Without Fail - Lee Child [126]
14
He peeled off his clothes. They were stiff and cold and clammy with blood. He dropped them on the closet floor and stepped into the bathroom. Set the shower going. The tray under his feet ran red and then pink and then clear. He washed his hair twice and shaved carefully. Dressed in another of Joe’s shirts and another of his suits and chose the regimental tie that Froelich had bought, as a tribute. Then he went back out to the lobby.
Neagley was waiting for him there. She had changed, too. She was wearing a black suit. It was the old Army way. If in doubt, go formal. She had a cup of coffee ready for him. She was talking to the U.S. marshals. They were a new crew. The day shift, he guessed.
“Stuyvesant’s coming back,” she told him. “Then we go meet with Bannon.”
He nodded. The marshals were quiet around him. Almost respectful. Toward him or because of Froelich, he didn’t know.
“Tough break,” one of them said.
Reacher looked away.
“I guess it was,” he replied.
Then he looked back.
“But hey, shit happens,” he said.
Neagley smiled, briefly. It was the old Army way. If in doubt, be flippant.
Stuyvesant showed up an hour later and drove them to the Hoover Building. The balance of power had changed. Killing federal agents was a federal crime, so now the FBI was firmly in charge. Now it was a straightforward manhunt. Bannon met them in the main lobby and took them up in an elevator to their conference room. It was better than Treasury’s. It was paneled in wood and had windows. There was a long table with clusters of glasses and bottles of mineral water. Bannon was conspicuously democratic and avoided the head of the table. He just dumped himself down in one of the side chairs. Neagley put herself on the same side, two places away. Reacher sat down opposite her. Stuyvesant chose a place three away from Reacher and poured himself a glass of water.
“Quite a day,” Bannon said in the silence. “My agency extends its deepest sympathies to your agency.”
“You haven’t found them,” Stuyvesant said.
“We got a heads up from the medical examiner,” Bannon said. “Crosetti was shot through the head with a NATO 7.62 round. Died instantly. Froelich was shot through the throat from behind, same gun, probably. The bullet clipped her carotid artery. But I guess you already know that.”
“You haven’t found them,” Stuyvesant said again.
Bannon shook his head.
“Thanksgiving Day,” he said. “Pluses and minuses. Main minus was that we were short of personnel because of the holiday, and so were you, and so were the Metro cops, and so was everybody else. Main plus was that the city itself was very quiet. On balance it was quieter than we were short-handed. The way it turned out we were the majority population all over town five minutes after it happened.”
“But you didn’t find them.”
Bannon shook his head again.
“No,” he said. “We didn’t find them. We’re still looking, of course, but being realistic we would have to say they’re out of the District by now.”
“Outstanding,” Stuyvesant said.
Bannon made a face. “We’re not turning cartwheels. But there’s nothing to be gained by yelling at us. Because we could yell right back. Somebody got through the screen you deployed. Somebody decoyed your guy off the roof.”
He looked directly at Stuyvesant as he said it.
“We paid for it,” Stuyvesant said. “Big time.”
“How did it happen?” Neagley asked. “How did they get up there at all?”
“Not through the front,” Bannon said. “There was a shit-load of cops watching the front. They saw nothing, and they can’t all have fallen asleep at the critical time. Not down the back alley either. There was a cop on foot and a cop in a car watching, both ends. Those four all say they saw nobody either, and we believe all four of them. So we think the bad guys got into a building a block over. Walked through the building and out a rear door into the alley halfway down. Then they skipped ten feet across the alley and got in the back of the warehouse and walked up the stairs. No doubt they exited the same way. But they were probably running, on the way out.