‘Both,’ she said. ‘Well, mainly something else, really.’
‘Want to tell me what?’
‘I want to hire you for something,’ she said. ‘On a kind of
posthumous recommendation from Joe. Because of what he
used to say about you. He talked about you, time to time.’
Reacher nodded. ‘Hire me for what?’
Froelich paused again and came up with a tentative smile.
‘I’ve rehearsed this line,’ she said. ‘Couple of times.’
‘So let me hear it.’
‘I want to hire you to assassinate the Vice President of the
United States.’
29
TWO
i OOD LINE,’ REACHER SAID. ‘INTERESTING PROPOSITION.’ ‘What’s your answer?’ Froelich asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Right now I think that’s probably the
safest all-around response.’
She smiled the tentative smile again and picked up her purse.
‘Let me show you some ID,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘Don’t need it,’ he said. ‘You’re United
States Secret Service.’
She looked at him. ‘You’re pretty quick.’
‘It’s pretty clear,’ he said.
‘Is it?’
He nodded. Touched his right elbow. It was bruised.
‘Joe worked for them,’ he said. ‘And knowing the way he
was he probably worked pretty hard, and he was a little shy,
so anybody he dated was probably in the office, otherwise
he would never have ¢met them. Plus, who else except the
government keeps two-year-old Suburbans this shiny? And
parks next to hydrants? And who else but the Secret Service
could track me this efficiently through my banking arrangements?’
‘You’re pretty quick,’ she said again.
3O
q’hank you,’ he said back. ‘But Joe didn’t have anything to do
with Vice Presidents. He was in Financial Crimes, not the White
House protection detail.’
She nodded. ‘We all start out in Financial Crimes. We
pay our dues as anti-counterfeiting grunts. And he ran anti
counterfeiting. And you’re right, we met in the office. But he
wouldn’t date me then. He said it wasn’t appropriate. But I
was planning on transferring across to the protection detail as
soon as I could anyway, and as soon as I did, we started going
out.’
Then she went a little quiet again. Looked down at her purse.
‘And?’ Reacher said.
She looked up. ‘Something he said one night. I was kind of
keen and ambitious back then, you know, starting a new job
and all, and I was always trying to figure out if we were doing
the best we could, and Joe and I were goofing around, and he
said the only real way for us to test ourselves would be to hire
some outsider to try to get to the target. To see if it was
possible, you know. A security audit, he called it. I asked him,
like who? And he said, my little brother would be the one. If
anybody could do it, he could. He made you sound pretty
scary.’
Reacher smiled. That sounds like Joe. A typical hare-brained
scheme.’
‘You think?’
‘For a smart guy, Joe could be,very dumb sometimes.’
‘Why is it dumb?’
‘Because if you hire some outsider, all you need to do is
watch for him coming. Makes it way too easy.’
‘No, his idea was the person would come in anonymously and
unannounced. Like now, absolutely nobody knows about you
except me.’
Reacher nodded. ‘OK, maybe he wasn’t so dumb.’
‘He felt it was the only way. You know, however hard we
work, we’re always thinking inside the box. He felt we should
be prepared to test ourselves against some random challenge
from the outside.’
‘And he nominated me?’
‘He said you’d be ideal.’
31
‘So why wait so long to try it? Whenever this conversation
was, it has to be at least six years ago. Didn’t take you six years
to find me.’
‘It was eight years ago,’ Froelich said. ‘Right at the start of
our relationship, just after I got the transfer. And it only took
me one day to find you.’
‘So you’re pretty quick, too,’ Reacher said. ‘But why wait eight
years?’
‘Because now I’m in charge. I was promoted head of the Vice
President’s detail four months ago. And I’m still keen and
ambitious, and I still want to know that we’re doing it right. So I