Without Fail

Chapter 9

 

  She used the red strobes behind the Suburban's grille and barged through the evening traffic like it was life and death. She lit up the siren at every light. Pushed through and accelerated hard into gaps. Didn't talk at all. Reacher sat completely still in the front passenger seat and Neagley leaned forward from the back with her eyes locked on the road ahead. The three-ton vehicle bucked and swayed. The tires fought for grip on the slick pavement. They made it back to the garage inside four minutes. They were in the elevator thirty seconds later. In Stuyvesant's office less than one minute after that. He was sitting motionless behind his immaculate desk. Slumped in his chair like he had taken a punch to the stomach. He was holding a sheaf of papers. The light shone through them and showed the kind of random coded headings you get by printing from a database. There were two blocks of dense text under the headings. His secretary was standing next to him, handing him more paper, sheet by sheet. She was white in the face. She left the room without saying a single word. Closed the door, which intensified the silence.

  "What?" Reacher said.

  Stuyvesant glanced up at him. "Now I know. "

  "Know what?"

  "That this is an outside job. For sure. Without any possible doubt. "

  "How?"

  "You predicted theatrical," Stuyvesant said. "Or spectacular. Those were your predictions. To which we might add dramatic, or incredible, or whatever. "

  "What was it?"

  "Do you know what the homicide rate is, nationally?"

  Reacher shrugged. "High, I guess. "

  "Almost twenty thousand every year. "

  "OK. "

  "That's about fifty-four homicides every day. "

  Reacher did the math in his head.

  "Nearer fifty-five," he said. "Except in leap years. "

  "Want to hear about two of today's?" Stuyvesant asked.

  "Who?" Froelich asked.

  "Small sugar beet farm in Minnesota," Stuyvesant said. "The farmer walks out his back gate this morning and gets shot in the head. For no apparent reason. Then this afternoon there's a small strip mall outside of Boulder, Colorado. A CPA's office in one of the upstairs rooms. The guy comes down and walks out of the rear entrance and gets killed with a machine gun in the service yard. Again, no apparent reason. "

  "So?"

  "The farmer's name was Bruce Armstrong. The accountant's was Brian Armstrong. Both of them were white men about Brook Armstrong's age, about his height, about his weight, similar appearance, same color eyes and hair. "

  "Are they family? Are they related?"

  "No," Stuyvesant said. "Not in any way. Not to each other, not to the VP. So therefore I'm asking myself, what are the odds? That two random men whose last name is Armstrong and whose first names both begin with BR are going to get senselessly killed the same day we're facing a serious threat against our guy? And I'm thinking, the answer is about a trillion billion to one. "

  Silence in the office.

  "The demonstration," Reacher said.

  "Yes," Stuyvesant said. "That was the demonstration. Cold-blooded murder. Two innocent men. So I agree with you. These are not insiders having a joke. "

  Neagley and Froelich made it to Stuyvesant's visitor chairs and just sat down without being asked. Reacher leaned on a tall file cabinet and stared out the window. The blinds were still open, but it was full dark outside. Washington's orange nighttime glow was the only thing he could see.

  "How were you notified?" he asked. "Did they call in and claim responsibility?"

  Stuyvesant shook his head. "FBI alerted us. They've got software that scans the NCIC reports. Armstrong is one of the names that they flag up. "

  "So now they're involved anyway. "

  Stuyvesant shook his head again. "They passed on some information, is all. They don't understand its significance. "

  The room stayed quiet. Just four people breathing, lost in somber thoughts.

  "We got any details from the scenes?" Neagley asked.

  "Some," Stuyvesant said. "The first guy was a single shot to the head. Killed him instantly. They can't find the bullet. The guy's wife didn't hear anything. "

  "Where was she?"

  "About twenty feet away in the kitchen. Doors and windows shut because of the weather. But you'd expect her to hear something. She hears hunters all the time. "

  "How big was the hole in his head?" Reacher asked.

  "Bigger than a. 22," Stuyvesant said. "If that's what you're thinking. "

  Reacher nodded. The only handgun inaudible from twenty feet would be a silenced. 22. Anything bigger than that, you'd probably hear something, suppressor or no suppressor, windows or no windows.

