Without Fail

one level or another his whole life. And this all started with the campaign this summer. We already agreed on that.”
    Reacher nodded, vaguely.
    “The campaign,” he repeated. He sat still with the coffee cup in his hand. Stared straight ahead at the wall, one full minute, then two.
    “What?” Neagley asked.
    He didn’t reply. Just got up and walked to the window. Pulled back the shades and looked out at slices and slivers of D.C. under the gray dawn sky.
    “What did Armstrong do in the campaign?” he asked.
    “Lots of things.”
    “How many Representatives does New Mexico have?”
    “I don’t know,” Neagley said.
    “I think it’s three. Can you name them?”
    “No.”
    “Would you recognize any of them on the street?”
    “No.”
    “Oklahoma?”
    “Don’t know. Five?”
    “Six, I think. Can you name them?”
    “One of them is an asshole, I know that. Can’t remember his name.”
    “Senators from Tennessee?”
    “What’s your point?”
    Reacher stared out of the window.
    “We’ve got Beltway disease,” he said. “We’re all caught up in it. We’re not looking at this thing like real people. To almost everybody else out there in the country all these politicians are absolute nobodies. You said it yourself. You said you’re interested in politics but you couldn’t name all hundred senators. And most people are a thousand times less interested than you. Most people wouldn’t recognize another state’s junior senator if he ran up and bit them in the ass. Or she, as Froelich would have said. She actually admitted nobody had ever heard of Armstrong before.”
    “So?”
    “So Armstrong did one absolutely basic, fundamental, elemental thing in the campaign. He put himself in the public eye, nationally. For the very first time in his life ordinary people outside of his home state and outside of his circle of friends saw his face. Heard his name. For the first time ever. I think this all could be as basic as that.”
    “In what way?”
    “Suppose his face came back at somebody from way in the past. Completely out of the blue. Like a sudden shock.”
    “Like who?”
    “Like you’re some guy somewhere and long ago some young man lost his temper and smacked you around. Some situation like that. Maybe in a bar, maybe over a girl. Maybe he humiliated you by doing so. You never see the guy again, but the incident festers in your mind. Years pass, and suddenly there’s the guy all over the papers and the TV. He’s a politician, running for Vice President. You never heard of him in the years before, because you don’t watch C-SPAN or CNN. But now, there he is, everywhere, in your face. So what do you do? If you’re politically aware you might call the opposing campaign and dish the dirt. But you’re not politically aware, because this is the first time you’ve ever seen him since the fight in the bar a lifetime ago. So what do you do? The sight of him brings it all back. It’s been festering.”
    “You think about some kind of revenge.”
    Reacher nodded. “Which would explain Swain’s thing about wanting him to suffer. But maybe Swain’s been looking in the wrong place. Maybe we all have. Because maybe this isn’t personal to Armstrong the politician. Maybe it’s personal to Armstrong the man. Maybe it’s really personal.”
    Neagley stopped pacing and sat down in the chair.
    “It’s very tenuous,” she said. “People get over things, don’t they?”
    “Do they?”
    “Mostly.”
    Reacher glanced down at her. “You haven’t gotten over whatever makes it that you don’t like people to touch you.”
    The room went quiet.
    “OK,” she said. “ Normal people get over things.”
    “Normal people don’t kidnap women and cut thumbs off and kill innocent bystanders.”
    She nodded.
    “OK,” she said again. “It’s a theory. But where can we go with it?”
    “Armstrong himself, maybe,” Reacher said. “But that would be a difficult conversation to have with a Vice President–elect. And would he even remember? If he inherited the kind of temper that gets a guy thrown out of the Army he could have had dozens of fights long ago. He’s a big guy. Could have spread mayhem far and wide before he got a handle on it.”
    “His wife? They’ve been together a long time.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “Time to get going,” Neagley said. “We meet with Bannon at seven. Are we going to tell him?”
    “No,” Reacher said. “He wouldn’t listen.”
    “Go shower,”