Without Fail

figured they should have somebody looking out for the President full-time, and we got the job.”
    “Because there was no FBI until the 1930s.”
    She shook her head. “Actually there was an early incarnation called the Office of the Chief Examiner, founded in 1908. It became the FBI in 1935.”
    “That sounds like the sort of pedantic stuff Joe would know.”
    “I think it was him who told me.”
    “He would. He loved all that historical stuff.”
    He saw her make an effort not to go quiet again.
    “So what was your obvious question?” she said.
    “You use an outsider for the very first time in a hundred and one years, got to be because of something more than you’re a perfectionist.”
    She started to answer, and then she stopped. She paused a beat. He saw her decide to lie. He could sense it, in the angle of her shoulder.
    “I’m under big pressure,” she said. “You know, professionally. There are a lot of people waiting for me to screw up. I need to be sure.”
    He said nothing. Waited for the embellishments. Liars always embellish.
    “I wasn’t an easy choice,” she said. “It’s still rare for a woman to head up a team. There’s a gender thing going on, same as anywhere else, I guess, same as always. Some of my colleagues are a little Neanderthal.”
    He nodded. Said nothing.
    “It’s always on my mind,” she said. “I’ve got to slam-dunk the whole thing.”
    “Which Vice President?” he asked. “The new one or the old one?”
    “The new one,” she said. “Brook Armstrong. The Vice President–elect, strictly speaking. I was assigned to lead his team back when he joined the ticket, and we want continuity, so it’s a little bit like an election for us, too. If our guy wins, we stay on the job. If our guy loses, we’re back to being footsoldiers.”
    Reacher smiled. “So did you vote for him?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “What did Joe say about me?” he asked.
    “He said you’d relish the challenge. You’d beat your brains out to find a way of getting it done. He said you had a lot of ingenuity and you’d find three or four ways of doing it and we’d learn a lot from you.”
    “And you said?”
    “This was eight years ago, don’t forget. I was kind of full of myself, I guess. I said no way would you even get close.”
    “And he said?”
    “He said plenty of people had made that same mistake.”
    Reacher shrugged. “I was in the Army eight years ago. I was probably ten thousand miles away, up to my eyes in bullshit.”
    She nodded. “Joe knew that. It was kind of theoretical.”
    He looked at her. “But now it’s not theoretical, apparently. Eight years later you’re going ahead with it. And I’m still wondering why.”
    “Like I said, now it’s my call. And I’m under big-time pressure to perform well.”
    He said nothing.
    “Would you consider doing it?” Froelich asked.
    “I don’t know much about Armstrong. Never heard much about him before.”
    She nodded. “Nobody has. He was a surprise choice. Junior senator from North Dakota, standard-issue family man, wife, grown-up daughter, cares long-distance for his sick old mother, never made any kind of national impact. But he’s an OK guy, for a politician. Better than most. I like him a lot, so far.”
    Reacher nodded. Said nothing.
    “We would pay you, obviously,” Froelich said. “That’s not a problem. You know, a professional fee, as long as it’s reasonable.”
    “I’m not very interested in money,” Reacher said. “I don’t need a job.”
    “You could volunteer.”
    “I was a soldier. Soldiers never volunteer for anything.”
    “That’s not what Joe said about you. He said you did all kinds of stuff.”
    “I don’t like to be employed.”
    “Well, if you want to do it for free we certainly wouldn’t object.”
    He was quiet for a beat. “There would be expenses, probably, if a person did this sort of a thing properly.”
    “We’d reimburse them, naturally. Whatever the person needed. All official and aboveboard, afterward.”
    He looked down at the table. “Exactly what would you want the person to do?”
    “I want you, not a person. Just to act the part of an assassin. To scrutinize things from an outside perspective. Find the holes. Prove to me if he’s vulnerable, with times, dates, places. I could start you off with some schedule information, if you want.”
    “You offer that to all assassins? If you’re going to do this you should do it for real, don’t you