Without Fail

give. He looked a question at Reacher, and Reacher nodded, once.
    “His name was Andretti,” he said. “Same situation as Nendick, basically. He’s holding up better, but he’s not going to talk, either.”
    Swain said nothing.
    “Your score,” Reacher said. “You made the connection. And the rifle was a Vaime with a Hensoldt scope where a Bushnell should be.”
    “I don’t specialize in firearms,” Swain said.
    “You need to tell us what you know about the campaign. Who got mad at Armstrong?”
    There was a short silence. Then Swain looked away.
    “Nobody,” he said. “What I said in there wasn’t true. Thing is, I finished the analysis days ago. He upset people, for sure. But nobody very significant. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
    “So why say it?”
    “I wanted to get the FBI off their track, was all. I don’t think it was one of us. I don’t like to see our agency getting abused that way.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “It was for Froelich and Crosetti,” Swain said. “They deserve better than that.”
    “So you’ve got a feeling and we’ve got a hyphen,” Reacher said. “Most cases I ever dealt with had stronger foundations than that.”
    “What do we do now?”
    “We look somewhere else,” Neagley said. “If it’s not political it must be personal.”
    “I’m not sure if I can show you that stuff,” Swain said. “It’s supposed to be confidential.”
    “Is there anything bad in it?”
    “No, or you’d have heard about it during the campaign.”
    “So what’s the problem?”
    “Is he faithful to his wife?” Reacher asked.
    “Yes,” Swain said.
    “Is she faithful to him?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is he kosher financially?”
    “Yes.”
    “So everything else is deep background. How can it hurt to let us take a look?”
    “I guess it can’t.”
    “So let’s go.”
    They headed through the back corridors toward the library, but when they got there the phone was ringing. Swain picked it up and then handed it to Reacher.
    “Stuyvesant, for you,” he said.
    Reacher listened for a minute and then put the phone down.
    “Armstrong’s coming in,” he said. “He’s upset and restless and wants to talk to everybody he can find who was there today.”

    They left Swain in the library and walked back to the conference room. Stuyvesant came in a minute later. He was still in his golf clothes. He still had Froelich’s blood on his shoes. It was splashed up on the welts, black and dry. He looked close to exhaustion. And mentally shattered. Reacher had seen it before. A guy goes twenty-five years, and it all falls apart in one terrible day. A suicide bombing will do it, or a helicopter crash or a secrets leak or a furlough rampage. Then the retributive machinery clanks into action and a flawless career spent garnering nothing but praise is trashed at the stroke of a pen, because it all has to be somebody’s fault . Shit happens, but never in an official inquiry commission’s final report.
    “We’re going to be thin on the ground,” Stuyvesant said. “I gave most people twenty-four hours and I’m not dragging them back in just because the protectee can’t sleep.”
    Two more guys came in five minutes later. Reacher recognized one of them as a rooftop sharpshooter and the other as one of the agent screen around the food line. They nodded tired greetings and turned around and went and got coffee. Came back in with a plastic cup for everybody.
    Armstrong’s security preceded him like the edge of an invisible bubble. There was radio communication with the building while he was still a mile away. There was a second call when he reached the garage. His progress into the elevator was reported. One of his personal detail entered the reception area and announced an all-clear. The other two brought Armstrong inside. The procedure was repeated at the conference room door. The first agent came in, glanced around, spoke into his cuff, and Armstrong leapfrogged past him into the room.
    He had changed into casual clothes that didn’t suit him. He was in corduroy pants and a patterned sweater and a suede jacket. All the colors matched and all the fabrics were stiff and new. It was the first false note Reacher had seen from him. It was like he had asked himself what would a Vice President wear? instead of just grabbing whatever was at the front of his closet. He nodded somber greetings all around and moved toward the table. Didn’t speak to anybody. He seemed awkward. The silence