich took her foot off the brake and let the engine’s idle

speed crawl the car along the road. She kept it tight in the

gutter and stopped it again when the nearside rear door was

exactly level with the end of the tent. Lifted her hand from the

wheel and spoke into the microplone wired to her wrist.

‘One, ready,’ she said.

Reacher looked to his right down the length of the canvas

124

tunnel and saw the front door open and a man step out. It was

Brook Armstrong. No doubt about it. His photograph had been

all over the papers for five solid months and Reacher had spent

four whole days watching his every move. He was wearing a

khaki raincoat and carrying a leather briefcase. He walked

through the tent, not fast, not slow. An agent in a suit watched

him from the door.

¢I’he convoy was a decoy,’ Froelich said. ‘We do it that way,

time to time.’

‘Fooled me,’ Reacher said.

‘Don’t tell him this isn’t a rehearsal,’ Froelich said. ‘Remember

he’s not aware of anything yet.’

Reacher sat up straight and moved over to make room.

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