Gone Tomorrow

and all three of them were irritable, but apart from that nothing rang a bell. Not that the D.C. Amtrak would attract suicide bombers anyway. It was tailor-made for a suitcase bomb instead. At Penn the track is announced at the last minute. The crowd mills around on the concourse and then rushes down and piles on. No security. Identical black roll-ons are stacked on the luggage racks. Easy enough for a guy to get off in Philadelphia and leave his bag behind, and then explode it a little later, by cell phone, as the train pulls into Union Station without him, right in the heart of the capital.
    But we got there OK and I made it out to Delaware Avenue unharmed. D.C. was as hot as New York had been, and damper. The sidewalks ahead of me were dotted with knots of tourists. Family groups, mostly, from far and wide. Dutiful parents, sullen children, all dressed in gaudy shorts and T-shirts, maps in their hands, cameras at the ready. Not that I was either well dressed or a frequent visitor. I had worked in the area from time to time, but always on the left of the river. But I knew where I was going. My destination was unmistakable and right there in front of me. The U.S. Capitol. It had been built to impress. Foreign diplomats were supposed to visit during the fledgling days of the Republic and come away convinced that the new nation was a player. The design had succeeded. Beyond it across Independence Avenue were the House offices. At one time I had a rudimentary grasp of Congressional politics. Investigations had sometimes led all the way to committees. I knew that the Rayburn Building was full of bloated old hacks who had been in Washington forever. I figured a relatively new guy like Sansom would have been given space in the Cannon Building instead. Prestigious, but not top drawer.
    The Cannon Building was on Independence and First, crouching opposite the far corner of the Capitol like it was paying homage or mounting a threat. It had all kinds of security at the door. I asked a guy in a uniform if Mr. Sansom of North Carolina was inside. The guy checked a list and said yes, he was. I asked if I could messenger a note to his office. The guy said yes, I could. He supplied a pencil and special House notepaper and an envelope. I addressed the envelope to: Major John T. Sansom, U.S. Army, Retired , and added the date and the time. On the paper I wrote: Early this morning I saw a woman die with your name on her lips . Not true, but close enough. I added: Library of Congress steps in one hour . I signed it: Major Jack-none-Reacher, U.S. Army, Retired . There was a box to check at the bottom. It asked: Are you my constituent? I checked the box. Not strictly true. I didn’t live in Sansom’s district, but no more so than I didn’t live in any of the other 434 districts. And I had served in North Carolina, three separate times. So I felt I was entitled. I sealed the envelope and handed it in and went back outside to wait.

Chapter 21
    I walked in the heat on Independence as far as the Air and Space Museum and then about-turned and headed for the library. I sat down on the steps fifty minutes into the hour. The stone was warm. There were men in uniform behind the doors above me, but none of them came out. Threat assessment exercises must have placed the library low on the list.
    I waited.
    I didn’t expect Sansom himself to show. I figured I would get staffers instead. Maybe campaign workers. How old and how many, I couldn’t guess. Between one and four, maybe, between postgrad and professional. I was interested to find out. One youngster would show that Sansom wasn’t taking my note very seriously. Four senior people would suggest he had sensitivity on the issue. And maybe something to hide.
    The sixty-minute deadline came and went and I got no staffers and no campaign workers, neither young nor old. Instead I got Sansom’s wife, and his head of security. Ten minutes after the hour was up I saw a mismatched couple climb out of a Town Car and pause at the foot of the steps and look around. I recognized the woman from the pictures in Sansom’s book. In person she looked exactly like a millionaire’s wife should. She had expensive salon hair and good bones and a lot of tone and was probably two inches taller than her husband. Four, in heels. The guy with her looked like a Delta veteran in a suit. He was small, but hard and wiry and tough. The same physical type as Sansom himself, but rougher than Sansom had looked in his