Free Without Fail by Lee Child

colours were washed out and distorted, because of the infrared photography. But it was a fairly close shot. Every detail was clearly visible. Doors, windows. Froelich could even see one of her agents, standing in the yard.
    "Where were you?" she asked.
    "On the neighbour's property," Reacher said. "Maybe fifty feet away. Simple night manoeuvre, infiltration in the dark. Standard infantry techniques, quiet and stealthy. Couple of dogs barked some, but we got around them. The State troopers in the cars didn't see a thing."
    Neagley pointed to the second picture. It showed the front of the house. Same colours, same detail, same distance.
    "I was across the street, at the front," she said. "Behind somebody's garage."
    Reacher sat forward on the bed. "Plan would have been to have an M16 each, with the grenade launcher on it. Plus some other full-auto long guns. Maybe even M60 machine-guns on tripods. We certainly had enough time to set them up. We'd have put phosphorus grenades into the building with the M16s, simultaneously front and back, one each, ground floor, and either Armstrong would burn up in bed or we'd shoot him down as he ran out the door or jumped out the window. We'd have timed it for maybe four in the morning. Shock would have been total. Confusion would have been tremendous. We could have taken your agents out in the M16, easy as anything. We could have chewed the whole house to splinters. We'd have probably exfiltrated OK too, and then it would have boiled down to a standard manhunt situation, which wouldn't have been ideal out there in the boonies, but we'd probably have made it, with a bit of luck. Edward Fox again."
    There was silence.
    "I don't believe it," Froelich said. She stared at the pictures. "This can't be Friday night. This was some other night. You weren't really there."
    Reacher said nothing.
    "Were you?" she asked.
    "Well, check this out," Reacher said. He handed her another photograph. It was a telephoto shot. It showed her sitting in the apartment window above the garage, staring out into the darkness, holding her cell phone. Her heat signature was picked up in strange reds and oranges and purples. But it was her. No doubt about it. Like she was close enough to touch.
    "I was calling New Jersey," she said, quietly. "Your musician friends got away OK."
    "Good," Reacher said. "Thanks for arranging it." She stared at the three infrared pictures, one after the other, and said nothing.
    "So the ballroom and the family house were definites," Reacher said. "Two-zip for the bad guys. But the next day was the real clincher. Yesterday. That rally at the church."
    He passed the last photo across. It was regular daylight film, taken from a high angle. It showed Armstrong in his heavy overcoat walking across the community centre lawns. The late golden sun threw a long shadow out behind him. He was surrounded by a loose knot of people, but his head was clearly visible. It had another crude gunsight inked round it. "I was in the church tower," Reacher said. "The church was locked."
    "At eight o'clock in the morning. I'd been in there since five."
    "It was searched."
    "I was up where the bells were. At the top of a wooden ladder, behind a trapdoor. I put pepper on the ladder. Your dogs lost interest and stayed on the ground floor."
    "It was a local unit. They were sloppy."
    "I thought about cancelling the event."
    "You should have."
    "Then I thought about asking him to wear a vest."
    "Wouldn't have mattered. I would have aimed at his head. It was a beautiful day, Froelich. Clear sky, sunny, no wind at all. Cool, dense air. True air. I was a couple hundred feet away. I could have shot his eyes out."
    She went quiet.
    "John Malkovich or Edward Fox?" she asked.
    "I'd have hit Armstrong and then as many other people as I could, three or four seconds. Cops mostly, I guess, but women and children too. I'd have aimed to wound them, not kill them. In the stomach, probably. More effective that way. People flopping around