Without Fail

“Doesn’t feel good,” she said again.

An FBI forensic 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 all the way 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?”

“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.”

Froelich was still and silent for a spell. Then she nodded.

“OK,” she said. “I’ll get you a driver. Be back here at nine in the morning. There’ll be another strategy meeting. Exactly a week after the last one.”

The morning was damp and very cold, like nature wanted to be done with fall and get started with winter. Exhaust fumes drifted down the streets in low white clouds and pedestrians hurried by on the sidewalks with their faces ducked deep into scarves. Neagley and Reacher met at eight-forty at the cab line outside the hotel and found a Secret Service Town Car waiting for them. It was double-parked with the engine ru

“He looks worried,” Neagley said.

The inside of the car was hot. The driver didn’t speak once during the journey. Didn’t even say his name. Just bulled through the morning traffic and squealed into the underground garage. Led them at a fast walk into the interior lobby and into the elevator. Up three floors and across to the reception desk. It was ma

“Started without you,” he said. “You better hurry.”

The conference room was empty apart from Froelich and Stuyvesant sitting face-to-face across the width of the table. They were both still and silent. Both pale. On the polished wood between them lay two photographs. One was the official FBI crime scene eight-by-ten of the previous day’s ten-word message: The day upon which Armstrong will die is fast approaching. The other was a hasty Polaroid of another sheet of paper. Reacher stepped close and bent to look.

“Shit,” he said.

The Polaroid showed a single sheet of letter-sized paper, exactly like the first three in every detail. It followed the same format, a printed message neatly centered near the middle of the page. Nine words: A demonstration of your vulnerability will be staged today.

“When did it come?” he asked.

“This morning,” Froelich said. “In the mail. Addressed to Armstrong at his office. But we’re bringing all his mail through here now.”

“Where is it from?”

“Orlando, Florida, postmarked Friday.”

“Another popular tourist destination,” Stuyvesant said.

Reacher nodded. “Forensics on yesterday’s?”

“Just got a heads-up by phone,” Froelich said. “Everything’s identical, thumbprint and all. I’m sure this one will be the same. They’re working on it now.”

Reacher stared at the pictures. The thumbprints were completely invisible, but he felt he could just about see them there, like they were glowing in the dark.

“I had the cleaners arrested,” Stuyvesant said.

Nobody spoke.

“Gut call?” Stuyvesant said. “Joke or real?”

“Real,” Neagley said. “I think.”

“Doesn’t matter yet,” Reacher said. “Because nothing’s happened yet. But we act like it’s for real until we know otherwise.”

Stuyvesant nodded. “That was Froelich’s recommendation. She quoted Karl Marx at me. The Communist Manifesto.”

“Das Kapital, actually,” Reacher said. He picked up the Polaroid and looked at it again. The focus was a little soft and the paper was very white from the strobe, but there was no mistaking what the message meant.

“Two questions,” he said. “First, how secure are his movements today?”

“As good as it gets,” Froelich said. “I’ve doubled his detail. He’s scheduled to leave home at eleven. I’m using the armored stretch again instead of the Town Car. Full motorcade. We’re using awnings across the sidewalks at both ends. He won’t see open air at any point. We’ll tell him it’s another rehearsal procedure.”

“He still doesn’t know about this yet?”

“No,” Froelich said.

“Standard practice,” Stuyvesant said. “We don’t tell them.”

“Thousands of threats a year,” Neagley said.

Stuyvesant nodded. “Exactly. Most of them are background noise. We wait until we’re absolutely sure. And even then, we don’t always make a big point out of it. They’ve got better things to do. It’s our job to worry.”

“OK, second question,” Reacher said. “Where’s his wife? And he has a grown-up kid, right? We have to assume that messing with his family would be a pretty good demonstration of his vulnerability.”

Froelich nodded. “His wife is back here in D.C. She came in from North Dakota yesterday. As long as she stays in or near the house she’s OK. His daughter is doing graduate work in Antarctica. Meteorology, or something. She’s in a hut surrounded by a hundred thousand square miles of ice. Better protection than we could give her.”

Reacher put the Polaroid back down on the table.

“Are you confident?” he asked. “About today?”

“I’m nervous as hell.”

“But?”

“I’m as confident as I can be.”

“I want Neagley and me on the ground, observing.”

“Think we’re going to screw up?”

“No, but I think you’re going to have your hands full. If the guy’s in the neighborhood, you might be too busy to spot him. And he’ll have to be in the neighborhood if he’s for real and he wants to stage a demonstration of something.”