  "So it was a rifle," he said.

  "Trajectory looks like it," Stuyvesant said. "Medical examiner figures the bullet was traveling downward. It went through his head front to back, high to low. "

  "Hilly country?"

  "All around. "

  "So it was either a very distant rifle or a silenced rifle. And I don't like either one. Distant rifle means somebody's a great shooter, silenced rifle means somebody owns a bunch of exotic weapons. "

  "What about the second guy?" Neagley asked.

  "It was less than eight hours later," Stuyvesant said. "But more than eight hundred miles away. So most likely the team split up for the day. "

  "Details?"

  "Coming through in bits and pieces. First impression from the locals is the weapon was some kind of machine gun. But again, nobody heard anything. "

  "A silenced machine gun?" Reacher said. "Are they sure?"

  "No question it was a machine gun," Stuyvesant said. "The corpse was all chewed up. Two bursts, head and chest. Hell of a mess. "

  "Hell of a demonstration," Froelich said.

  Reacher stared through the window. There was light fog in the air.

  "But what exactly does it demonstrate?" he said.

  "That these are not very nice people. "

  He nodded. "But not very much more than that, does it? It doesn't really demonstrate Armstrong's vulnerability as such, not if they weren't connected to him in any way. Are we sure they weren't related? Like very distant cousins or something? At least the farmer? Minnesota is next to North Dakota, right?"

  Stuyvesant shook his head.

  "My first thought, obviously," he said. "But I double-checked. First, the VP isn't from North Dakota originally. He moved in from Oregon. Plus we have the complete text of his FBI background check from when he was nominated. It's pretty exhaustive. And he doesn't have any living relatives that anybody's aware of except an elder sister who lives in California. His wife has got a bunch of cousins but none of them are called Armstrong and most of them are younger. Kids, basically. "

  "OK," Reacher said. Kids. He had a flash in his mind of a seesaw, and stuffed toys and lurid paintings stuck to a refrigerator with magnets. Cousins.

  "It's weird," he said. "Killing two random unconnected lookalikes called Armstrong is dramatic enough, I guess, but it doesn't show any great ingenuity. Doesn't prove anything. Doesn't make us worried about our security here. "

  "Makes us sad for them," Froelich said. "And their families. "

  "No doubt," Reacher said. "But two hicks in the sticks going down doesn't really make us sweat, does it? It's not like we were protecting them as well. Doesn't make us doubt ourselves. I really thought it would be something more personal. More intriguing. Like some equivalent of the letter showing up on your desk. "

  "You sound disappointed," Stuyvesant said.

  "I am disappointed. I thought they might come close enough to give us a chance at them. But they stayed away. They're cowards. "

  Nobody spoke.

  "Cowards are bullies," Reacher said. "Bullies are cowards. "

  Neagley glanced at him. Knew him well enough to sense when to push.

  "So?" she asked.

  "So we need t
o go back and rethink a couple of things. Information is stacking up fast and we're not processing it. Like, now we know these guys are outsiders. Now we know this is not a genteel inside game. "

  "So?" Neagley asked again.

  "And what happened in Minnesota and Colorado shows us these guys are prepared to do just about anything at all. "

  "So?"

  "The cleaners. What do we know about them?"

  "That they're involved. That they're scared. That they're not saying anything. "

  "Correct," Reacher said. "But why are they scared? Why aren't they saying anything? Way back we thought they might be playing some cute game with an insider. But they're not doing that. Because these guys aren't insiders. And they're not cute people. And this isn't a game. "

  "So?"

  "So they're being coerced in some serious way. They're being scared and silenced. By some serious people. "

  "OK, how?"

  "You tell me. How do you scare somebody without leaving a mark on them?"

  "You threaten something plausible. Serious harm in the future, maybe. "

  Reacher nodded. "To them, or to somebody they care about. To the point where they're paralyzed with terror. "

  "OK. "

  "Where have you heard the word cousins before?"

  "All over the place. I've got cousins. "

  "No, recently. "

  Neagley glanced at the window.

  "The cleaners," she said. "Their kids are with cousins. They told us. "

  "But they were a little hesitant about telling us, remember?"

