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