Child, Lee – Without Fail

left it out there because he knew he was leaving again right

away.’

He fast-forwarded through the next hour. People ducked in

and out of the office. Froelich made two trips. Then a forensic

team arrived and left twenty minutes later with the letter in a

plastic evidence bag. He hit reverse scan. The whole morning’s

activity unfolded again, backward. The forensic team left and

then arrived, Froelich came out and in twice, Stuyvesant arrived

and left, and then his secretary did the same.

‘Now for the boring part,’ Reacher said. ‘Hours and hours of

nothing.’

The picture settled to a steady shot of an empty area with the

timer rushing backward. Absolutely nothing happened. The

level of detail coming off the original tape was better than the

copy, but there wasn’t much in it. It was grey and milky. OK for

a surveillance situation, but it wouldn’t have won any technical

awards.

‘You know what?’ Reacher said. ‘I was a cop for thirteen

years, and I never found anything significant on a surveillance

tape. Not even once.’

The neither,’ Neagley said. if’he hours I spent like this.’

At six a.m. the tape jammed to a stop and Reacher ejected it

and fast wound the second tape to the far end and started the

patient backward search again. The timer sped through five

o’clock and headed fast toward four. Nothing happened. The

office just sat there, still and grey and empty.

‘Why are we doing this tonight?’ Neagley asked.

‘Because I’m an impatient guy,’ Reacher said.

‘You want to score one for the military, don’t you? You want

to show these civilians how the real pros work.’

101

‘Nothing left to prove,’ Reacher said. ‘We already scored

three and a half.’

He bent closer to the screen. Fought to keep his eyes

focused. Four o’clock in the morning. Nothing was happening.

Nobody was delivering any letters.

‘Or maybe there’s another reason we’re doing this tonight,’

Neagley said. ‘Maybe you’re trying to outpoint your brother.’

‘Don’t need to. I know exactly how we compared. And it

doesn’t matter to me what anybody else thinks about it.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He died.’

‘I gathered that, belatedly. But how?’

‘He was killed. In the line of duty. Just after I left the army.

Down in Georgia, south of Atlanta. Clandestine rendezvous

with an informer from a counterfeiting operation. They were

ambushed. He was shot in the head, twice.’

q’hey get the guys who did it?’

‘No.’

q’hat’s awful.’

‘Not really. I got them instead.’

‘What did you do?’

‘What do you think?’

‘OK, how?’

‘It was a father and son team. I drowned the son in a swimming

pool. I burned the father to death in a fire. After shooting

him in the chest with a hollow-point .44.’

q’hat ought to do it.’

‘Moral of the story, don’t mess with me or mine. I just wish

they’d known that ahead of time.’

‘Any comeback?’

‘I exfiltrated fast. Stayed out of circulation. Had to miss the

funeral.’

‘Bad business.’

q’he guy he was meeting with got it, too. Bled to death

under a highway ramp. There was a woman, as well. From Joe’s

office. His assistant, Molly Beth Gordon. They knifed her at the

Atlanta airport.’

‘I saw her name. On the roll of honour.’

Reacher was quiet. The video sped backward. Three in the

102

morning, then two fifty-something. Then two forty. Nothing

happening.

q’he whole thing was a can of worms,’ he said. ‘It was his own

fault, really.’

q’hat’s harsh.’

‘It was a stretch for him. I mean, would you get ambushed at

a rendezvous?’

‘No.’

The neither.’

‘I’d do all the usual stuff,’ Neagley said. ‘You know, arrive

three hours early, stake it out, surveil, block the approaches.’

‘But Joe didn’t do any of that. He was out of his depth. Thing

about Joe, he looked tough. He was six-six, two-fifty, built like a

brick outhouse. Hands like shovels, face like a catcher’s mitt.

We were clones, physically, the two of us. But we had different

brains. Deep down, he was a cerebral guy. Kind of pure. Naive,

even. He never thought dirty. Everything was a game of chess

with him. He gets a call, he sets up a meet, he drives down

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