  "Were they?"

  Reacher nodded. "They paused a second and looked at each other first. "

  "So?"

  "Maybe their kids aren't with cousins. "

  "Why would they lie?"

  Reacher looked at her. "Is there a better way to coerce somebody than taking their kids away as insurance?"

  They moved fast, but Stuyvesant made sure they moved properly. He called the cleaners' lawyers and told them he needed the answer to just one question: the name and address of the children's baby-sitters. He told them a quick answer would be much better than a delay. He got the quick answer. The lawyers called back within a quarter of an hour. The name was Galvez and the address was a house a mile from the cleaners' own.

  Then Froelich motioned for quiet and got on the radio net and asked for a complete situation update from the hotel. She spoke to her acting on-site leader and four other key positions. There were no problems. Everything was calm. Armstrong was working the room. Perimeters were tight. She instructed that all agents should accompany Armstrong through the loading bay at the function's conclusion. She asked for a human wall, all the way to the limo.

  "And make it soon," she said. "Compress the exposure. "

  Then they squeezed into the single elevator and rode down to the garage. Climbed into Froelich's Suburban for the drive Reacher had slept through first time around. This time he stayed awake as Froelich raced through traffic to the cheap part of town. They passed right by the cleaners' house. Threaded another mile through dark streets made narrow by parked cars and came to a stop outside a tall thin two-family house. It was ringed by a wire fence and had trash cans chained to the gatepost. It was boxed in on one side by a package store and on the other by a long line of identical houses. There was a sagging twenty-year-old Cadillac parked at the curb. Yellow sodium lighting was cutting through the fog.

  "So what do we do?" Stuyvesant said.

  Reacher looked through the window. "We go talk with these people. But we don't want a mob scene. They're scared already. We don't want to panic them. They might think the bad guys are back. So Neagley should go first. "

  Stuyvesant was about to offer an objection but Neagley slid straight out of the car and headed for the gate. Reacher watched her turn a fast circle on the sidewalk before going in, to read the surroundings. Watched her glance left and right as she walked up the path. Nobody was around. Too cold. She reached the door. Searched for a bell. Couldn't find one, so she rapped on the wood with her knuckles.

  There was a one-minute wait and then the door opened and was stopped short by a chain. A bar of warm light flooded out. There was a one-minute conversation. The door eased forward to release the chain. The bar of light narrowed and widened again. Neagley turned and waved. Froelich and Stuyvesant and Reacher climbed out of the Suburban and walked up the path. There was a small dark guy standing in the doorway, waiting for them, smiling shyly.

  "This is Mr. Galvez," Neagley said. They introduced themselves and Galvez backed into the hallway and made a follow-me gesture with the whole of his arm, like a butler. He was a small guy dressed in suit pants and a patterned sweater. He had a fresh haircut and an open expression. They followed him inside. The house was small and clearly overcrowded, but it was very clean. There was a line of seven children's coats hung neatly on a row of pegs inside the door. Some of them were small, some of them were a little bigger. There were seven school backpacks lined up on the floor underneath them. Seven pairs of shoes. There were toys neatly piled here and there. Three women visible in the kitchen. Shy children peering out from behind their skirts. More easing their heads around the living room door. They kept moving. Kept appearing and disappearing in random sequences. They all looked the same. Reacher couldn't get an accurate count. There were dark eyes everywhere, open wide.

  Stuyvesant seemed a little out of his depth, like he didn't know how to broach the subject. Reacher squeezed past him and moved ahead toward the kitchen. Stopped in the doorway. There were seven school lunch boxes lined up on a counter. The lids were up, like they were ready for assembly-line loading first thing in the morning. He moved back to the hallway. Squeezed past Neagley and looked at the little coats. They were all colorful nylon items, like small versions of the things he had browsed in the Atlantic City store. He lifted one off its peg. It had a white patch inside the collar. Somebody had used a laundry marker and written J. Galvez on it in careful script. He put it back and checked the other six. Each was labeled with a surname and a single initial. Total of five Galvez and two Alvarez.

  Nobody was speaking. Stuyvesant looked awkward. Reacher caught Mr. Galvez's eye and nodded him through to the living room. Two children scuttled out as they stepped in.

