Without Fail
hand.
    It was easy enough. Even relaxing, in a way. Local politics was not Armstrong's problem any more. Wouldn't be much of a problem for his successor either, to be truthful. He had a handsome newly minted majority and was basking in a lot of reflected glow. So the afternoon turned out to be not much more than a pleasant stroll around a pleasant piece of real estate. His wife was beautiful, his successor stayed at his side throughout, there were no awkward questions from the press, all four network affiliates and CNN were there, all the local papers had sent photographers, and stringers from the Washington Post and the New York Times showed up, too. All in all it went so well he began to wish they hadn't bothered to schedule the follow-up event. It really wasn't necessary.
    Froelich watched the faces. She watched the perimeters. She watched the crowd, straining to sense any alteration in the herd behaviour that might indicate tension or uneasiness or sudden panic. She saw nothing. Saw no sign of Reacher, either.
    Armstrong stayed thirty minutes longer than anticipated, because the weak fall sun bathed the field in gold, and there was no breeze, and he was having a good time, and there was nothing scheduled for the evening except a quiet dinner with key members of the state legislature. So his wife was escorted home and his personal detail herded him back towards the cars and drove him north into the city of Bismarck itself. There was a hotel adjacent to the restaurant and Froelich had arranged rooms for the dead time before the meal. Armstrong napped for an hour and then showered and dressed. The meal was going well when his chief of staff fielded a call.
    The outgoing President and Vice President were formally summoning the President-elect and the Vice President-elect to a one-day transition conference at the Naval Support Facility in Thurmont, starting early the next morning. It was a conventional invitation, because inevitably there was business to discuss. And it was delivered in the traditional way, last-minute and pompous, because the lame ducks wanted to push the world around one last time. But Froelich was delighted, because the unofficial name for the Naval Support Facility in Thurmont is Camp David, and there is no safer place in the world than that particular wooded clearing in the Maryland mountains. She decided they should all fly back to Andrews immediately and take Marine helicopters straight out to the compound. If they spent all night and all day there She would be able to relax completely for twenty-four hours. But late on the Sunday morning a navy steward found her at breakfast in the mess hall and plugged a telephone into a baseboard socket near her chair. Nobody uses cordless or cellular phones at Camp David. Too vulnerable to electronic eavesdropping.
    "Call transferred from your main office, ma'am," the steward said.
    There was empty silence for a second, and then a voice. "We should get together," Reacher said.
    "Why?"
    "Can't tell you on the phone."
    "Where have you been?"
    "Here and there."
    "Where are you now?"
    "In a room at the hotel you used for the reception Thursday."
    "You got something urgent for me?"
    "A conclusion."
    "Already? It's only been five days. You said ten."
    "Five was enough."
    Froelich cupped the phone. "What's the conclusion?" Then she found herself holding her breath.
    "It's impossible," Reacher said.
    She breathed out and smiled, "Told you so."
    "No, your job is impossible. You need to talk to me urgently. You should get over here, right now."

THREE
    She drove back to D.C. in her suburban and argued with herself the whole way. If the news is really bad, when do I involve Stuyvesant? Now? Later? In the end she pulled over on Dupont Circle and called him at home and asked him the question direct.
    "I'll get involved when I need to," he said. "Who did you use?"
    "Joe Reacher's brother."
    "Our Joe Reacher? I didn't know he had a brother."
    "Well, he did."
    "What's he

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