‘Stand what?’
‘You’re going to get yourself killed,’ she said. ‘Just like you
got Joe killed.’
‘Excuse me?’ he said.
‘You heard.’
‘I didn’t get Joe killed.’
‘He wasn’t cut out for that kind of stuff. But he went ahead
and did it anyway. Because he was always comparing himself.
He was driven to do it.’
‘By me?’
‘Who else? He was your brother. He followed your career.’
Reacher said nothing.
‘Why do you people have to be like this?’ she said.
‘Us people?’ he said back. ‘Like what?’
‘You men,’ she said. ‘You military people. Always charging
headlong into stupidity.’
‘Is that what I’m doing?’
‘You know it is.’
‘I’m not the one sworn to take a bullet for some worthless
politician.’
‘Neither am I. That’s just a figure of speech. And not all
politicians are worthless.’
‘So would you take a bullet for him? Or not?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘And I’m not charging headlong into anything.’
‘Yes, you are. You’ve been challenged. And God forbid you
should stay cool and just walk away.’
‘You want me to walk away? Or do you want to get this thing
done?’
‘You can’t do it by butting heads, like you were all rutting
deer or something.’
229
‘Why not? Sooner or later it’s us or them. That’s how it is.
That’s how it always is. Why pretend any different?’
‘Why look for trouble?’
‘I’m not looking for trouble. I don’t see it as trouble.’ ‘Well, what the hell else is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ He paused.
‘You know any lawyers?’ he asked.
‘Any what?’
‘You heard,’ he said.
‘Lawyers? Are you kidding? In this town? It’s wall-to-wall
lawyers.’
‘OK, so picture a lawyer. Twenty years out of law school, lots
of hands-on experience. Somebody asks him, can you write this
slightly complex will for me? What does he say? What does he
do? Does he start trembling with nerves? Does he think he’s
been challenged? Is it a testosterone thing? No, he just says,
sure, I can do that. And then he goes ahead and does it.
Because it’s his job. Pure and simple.’
This isn’t your job, Reacher.’
‘Yes, it is, near as makes no difference. Uncle Sam paid me
your tax dollars to do exactly this kind of.stuff, thirteen straight
years. And Uncle Sam sure as hell didn’t expect me to run away
and get all psychological and conflicted about it.’
She stared forward through the windshield. It was misting
fast, from their breath.
ere are hundreds of people on the other side of the Secret
Service,’ she said. ‘In Financial Crimes. Hundreds of them. I
don’t know how many, exactly. Lots of them. Good people.
We’re not really investigative, but they are. That’s all they are.
That’s what they’re for. Joe could have picked any ten of them
and sent them down to Georgia. He could have picked fifty of
them. But he didn’t. He. had to go himself. He had to go alone.
Because he was challenged. He couldn’t back off. Because he
was always comparing himself.’
‘I agree he shouldn’t have done it,’ Reacher said. ‘Like
a doctor shouldn’t write a will. Like a lawyer shouldn’t do
surgery.’
230
‘But you made him.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t make him,’ he said.
She was silent.
Fwo points, Froelich,’ he said. ‘First, people shouldn’t have
to choose their careers with one eye on what their brother
might think. And second, the last time Joe and I had any
significant contact I was sixteen years old. He was eighteen. He
was leaving for West Point. I was a kid. The last thing on his
mind was copying me. Are you nuts? And I never really saw him
again after that. Funerals only, basically. Because whatever you
think about me as a brother, he was no better. He paid no
attention to me. Years would go by, I wouldn’t hear from him.’
‘He followed your career. Your mother sent him stuff. He was
comparing himself.’
‘Our mother died seven years before he did. I barely had a
career back then.’
‘You won the Silver Star in Beirut right at the beginning.’
‘I was blown up by a bomb,’ he said. I’hey gave me a medal