Without Fail - Lee Child [171]
“On this planet,” Neagley said.
Then they heard the staircase creak below them. They heard feet on the ladder. The trapdoor lifted an inch and fell back and then crashed all the way open and the vicar put his head up into the bell chamber and stared at the submachine gun pointing at him from one side and the M16 rifle from the other.
“I need to talk to you about those things,” he said. “You can’t expect me to be happy about having weapons in my church.”
He stood there on the ladder, looking like a severed head. Reacher laid the M16 back on the floor. The vicar stepped up another rung.
“I understand the need for security,” he said. “And we’re honored to host the Vice President-elect, but I really can’t permit engines of destruction in a hallowed building. I would have expected somebody to discuss it with me.”
“Engines of destruction?” Neagley repeated.
“What time does the sun set?” Reacher asked.
The vicar looked a little surprised by the change of subject. But he answered very politely.
“Soon,” he said. “It falls behind the mountains quite early here. But you won’t see it happen today. There are clouds. There’s a snowstorm coming in from the west.”
“And when does it rise?”
“This time of year? A little before seven o’clock, I suppose.”
“You heard a weather report for tomorrow?”
“They say much the same as today.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “Thanks.”
“Did you stop the clock?”
“It was driving me nuts.”
“That’s why I came up. Do you mind if I set it going again?”
Reacher shrugged. “It’s your clock.”
“I know the noise must be bothersome.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Reacher said. “We’ll be out of here as soon as the sun sets. Weapons and all.”
The vicar hauled himself all the way up into the chamber and leaned over the iron girders and fiddled with the mechanism. There was a setting device linked to a separate miniature clock that Reacher hadn’t noticed before. It was buried within the gear wheels. It had an adjustment lever attached to it. The vicar checked his wristwatch and used the lever to force the exterior hands around to the correct time. The miniature clock hands moved with them. Then he simply turned a gear wheel with his hand until the mechanism picked up the momentum for itself and started again on its own. The heavy thunk, thunk, thunk came back. The smallest bell rang in sympathy, one tiny resonance for every second that passed.
“Thank you,” the vicar said.
“An hour at most,” Reacher said. “Then we’ll be gone.”
The vicar nodded like his point was made and threaded himself down through the trapdoor. Pulled it closed after him.
“We can’t leave here,” Neagley said. “Are you crazy? They could come in at night easy as anything. Maybe that’s exactly what they’re waiting for. They could drive back in without headlights.”
Reacher glanced at his watch.
“They’re already here,” he said. “Or almost here.”
“Where?”
“I’ll show you.”
He pulled the louver out of the frame again and handed it to her. Crawled under the clock shaft to the bottom of the next ladder that led up through the roof to the outside. Climbed up it and eased the roof trapdoor open.
“Stay low,” he called.
He swam out, keeping his stomach flat on the roof. The construction was just about identical to the Bismarck roof. There was soldered lead sheathing built up into a shallow box. Drains in the corners. A substantial anchor for the flagpole and the weather vane and the lightning rod. And a three-foot wall all around the edge. He turned a circle on his stomach and leaned down and took the louver from Neagley. Then he got out of her way and let her crawl up next to him. The wind was strong and the air was bitterly cold.
“Now we kind of kneel low,” he said. “Close together, facing west.”
They knelt together, shoulder to shoulder, hunched down. He was on the left, she was on the right. He could still hear the clock. He could feel it, through the lead and the heavy wooden boards.
“OK, like this,” he said. He held the louver in front of his face, with his left hand holding the left end. She took the