Child, Lee – Without Fail

here, right now.’

She didn’t reply. Just grabbed him and Neagley by the arms

and pulled them into the limo with her. It roared after the lead

vehicles. The second cop fell in directly behind it and just

twenty short seconds after the initial abort command the whole

motorcade had formed up in a tight line and was screaming

away from the scene at seventy miles an hour with every light

flashing and every siren blaring.

Froelich slumped back in her seat.

‘See?’ she said. ‘We’re not proactive. Something happens, we

run away.’

213

ELEVEN

F

ROELICH STOOD IN THE CHILL AND SPOKE TO ARMSTRONG AT THE foot of the plane’s steps. It was a short conversation. She

told him about the discovery of the concealed rifle and

told him it was more than enough to justify the extraction. He

didn’t argue. Didn’t ask any awkward leading questions.

He seemed completely unaware of any larger picture. And he

seemed completely unconcerned about his own safety. He was

more anxious to calculate the public-relations consequences for

his successor. He looked away and ran through the pluses and

minuses in his head like politicians do and came back with a

tentative smile. No damage done. Then he ran up the steps to

the warmth inside the plane, ready to resume his agenda with

the waiting journalists.

Reacher was faster with the seat selection second time round.

He took a place in the forward-facing front row, next to Froelich

and across the aisle from Neagley. Froelich used the taxi time

doing the rounds of her team, quietly congratulating them on

their performance. She spoke to each of them in turn, leaning

close, talking, listening, finishing with discreet fist-to-fist

contact like ballplayers after a vital hit. Reacher watched her. Good leader, he thought. She came back to her seat and buckled

214

her belt. Smoothed her hair and pressed her fingertips hard

into her temples like she was clearing her mind of past events

and preparing to concentrate on the future.

‘We should have stayed around,’ Reacher said.

Fhe place is swarming with cops,’ Froelich said. ‘FBI will join

them. That’s their job. We focus on Armstrong. And I don’t like

it any better than you do.’

‘What was the rifle? Did you see it?’

She shook her head. ‘We’ll get a report. They said it was in a

bag. Some kind of vinyl carrying case.’

‘Hidden in the grass?’

She nodded. ‘Where it’s long at the base of the fence.’

‘When was the church locked?’

‘Last thing Sunday. More than sixty hours ago.’

‘So I guess our guys picked the lock. It’s a crude old mechanism.

The keyhole’s so big you can practically get your whole

hand in there.’

You sure you didn’t see them?’

Reacher shook his head. ‘But they saw me. They were in

there with me. They saw where I hid the key. They let themselves

out.’

‘You probably saved Armstrong’s life. And my ass. Although I

don’t understand their plan. They were in the church and their

rifle was a hundred yards away?’

‘Wait until we know what the rifle was. Then maybe we’ll

understand.’

The plane turned at the end (f the runway and accelerated

immediately. Took off and climbed hard. The engine noise

throttled back after five minutes and Reacher heard the journalists

starting their foreign-relations .conversation again. They

didn’t ask any questions about the early return.

They touched down at Andrews at six thirty local time. The

city was quiet. The long Thanksgiving. weekend had already

started, halfway through the afternoon. The motorcade headed

straight in on Branch Avenue and drove through the heart

of the capital and out again to Georgetown. Armstrong was

shepherded into his house through the white tent. Then the

cars Iurned listlessly and headed back to base. Stuyvesant

215

wasn’t around. Reacher and Neagley followed Froelich to her

desk and she accessed her NCIC search results. They were

hopeless. There was a small proud rubric at the top of the

screen that claimed the software had compiled for five

hours and twenty-three minutes and come up with no less than

243,791 matches. Anything that ever mentioned any two of

a thumbprint or a document or a letter or a signature was

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *