Without Fail

But he knew it was useless. She probably weighed about one-twenty, which meant she had eight or nine pints of blood in her. Most of them were already gone. He was kneeling in them. Her heart was doing its job, thumping away valiantly, pumping her precious blood straight out onto the concrete around his legs.

“Medics,” he screamed.

Nobody came.

She looked straight up at his face.

“Remember?” she whispered.

He bent closer.

“How we met?” she whispered.

“I remember,” he said.

She smiled weakly, like his answer satisfied her completely. She was very pale now. There was blood everywhere on the ground. It was a vast spreading pool. It was warm and slick. Now it was frothing and foaming at her neck. Her arteries were empty and filling with air. Her eyes moved in her head and then settled on his face. Her lips were stark white. Turning blue. They fluttered soundlessly, rehearsing her last words.

“I love you, Joe,” she whispered.

Then she smiled, peacefully.

“I love you too,” he said.

He held her for long moments more until she bled out and died in his arms about the same time Stuyvesant gave the cease-firing order. There was sudden total silence. The strong coppery smell of hot blood and the cold acid stink of gun smoke hung in the air. Reacher looked up and back and saw a cameraman shouldering his way toward him with his lens tilting down like a ca

Stuyvesant did nothing at all. Just stood there for what felt like a very long time, until they all heard the ambulance in the yard. Then he bent down and tried to pull Reacher away. Reacher waited until the paramedics got very close. Then he laid Froelich’s head gently on the concrete. Stood up, sick and cramped and unsteady. Stuyvesant caught his elbow and walked him away.

“I didn’t even know her name,” Reacher said.

“It was Mary Ellen,” Stuyvesant told him.

The paramedics fussed around for a moment. Then they went quiet and gave it up and covered her with a sheet. Left her there for the medical examiners and the crime-scene investigators. Reacher stumbled and sat down again, with his back to the wall, his hands on his knees, his head in his hands. His clothes were soaked with blood. Neagley sat down next to him, an inch away. Stuyvesant squatted in front of them both.

“What’s happening?” Reacher asked.

“They’re locking the city down,” Stuyvesant said. “Roads, bridges, the airports. Ba

“They’ll use the railroad,” Reacher said. “We’re right next to Union Station.”

Stuyvesant nodded.

“They’re searching every train,” he said. “We’ll get them.”

“Was Armstrong OK?”

“Completely unharmed. Froelich did her duty.”

There was a long silence. Reacher looked up.

“What happened on the roof?” he asked. “Where was Crosetti?”

Stuyvesant looked away.

“Crosetti was decoyed somehow,” he said. “He’s in the stairwell. He’s dead too. Shot in the head. With the same silenced rifle, probably.”

Another long silence.

“Where was Crosetti from?” Reacher asked.

“New York, I think,” Stuyvesant said. “Maybe Jersey. Somewhere up there.”

“That’s no good. Where was Froelich from?”

“She was a Wyoming girl.”

Reacher nodded.

“That’ll do,” he said. “Where’s Armstrong now?”

“Can’t tell you that,” Stuyvesant said. “Procedure.”

Reacher raised his hand and looked at his palm. It was rimed with blood. All the lines and scars were outlined in red.

“Tell me,” he said. “Or I’ll break your neck.”

Stuyvesant said nothing.

“Where is he?” Reacher repeated.

“The White House,” Stuyvesant said. “In a secure room. It’s procedure.”

“I need to go talk to him.”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

“You can’t.”

Reacher looked away, beyond the fallen tables. “I can.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“So try to stop me.”

Stuyvesant was quiet for a long moment.

“Let me call him first,” he said.

He stood up awkwardly and walked away.

“You OK?” Neagley asked.

“It’s like Joe all over again,” Reacher said. “Like Molly Beth Gordon.”

“Nothing you could have done.”

“Did you see it?”

Neagley nodded.

“She took a bullet for him,” Reacher said. “She told me that was just a figure of speech.”

“Instinct,” Neagley said. “And she was unlucky. Must have missed her vest by half an inch. Subsonic bullet, it would have bounced right off.”

“Did you see the shooter?”

Neagley shook her head. “I was facing front. Did you?”

“A glimpse,” Reacher said. “One man.”

“Hell of a thing,” Neagley said.

Reacher nodded and wiped his palms on his pants, front and back. Then he ran his hands through his hair. “If I wrote insurance I wouldn’t touch any of Joe’s old friends. I’d tell them to commit suicide and save the bad guys the trouble.”

“So what now?”

He shrugged. “You should go home to Chicago.”

“You?”

“I’m going to stick around.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“The FBI will get them.”

“Not if I get them first,” Reacher said.

“You made up your mind?”

“I held her while she bled to death. I’m not going to just walk away.”

“Then I’ll stick around, too.”

“I’ll be OK on my own.”

“I know you will,” Neagley said. “But you’ll be better with me.”

Reacher nodded.

“What did she say to you?” Neagley asked.

“She said nothing to me. She thought I was Joe.”

He saw Stuyvesant picking his way back through the yard. Hauled himself upright with both hands against the wall.

“Armstrong will see us,” Stuyvesant said. “You want to change first?”

Reacher looked down at his clothes. They were soaked with Froelich’s blood in big irregular patches. It was cooling and drying and blackening.

“No,” he said. “I don’t want to change first.”

They used the Suburban that Stuyvesant had arrived in. It was still Thanksgiving Day and D.C. was still quiet. They saw almost no civilian activity. Almost everything out and moving was law enforcement. There was a double ring of hasty police roadblocks on every thoroughfare around the White House. Stuyvesant kept his strobes going and was waved through all of them. He showed his ID at the White House vehicle gate and parked outside the West Wing. A Marine sentry passed them to a Secret Service escort who led them inside. They went down two flights of stairs to a vaulted basement built from brick. There were plant rooms down there. Other rooms with steel doors. The escort stopped in front of one of them and knocked hard.

The door was opened from the inside by one of Armstrong’s personal detail. He was still wearing his Kevlar vest. Still wearing his sunglasses, although the room had no windows. Just bright fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. Armstrong and his wife were sitting together on chairs at a table in the center of the room. The other two agents were leaning against the walls. The room was silent. Armstrong’s wife had been crying. That was clear. Armstrong himself had a smudge of Froelich’s blood on the side of his face. He looked deflated. Like this whole White House thing was no longer fun.

“What’s the situation?” he asked.

“Two casualties,” Stuyvesant said quietly. “The sentry on the warehouse roof, and M.E. herself. They both died at the scene.”