  "You got five kids?" Reacher asked.

  Galvez nodded. "I'm a lucky man. "

  "So who do the two Alvarez coats belong to?"

  "My wife's cousin Julio's children. "

  "Julio and Anita's?"

  Galvez nodded. Said nothing.

  "I need to see them," Reacher said.

  "They're not here. "

  Reacher glanced away.

  "Where are they?" he asked quietly.

  "I don't know," Galvez said. "At work, I guess. They work nights. For the federal government. "

  Reacher glanced back. "No, I mean their kids. Not them. I need to see their kids. "

  Galvez looked at him, puzzled. "See their kids?"

  "To check they're OK. "

  "You just saw them. In the kitchen. "

  "I need to see which ones they are exactly. "

  "We're not taking money," Galvez said. "Except for their food. "

  Reacher nodded. "This isn't about licenses or anything. We don't care about that stuff. We just need to see their kids are OK. "

  Galvez still looked puzzled. But he called out a long rapid sentence in Spanish and two small children separated themselves from the group in the kitchen and threaded between Stuyvesant and Froelich and trotted into the room. They stopped near the doorway and stood perfectly still, side by side. Two little girls, very beautiful, huge dark eyes, soft black hair, serious expressions. Maybe five and seven years old. Maybe four and six. Maybe three and five. Reacher had no idea.

  "Hey, kids," he said. "Show me your coats. "

  They did exactly what they were told, like kids sometimes do. He followed them out to the
hallway and watched as they stood up on tiptoe and touched the two little jackets he knew were marked Alvarez.

  "OK," he said. "Now go get a cookie or something. "

  They scuttled back to the kitchen. He watched them go. Stood still and quiet for a second and then stepped back to the living room. Got close to Galvez and lowered his voice again.

  "Anybody else been inquiring about them?" he asked.

  Galvez just shook his head.

  "You sure?" Reacher asked. "Nobody watching them, no strangers around?"

  Galvez 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. "

  Galvez just looked blank. 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.

  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 at all for them. 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 gray 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 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. Galvez," he said. "He seemed really happy to be a father, didn't he? All those lunch boxes lined up? I bet they get whole wheat 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 stenciled 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. "Talking about lunch boxes, and thinking about haircuts. Mr. Galvez 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.

  "Your point being?" she said.

  "My point being, I don't think there is anything more important to Julio and Anita than their children. "

  "So why are they still clamming up?"

  Froelich sat forward and pressed her finger on her earpiece. Listened for a second and raised her wrist.

  "Copy," she said. "Good work, everybody, out. "

  Then she smiled.

  "Armstrong's home," she said. "Secure. "

  Reacher looked at his watch again. Nine o'clock exactly. He glanced across at Stuyvesant. "Can I see your office again? Right now?"

  Stuyvesant looked blank, but he stood up and led the way out of the room. They followed the corridors and arrived at the rear of the floor. The secretarial station was quiet and deserted. Stuyvesant's door was closed. He pushed it open and hit the lights.

  There was a sheet of paper on the desk.

  They all saw it. Stuyvesant stood completely still for a second and then walked across the floor and stared down at it. Swallowed. Breathed out. Picked it up.

  "Fax from Boulder PD," he said. "Preliminary ballistics. My secretary must have left it. "

  He smiled with relief.

  "Now check," Reacher said. "Concentrate. Is this how your office usually looks?"

  Stuyvesant held the fax and glanced around the room.

  "Exactly," he said.

  "So this is how the cleaners see it every night?"

  "Well, the desk is usually clear," Stuyvesant said. "But otherwise, yes. "

  "OK," Reacher said. "Let's go. "

  They walked back to the conference room. Stuyvesant read the fax.

  "They found six shell cases," he said. "Nine millimeter Parabellums. Strange impact marks on the sides. They've sent a drawing. "

  He slid the paper to Neagley. She read it through. Made a face. Slid it across to Reacher. He looked at the drawing and nodded.

