Child, Lee – Without Fail

names that they flag up.’

‘So now they’re involved anyway.’

Stuyvesant shook his head again. Fhey passed on some

information, is all. They don’t understand its significance.’

The room stayed quiet. Just four people breathing, lost in

sombre thoughts.

‘We got any details from the scenes?’ Neagley asked.

‘Some,’ Stuyvesant said. I’he first guy was a single shot to the

head. Killed him instantly. They can’t find the bullet. The guy’s

wife didn’t hear anything.’

‘Where was she?’

‘About twenty feet away in the kitchen. Doors and windows

shut because of the weather. But you’d expect her to hear

something. She hears hunters all the time.’

‘How big was the hole in his head?’ Reacher asked.

‘Bigger than a .22,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘If that’s what you’re

thinking.’

Reacher nodded. The only handgun inaudible from twenty

feet would be a silenced .22. Anything bigger than that, you’d

probably hear something, suppressor or no suppressor, windows

or no windows.

‘So it was a rifle,’ he said.

‘rajectory looks like it,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘Medical examiner

figures the bullet was travelling downward. It went through his

head front to back, high to low.’

‘Hilly country?’

172

‘All around.’

‘So it was either a very distant rifle or a silenced rifle. And I

don’t like either one. Distant rifle means somebody’s a great

shooter, silenced rifle means somebody owns a bunch of exotic

weapons.’

‘What about the second guy?’ Neagley asked.

‘It was less than eight hours later,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘But more

than eight hundred miles away. So most likely the team split up

for the day.’

‘Details?’

‘Coming through in bits and pieces. First impression from

the locals is the weapon was some kind of machine gun. But

again, nobody heard anything.’

‘A silenced machine gun?’ Reacher said. ‘Are they sure?’

‘No question it was a machine gun,’ Stuyvesant said. if’he

corpse was all chewed up. Two bursts, head and chest. Hell of a

mess.’

‘Hell of a demonstration,’ Froelich said.

Reacher stared through the window. There was light fog in

the air.

‘But what exactly does it demonstrate?’ he said.

if’hat these are not very nice people.’

He nodded. ‘But not very much more than that, does it? It

doesn’t really demonstrate Armstrong’s vulnerability as such,

not if they weren’t connected to him in any way. Are we sure they weren’t related? Like very, distant cousins or something?

At least the farmer? Minnesota is next to North Dakota, right?’

Stuyvesant shook his head.

‘My first thought, obviously,’ he said. ‘But I double checked.

First, the VP isn’t from North Dakota originally. He moved in

from Oregon. Plus we have the complete text of his FBI background

check from when he was nominated. It’s pretty

exhaustive. And he doesn’t have any living relatives that anybody’s

aware of except an elder sister who lives in California.

His wife has got a bunch of cousins but none of them are called

Armstrong and most of them are younger. Kids, basically.’

‘OK,’ Reacher said. Kids. He had a flash in his mind

of a seesaw, and stuffed toys and lurid paintings stuck to a

refrigerator with magnets. Cousins.

173

‘It’s weird,’ he said. ‘Killing two random unconnected looka

likes called Armstrong is dramatic enough, I guess, but it

doesn’t show any great ingenuity. Doesn’t prove anything.

Doesn’t make us worried about our security here.’

‘Makes us sad for them,’ Froelich said. ‘And their families.’

‘No doubt,’ Reacher said. ‘But two hicks in the sticks going

down doesn’t really make us sweat, does it? It’s not like we were

protecting them as well. Doesn’t make us doubt ourselves. I

really thought it would be something more personal. More

intriguing. Like some equivalent of the letter showing up on

your desk.’

‘You sound disappointed,’ Stuyvesant said.

‘I am disappointed. I thought they might come close enough

to give us a chance at them. But they stayed away. They’re

cowards.’

Nobody spoke.

‘Cowards are bullies,’ Reacher said. ‘Bullies are cowards.’

Neagley glanced at him. Knew him well enough to sense

when to push.

‘So?’ she asked.

‘So we need to go back and rethink a couple of things.

Information is stacking up fast and we’re not processing it. Like,

now we know these guys are outsiders..Now we know this is

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