no better description than that.’
qhey could look for an overcoat and a hat on the back seat or
in the trunk.’
‘It’s November, Froelich. Everybody’s got a hat and a coat
with them.’
‘So what do we do?’ she asked again.
‘Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Concentrate on
Armstrong, just in case this whole thing is for real. Keep
him wrapped up tight. Like Stuyvesant said, threatening isn’t
necessarily the same thing as succeeding.’
‘What’s his schedule?’ Neagley asked.
‘Home tonight, the Hill tomorrow,’ Froelich said.
‘So you’ll be OK. You scored,perfect around the Capitol. If
Reacher and I couldn’t get to him there, no squat guy in an
overcoat is going to. Assuming a squat guy in an overcoat wants
to, instead of just shaking you up for the fun of it.’
You think?’
‘Like Stuyvesant said, take a deep breath and tough it out. Be
confident.’
‘Doesn’t feel good. I need to know who this guy is.’
‘We’ll find out who he is, sooner or later. Until then, if you
can’t attack at one end you have to defend at the other.’
‘She’s right,’ Reacher said. ‘Concentrate on Armstrong, just in
case.’
Froelich nodded vaguely and took the tape out of the
machine and put the first one back in. Restarted it and stared at
115
the screen until the garage guard came back from his bathroom
break and noticed the envelope and picked it up and hurried out
of shot with it.
‘Doesn’t feel good,’ she said again.
An FBI forensics crew came by an hour later and photographed
the sheet of paper on the conference room table. They used an
office ruler for a scale reference and then used a pair of sterile
plastic tweezers to lift the paper and the envelope into separate
evidence bags. Froelich signed a form to keep the chain of
evidence intact and they took both items away for examination.
Then she got on the phone for twenty minutes and tracked
Armstrong out of the Marine helicopter at Andrews and all the
way home.
‘OK, we’re secure,’ she said. ‘For now.’
Neagley yawned and stretched. ‘So take a break. Be ready for
a hard week.’
‘I feel stupid,’ Froelich said. ‘I don’t know if this is a game or
for real.’
‘You feel too much,’ Neagley said.
Froelich looked at the ceiling. ‘What would Joe do now?’
Reacher paused and smiled. ‘Go to the store and buy a suit,
probably.’
‘No, seriously.’
‘He’d close his eyes for a minute and work it all out like it was
a chess puzzle. He read Karl Marx, you know that? He said
Marx had this trick of explaining everything with one single
question, which was, who benefits?’
‘So?’
‘Let’s say it is an insider doing this. Karl Marx would say, OK,
the insider plans to benefit from it. Joe would ask, OK, how does
he plan to benefit from it?’
‘By making me look bad in front of Stuyvesant.’
‘And getting you demoted or fired or whatever, because
that rewards him in some way. That would be his aim. But that
would be his only aim. Situation like that, there’s no serious
threat against Armstrong. That’s an important point. And then
Joe would say, OK, suppose it’s not an insider, suppose it’s an
outsider. How does he plan to benefit?’
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‘By assassinating Armstrong.’
‘Which gratifies him in some other way. So Joe would
say what you’ve got to do is proceed as if it’s an outsider,
and proceed very calmly and without panicking, and above all
successfully. That’s two birds with one stone. If you’re calm,
you deny the insider his benefit. If you’re successful, you deny
the outsider his benefit.’
Froelich nodded, frustrated. ‘But which is it? What did the
cleaners tell you?’
‘Nothing,’ Reacher said. ‘My read is somebody they know
persuaded them to smuggle it in, but they aren’t admitting to
anything.’
‘I’ll tell Armstrong to stay home tomorrow.’
Reacher shook his head. ‘You can’t. You do that, you’ll be
seeing shadows every day and he’ll be in hiding for the next
four years. Just stay calm and tough it out.’
‘Easy to say.’
‘Easy to do. Just take a deep breath.’