Child, Lee – Without Fail

Gfilvez just shook his head.

‘You sure?’ Reacher asked. ‘Nobody watching them, no

strangers around?’

Gfilvez shook his head again.

‘We can fix it,’ Reacher said. ‘If you’re worried about anything,

you should go ahead and tell us right now. We’ll take

care of it.’

Gfilvez just looked bl.ank. Reacher watched his eyes. He had

spent his career watching eyes, and these two were innocent. A

little disconcerted, a little puzzled, but the guy wasn’t hiding

anything. He had no secrets.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’re sorry to have interrupted your evening.’

He kept very quiet on the drive back to the office.

178

They used the conference room again. It seemed to be the only

facility with seating for more than three. Neagley let Froelich

put herself next to Reacher. She sat with Stuyvesant on the

opposite side of the table. Froelich got on the radio net and

heard that Armstrong was about to leave the hotel. He was

cutting the evening short. Nobody seemed to mind. It worked

both ways. Spend a lot of time with them, and they’re naturally

thrilled about it. Rush it through, and they’re equally delighted

such a busy and important guy found any time for them at all.

Froelich listened to her earpiece and tracked him all the way

out of the ballroom, through the kitchens, into the loading bay,

into the limo. Then she relaxed. All that was left was a high

speed convoy out to Georgetown and a transfer through the

tent in the darkness. She fiddled behind her back and turned

the earpiece volume down a little. Sat back and glanced at the

others, questions in her eyes.

‘Makes no sense to me,’ Neagley said. ‘It implies there’s

something they’re more worried about than their children.’

‘Which would be what?’ Froelich asked.

‘Green cards? Are they legal?’

Stuyvesant nodded. ‘Of course they are. They’re United

States Secret Service employees, same as anybody else in this

building. Background-checked from here to hell and back. We

snoop on their financial situation and everything. They were

clean, far as we knew.’

Reacher let the talk drift into the background. He rubbed

the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. The stubble

from his haircut was growing out. It felt softer. He glanced at

Neagley. Stared down at the carpet. It was grey nylon, ribbed,

somewhere between fine and coarse. He could see individual

hairy strands glittering in the halogen light. It was an immaculately

clean carpet. He closed his eyes. Thought hard. Ran the

surveillance video in his head all over again. Watched it like

there was a screen inside his eyelids. It went like this: eight

minutes before midnight, the cleaners enter the picture. They

walk into Stuyvesant’s office. Seven minutes past midnight, they

come out. They spend nine minutes cleaning the secretarial

station. They shuffle off the way they had come at sixteen

179

minutes past midnight. He ran it again, forward and then backward.

Concentrated on every frame. Every movement. Then he

opened his eyes. Everybody was staring at him like he had been

ignoring their questions. He glanced at his watch. It was almost

nine o’clock. He smiled. A wide, happy grin.

‘I liked Mr Glvez,’ he said. ‘He seemed really happy to be

a father, didn’t he? All those lunch boxes lined up? I bet they

get wholewheat bread. Fruit, too, probably. All kinds of good

nutrition.’

They all looked at him.

‘I was an army kid,’ he said. ‘I had a lunch box. Mine was an

old ammunition case. We all had them. It was considered the

thing back then, on the bases. I stencilled my name on it, with a

real army stencil. My mother hated it. Thought it was way

too militaristic, for a kid. But she gave me good stuff to eat

anyway.’

Neagley stared at him. ‘Reacher, we’ve got big problems

here, two people are dead, and you’re talking about lunch

boxes?’

He nodded. Falking about lunch boxes, and thinking about

haircuts. Mr Glvez had just been to the barber, you notice

that?’

‘So?’

‘And with the greatest possible respect, Neagley, I’m thinking

about your ass.’

Froelich stared at him. Neagley blushed.