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By Root 396 0

the garage inside four minutes. They were in the elevator thirty seconds later. In Stuyvesant’s office less than one minute after that. He was sitting motionless behind his immaculate desk. Slumped in his chair like he had taken a punch to the stomach. He was holding a sheaf of papers. The light shone through them and showed the kind of random coded headings you get by printing from a database. There were two blocks of dense text under the headings. His secretary was standing next to him, handing him more paper, sheet by sheet. She was white in the face. She left the room without saying a single word. Closed the door, which intensified the silence.

“What?” Reacher said.

Stuyvesant glanced up at him. “Now I know.”

“Know what?”

“That this is an outside job. For sure. Without any possible doubt.”

“How?”

“You predicted theatrical,” Stuyvesant said. “Or spectacular. Those were your predictions. To which we might add dramatic, or incredible, or whatever.”

“What was it?”

“Do you know what the homicide rate is, nationally?”

Reacher shrugged. “High, I guess.”

“Almost twenty thousand every year.”

“OK.”

“That’s about fifty-four homicides every day.”

Reacher did the math in his head.

“Nearer fifty-five,” he said. “Except in leap years.”

“Want to hear about two of today’s?” Stuyvesant asked.

“Who?” Froelich asked.

“Small sugar beet farm in Minnesota,” Stuyvesant said. “The farmer walks out his back gate this morning and gets shot in the head. For no apparent reason. Then this afternoon there’s a small strip mall outside of Boulder, Colorado. A CPA’s office in one of the upstairs rooms. The guy comes down and walks out of the rear entrance and gets killed with a machine gun in the service yard. Again, no apparent reason.”

“So?”

“The farmer’s name was Bruce Armstrong. The accountant’s was Brian Armstrong. Both of them were white men about Brook Armstrong’s age, about his height, about his weight, similar appearance, same color eyes and hair.”

“Are they family? Are they related?”

“No,” Stuyvesant said. “Not in any way. Not to each other, not to the VP. So therefore I’m asking myself, what are the odds? That two random men whose last name is Armstrong and whose first names both begin with BR are going to get senselessly killed the same day we’re facing a serious threat against our guy? And I’m thinking, the answer is about a trillion billion to one.”

Silence in the office.

“The demonstration,” Reacher said.

“Yes,” Stuyvesant said. “That was the demonstration. Cold-blooded murder. Two innocent men. So I agree with you. These are not insiders having a joke.”

Neagley and Froelich made it to Stuyvesant’s visitor chairs and just sat down without being asked. Reacher leaned on a tall file cabinet and stared out the window. The blinds were still open, but it was full dark outside. Washington’s orange nighttime glow was the only thing he could see.

“How were you notified?” he asked. “Did they call in and claim responsibility?”

Stuyvesant shook his head. “FBI alerted us. They’ve got software that scans the NCIC reports. Armstrong is one of the names that they flag up.”

“So now they’re involved anyway.”

Stuyvesant shook his head again. “They passed on some information, is all. They don’t understand its significance.”

The room stayed quiet. Just four people breathing, lost in somber thoughts.

“We got any details from the scenes?” Neagley asked.

“Some,” Stuyvesant said. “The first guy was a single shot to the head. Killed him instantly. They can’t find the bullet. The guy’s wife didn’t hear anything.”

“Where was she?”

“About twenty feet away in the kitchen. Doors and windows shut because of the weather. But you’d expect her to hear something. She hears hunters all the time.”

“How big was the hole in his head?” Reacher asked.

“Bigger than a .22,” Stuyvesant said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

Reacher nodded. The only handgun inaudible from twenty feet would be a silenced .22. Anything bigger than that, you’d probably hear something, suppressor or no suppressor, windows or no windows.

“So it was a rifle,”