Without Fail - Lee Child [127]
“How did they decoy Crosetti?” Stuyvesant said. “He was a good agent.”
“Yes, he was,” Reacher said. “I liked him.”
Bannon shrugged again. “There’s always a way, isn’t there?”
Then he looked around the room, the way he did when he wanted people to understand more than he was saying. Nobody responded.
“Did you check the trains?” Reacher asked.
Bannon nodded. “Very carefully. It was fairly busy. People heading out for family dinners. But we were thorough.”
“Did you find the rifle?”
Bannon just shook his head. Reacher stared at him.
“They got away carrying a rifle?” he said.
Nobody spoke. Bannon looked back at Reacher.
“You saw the shooter,” he said.
Reacher nodded. “Just a glimpse, for a quarter-second, maybe. In silhouette, as he moved away.”
“And you figure you’ve seen him before.”
“But I don’t know where.”
“Outstanding,” Bannon said.
“There was something about the way he moved, that’s all. The shape of his body. His clothing, maybe. It’s just out of reach. Like the next line of an old song.”
“Was he the guy from the garage video?”
“No,” Reacher said.
Bannon nodded. “Whatever, it doesn’t mean much. Stands to reason you’ve seen him before. You’ve been in the same place at the same time, in Bismarck for sure, and maybe elsewhere. We already know they’ve seen you. Because of the phone call. But it would be nice to have a name and face, I guess.”
“I’ll let you know,” Reacher said.
“Your theory still standing?” Stuyvesant asked.
“Yes,” Bannon said. “We’re still looking at your ex-employees. Now more than ever. Because we think that’s why Crosetti left his post. We think he saw somebody he knew and trusted.”
They drove the half mile west on Pennsylvania Avenue and parked in the garage and rode up to the Secret Service’s own conference room. Every inch of the short journey was bitter without Froelich.
“Hell of a thing,” Stuyvesant said. “I never lost an agent before. Twenty-five years. And now I’ve lost two in a day. I want these guys, so bad.”
“They’re dead men walking,” Reacher said.
“All the evidence is against us,” Stuyvesant said.
“So what are you saying? You don’t want them if they’re yours?”
“I don’t want them to be ours.”
“I don’t think they are yours,” Reacher said. “But either way, they’re going down. Let’s be real straight about that. They’ve crossed so many lines I’ve given up counting.”
“I don’t want them to be ours,” Stuyvesant said again. “But I’m afraid Bannon might be right.”
“It’s either-or,” Reacher said. “That’s all. Either he’s right or he’s wrong. If he’s right, we’ll know soon enough because he’ll bust his balls to show us. Thing is, he’ll never look at the possibility that he’s wrong. He wants to be right too much.”
“Tell me he’s wrong.”
“I think he is wrong. And the upside is, if I’m wrong that he’s wrong, it doesn’t matter worth a damn. Because he’s going to leave no stone unturned. We can absolutely rely on him. He doesn’t need our input. Our responsibility is to look at what he’s not looking at. Which I think is the right place to look anyway.”
“Just tell me he’s wrong.”
“His thing is like a big pyramid balancing on its point. Very impressive, until it falls over. He’s betting everything on the fact that Armstrong hasn’t been told. But there’s no logic in that. Maybe these guys are targeting Armstrong personally. Maybe they just didn’t know you wouldn’t tell him.”
Stuyvesant nodded.
“I might buy that,” he said. “God knows I want to. But there’s the NCIC thing. Bannon was right about that. If they were outside our community, they’d have pointed us toward Minnesota and Colorado personally. We have to face that.”
“The weapons are persuasive too,” Neagley said. “And Froelich’s address.”
Reacher nodded. “So is the thumbprint, actually. If we really want to depress ourselves we should consider if maybe they knew the print wouldn’t come back. Maybe they ran a test from this end.”
“Great,” Stuyvesant said.
“But I still don’t believe it,” Reacher said.
“Why not?”
“Get the messages and take a real close look.”
Stuyvesant waited a beat and then stood up slowly and