here, right now.’
She didn’t reply. Just grabbed him and Neagley by the arms
and pulled them into the limo with her. It roared after the lead
vehicles. The second cop fell in directly behind it and just
twenty short seconds after the initial abort command the whole
motorcade had formed up in a tight line and was screaming
away from the scene at seventy miles an hour with every light
flashing and every siren blaring.
Froelich slumped back in her seat.
‘See?’ she said. ‘We’re not proactive. Something happens, we
run away.’
213
ELEVEN
F
ROELICH STOOD IN THE CHILL AND SPOKE TO ARMSTRONG AT THE foot of the plane’s steps. It was a short conversation. She
told him about the discovery of the concealed rifle and
told him it was more than enough to justify the extraction. He
didn’t argue. Didn’t ask any awkward leading questions.
He seemed completely unaware of any larger picture. And he
seemed completely unconcerned about his own safety. He was
more anxious to calculate the public-relations consequences for
his successor. He looked away and ran through the pluses and
minuses in his head like politicians do and came back with a
tentative smile. No damage done. Then he ran up the steps to
the warmth inside the plane, ready to resume his agenda with
the waiting journalists.
Reacher was faster with the seat selection second time round.
He took a place in the forward-facing front row, next to Froelich
and across the aisle from Neagley. Froelich used the taxi time
doing the rounds of her team, quietly congratulating them on
their performance. She spoke to each of them in turn, leaning
close, talking, listening, finishing with discreet fist-to-fist
contact like ballplayers after a vital hit. Reacher watched her. Good leader, he thought. She came back to her seat and buckled
214
her belt. Smoothed her hair and pressed her fingertips hard
into her temples like she was clearing her mind of past events
and preparing to concentrate on the future.
‘We should have stayed around,’ Reacher said.
Fhe place is swarming with cops,’ Froelich said. ‘FBI will join
them. That’s their job. We focus on Armstrong. And I don’t like
it any better than you do.’
‘What was the rifle? Did you see it?’
She shook her head. ‘We’ll get a report. They said it was in a
bag. Some kind of vinyl carrying case.’
‘Hidden in the grass?’
She nodded. ‘Where it’s long at the base of the fence.’
‘When was the church locked?’
‘Last thing Sunday. More than sixty hours ago.’
‘So I guess our guys picked the lock. It’s a crude old mechanism.
The keyhole’s so big you can practically get your whole
hand in there.’
You sure you didn’t see them?’
Reacher shook his head. ‘But they saw me. They were in
there with me. They saw where I hid the key. They let themselves
out.’
‘You probably saved Armstrong’s life. And my ass. Although I
don’t understand their plan. They were in the church and their
rifle was a hundred yards away?’
‘Wait until we know what the rifle was. Then maybe we’ll
understand.’
The plane turned at the end (f the runway and accelerated
immediately. Took off and climbed hard. The engine noise
throttled back after five minutes and Reacher heard the journalists
starting their foreign-relations .conversation again. They
didn’t ask any questions about the early return.
They touched down at Andrews at six thirty local time. The
city was quiet. The long Thanksgiving. weekend had already
started, halfway through the afternoon. The motorcade headed
straight in on Branch Avenue and drove through the heart
of the capital and out again to Georgetown. Armstrong was
shepherded into his house through the white tent. Then the
cars Iurned listlessly and headed back to base. Stuyvesant
215
wasn’t around. Reacher and Neagley followed Froelich to her
desk and she accessed her NCIC search results. They were
hopeless. There was a small proud rubric at the top of the
screen that claimed the software had compiled for five
hours and twenty-three minutes and come up with no less than
243,791 matches. Anything that ever mentioned any two of
a thumbprint or a document or a letter or a signature was