  "Heckler amp; Koch MP5," he said. "It punches the empty brass out like nobody's business. The guy had it set to bursts of three. Two bursts, six cases. They probably ended up twenty yards away. "

  "Probably the SD6 version," Neagley said. "If it was silenced. That's a nice weapon. Quality submachine gun. Expensive. Rare, too. "

  "Why did you want to see my office?" Stuyvesant asked.

  "We're wrong about the cleaners," Reacher said.

  The room went quiet.

  "In what way?" Neagley asked.

  "In every way," Reacher said. "Every possible way we could be. What happened when we talked to them?"

  "They stonewalled like crazy. "

  He nodded. "That's what I thought too. They went into some kind of a stoic silence. All of them. Almost like a trance. I interpreted that as a response to some kind of danger. Like they were really digging deep and defending against whatever hold somebody had over them. Like it was vitally important. Like they knew they couldn't afford to say a single word. But you know what?"

  "What?"

  "They just didn't have a clue what we were talking about. Not the first idea. We were two crazy white people asking them impossible questions, is all. They were too polite and too inhibited to tell us to get lost. They just sat there patiently while we rambled on. "

  "So what are you saying?"

  "Think about what else we know. There's a weird sequence of facts on the tape. They look a little tired going into Stuyvesant's office, and a little less tired coming out. They look fairly neat going in, and a little disheveled coming out. They spend fifteen minutes in there, and only nine in the secretarial area. "

  "So?" Stuyvesant as
ked.

  Reacher smiled. "Your office is probably the world's cleanest room. You could do surgery in there. You keep it that way deliberately. We know about the thing with the briefcase and the wet shoes, by the way. "

  Froelich looked blank. Stuyvesant's turn to blush.

  "It's tidy to the point of obsession," Reacher said. "And yet the cleaners spent fifteen minutes in there. Why?"

  "They were unpacking the letter," Stuyvesant said. "Placing it in position. "

  "No, they weren't. "

  "Was it just Maria on her own? Did Julio and Anita come out first?"

  "No. "

  "So who put it there? My secretary?"

  "No. "

  The room went quiet.

  "Are you saying I did?" Stuyvesant asked.

  Reacher shook his head. "All I'm doing is asking why the cleaners spent fifteen minutes in an office that was already very clean. "

  "They were resting?" Neagley said.

  Reacher shook his head again. Froelich smiled suddenly.

  "Doing something to make themselves disheveled?" she said.

  Reacher smiled back. "Like what?"

  "Like having sex?"

  Stuyvesant went pale.

  "I sincerely hope not," he said. "And there were three of them, anyway. "

  "Threesomes aren't unheard of," Neagley said.

  "They live together," Stuyvesant said. "They want to do that, they can do it at home, can't they?"

  "It can be an erotic adventure," Froelich said. "You know, making out at work. "

  "Forget the sex," Reacher said. "Think about the dishevelment. What exactly created that impression for us?"

  Everybody shrugged. Stuyvesant was still pale. Reacher smiled.

  "Something else on the tape," he said. "Going in, the garbage bag is reasonably empty. Coming out, it's much fuller. So was there a lot of trash in the office?"

  "No," Stuyvesant said, like he was offended. "I never leave trash in there. "

  Froelich sat forward. "So what was in the bag?"

  "Trash," Reacher said.

  "I don't understand," Froelich said.

  "Fifteen minutes is a long time, people," Reacher said. "They worked efficiently and thoroughly in the secretarial area and had it done in nine minutes. That's a slightly bigger and slightly more cluttered area. Things all over the place. So compare the two areas, compare the complexity, assume they work just as hard everywhere, and tell me how long they should have spent in the office. "

  Froelich shrugged. "Seven minutes? Eight? About that long?"

  Neagley nodded. "I'd say nine minutes, tops. "

  "I like it clean," Stuyvesant said. "I leave instructions to that effect. I'd want them in there for ten minutes, at least. "

  "But not fifteen," Reacher said. "That's excessive. And we asked them about it. We asked them, why so long in there? And what did they say?"

  "They didn't answer," Neagley said. "Just looked puzzled. "

  "Then we asked them whether they spent the same amount of time in there every night. And they said yes, they did. "

  Stuyvesant looked to Neagley for confirmation. She nodded.

