work that church tower alone.’
Bannon was silent.
‘He’s right,’ Neagley said. ‘Best guess is the guy in the
subdivision was the back-watcher, on his way from hiding
the decoy. He was looping round, well away from the fence. The
shooter was hiding out in the church, waiting for him to get
back.’
‘Which begs a question,’ Reacher said. ‘Like, who was it on
the road from Minnesota at the time?’
Bannon shrugged. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘So there are three of them.’
‘All ours?’ Stuyvesant asked, neutrally.
‘I don’t see why not,’ Bannon said.
Reacher shook his head. ‘You’re obsessed. Why don’t
you just arrest everybody wh,o ever worked for the Secret
Service? There are probably some hundred-year-olds left over
from FDR’s first term.’
‘We’re sticking with our theory,’ Bannon said.
‘Fine,’ Reacher said. ‘Keeps you out of my hair.’
‘I warned you against vigilantism, twice.’
‘And I heard you twice.’
The room went silent. Then Bannon’s face softened. He
glanced across at Froelich’s empty chair.
‘Even though I would completely understand your motive,’ he
said.
Reacher stared down at the table. ‘It’s two guys, not three,’ he
said. ‘I agree with you, it profiles better. A thing like this, the
best choice would be one guy on his own, but that’s never
329
practical, so it’s got to be two. But not three. A third guy
multiplies the risk by a hundred.’
‘So what happened with the rifle?’
q’hey messengered it, obviously,’ Reacher said. ‘FedEx
or UPS or somebody. Maybe the USPS itself. They probably
packaged it up with a bunch of saws and hammers and called
it a delivery of tool samples. Some bullshit story like that.
Addressed to a motel here, awaiting their arrival. That’s what I
would have done, anyway.’
Bannon looked embarrassed. Said nothing. Just stood up and
left. The door clicked shut behind him. The room went quiet.
Stuyvesant stayed in his seat, a little awkward.
‘We need to talk,’ he said.
‘You’re firing us,’ Neagley said.
He nodded. Put his hand in his inside jacket pocket and came
out with two slim white envelopes.
q’his isn’t internal any more,’ he said. ‘You know that. It’s
gotten way too big.’
‘But you know Bannon is looking in the wrong place.’
‘I hope he’ll come to realize that,’ Stuyvesant said. if’hen
maybe he’ll start looking in the right place. Meanwhile we’ll
defend Armstrong. Starting with this craziness in Wyoming.
That’s what we do. That’s all we can do.. We’re reactive. We’re
defensive. We’ve got no legal basis to employ outsiders in a
proactive role.’
He slid the first envelope along the shiny tabletop. Gave it
enough force that it carried exactly six feet and spun to a stop in
front of Reacher. Then the second, with a gentler motion, so it
stopped in front of Neagley.
‘Later,’ Reacher said. ‘Fire us later. Give us the rest of the
day.’
‘Why?’
‘We need to talk to Armstrong. Just me and Neagley.’
‘About what?’
‘About something important,’ Reacher said. Then he went
quiet again.
q’he thing we talked about this morning?’ Neagley asked
him.
‘No, the thing that was on my mind last night.’
330
‘Something not there, something not done?’
He shook his head. ‘It was something not said.’ ‘What wasn’t said?’
He didn’t answer. Just gathered up both envelopes and slid them back along the tabletop. Stuyvesant stopped them dead
with the flat of his hand. Picked them up and held them,
uncertain.
‘I can’t let you talk to Armstrong without me,’ he said.
‘You’ll have to,’ Reacher said. ‘It’s the only way he’ll talk at
all.’
Stuyvesant said nothing. Reacher glanced at him. if’ell me
about the mail system. How long have you been checking
Armstrong’s mail?’
‘From the start,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘Since he was picked as the
candidate. That’s absolutely standard procedure.’
‘How does it work?’
Stuyvesant shrugged. ‘It’s easy enough. At first the agents at
his house opened everything delivered there and we had a guy
at the Senate Offices opening the stuff that went there and a
guy in Bismarck looking after the local items. But after the first
couple of messages we centralized everything right here for
convenience.’
‘But everything always got passed on to him except for the