Without Fail (42 page)

"It's our job, sir," Stuyvesant said. "If it wasn't you, it would be somebody else."

"Thank you," Armstrong said. "For being so gracious. And thank you for performing so superbly well today. From both of us. From the bottom of our hearts. "I'm not a superstitious guy, but I kind of feel I owe you now. Like I won't be free of an obligation until I've done something for you. So don't hesitate to ask me. Anything at all, formal or informal, collective or individual. I'm your friend for life."

Nobody spoke.

"Tell me about Crosetti," Armstrong said. "Did he have family?"

The sharpshooter nodded. "A wife and a son," he said. "The boy is eight, I think."

Armstrong looked away. "I'm so sorry," he said.

Silence in the room.

"Is there anything I can do for them?" Armstrong asked.

"They'll be looked after," Stuyvesant said.

"Froelich had parents in Wyoming," Armstrong said. "That's all. She wasn't married. No brothers or sisters. I spoke with her folks earlier today. After I saw you at the White House. I felt I ought to offer my condolences personally. And I felt I should clear my statement with them, you know, before I spoke to the television people. I felt I couldn't misrepresent the situation without their permission, just for the sake of a decoy scheme. But they liked the idea of a memorial service on Sunday. So much so that they're going to go ahead with it, in fact. So there will be a service, after all."

Nobody spoke. Armstrong picked a spot on the wall, and looked hard at it. "I want to attend it," he said. "In fact, I'm going to attend it."

"I can't permit that," Stuyvesant said. Armstrong said nothing.

"I mean, I advise against it," Stuyvesant said.

"She was killed because of me. I want to attend her service. It's the least I can do. I want to speak there, actually. I guess I should talk to her folks again."

"I'm sure they'd be honoured, but there are security issues."

"I respect your judgement, of course," Armstrong said. "But it isn't negotiable. I'll go on my own, if I have to. I might prefer to go on my own."

"That isn't possible," Stuyvesant said.

Armstrong nodded. "So find three agents who want to be there with me. And only three. We can't turn it into a circus. We'll get in and out fast, unannounced."

"You announced it on national television."

"It isn't negotiable," Armstrong said again, "They won't want to turn the whole thing into a circus. That wouldn't be fair. So, no media and no television. Just us."

Stuyvesant said nothing.

"I'm going to her service," Armstrong said. "She was killed because of me."

"She knew the risks," Stuyvesant said. "We all know the risks. We're here because we want to be."

Armstrong nodded. "I spoke with the director of the FBI. He told me the suspects got away."

"It's just a matter of time," Stuyvesant said.

"My daughter is in the Antarctic," Armstrong said. "It's coming up to midsummer down there. The temperature is up to twenty below zero. It'll peak at maybe eighteen below in a week or two. We just spoke on the satellite phone. She says it feels unbelievably warm. We've had the same conversation for the last two years straight. I used to take it as a kind of metaphor. You know, everything's relative, nothing's that bad, you can get used to anything. But now I don't know any more. I don't think I'll ever get over today. I'm alive only because another person is dead." Silence in the room.

"She knew what she was doing," Stuyvesant said. "We're all volunteers."

"She was terrific, wasn't she?"

"Let me know when you want to meet with her replacement."

"Not yet," Armstrong said. "Tomorrow, maybe. And ask around about Sunday. Three volunteers. Friends of hers who would want to be there anyway."

Stuyvesant was silent. Then he shrugged. "OK," he said.

Armstrong nodded. "Thank you for that. And thank you for today. Thank you all. From both of us. That's really all I came here to say."

His personal detail picked up the cue and moved him to the door. The invisible security bubble rolled out with him, probing forward, checking sideways, checking backward. Three minutes later a radio call came in from his car. He was secure and mobile north and west towards Georgetown.

"Shit," Stuyvesant said. "Now Sunday is going to be a damn nightmare on top of everything else."

Nobody looked at Reacher, except Neagley. They walked out alone and found Swain in the reception area. He had his coat on.

"I'm going home," he said.

"In an hour," Reacher said. "First you're going to show us your files."

SIXTEEN

The files were biographical. There were twelve in total. Eleven were bundles of raw data like newspaper cuttings and interviews and depositions and other first generation paperwork. The twelfth was a comprehensive summary of the first eleven. It was as thick as a medieval Bible and it read like a book. It narrated the whole story of Brook Armstrong's life, and every substantive fact had a number following it in parentheses. The number indicated on a scale of one to ten how solidly the fact had been authenticated. Most of the numbers were tens.

The story started on page one with his parents. His mother had grown up in Oregon, moved to Washington State for college, returned to Oregon to start work as a pharmacist. Her own parents and siblings were sketched in, and the whole of her education was listed from kindergarten to postgraduate school. Her early employers were listed in sequence, and the start-up of her own pharmacy business had three pages all to itself. She still owned it and still took income from it, but she was now retired and sick with something that was feared to be terminal.