  "OK," Reacher said. "We've boiled it down. We're looking at fifteen particular minutes. You've all seen the tapes. Now tell me how they spent that time. "

  Nobody spoke.

  "Two possibilities," Reacher said. "Either they didn't, or they spent the time growing their hair. "

  "What?" Froelich said.

  "That's what makes them look disheveled. Julio especially. His hair is a little longer coming out than going in. "

  "How is that possible?"

  "It's possible because we weren't looking at one night's activities. We were looking at two separate nights spliced together. Two halves of two different nights. "

  Silence in the room.

  "Two tapes," Reacher said. "The tape change at midnight is the key. The first tape is kosher. Has to be, because early on it shows Stuyvesant and his secretary going home. That was the real thing. The real Wednesday. The cleaners show up at eleven fifty-two. They look tired, because maybe that's the first night in their shift pattern. Maybe they've been up all day doing normal daytime things. But it's been a routine night at work so far. They're on time. No spilled coffee anywhere, no huge amount of trash anywhere. The garbage bag is reasonably empty. My guess is they had the office finished in about nine minutes. Which is probably their normal speed. Which is reasonably fast. Which is why they were puzzled when we claimed it was slow. My guess is in reality they came out at maybe one minute past midnight and spent another nine minutes on the secretarial station and left the area at ten past midnight. "

  "But?" Froelich asked.

  "But after midnight we were looking at a different night altogether. Maybe from a couple of weeks ago, before the guy got his latest haircut. A night when they arrived in the area later, and therefore left the area later. Because of some earlier snafu in some other office. Maybe some big pile of trash that filled up their bag. They looked more energetic coming out because they were hurrying to catch up. And maybe it was a night in the middle of their work week and they'd adjusted to their pattern and slept properly. So we saw them go in on Wednesday and come out on a completely different night. "

  "But the date was correct," Froelich said. "It was definitely Thursday's date. "

  Reacher nodded. "Nendick planned it ahead of time. "

  "Nendick?"

  "Your tape guy," Reacher said. "My guess is for a whole week he had that particular camera's midnight-to-six tape set up to show that particular Thursday's date. Maybe two whole weeks. Because he needed three options. Either the cleaners would be in and out before midnight, or in before midnight and out after midnight, or in and out after midnight. He had to wait to match his options. If they'd been in and out before midnight, he'd have given you a matching tape showing nothing at all between midnight and six. If they'd been in and out after midnight, that's what you'd have seen. But the way it happened, he had to use one that showed them leaving only. "

  "Nendick left the letter?" Stuyvesant asked.

  Reacher nodded. "Nendick is the insider. Not the cleaners. What that particular camera really recorded that night was the cleaners leaving just after midnight and then sometime before six in the morning Nendick himself stepping in through the fire door with gloves on and the letter in his hand. Probably around five-thirty, I would guess, so he wouldn't have to wait long before trashing the real tape and choosing his substitute. "

  "But it showed me arriving in the morning. My secretary, too. "

  "That was the third tape. There was another change at six A. M. , back to the real thing. Only the middle tape was swapped. "

  Silence in the room.

  "He probably described the garage cameras for them too," Reacher said. "For the Sunday night delivery. "

  "How did you spot it?" Stuyvesant asked. "The hair?"

  "Partly. It was Neagley's ass, really. Nendick was so nervous around the tapes he didn't pay attention to Neagley's ass. She noticed. She told me that's very unusual. "

  Stuyvesant blushed again, like maybe he was able to vouch for that fact personally.

  "So we should let the cleaners go," Reacher said. "Then we should talk with Nendick. He's the one who met with these guys. "

  Stuyvesant nodded. "And been threatened by them, presumably. "

  "I hope so," Reacher said. "I hope he's not involved of his own free will. "

  Stuyvesant used his master key and entered the video recording room with the duty officer as a witness. They found that ten consecutive midnight-to-six tapes were missing prior to the Thursday in question. Nendick had entered them in a technical log as faulty recordings. Then they picked a dozen random tapes from the last three months and watched parts of them. They confirmed that the cleaners never spent more than nine minutes in his office. So Stuyvesant made a call and secured their immediate release
.

