Without Fail

them?”
    “One of them was a dark-haired woman who got hold of Armstrong’s hand and pulled him a little off-balance.”
    She stared at him. “You were there?”
    He shook his head. “No, but I heard about it.”
    “How?”
    He ignored the question. “Did you see it?”
    “Only on video,” she said. “Afterward.”
    “That woman could have killed Armstrong. That was the first opportunity. Up to that point you were doing real well. You were scoring A-plus during the government stuff around the Capitol.”
    She smiled again, a little dismissively. “Could have? You’re wasting my time, Reacher. I wanted better than could have . I mean, anything could happen. A bolt of lightning could hit the building. A meteorite, even. The universe could stop expanding and time could reverse. That woman was an invited guest. She was a party contributor. She passed through two metal detectors and she was ID-checked at the door.”
    “Like John Malkovich.”
    “We’ve been through that.”
    “Suppose she was a martial-arts expert. Maybe military-trained in black ops. She could have broken Armstrong’s neck like you could break a pencil.”
    “Suppose, suppose.”
    “Suppose she was armed.”
    “She wasn’t. She passed through two metal detectors.”
    Reacher put his hand in the pocket of his jacket and came out with a slim brown object.
    “Ever seen one of these?” he asked.
    It looked like a penknife, maybe three and a half inches long. A curved handle. He clicked a button and a speckled brown blade snapped outward.
    “This is entirely ceramic,” he said. “Same basic stuff as a bathroom tile. Harder than anything except a diamond. Certainly harder than steel, and sharper than steel. And it doesn’t trigger a metal detector. That woman could have been carrying this thing. She could have slit Armstrong open from his belly button to his chin with it. Or cut his throat. Or stuck it in his eye.”
    He passed the weapon over. Froelich took it and studied it.
    “Made by a firm called Böker,” Reacher said. “In Solingen, Germany. They’re expensive, but they’re relatively available.”
    Froelich shrugged. “OK, so you bought a knife. Doesn’t prove anything.”
    “That knife was in the ballroom Thursday night. It was clutched in that woman’s left hand, in her pocket, with the blade open, all the time she was shaking Armstrong’s hand and pulling him close. She got his belly within three inches of it.”
    Froelich stared at him. “Are you serious? Who was she?”
    “She was a party supporter called Elizabeth Wright, from Elizabeth, New Jersey, as it happens. She gave the campaign four thousand bucks, a grand each in her name, her husband’s, and her two kids’. She stuffed envelopes for a month, put a big sign in her front yard, and operated a phone tree on Election Day.”
    “So why would she carry a knife?”
    “Well, actually, she didn’t.”
    He stood up and walked to the connecting door. Pulled his half open and knocked hard on the inner half.
    “OK, Neagley,” he called.
    The inner door opened and a woman walked in from the next room. She was somewhere in her late thirties, medium height and slim, dressed in blue jeans and a soft gray sweatshirt. She had dark hair. Dark eyes. A great smile. The way she moved and the tendons in her wrists spoke of serious gym time.
    “You’re the woman on the video,” Froelich said.
    Reacher smiled. “Frances Neagley, meet M. E. Froelich. M. E. Froelich, meet Frances Neagley.”
    “Emmy?” Frances Neagley said. “Like the television thing?”
    “Initials,” Reacher said.
    Froelich stared at him. “Who is she?”
    “The best Master Sergeant I ever worked with. Beyond expert-qualified on every kind of close-quarters combat you can think of. Scares the hell out of me, certainly. She got cut loose around the same time I did. Works as a security consultant in Chicago.”
    “Chicago,” Froelich repeated. “That’s why the check went there.”
    Reacher nodded. “She funded everything, because I don’t have a credit card or a checkbook. As you already know, probably.”
    “So what happened to Elizabeth Wright from New Jersey?”
    “I bought these clothes,” Reacher said. “Or rather, you bought them for me. And the shoes. Sunglasses, too. My version of Secret Service fatigues. I went to the barber. Shaved every day. I wanted to look plausible. Then I wanted a lone woman from New Jersey, so I met a couple of Newark flights at the airport here