Without Fail - Lee Child [113]
“Outdoors?” Bannon said. “Isn’t that worse?”
“No,” Froelich said. “On balance, it’s better. It’s a long low room, basically. Kitchen at the back. It’s going to get very crowded. We’ve got no realistic chance of using metal detectors on the doors. It’s the end of November, and most of these people are going to be wearing five layers and carrying God knows what kind of metal stuff. We can’t search them. It would take forever and God knows how many diseases my people would catch. We can’t wear gloves to do it because that would be seen as insulting. So we have to concede there’s a fair chance that the bad guys could mingle in and get close, and we have to concede we’ve got no real way of stopping them.”
“So how does it help to be outdoors?”
“There’s a side yard. We’ll put the serving tables in a long line at right angles to the wall of the building. Pass stuff out through the kitchen window. Behind the serving table is the wall of the yard. We’ll put Armstrong and his wife and four agents in a line behind the serving table, backs to the wall. We’ll have the guests approach from the left, single file through a screen of more agents. They’ll get their food and walk on inside to sit down and eat it. The television people will like it better, too. Outside is always better for them. And there’ll be orderly movement. Left to right along the table. Turkey from Armstrong, stuffing from Mrs. Armstrong. Move along, sit down to eat. Easier to portray, visually.”
“Upside?” Stuyvesant asked.
“Extensive,” Froelich said. “Much better crowd security. Nobody can pull a weapon before they get near Armstrong, because they’re filtering through an agent screen the whole time until they’re right across the table from him. Whereupon if they wait to do it at that point, he’s got four agents right alongside him.”
“Downside?”
“Limited. We’ll be screened on three sides by walls. But the yard is open at the front. There’s a block of five-story buildings directly across the street. Old warehousing. The windows are boarded, which is a huge bonus. But we’ll need to put an agent on every roof. So we’ll have to forget the budget.”
Stuyvesant nodded. “We can do that. Good plan.”
“The weather helped us for once,” Froelich said.
“Is this basically a conventional plan?” Bannon asked. “Like normal Secret Service thinking?”
“I don’t really want to comment on that,” Froelich said. “Secret Service doesn’t discuss procedure.”
“Work with me, ma’am,” Bannon said. “We’re all on the same side here.”
“You can tell him,” Stuyvesant said. “We’re already in hip-deep.”
Froelich shrugged.
“OK,” she said. “I guess it’s a conventional plan. Place like that, we’re pretty limited for options. Why are you asking?”
“Because we’ve done a lot of work on this,” Bannon said. “A lot of thinking.”
“And?” Stuyvesant said.
“We’re looking at four specific factors here. First, this all started seventeen days ago, correct?”
Stuyvesant nodded.
“And who’s hurting?” Bannon asked. “That’s the first question. Second, think about the demonstration homicides out in Minnesota and Colorado. How were you alerted? That’s the second question. Third, what were the weapons used out there? And fourth, how did the last message end up on Ms. Froelich’s hallway floor?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying all four factors point in one single direction.”
“What direction?”
“What’s the purpose behind the messages?”
“They’re threats,” Froelich said.
“Who are they threatening?”
“Armstrong, of course.”
“Are they? Some were addressed to you, and some were addressed to him. But has he seen any of them? Even the ones addressed directly to him? Does he even know anything about them?”
“We never tell our protectees. That’s policy, always has been.”
“So Armstrong’s not sweating, is he? Who’s sweating?”
“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,” Bannon said. “Now think about Minnesota and Colorado. Hell of a demonstration. Not