  Then there were three options: either call Nendick in on a pretext, or send agents out to arrest him, or drive themselves over to his house and get some questioning started before the Sixth Amendment kicked in and began to complicate things.

  "We should go right now," Reacher said. "Exploit the element of surprise. "

  He was expecting resistance, but Stuyvesant just nodded blankly. He looked pale and tired. He looked like a man with problems. Like a man juggling a sense of betrayal and righteous anger against the standard Beltway instinct for concealment. And the instinct for concealment was going to be much stronger with a guy like Nendick than with the cleaners. Cleaners would be regarded as mere ciphers. Sooner or later somebody could spin it hey, cleaners, what can you do? But a guy like Nendick was different. A guy like that was a main component in an organization that should know better. So Stuyvesant booted up his secretary's computer and found Nendick's home address. It was in a suburb ten miles out in Virginia. It took twenty minutes to get there. He lived on a quiet winding street in a subdivision. The subdivision was old enough that the trees and the foundation plantings were mature but new enough that the whole place still looked smart and well kept. It was a medium-priced area. There were foreign cars on most of the driveways, but they weren't this year's models. They were clean, but a little tired. Nendick's house was a long low ranch with a khaki roof and a brick chimney. It was dark except for the blue flicker of a television set in one of the windows.

  Froelich swung straight onto the driveway and parked in front of the garage. They climbed out into the cold and walked to the front door. Stuyvesant put his thumb on the bell and left it there. Thirty seconds later a light came on in the hallway. It blazed orange in a fan-shaped window above the door. A yellow porch light came on over their heads. The door opened and Nendick just stood in his hallway and said nothing. He was wearing a suit, like he was just home from work. He looked slack with fear, like a new ordeal was about to be piled on top of an old one. Stuyvesant looked at him and paused and then stepped inside. Froelich followed him. Then Reacher. Then Neagley. She closed the door behind her and took up station in front of it like a sentry, feet apart, hands clasped easy in the small of her back.

  Nendick still said nothing. Just stood there, slack and staring. Stuyvesant put a hand on his shoulder and turned him around. Pushed him toward the kitchen. He didn't resist. Just stumbled limply toward the back of his house. Stuyvesant followed him and hit a switch and fluorescent tubes sputtered to life above the countertops.

  "Sit," he said, like he was talking to a dog.

  Nendick stepped over and sat on a stool at his breakfast bar. Said nothing. Just wrapped his arms around himself like a man chilled by fever.

  "Names," Stuyvesant said.

  Nendick said nothing. He worked at saying nothing. He stared forward at the far wall. One of the fluorescent lights was faulty. It was struggling to kick in. Its capacitor put an angry buzz into the silence. Nendick's hands started shaking, so he tucked them up under his arms to keep them still and began to rock back and forth on the stool. It creaked gently under his weight. Reacher glanced away and looked around the kitchen. It was a pretty room. There were yellow check drapes at the window. The ceiling was painted to match. There were flowers in vases. They were all dead. There were dishes in the sink. A couple of weeks' worth. Some of them were crusted.

  Reacher stepped back to the hallway. Into the living room. The television was a huge thing a couple of years old. It was tuned to a commercial network. The program seemed to be made up of clips from police traffic surveillance videos several years out of date. The sound was low. Just a constant murmur suggesting extreme and sustained excitement. There was a remote control balanced carefully on the arm of a chair opposite the screen. There was a low mantel above the fireplace with a row of six photographs in brass frames. Nendick and a woman featured in all six of them. She was about his age, maybe just lively enough and attractive enough not to be called plain. The photographs followed the couple from their wedding day through a couple of vacations and some other unspecified events. There were no pictures of children. And this wasn't a house where children lived. There were no toys anywhere. No mess. Everything was frilly and considered and matched and adult.

  The remote on the arm of the chair was labeled Video, not TV. Reacher glanced at the screen and pressed play. The cop radio sound died instantly and the video machine clicked and whirred and a second later the picture went black and was replaced by an amateur video of a wedding. Nendick and his wife smiled into the camera from several years in the past. Their heads were close together. They looked happy. She was all in white. He was wearing a suit. They were on a lawn. A blustery day. Her hair was blowing and the sound track was dominated by wind noise. She had a nice smile. Bright eyes. She was saying something for posterity, but Reacher couldn't hear the words.

