it and moved fast up the street. The second police cruiser
brought up the rear. All five vehicles turned east right in front
of Reacher’s coffee shop. Tyres squealed on the blacktop. The
cars accelerated. He watched them disappear. Then he turned
back and watched the small crowd in the street disperse. The
whole neighbourhood went quiet and still.
They watched the motorcade drive away from a vantage
point about eighty yards from where Reacher was sitting. Their
surveillance confirmed what they already knew. Professional
pride prevented them from writing off his commute to work as
actually impossible, but as a viable opportunity it was going to
be way down on their list. Way, way down. Right there at the
bottom. Which made it all the more fortunate that the transition
web site offered so many other tempting choices.
They walked a circuitous route through the streets and made
it back to their rented red Sable without incident.
Reacher finished his last mouthful of coffee and walked down
towards Armstrong’s house. He stepped off the sidewalk where
the tent blocked it. It was a white canvas tunnel leading directly
to Armstrong’s front door. The door was closed. He walked on
and stepped back on the sidewalk and met Neagley coming up
from the opposite direction.
‘OK?’ he asked her.
‘Opportunities,’ she said. ‘Didn’t see anybody about to exploit
any of them.’
The neither.’
‘I like the tent and the armoured car.’
Reacher nodded. Fakes rifles out of the equation.’
‘Not entirely,’ Neagley said. ‘A .50 sniper rifle would get
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through the armour. With the Browning AP round, or the
API.’
He made a face. Either bullet was a formidable proposition.
The standard armour-piercing item just blasted through steel
plate, and the alternative armour-piercing incendiary burned its
way through. But in the end he shook his head.
‘No chance to aim,’ he said. ‘First you’d have to wait until the
car was rolling, to be sure he was in it. Then you’re putting a
bullet into a large moving vehicle with dark windows. Hundred
to one you’d hit Armstrong himself inside.’ ‘So you’d need an AT-4.’
‘What I thought.’
‘Either with the high-explosive against the car, or else you
could use it to put a phosphorus bomb into the house.’
‘From where?’
‘I’d use an upper-floor window in a house behind Armstrong’s.
Across the alley. Their defence is mostly concentrated
on the front.’
‘How would you get in?’
‘Phony utility guy, water company, electric company. Any
body who could get in carrying a big tool box.’
Reacher nodded. Said nothing.
‘It’s going to be a hell of a four years,’. Neagley said.
‘Or eight.’
Then there was the hiss of tyres and the sound of a big
engine behind them and they turned to see Froelich easing up
in her Suburban. She stopped alongside them, twenty yards
short of Armstrong’s house. Gestured them into the vehicle.
Neagley got in the front and Reacher sprawled in the back.
‘See anybody?’ Froelich asked.
‘Lots of people,’ Reacher said. ‘Wouldn’t buy a cheap watch
from any of them.’
Froelich took her foot off the brake and let the engine’s idle
speed crawl the car along the road. She kept it tight in the
gutter and stopped it again when the nearside rear door was
exactly level with the end of the tent. Lifted her hand from the
wheel and spoke into the microplone wired to her wrist.
‘One, ready,’ she said.
Reacher looked to his right down the length of the canvas
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tunnel and saw the front door open and a man step out. It was
Brook Armstrong. No doubt about it. His photograph had been
all over the papers for five solid months and Reacher had spent
four whole days watching his every move. He was wearing a
khaki raincoat and carrying a leather briefcase. He walked
through the tent, not fast, not slow. An agent in a suit watched
him from the door.
¢I’he convoy was a decoy,’ Froelich said. ‘We do it that way,
time to time.’
‘Fooled me,’ Reacher said.
‘Don’t tell him this isn’t a rehearsal,’ Froelich said. ‘Remember
he’s not aware of anything yet.’
Reacher sat up straight and moved over to make room.