Without Fail - Lee Child [150]
“So what happened with the rifle?”
“They messengered it, obviously,” Reacher said. “FedEx or UPS or somebody. Maybe the USPS itself. They probably packaged it up with a bunch of saws and hammers and called it a delivery of tool samples. Some bullshit story like that. Addressed to a motel here, awaiting their arrival. That’s what I would have done, anyway.”
Bannon looked embarrassed. Said nothing. Just stood up and left. The door clicked shut behind him. The room went quiet. Stuyvesant stayed in his seat, a little awkward.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“You’re firing us,” Neagley said.
He nodded. Put his hand in his inside jacket pocket and came out with two slim white envelopes.
“This isn’t internal anymore,” he said. “You know that. It’s gotten way too big.”
“But you know Bannon is looking in the wrong place.”
“I hope he’ll come to realize that,” Stuyvesant said. “Then maybe he’ll start looking in the right place. Meanwhile we’ll defend Armstrong. Starting with this craziness in Wyoming. That’s what we do. That’s all we can do. We’re reactive. We’re defensive. We’ve got no legal basis to employ outsiders in a proactive role.”
He slid the first envelope along the shiny tabletop. Gave it enough force that it carried exactly six feet and spun to a stop in front of Reacher. Then the second, with a gentler motion, so it stopped in front of Neagley.
“Later,” Reacher said. “Fire us later. Give us the rest of the day.”
“Why?”
“We need to talk to Armstrong. Just me and Neagley.”
“About what?”
“About something important,” Reacher said. Then he went quiet again.
“The thing we talked about this morning?” Neagley asked him.
“No, the thing that was on my mind last night.”
“Something not there, something not done?”
He shook his head. “It was something not said.”
“What wasn’t said?”
He didn’t answer. Just gathered up both envelopes and slid them back along the tabletop. Stuyvesant stopped them dead with the flat of his hand. Picked them up and held them, uncertain.
“I can’t let you talk to Armstrong without me,” he said.
“You’ll have to,” Reacher said. “It’s the only way he’ll talk at all.”
Stuyvesant said nothing. Reacher glanced at him. “Tell me about the mail system. How long have you been checking Armstrong’s mail?”
“From the start,” Stuyvesant said. “Since he was picked as the candidate. That’s absolutely standard procedure.”
“How does it work?”
Stuyvesant shrugged. “It’s easy enough. At first the agents at his house opened everything delivered there and we had a guy at the Senate Offices opening the stuff that went there and a guy in Bismarck looking after the local items. But after the first couple of messages we centralized everything right here for convenience.”
“But everything always got passed on to him except for the threats?”
“Obviously.”
“You know Swain?”
“The researcher? I know him a little.”
“You should promote him. Or give him a bonus. Or a big kiss on the forehead. Because he’s the only person around here with an original idea in his head. Us included.”
“What’s his idea?”
“We need to see Armstrong. As soon as possible. Me and Neagley, alone. Then we’ll consider ourselves fired and you’ll never see us again. And you’ll never see Bannon again, either. Because your problem will be over a couple of days later.”
Stuyvesant put both envelopes back in his jacket.
It was the day after Thanksgiving and Armstrong was in self-imposed exile from public affairs, but arranging a meeting with him was intensely problematic. Straight after the morning meeting Stuyvesant promoted one of Froelich’s original six male rivals to replace her, and the guy was full of all kinds of macho “Now we can do this properly” bullshit. He kept it firmly under control in front of Stuyvesant because of sensitivity issues, but he threw up every kind of obstacle he could find. The main stumbling block was a decades-old rule that no protectee can be alone with visitors without at least