  He pressed stop and a nighttime car chase resumed. He stepped back into the kitchen. Nendick was still shaking and rocking. He still had his hands trapped up under his arms. He still wasn't saying anything. Reacher glanced again at the dirty dishes and the dead flowers.

  "We can get her back for you," he said.

  Nendick said nothing.

  "Just tell us who, and we'll go get her right now. "

  No reply.

  "Sooner the better," Reacher said. "Thing like this, we don't want to have her wait any longer than she has to, do we?"

  Nendick stared at the far wall with total concentration.

  "When did they come for her?" Reacher asked. "Couple of weeks ago?"

  Nendick said nothing. Made no sound at all. Neagley came in from the hallway. Drifted away into the half of the kitchen that was set up as a family room. There was a matching set of heavy furniture grouped along one wall, bookcase, credenza, bookcase.

  "We can help you," Reacher said. "But we need to know where to start. "

  Nendick said nothing in reply. Nothing at all. Just stared and shook and rocked and hugged himself tight.

  "Reacher," Neagley called. Soft voice, with some kind of strain in it. He stepped away from Nendick and joined her at the credenza. She handed him something. It was an envelope. There was a Polaroid photograph in it. The photograph showed a woman sitting on a chair. Her face was white and panicked. Her eyes were wide. Her hair was dirty. It was Nendick's wife, looking about a hundred years older than the pictures in the living room. She was holding up a copy of USA Today. The masthead was right under her chin. Neagley passed him another envelope. Another Polaroid in it. Same woman. Same pose. Same paper, but a different day.

  "Proofs of life," Reacher said.

  Neagley nodded. "But look at this. What's this proof of?"

  She passed him another envelope. A padded brown mailer. Something soft and white in it. Underwear. One pair. Discolored. Slightly grimy.

  "Great," he said. Then she passed him a fourth envelope. Another padded brown mailer. Smaller. There was a box in it. It was a tiny neat cardboard thing like a jeweler might put a pair of earrings in. There was a pad of cotton wool in it. The cotton wool was browned with old blood, because lying on top of it was a fingertip. It had been clipped off at the first knuckle by something hard and sharp. Garden shears, maybe. It was probably from the little finger of the left hand, judging by the size and the curve. There was still paint on the nail. Reacher looked at it for a long moment. Nodded and handed it back to Neagley. Walked around and faced Nendick head on across the breakfast bar. Looked straight into his eyes. Gambled.

  "Stuyvesant," he called. "And Froelich. Go wait in the hallway. "

  They stood still for a second, surprised. He glared hard at them. They shuffled obediently out of the room.

  "Neagley," he called. "Come over here with me. "

  She walked around and stood quiet at his side. He leaned down and put his elbows on the counter. Put his face level with Nendick's. Spoke soft.

  "OK, they're gone," he said. "It's j
ust us now. And we're not Secret Service. You know that, right? You never saw us before the other day. So you can trust us. We won't screw up like they will. We come from a place where you're not allowed to screw up. And we come from a place where they don't have rules. So we can get her back. We know how to do this. We'll get the bad guys and we'll bring her back. Safe. Without fail, OK? That's a promise. Me to you. "

  Nendick leaned his head back and opened his mouth. His lips were dry. They were flecked with sticky foam. Then he closed his mouth. Tight. Clamped his jaw hard. So hard his lips were compressed into a bloodless thin line. He brought one shaking hand out from under his arm and put the thumb and forefinger together like he was holding something small. He drew the small imaginary thing sideways across his lips, slowly, like he was closing a zipper. He put his hand back under his arm. Shook. Stared at the wall. There was crazy fear in his eyes. Some kind of absolute, uncontrolled terror. He started rocking again. Started coughing. He was coughing and choking in his throat. He wouldn't open his mouth. It was clamped tight. He was bucking and shaking on the stool. Clutching his sides. Gulping desperately inside his clamped mouth. His eyes were wild and staring. They were pools of horror. Then they rolled up inside his head and the whites showed and he pitched backward off the stool.