Without Fail - Lee Child [38]
Stuyvesant smiled a brief smile.
“I gathered that,” he said. “Smart move. What were the results?”
The office went quiet.
“I apologize if I offended you, sir,” Froelich said. “You know, before. Talking about the tape like that. I was just explaining the situation.”
“What were the audit results?” Stuyvesant asked again.
She said nothing back.
“That bad?” Stuyvesant said to her. “Well, I certainly hope so. I knew Joe Reacher too. Not as well as you did, but we came into contact, time to time. He was impressive. I’m assuming his brother is at least half as smart. Ms. Neagley, probably smarter still. In which case they must have found ways through. Am I right?”
“Three definites,” Froelich said.
Stuyvesant nodded.
“The ballroom, obviously,” he said. “Probably the family house and that damn outdoors event in Bismarck too. Am I right?”
“Yes,” Froelich said.
“Extreme levels of performance,” Neagley said. “Unlikely to be duplicated.”
Stuyvesant held up his hand and cut her off.
“Let’s go to the conference room,” he said. “I want to talk about baseball.”
He led them through narrow winding corridors to a relatively spacious room in the heart of the complex. It had a long table in it with ten chairs, five to a side. No windows. The same gray synthetic carpet underfoot and the same white acoustic tile overhead. The same bright halogen light. There was a low cabinet against one wall. It had closed doors and three telephones on it. Two were white and one was red. Stuyvesant sat down and waved to the chairs on the other side of the table. Reacher glanced at a huge notice board full of memos labeled confidential.
“I’m going to be uncharacteristically frank,” Stuyvesant said. “Just temporarily, you understand, because I think we owe you an explanation, and because Froelich involved you with my initial approval, and because Joe Reacher’s brother is family, so to speak, and therefore his colleague is too.”
“We worked together in the military,” Neagley said.
Stuyvesant nodded, like that was an inference he had drawn long ago.
“Let’s talk about baseball,” he said. “You follow the game?”
They all waited.
“The Washington Senators had already gone when I hit town,” he said. “So I’ve had to make do with the Baltimore Orioles, which has been a mixed bag in terms of fun. But do you understand what’s unique about the game?”
“The length of the season,” Reacher said. “The win percentages.”
Stuyvesant smiled, like he was conferring praise.
“Maybe you’re better than half as smart,” he said. “The thing about baseball is that the regular season is one hundred sixty-two games long. Way, way longer than any other sport. Any other sport has about half as many games as baseball. Basketball, hockey, football, soccer, anything. Any other sport, the players can start out thinking they can win every single game all season long. It’s just about a realistic motiva tional goal. It’s even been achieved, here and there, now and then. But it’s impossible in baseball. The very best teams, the greatest champions, they all lose around a third of their games. They lose fifty or sixty times a year, at least. Imagine what that feels like, from a psychological perspective. You’re a superb athlete, you’re fanatically competitive, but you know for sure you’re going to lose repeatedly. You have to make mental adjustments, or you couldn’t cope with it. And presidential protection is exactly the same thing. That’s my point. We can’t win every day. So we get used to it.”
“You only lost once,” Neagley said. “Back in 1963.”
“No,” Stuyvesant said. “We lose repeatedly. But not every loss is significant. Just like baseball. Not every hit they get produces a run against you, not every defeat they inflict loses you the World Series. And with us, not every mistake kills our guy.”
“So what are you saying?” Neagley asked.
Stuyvesant sat forward. “I’m saying despite what your audit might have revealed you should still have considerable faith in us. Not every error costs us a run. Now, I completely understand