cleared the salt spray. The rear bumper was chrome. He could
see raised lettering that read Chevrolet Tahoe. The rear plate
367
was indecipherable. It was caked with road salt. He could see
hand marks where the tailgate had been raised and lowered. It
looked like a truck that had done some serious mileage in the
last day or two.
‘It’s heading out,’ he called.
He watched it in the scope all the way. It bounced and swayed
and grew smaller and smaller. It took ten whole minutes to
drive all the way out of his field of vision. It rose up over the last
hump in the road and then disappeared with a last flash of sun
on gold paint.
‘Anything rnore?’ he called.
‘Clear to the south,’ Neagley called back.
‘I’m going down for the map. You can watch both directions
while I’m gone. Do some limbo dancing under this damn clock
thing.’
He crawled to the trapdoor and got his feet on the ladder.
Went down, stiff and sore and cold. He made it to the ledge and
down the winding staircase. Out of the tower and out of the
church into the weak midday sun. He limped across the graveyard
towards the car. Saw Froelich’s father standing right next
to it, looking at it like it might answer a question. The old guy
saw his approach reflected in the window glass and spun round
to face him.
‘Mr Stuyvesant is on the phone for you,’ he said. ‘From the
Secret Service office in Washington D.C.’
‘Now?’
‘He’s been holding twenty minutes. I’ve been trying to find yOU.’
‘Where’s the phone?’
‘At the house.’
The Froelich house was one of the white buildings on the
short south-eastern leg of the K. The old guy led the way with
his long-loping stride. Reacher had to hurry to keep up
with him. The househad a front garden with a white picket
fence. It was full of herbs and cottage plants that had died back
from the cold. Inside it was dim and fragrant. There were wide
dark boards on the floors. Rag rugs here and there. The old guy
led the way into a front parlour. There was an antique table
under the window with a telephone and a photograph on it. The
368
telephone was an old model with a heavy receiver and a plaited
cord insulated with brown fabric. The photograph was of
Froelich herself, aged about eighteen. Her hair was a little
longer than she had kept it, and a little lighter. Her face was
open and innocent, and her smile was sweet. Her eyes were
dark blue, alive with hopes for the future.
There was no chair next to the table. Clearly the Froelichs came from a generation that preferred to stand up while talking
on the telephone. Reacher unravelled the cord and held the
phone to his ear.
‘Stuyvesant?’ he said.
‘Reacher? You got any good news for me?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What’s the situation?’
q’he service is scheduled for eight o’clock,’ Reacher said.
‘But I guess you know that already.’
‘What else do I need to know?’
‘ou coming in by chopper?’
q’hat’s the plan. He’s still in Oregon right now. We’re going
to fly him to an air base in South Dakota and then take a
short hop in an air force helicopter. We’ll have eight people
altogether, including me.’
‘He only wanted three.’
‘He can’t object. We’re all her friends.’
‘Can’t you have a mechanical problem? Just stay in South
Dakota?’
‘He’d know. And the air force wouldn’t play anyway. They
wouldn’t want to go down in history as the reason why he
couldn’t make it.’
Reacher stood and looked out of the window. ‘OK, so you’ll
see the church easy enough. You’ll land across the street to
the east. There’s a good place right there. Then he’s got about
fifty yards to the church door. I can absolutely guarantee the
immediate surroundings. We’re going to be in the church
all night. But you’re going to hate what you see farther out.
There’s about a hundred-fifty-degree field of. fire to the south
and west. It’s completely open. And there’s plenty of concealment.’
Silence in D.C.