224
been worthwhile putting some cops in place to see who’s using
the pay phones. But I only had eight minutes. If you had
thought about it earlier it might have been practical. You had a
whole half-hour. They gave you notice, for God’s sake. You
could have arranged something easily. In which case I would
have talked their damn ears off, to let the cops get a good look
around. But you didn’t think about it. You didn’t arrange it. You
didn’t arrange anything. So don’t talk to me about sabotage.
Don’t be telling me/’m the one who blew something here.’
Stuyvesant looked down. Said nothing.
‘Now ask him why he wanted the weather report,’ Neagley
said.
Stuyvesant said nothing.
‘Why did you want the weather report?’ Froelich asked.
‘Because there might still have been time to get something
together. If the weather was bad the night before Thanksgiving
in Chicago the airport would be so backed up they’d be sitting
around there for hours. In which case I would have provoked
some kind of a call-back later, for after we got some cops in
place. But the weather was OK. Therefore no delays, therefore
no time.’
Stuyvesant said nothing.
‘Accent?’ Froelich asked, quietly. ‘Did the thirteen words you
granted them give you a chance to pick anything out?’
‘You made a recording,’ Reacher said. ‘But nothing jumped
out at me. Not foreign. Not Southern, not East Coast. Probably
one of those other places where they don’t have much of an
accent.’
The room was quiet for a long moment.
‘I apologize,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘You probably did the right
thing.’
Reacher shook his head. Breathed out.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘We’re clutching at straws
here. Million to one we were ever goingto get a location. It was
a snap decision, really. Just a gut thing. If they’re puzzled about
me, I want to keep them puzzled. Keep them guessing. And I
wanted to make them mad at me. I wanted to take some focus
off Armstrong. Better that they focus on me for a spell.’
‘You want these people coming after you personally?’
225
‘Better than have them coming after Armstrong personally.’
‘Are you nuts? He’s got the Secret Service around him. You
haven’t.’
Reacher smiled. ‘I’m not too worried about them.’
Froelich moved in her chair.
‘So this is a pissing contest,’ she said. ‘God, you’re just like
Joe, you know that?’
‘Except I’m still alive,’ Reacher said.
There was a knock at the door. The duty officer put his head
into the room.
‘Special Agent Bannon is here,’ he said. ‘Ready for the
evening meeting.’
Stuyvesant briefed Bannon privately in his office about
the telephone communications. They came back into the conference
room together at ten past ten. Bannon still looked more
like a city cop than a federal agent. Donegal tweed, grey flannel,
stout shoes, red face. Like a wise old high-mileage detective
from Chicago or Boston or New York. He was carrying a thin
file folder, and he was acting sombre.
‘Nendick is still unresponsive,’ he said.
Nobody spoke.
‘He’s no better and no worse,’ Bannon said. ‘They’re still
worried about him.’
He sat heavily in the chair opposite Neagley’s. Opened his file
folder and took out a thin stack of colour photographs. Dealt
them like cards around the table. Two each.
‘Bruce Armstrong and Brian Armstrong,’ he said. ‘Late of
Minnesota and Colorado, respectively.’
The photographs were large inkjet prints done on glossy
paper. Not faxes. The originals must have been borrowed from
the families and then scanned and e-mailed. They were snapshots,
basically, each blown up and then cropped down to a
useful head-and-shoulders format in the local FBI lab, presumably.
The results looked artificial. Two bluff open faces, two
innocent smiles, two fond gazes directed towards something
that should have been there in the Shot with them. Their names
were neatly written in ballpoint pen in the bottom border. By
Bannon himself, maybe. Bruce Armstrong, Brian Armstrong.
226
They weren’t really similar to one another. And neither of
them looked much like Brook Armstrong. Nobody would have
had even a moment’s hesitation differentiating between the
three of them. Not in the dark, not in a hurry. They were just