His father's education was listed. His military service had a start date and a medical discharge date, but there were no details beyond that. He was an Oregon native who married the pharmacist on his return to civilian life. They moved to an isolated village in the south-west corner of the state and he used family money to buy himself a lumber business. The newlyweds had a daughter soon afterwards and Brook Armstrong himself was born two years later. The family business prospered and grew to a decent size. Its progress and development took up several pages. It provided a pleasant provincial lifestyle.

The sister's biography was a half-inch thick so Reacher skipped over it and started in on Brook's education. It began like everybody else's in kindergarten. There were endless details. Too many to pay close attention to, so he leafed ahead and skimmed. Armstrong went all the way through the local school system. He was good at sports. He got excellent grades. The father had a stroke and died just after Armstrong left home for college.

The lumber business was sold. The pharmacy continued to prosper. Armstrong himself spent seven years in two different universities, first Cornell in upstate New York and then Stanford in California. He had long hair but no proven drug use. He met a Bismarck girl at Stanford. They were both political science postgraduates. They got married. They made their home in North Dakota and he started his political career with a campaign for a seat in the State legislature.

"I need to get home," Swain said. "It's Thanksgiving and I've got kids and my wife is going to kill me."

Reacher looked ahead at the rest of the file. Armstrong was just starting in on his first minor election and there were six more inches of paperwork to go. He fanned through it with his thumb.

"Nothing here to worry us?" he asked.

"Nothing anywhere," Swain said.

"Does this level of detail continue throughout?"

"It gets worse."

"Am I going to find anything if I read all night?"

"No."

"Was all of it used in this summer's campaign?"

Swain nodded. "Sure. It's a great bio. That's why he was picked in the first place. Actually we got a lot of the detail from the campaign."

"And you're sure nobody in particular was upset by the campaign?"

"I'm sure."

"So where exactly does your feeling come from? Who hates Armstrong that bad and why?"

"I don't know exactly," Swain said. "It's just a feeling."

Reacher nodded. "OK," he said. "Go home."

Swain picked up his coat and left in a hurry and Reacher sampled his way through the remaining years. Neagley leafed through the endless source material. They both gave it up after an hour.

"Conclusions?" Neagley asked.

"Swain has got a very boring job," Reacher said.

She smiled. "Agreed," she said.

"But something kind of jumps out at me. Something that's not here, rather than something that is here. Campaigns are cynical, right? These people will use any old thing that puts them in a good light. So for instance, we've got his mother. We've got endless detail about her college degrees and her pharmacy thing. Why?"

"To appeal to independent women and, small business people."

"OK, and then we've got stuff about her getting sick. Why?"

"So Armstrong looks like a caring son. Very dutiful and full of family values. It humanizes him. And it authenticates his issues about health care."

"And we've got plenty of stuff about his dad's lumber company."

"For the business lobby again. And it touches on environmental concerns. You know, trees and logging and all that kind of thing. Armstrong can say he's got practical knowledge. He's walked the walk, at one move."

"Exactly," Reacher said. "Whatever the issue, whatever the constituency, they find a bone to throw."

"So?"

"They took a pass on military service. And usually they love all that stuff, in a campaign. Normally if your dad was in the army, you'd shout it from the rooftops to wrap up another whole bunch of issues. But there's no detail at all. He joined, he got discharged. That's all we know. See what I mean? We're drowning in detail everywhere else, but not there. It stands out."

"The father died ages ago."

"Doesn't matter. They'd have been all over it if there was something to be gained. And what was the medical discharge for? If it had been a wound they'd have made something out of it, for sure. Even a training accident. The guy would have been a big hero. And you know what? I don't like to see unexplained medical discharges. You know how it was. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"I guess it does. But it can't be connected. It happened before Armstrong was even born. Then the guy died nearly thirty years ago. And you said it yourself, this all was triggered by something Armstrong did in the campaign."

Reacher nodded. "But I'd still like to know more about it. We could ask Armstrong direct, I guess."

"Don't need to," Neagley said. "I can find out, if you really need me to. I can make some calls. We've got plenty of contacts. People who figure on getting a job with us when they quit are generally interested in making a good impression beforehand."

Reacher yawned. "OK, do it. First thing tomorrow."

"I'll do it tonight. The military still works twenty-four hours a day. Hasn't changed any since we quit."

"You should sleep. It can wait."

"I never sleep any more."

Reacher yawned again. "Well, "I'm going to."

"Bad day," Neagley said.

