He turned a corner and came out at the top of Armstrong's street. Looked up at the high windows again. A mere demonstration wouldn't require an actual missile. A rifle would be functionally ineffective, but it would make a point. A couple of chips in the limo's bulletproof glass would serve some kind of notice. A paintball gun would do the trick. A couple of red splatters on the rear window would be a message. But the upper-floor windows were quiet as far as the eye could see. They were clean and neat and draped and closed against the cold. The houses themselves were quiet and calm, serene and prosperous.
There was a small crowd of onlookers watching the Secret Service team erect an awning between Armstrong's house and the curb. It was like a long narrow white tent. Heavy white canvas, completely opaque. The house end fitted flat against the brick around Armstrong's front door. The curb end had a radius like a jetway at an airport. It would hug the profile of the limo. The limo's door would open right inside it. Armstrong would pass from the safety of his house straight into the armored car without ever being visible to an observer.
Reacher walked a circle around the group of curious people. They looked unthreatening. Neighbors, mostly, he guessed. Dressed like they weren't going far. He moved back up the street and continued the search for open upper-story windows. That would be inappropriate, because of the weather. But there weren't any. He looked for people loitering. There were plenty of those. There was a block where every second storefront was a coffee shop, and there were people passing time in every one of them. Sipping espresso, reading papers, talking on cell phones, writing in cramped notebooks, playing with electronic organizers.
He picked a coffee shop that gave him a good view south down the street and a marginal view east and west and bought a tall regular, black, and took a table. Sat down to wait and watch. At ten fifty-five a black Suburban came up the street and parked tight against the curb just north of the tent. It was followed by a black Cadillac stretch that parked tight against the tent's opening. Behind that was a black Town Car. All three vehicles looked very heavy. All three had reinforced window frames and one-way glass. Four agents spilled out of the lead Suburban and took up stations on the sidewalk, two of them north of the house and two of them south. Two Metro Police cruisers snuffled up the street and the first stopped right in the center of the road well ahead of the Secret Service convoy and the second hung back well behind it. They lit up their light bars to hold the traffic. There wasn't much. A blue Chevy Malibu and a gold Lexus SUV waited to get by. Reacher had seen neither vehicle before. Neither had been out cruising the area. He looked at the tent and tried to guess when Armstrong was passing through it. Impossible. He was still gazing at the house end when he heard the faint thump of an armored door closing and the four agents stepped back to their Suburban and the whole convoy took off. The lead cop car leapt forward and the Suburban and the Cadillac and the Town Car fell in behind it and moved fast up the street. The second police cruiser brought up the rear. All five vehicles turned east right in front of Reacher's coffee shop. Tires squealed on the pavement. The cars accelerated. He watched them disappear. Then he turned back and watched the small crowd in the street disperse. The whole neighborhood went quiet and still.
They watched the motorcade drive away from a vantage point about eighty yards from where Reacher was sitting. Their surveillance confirmed what they already knew. Professional pride prevented them from writing off his commute to work as actually impossible, but as a viable opportunity it was going to be way down on their list. Way, way down. Right there at the bottom. Which made it all the more fortunate that the transition website offered so many other tempting choices.
They walked a circuitous route through the streets and made it back to their rented red Sable without incident.
Reacher finished his last mouthful of coffee and walked down toward Armstrong's house. He stepped off the sidewalk where the tent blocked it. It was a white canvas tunnel leading directly to Armstrong's front door. The door was closed. He walked on and stepped back on the sidewalk and met Neagley coming up from the opposite direction.
"OK?" he asked her.
"Opportunities," she said. "Didn't see anybody about to exploit any of them."
"Me neither."
"I like the tent and the armored car."
Reacher nodded. "Takes rifles out of the equation."
"Not entirely," Neagley said. "A.50 sniper rifle would get through the armor. With the Browning AP round, or the API."
He made a face. Either bullet was a formidable proposition. The standard armor-piercing item just blasted through steel plate, and the alternative armor-piercing incendiary burned its way through. But in the end he shook his head.
"No chance to aim," he said. "First you'd have to wait until the car was rolling, to be sure he was in it. Then you're putting a bullet into a large moving vehicle with dark windows. Hundred-to-one you'd hit Armstrong himself inside."
