We’ll get in and out fast, unannounced.’
‘You announced it on national television.’
‘It isn’t negotiable,’ Armstrong said again, if’hey won’t want to
turn the whole thing into a circus. That wouldn’t be fair. So, no
media and no television. Just us.’
Stuyvesant said nothing.
‘I’m going to her service,’ Armstrong said. ‘She was killed
because of me.’
‘She knew the risks,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘We all know the risks.
We’re here because we want to be.’
Armstrong nodded. ‘I spoke with the director of the FBI. He
told me the suspects got away.’
‘It’s just a matter of time,’ Stuyvesant said.
‘My daughter is in the Antarctic,’ Armstrong said. ‘It’s coming
up to midsummer down there. The temperature is up to twenty
below zero. It’ll peak at maybe eighteen below in a week or
two. We just spoke on the satellite phone. She says it feels
unbelievably warm. We’ve had the same conversation for the last
two years straight. I used to take it as a kind of metaphor. You
know, everything’s relative, nothing’s that bad, you can get used
to anything. But now I don’t know any more. I don’t think I’ll ever
get over today. I’m alive only because another person is dead.’
Silence in the room.
‘She knew what she was doing,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘We’re all
volunteers.’
‘She was terrific, wasn’t she?’
‘Let me know when you want to meet with her replacement.’
‘Not yet,’ Armstrong said. ff’omorrow, maybe. And ask
around about Sunday. Three volunteers. Friends of hers who
would want to be there anyway.’
316
Stuyvesant was silent. Then he shrugged.
‘OK,’ he said.
Armstrong nodded. I’hank you for that. And thank you for
today. Thank you all. From both of us. That’s really all I came
here to say.’
His personal detail picked up the cue and moved him to
the door. The invisible security bubble rolled out with him,
probing forward, checking sideways, checking backward.
Three minutes later a radio call came in from his car. He was
secure and mobile north and west towards Georgetown.
‘Shit,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘Now Sunday is going to be a damn
nightmare on top of everything else.’
Nobody looked at Reacher, except Neagley. They walked out
alone and found Swain in the reception area. He had his coat
on.
‘I’m going home,’ he said.
‘In an hour,’ Reacher said. ‘First you’re going to show us your
files.’
317
SIXTEEN
T
HE FILES WERE BIOGRAPHICAL. THERE WERE TWELYE IN
total. Eleven were bundles of raw data like newspaper
cuttings and interviews and depositions and other first
generation paperwork. The twelfth was a comprehensive
summary of the first eleven. It was as thick as a medieval Bible
and it read like a book. It narrated the whole story of Brook
Armstrong’s life, and every substantive fact had a number
following it in parentheses. The number indicated on a scale of
one to ten how solidly the fact had been authenticated. Most of
the numbers were tens.
The story started on page one with his parents. His mother
had grown up in Oregon, moved to Washington State for
college, returned to Oregon to start work as a pharmacist. Her
own parents and siblings were sketched in, and the whole of
her education was listed from kindergarten to postgraduate
school. Her early employers were listed in sequence, and the
start-up of her own pharmacy business had three pages all to
itself. She still owned it and still took income from it, but she
was now retired and sick with something that was feared to be
terminal.
His father’s education was listed. His military service had a
318
start date and a medical discharge date, but there were no
details beyond that. He was an Oregon native who married
the pharmacist on his return to civilian life. They moved to
an isolated village in the south-west corner of the state and
he used family money to buy himself a lumber business.
The newlyweds had a daughter soon afterwards and Brook
Armstrong himself was born two years later. The family business
prospered and grew to a decent size. Its progress and
development took up several pages. It provided a pleasant
provincial lifestyle.
The sister’s biography was a half-inch thick so Reacher