Reacher nodded. "As bad as they get. So make the calls if you want to, but don't wake me up to tell me about them. Tell me about them tomorrow." The night duty officer fixed them a ride back to the Georgetown motel and Reacher went straight to his room. It was quiet and still and empty. It had been cleaned and tidied. The bed was made. Joe's box had gone. He sat in the chair for a moment and wondered if Stuyvesant had thought to cancel Froelich's booking. Then the night-time silence pressed in on him and he was overcome by a sense of something not there. A sense of absence. Things that should be there and weren't.

What exactly? Froelich, of course. He had an ache for her. She should be there, and she wasn't. She had been there the last time he was in the room. Early that morning. Today's the day we win or lose, she had said. Losing is not an option, he had replied.

Something not there. Maybe Joe himself. Maybe lots of things. There were lots of things missing from his life. Things not done, things not said. What exactly? Maybe it was just Armstrong's father's service career on his mind. But maybe it was more than that. Was something else missing? He closed his eyes and chased it hard but all he saw was the pink spray of Froelich's blood arcing backward into the sunlight. So he opened his eyes again and stripped off his clothes and showered for the third time that day. He found himself staring down at the tray like he was still expecting to see it run red. But it stayed clear and white.

The bed was cold and hard and the new sheets were stiff with starch. He slipped in alone and stared at the ceiling for an hour and thought hard. Then he switched off abruptly and made himself sleep. He dreamed of his brother strolling hand in hand with Froelich all the way round the Tidal Basin in summer. The light was soft and golden and the blood streaming from her neck hung in the still warm air like a shimmering red ribbon five feet above the ground. It hung there undisturbed by the passing crowds and it made a full mile-wide circle when she and Joe arrived back where they had started. Then she changed into Swain and Joe changed into the Bismarck cop. The cop's coat flapped open as he walked and Swain said I think we miscounted to everybody he met. Then Swain changed into Armstrong. Armstrong smiled his brilliant politician's smile and said "I'm so sorry and the cop turned and threaded a long gun out from under his flapping coat and slowly racked the bolt and shot Armstrong in the head. There was no sound, because the gun was silenced. No sound, even as Armstrong hit the water and floated away. There was an alarm call from the desk at six o'clock and a minute later there was a knock at the door. Reacher rolled out of bed and wrapped a towel round his waist and checked the spy hole. It was Neagley, with coffee for him. She was all dressed and ready to go. He let her in and sat on the bed and started the coffee and she paced the narrow alley that led to the window. She was wired. Looked like she'd been drinking coffee all night.

"OK, Armstrong's father?" she said, like she was asking the question for him. "He was drafted right at the end of Korea. Never saw active service. But he went through officer training and came out a second lieutenant and was assigned to an infantry company. They were stationed in Alabama, some place that's long gone. They were ordered to achieve battle readiness for a fight everybody knew was already over. And you know how that stuff went, right?"

Reacher nodded sleepily. Sipped his coffee.

"Some idiot captain running endless competitions," he said. "Points for this, points for that, deductions all over the place, at the end of the month Company B gets to keep a flag in its barracks for kicking Company A's ass."

"And Armstrong senior usually won," Neagley said. "He ran a tight unit. But he had a temper problem. It was unpredictable. If somebody screwed up and lost points he could fly into a rage. Happened a couple of times. Not just the usual officer bullshit. It's described in the records as serious uncontrolled temper tantrums. He went way too far, like he couldn't stop himself."

"And?"

"They let him get away with it twice. It wasn't constant. It was purely episodic. But the third time, there was some real serious physical abuse and they kicked him out for it. And they covered it up, basically. They gave him a psychological discharge, wrote it up as generic battle stress, even though he'd never been a combat officer."

Reacher made a face. "He must have had friends. And so must you, to get that deep into the records."

"I've been on the phone all night. Stuyvesant's going to have a coronary when he sees the motel bill."

"How many individual victims?"

"My first thought, but we can forget them. There were three, one for each incident. One was KIA in Vietnam, one died ten years ago in Palm Springs and the third is more than seventy years old, lives in Florida."

"Dry hole," Reacher said.

"But it explains why they left it out of the campaign."

Reacher nodded. Sipped his coffee. "Any chance Armstrong himself inherited the temper? Froelich said she'd seen him angry."

"That was my second thought," Neagley said. "It's conceivable. There was something there below the surface when he was insisting on going to her service, wasn't there? But I assume the broader picture would have come out already, long ago. The guy's been running for office at one level or another his whole life. And this all started with the campaign this summer. We already agreed on that."

Reacher nodded, vaguely. "The campaign," he repeated. He sat still with the coffee cup in his hand. Stared straight ahead at the wall, one full minute, then two.

"What?" Neagley asked.

He didn't reply. Just got up and walked to the window. Pulled back the shades and looked out at slices and slivers of D.C. under the grey dawn sky.

"What did Armstrong do in the campaign?" he asked.

"Lots of things."

"How many representatives does New Mexico have?"