garage was painted gloss white, walls and ceiling and floor
alike. The place looked like a monochrome photograph. There
was a door with a small porthole of wired glass. Froelich led
them through it and up a narrow mahogany staircase into a
small first-floor lobby. There were marble pilasters and a single
elevator door.
‘You two shouldn’t really be here,’ Froelich said. ‘So say
nothing, stick close to me and walk fast, OK?’
Then she paused a beat. ‘But come look at something first.’
She led them through another inconspicuous door and round
a corner into a vast dark hall that felt the size of a football field.
he building’s main lobby,’ she said. Her voice echoed in the marble emptiness. The light was dim. White stone looked grey
in the gloom.
‘Here,’ she said.
The walls had giant raised panels carved out of marble,
reeded at the edges in the classical style. The one they were
standing under was egraved at the top: The United States
Del.artment of the Treasury. The inscription ran laterally for
eight or nine feet. Underneath it was another inscription: Roll
of Honor. Then starting in the top left corner of the panel was
an engraved list of dates and names. Maybe three or four dozen
of them. The last but one place on the list wasJ. Reacher, 1997.
78
Last was M. B. Gordon, 1997. Then there was plenty of empty
space. Maybe a column and a half.
qhat’s Joe,’ Froelich said. ‘Our tribute.’
Reacher looked up at his brother’s name. It was neatly
chiselled. Each letter was maybe two inches high and inlaid
with gold leaf. The marble looked cold, and it was veined and
flecked like marble everywhere. Then he caught a glimpse in
his mind of Joe’s face, maybe twelve years old, maybe at the
dinner table or the breakfast table, always a millisecond faster
than anyone else to see a joke, always a millisecond slower to
start a smile. Then a glimpse of him leaving home, which at
that time was a service bungalow somewhere hot, his shirt wet
with sweat, his kitbag on his shoulder, heading out to the
flight-line and a ten-thousand-mile journey to West Point. Then
at the graveside at their mother’s funeral, which was the last
time he had seen him alive. He’d met Molly Beth Gordon, too.
About fifteen seconds before she died. She had been a bright,
vivacious blonde woman. Not so very different from Froelich
herself.
‘No, that’s not Joe,’ he said. ‘Or Molly Beth. Those are just
names.’
Neagley glanced at him and Froelich said nothing and
led them back to the small lobby with the single elevator.
They went up three floors to a different world. It was full of
narrow corridors and low ceilings and businesslike adaptations.
Acoustic tile overhead, halogen ,light, white linoleum and grey
carpet on the floors, offices divided into cubicles with shoulder
high padded fabric panels on adjustable feet. Banks of phones,
fax machines, piles of paper, computers everywhere. There was
a literal hum of activity built from the whine of hard drives and
cooling fans and the muted screech of modems and the soft
ringing of phones. Inside the main door was a reception counter
with a man in a suit sitting behind it. He had a phone cradled in
his shoulder and was writing something on a message log and
couldn’t manage more than a puzzled glance and a distracted
nod of greeting.
‘Duty officer,’ Froelich said. Fhey work a three=shift system
round the clock. This desk is always manned.’
‘Is this the only way in?’ Reacher asked.
79
‘There are fire stairs way in back,’ Froelich said. ‘But don’t
get ahead of yourself. See the cameras?’
She pointed to the ceiling. There were miniature surveillance
cameras everywhere there needed to be to cover every corridor.
q’ake them into account,’ she said.
She led them deeper into the complex, turning left and right
until they ended up at what must have been the back of the
floor. There was a long narrow corridor that opened out into a
windowless square space. Against the side wall of the square
was a secretarial station with room for one person, with a desk
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