‘How long?’ one of the staffers asked.
‘Would be critical?’ Walker asked back.
‘No, how long do these tremors last?’
‘Some fractions of a second, possibly.’
‘How big are they?’
‘Certainly big enough to hurt accuracy at a thousand yards or more.’
The staffer looked across the table and said, ‘Gentlemen?’
The army procurement guy looked at his Marine counterpart, who looked at his sniper, who stared into space. Then everyone looked at Reacher.
Reacher said, ‘What was the first item you discussed?’
The staffer said, ‘Cold shot accuracy.’
‘Which is important why?’
‘Because a sniper will often get just one opportunity.’
‘With a bullet that was chambered when?’
‘I think we heard testimony that it can have been several hours previously. Long waits seem to be part of the job.’
‘Which means any tremors will have disappeared long ago. You could chamber the round with a hammer. If you assume the money shots are always going to be singles, and widely spaced, possibly by hours or even days, then the action doesn’t matter.’
‘So you’d accept a semi-automatic sniper rifle?’
‘No, sir,’ Reacher said. ‘Major Walker is correct. Possibly the money shots won’t always be the first shots. And accuracy is always worth pursuing wherever possible. And bolt actions are rugged, reliable, simple, and easy to maintain. They’re also cheap.’
So then came a debate about which bolt action was best. The classic Remington had fans in the room, but so did Winchester and Sako and Ruger. And at that point Alice Vaz started up with more of her big-picture questions. She said, ‘The way to understand our requirements, for not only actions but also stocks and bedding, it seems to me, is to understand where and how this rifle will actually be used. At what altitude? At what barometric pressures? In what extremes of temperature and humidity? What new environments might it face?’
So to shut her up the army procurement guy ran through just about everything in the War Plans locker. No names and no specific details, of course, but all the meteorological implications. High altitude plus freezing mist, extreme dry heat with sand infiltration, rain forest humidity and high ambient temperature, in snow many degrees below zero, in downpours, and so on.
Then one of the staffers insisted that the steel for the barrel had to be domestic. Which was not a huge problem. Then another insisted that the optics had to be domestic too. Which was a bigger problem. Reacher watched the women seated opposite. Darwen DeWitt wasn’t saying much. Which was a surprise after her star turns the first two times out. She was a little more than medium height, and still lithe, like the teenage softball star she had been. She was dark-haired and pale-skinned, with features more likely to be called strong than pretty, but she was spared from being plain by mobile and expressive eyes. They were dark, and they moved constantly but slowly, and they blazed with intelligence and some kind of inner fire. Maybe she was burning off surplus IQ, to stop her head from exploding.
Briony Walker was the navy daughter, and she looked it, neat and controlled and severe, except for an unruly head of hair, untamed even by what looked like a recent and enthusiastic haircut. She too had an animated face, and she too had a lot going on behind her eyes.
Alice Vaz was the best-looking. Reacher didn’t know the word. Elfin, maybe? Gamine? Probably somewhere in between. She had darker skin than the other two, and a cap of short dark hair, and the kind of eyes that switch between a twinkle and a death ray in, well, the blink of an eye. She was smaller than the other two, and slight, in a European kind of way, and maybe smarter, too. Ultimately she was controlling the conversation, by hemming it in with questions too boring to answer. She was making the others focus.
The meeting dragged on. Reacher made no further contributions beyond an occasional grunt of assent. Eventually conversation dried up and the guy at the head of the table asked if everyone agreed the army’s needs and requirements were now properly in the record. All hands went up. The guy repeated the question, this time personally to and directly at Briony Walker, possibly a courtesy, possibly out of spite, her own words fed back to her. But Walker took no offence. She just agreed, yes, she was completely satisfied.
Whereupon the four staffers stood up and left the room, hustling and bustling and without a word, as if to take time out to say goodbye would hopelessly overburden their busy schedules. The women stood up, but the next out of the room was the army procurement guy, who just clapped his Marine buddy on the shoulder and disappeared. Whereupon the Marine clapped his NCO on the shoulder and they walked out together, leaving just Reacher and the women in the room.
But it didn’t stay that way for long. The women were already in a huddle. Not exactly leaning in, but face to face, a tight little triangle, shoulder to shoulder, touching each other, like regular women. But maybe the West Point version. They drifted in lockstep to the door, there was a polite glance from Alice Vaz, and then they were gone.
Reacher stayed where he was. No big rush. Nothing he could have done about it. Maybe there were guys who could have pulled it off. Hey, I’m sorry about your dead buddy that I never met, but can I separate you from your grieving pals and take you out and buy you a drink? Reacher was not one of those guys.
But the women weren’t going anywhere. He was sure of that.
He got up and stepped out and saw them where the corridor widened into a lobby. They were still together in their tight huddle. Not going anywhere. Just talking. Lots of social rules. They would end up in a bar, for sure, but not yet.
Reacher drifted back to a bank of pay phones and dialled. He leaned on the wall. He saw Briony Walker glance at him, then glance away. Just the out-of-towner making a call. Maybe to his local buddies, telling them he’s done for the day, asking them where the action is at night.
Christopher said, ‘Yes?’
Reacher said, ‘Did you hear about Christine Richardson?’
‘Yes, we did.’
‘So it’s going to be a little harder now.’
‘It might be over now. If Richardson was the leak all along.’
‘Suppose she wasn’t?’
‘Then it might be easier, not harder. With the other three. Emotion helps. Loose lips sink ships.’
‘It wasn’t a fun afternoon. Romance is on no one’s mind. They’re talking to each other. There’s no way into a conversation like that.’
‘Exploit any opportunity you can.’
‘You’re not in the
Capitol, but you’re monitoring their fax line, right?’
‘Correct.’
‘Including tonight?’
‘Of course. What do you know?’
‘It’s not DeWitt.’
‘How do you know?’
‘She was upset. She’s thirty years old and she never had anyone die before.’
‘It’s natural to be upset.’
‘But if she had a secret agenda she’d have gotten over it. To do her work. But she didn’t. She hardly said a word. She sat there like the whole thing had no purpose. Which was absolutely the appropriate reaction for anyone without an agenda of her own.’
‘Had either of the other two gotten over it?’
‘Alice Vaz was all over it. Briony Walker likewise. And Walker made a real big fuss about going through it all one more time. With every detail stated for the record.’
‘So she could check if she missed anything in her last two faxes?’
‘That’s a possible interpretation.’
‘What did Vaz do?’
‘Same thing she did in the transcripts. Big geography. She should quit and run a travel agency.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know yet. Just monitor that fax line for me.’