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“We are.”
“So are the messages really aimed at Armstrong, or are they really aimed at the United States Secret Service? In a real-world sense?”
Froelich said nothing.
“OK,” Ba
“They didn’t.”
“Exactly,” Ba
“So?”
“So tell me, how many Joe Publics would know all that would happen? How many Joe Publics would sit back and take the risk that their little drama would go unco
“So what are you saying? Who are they?”
“What weapons did they use?”
“An H amp;K MP5SD6 and a Vaime Mk2,” Reacher said.
“Fairly esoteric weapons,” Ba
“Us,” Stuyvesant said, quietly.
“Yes, you,” Ba
There was a long silence.
“They know me,” Froelich said, quietly.
Ba
The room was silent.
“What would be the motive?” Froelich asked.
Ba
“What about the thumbprint?” Stuyvesant said. “All our people are printed. Always have been.”
“Our assumption is that we’re talking about two guys. Our assessment is that the thumbprint guy is an unknown associate of somebody who used to work here, who is the latex gloves guy. So we’re saying they and them purely as a convenience. We’re not saying they both worked here. We’re not suggesting you’ve got two renegades.”
“Just one renegade.”
“That’s our theory,” Ba
“This is a very big department,” Stuyvesant said. “Big turnover of people. Some quit. Some are fired. Some retire. Some get asked to.”
“We’re checking now,” Ba
“You’ll get a long list.”
“We’ve got the manpower.”
Nobody spoke.
“I’m real sorry, people,” Ba
Stuyvesant nodded in the silence.
“We will,” he said. “You can count on that.”
“My people will be in place two hours in advance,” Ba
“Ours will be in place an hour before that,” Froelich replied.
Ba
“See you there,” he said.
He left the room and closed the door behind him, firmly, but quietly.
Stuyvesant checked his watch. “Well?”
They had sat quiet for a moment, and then strolled out to the reception area and got coffee. Then they regrouped in the conference room, in the same seats, each of them looking at the place Ba
“Well?” Stuyvesant said again.
Nobody spoke.
“Inevitable, I guess,” Stuyvesant said. “They can’t pin the thumbprint guy on us, but the other one is definitely one of ours. It’ll be all smiles over at the Hoover Building. They’ll be gri
“But does that make them wrong?” Neagley asked.
“No,” Froelich said. “These guys know where I live. So I think Ba
Stuyvesant flinched, like the umpire had called strike one.
“And you?” he said to Neagley.
“Worrying about DNA on envelopes sounds like insiders,” Neagley said. “But one thing bothers me. If they’re familiar with your procedures, then they didn’t interpret the Bismarck situation very well. They expected the cops would move toward the decoy rifle and Armstrong would move toward the cars, thereby traversing their field of fire. But that didn’t happen. Armstrong waited in the blind spot and the cars came to him.”
Froelich shook her head.
“No, I’m afraid their interpretation was correct,” she said. “Normally Armstrong would have been well out in the middle of the field, letting people get a good look at him. Right there in the center of things. We don’t usually make them skulk around the edges. It was a last-minute change to keep him near the church. Based on Reacher’s input. And normally there’s absolutely no way I would allow a rear-wheel-drive limo on the grass. Too easy to bog down and get stuck. That’s an article of faith. But I knew the ground was dry and hard. It was practically frozen. So I improvised. That maneuver would have struck an insider as completely off the wall. It would have been the very last thing they were expecting. They would have been totally surprised by it.”
Silence for a beat.
“Then Ba
Stuyvesant nodded, slowly. Strike two.
“Reacher?” he said.
“Can’t argue with a word of it.”
Strike three. Stuyvesant’s head dropped, like his last hope was gone.
“But I don’t believe it,” Reacher said.
Stuyvesant’s head came up again.
“I’m glad they’re pursuing it,” Reacher said. “Because it needs to be pursued, I guess. We need to eliminate all possibilities. And they’ll go at it like crazy. If they’re right, they’ll take care of it for us, that’s for sure. So it’s one less thing for us to worry about. But I’m pretty sure they’re wasting their time.”
“Why?” Froelich asked.
“Because I’m pretty sure neither of these guys ever worked here.”
“So who are they?”
“I think they’re both outsiders. I think they’re between two and ten years older than Armstrong himself, both of them brought up and educated in remote rural areas where the schools were decent but the taxes were low.”