"So you'd need an AT- 4."
"What I thought."
"Either with the high-explosive against the car, or else you could use it to put a phosphorous bomb into the house."
"From where?"
"I'd use an upper-floor window in a house behind Armstrong's. Across the alley, in back. Their defense is mostly concentrated on the front."
"How would you get in?"
"Phony utility guy, water company, electric company. Anybody who could get in carrying a big toolbox."
Reacher nodded. Said nothing.
"It's going to be a hell of a four years," Neagley said.
"Or eight."
Then there was the hiss of tires and the sound of a big engine behind them and they turned to see Froelich easing up in her Suburban. She stopped alongside them, twenty yards short of Armstrong's house. Gestured them into the vehicle. Neagley got in the front and Reacher sprawled in the back.
"See anybody?" Froelich asked.
"Lots of people," Reacher said. "Wouldn't buy a cheap watch from any of them."
Froelich took her foot off the brake and let the engine's idle speed crawl the car along the road. She kept it tight in the gutter and stopped it again when the nearside rear door was exactly level with the end of the tent. Lifted her hand from the wheel and spoke into the microphone wired to her wrist.
"One, ready," she said.
Reacher looked to his right down the length of the canvas tunnel and saw the front door open and a man step out. It was Brook Armstrong. No doubt about it. His photograph had been all over the papers for five solid months and Reacher had spent four whole days watching his every move. He was wearing a khaki raincoat and carrying a leather briefcase. He walked through the tent, not fast, not slow. An agent in a suit watched him from the door.
"The convoy was a decoy," Froelich said. "We do it that way, time to time."
"Fooled me," Reacher said.
"Don't tell him this isn't a rehearsal," Froelich said. "Remember he's not aware of anything yet."
Reacher sat up straight and moved over to make room. Armstrong opened the door and climbed in beside him.
"Morning, M. E.," he said.
"Morning, sir," she replied. "These are associates of mine, Jack Reacher and Frances Neagley."
Neagley half-turned and Armstrong threaded a long arm over the seat to shake her hand.
"I know you," he said. "I met you at the party on Thursday evening. You're a contributor, aren't you?"
"She's a security person, actually," Froelich said. "We had a little cloak-and-dagger stuff going there. An efficiency analysis."
"I was impressed," Neagley said.
"Excellent," Armstrong said to her. "Believe me, ma'am, I'm very grateful for the care everybody takes of me. Way more than I deserve. Really."
He was magnificent, Reacher thought. His voice and his face and his eyes spoke of nothing but boundless fascination with Neagley alone. Like he would rather talk to her than do anything else in the whole world. And he had one hell of a visual memory, to place one face in a thousand from four days ago. That was clear. A born politician. He turned and shook Reacher's hand and lit up the car with a smile of genuine pleasure.
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Reacher," he said.
"Pleasure's all mine," Reacher said. Then he found himself smiling back. He liked the guy, immediately. He had charm to burn. There was charisma coming off him like heat. And even if you discounted ninety-nine percent of it as political bullshit you could still like the fragment that was left. You could like it a lot.
"You in security too?" Armstrong asked him.
"Adviser," Reacher said.
"Well, you guys do a hell of a great job. Glad to have you aboard."
There was a tiny sound from Froelich's earpiece and she took off down the street and made her way toward Wisconsin Avenue. Merged into the traffic stream and headed south and east for the center of town. The sun had disappeared again and the city looked gray through the deep tint in the windows. Armstrong made a little sound like a happy sigh and looked out at it, like he was still thrilled with it. Under the raincoat he was immaculate in a suit and a broadcloth shirt and a silk tie. He looked larger than life. Reacher had five years and three inches and fifty pounds on him but felt small and dull and shabby in comparison. But the guy also looked real. Very genuine. You could forget the suit and the tie and picture him in a torn old plaid jacket, out there splitting logs in his yard. He looked like a very serious politician, but a fun guy, too. He was tall and wired with energy. Blue eyes, plain features, unruly hair flecked with gold. He looked fit. Not with the kind of polish a gym gives you, but like he was just born strong. He had good hands. A slim gold wedding ring and no others. Cracked, untidy nails.