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“So?”
“So Armstrong did one absolutely basic, fundamental, elemental thing in the campaign. He put himself in the public eye, nationally. For the very first time in his life ordinary people outside of his home state and outside of his circle of friends saw his face. Heard his name. For the first time ever. I think this all could be as basic as that.”
“In what way?”
“Suppose his face came back at somebody from way in the past. Completely out of the blue. Like a sudden shock.”
“Like who?”
“Like you’re some guy somewhere and long ago some young man lost his temper and smacked you around. Some situation like that. Maybe in a bar, maybe over a girl. Maybe he humiliated you by doing so. You never see the guy again, but the incident festers in your mind. Years pass, and suddenly there’s the guy all over the papers and the TV. He’s a politician, ru
“You think about some kind of revenge.”
Reacher nodded. “Which would explain Swain’s thing about wanting him to suffer. But maybe Swain’s been looking in the wrong place. Maybe we all have. Because maybe this isn’t personal to Armstrong the politician. Maybe it’s personal to Armstrong the man. Maybe it’s really personal.”
Neagley stopped pacing and sat down in the chair.
“It’s very tenuous,” she said. “People get over things, don’t they?”
“Do they?”
“Mostly.”
Reacher glanced down at her. “You haven’t gotten over whatever makes it that you don’t like people to touch you.”
The room went quiet.
“OK,” she said. “Normal people get over things.”
“Normal people don’t kidnap women and cut thumbs off and kill i
She nodded.
“OK,” she said again. “It’s a theory. But where can we go with it?”
“Armstrong himself, maybe,” Reacher said. “But that would be a difficult conversation to have with a Vice President-elect. And would he even remember? If he inherited the kind of temper that gets a guy thrown out of the Army he could have had dozens of fights long ago. He’s a big guy. Could have spread mayhem far and wide before he got a handle on it.”
“His wife? They’ve been together a long time.”
Reacher said nothing.
“Time to get going,” Neagley said. “We meet with Ba
“No,” Reacher said. “He wouldn’t listen.”
“Go shower,” Neagley said.
Reacher nodded. “Something else first. It kept me awake last night for an hour. It nagged at me. Something that’s not here, or something that hasn’t been done.”
Neagley shrugged.
“OK,” she said. “I’ll think about it. Now get your ass in gear.”
He dressed in the last of Joe’s suits. It was charcoal gray and as fine as silk. He used the last of the clean shirts. It was stiff with starch and as white as new snow. The last tie was dark blue with a tiny repeated pattern. When you looked very closely you saw that each element of the pattern was a diagram of a pitcher’s hand, gripping a baseball, preparing to throw a knuckleball.
He met Neagley out in the lobby and ate a muffin from the buffet and took a cup of coffee with him in the Secret Service Town Car. They were late into the conference room. Ba
“The FBI is not going to have agents in Grace, Wyoming,” he said. “Special request from Armstrong, via the director. He doesn’t want a circus out there.”
“Suits me,” Reacher said.
“You’re wasting your time,” Ba
Reacher nodded. “Won’t be the first trip I ever wasted.”
“I’m warning you against independent action.”
“There won’t be any action, according to you.”
Ba
“Ballistics tests are in,” he said. “The rifle we found in the warehouse is definitely the same gun that fired the Mi
“So how did it get here?” Stuyvesant asked.
“We burned more than a hundred man-hours last night,” Ba
“So they drove it in?” Reacher said.
Ba
“My grandmother couldn’t drive,” Reacher said. “Still figuring on three guys?”
Ba
“So why was the other guy bothering to drive here at the time?” Stuyvesant asked.
“Because these are your people,” Ba
Stuyvesant said nothing.
“But they were together yesterday,” Reacher said. “You’re saying the first guy drove the Vaime here and I saw the guy from Bismarck on the warehouse roof.”
Ba
“So where’s the H amp;K? He must have abandoned it in Bismarck somewhere between the church and the airport. You find it?”
“No,” Ba
“And who was the guy the state trooper saw in the subdivision?”
“We’re discounting him. Almost certainly just a civilian.”
Reacher shook his head. “So this solo guy hid the decoy rifle and legged it back to the church with the H amp;K all by himself?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Have you ever hidden out and lined up to shoot a man?”
“No,” Ba
“I have,” Reacher said. “And it’s not a lot of fun. You need to be comfortable, and relaxed, and alert. It’s a muscle thing. You get there well ahead of time, you settle in, you adjust your position, you figure out your range, you check the wind, you assess the angle of elevation or depression, you calculate the bullet drop. Then you lie there, staring through the sight. You get your breathing slow, you let your heart rate drop. And you know what you want at that point, more than anything else in the whole world?”