Ли Чайлд - Without Fail

“Joe was right about a lot of things, the way I recall it.”

“But we’ve never lost a Vice President,” she said. “Not yet.”

She put the files under one arm and stacked the photographs on the credenza and butted them around with her fingertips until they were neatly piled. Picked them up and put them in her bag. Then she glanced at each of the four walls in turn, like she was memorizing their exact details. A distracted little gesture. She nodded at nothing in particular and headed for the door.

“Got to go,” she said.

She walked out of the room and the door sucked shut behind her. There was silence for a spell. Then Neagley stood up straight at the end of one of the beds and clamped the cuffs of her sweatshirt in her palms and stretched her arms high above her head. She tilted her head back and yawned. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders. The hem of her shirt rode up and Reacher saw hard muscle above the waistband of her jeans. It was ridged like a turtle’s back.

“You still look good,” he said.

“So do you, in black.”

“Feels like a uniform,” he said. “Five years since I last wore one.”

Neagley finished stretching. Smoothed her hair and pulled the hem of her shirt back down into place.

“Are we done here?” she asked.

“Tired?”

“Exhausted. We worked our butts off, ruining that poor woman’s day.”

“What did you think of her?”

“I liked her. And like I told her, I think she’s got an impossible job. And all in all, I think she’s pretty good at it. I doubt if anybody else could do it better. And I think she kind of knows that too, but it’s burning her up that she’s forced to settle for ninety-five percent instead of a hundred.”

“I agree.”

“Who’s this guy Joe she was talking about?”

“An old boyfriend.”

“You knew him?”

“My brother. She dated him.”

“When?”

“They broke up six years ago.”

“What’s he like?”

Reacher glanced at the floor. Didn’t correct the is to a was .

“Like a civilized version of me,” he said.

“So maybe she’ll want to date you, too. Civilized can be an overrated virtue. And collecting the complete set is always fun for a girl.”

Reacher said nothing. The room went quiet.

“I guess I’ll head home,” Neagley said. “Back to Chicago. Back to the real world. But I got to say, it was a pleasure working with you again.”

“Liar.”

“No, really, I mean it.”

“So stick around. A buck gets ten she’ll be back inside an hour.”

Neagley smiled. “What, to ask you out?”

Reacher shook his head. “No, to tell us what her real problem is.”

Froelich walked across the sidewalk to her Suburban. Spilled the files onto the passenger seat. Started the engine and kept her foot hard on the brake. Pulled her phone from her bag and flipped it open. Entered Stuyvesant’s home number digit by digit and then paused with her finger resting on the call button. The phone waited patiently with the number displayed on the tiny green screen. She looked ahead through the windshield, fighting with herself. She looked down at the phone. Back out at the street. Her finger rested on the button. Then she flipped the phone shut and dropped it on top of the files. Pulled the transmission lever into drive and took off from the curb with a loud chirp from all four tires. Hung a left and a right and headed for her office.

The room-service guy came back to collect the coffee tray and left with it. Reacher took his jacket off and hung it in the closet. Pulled the T-shirt out of the waistband of his jeans.

“Did you vote in the election?” Neagley asked him.

He shook his head. “I’m not registered anywhere. Did you?”

“Sure,” she said. “I always vote.”

“Did you vote for Armstrong?”

“Nobody votes for Vice President. Except his family, maybe.”

“But did you vote for that ticket?”

She nodded. “Yes, I did. Would you have?”

“I guess so,” he said. “You ever hear anything about Armstrong before?”

“Not really,” she said. “I mean, I’m interested in politics, but I’m not one of those people who can name all hundred senators.”

“Would you run for office?”

“Not in a million years. I like a low profile, Reacher. I was a sergeant, and I always will be, inside. Never wanted to be an officer.”

“You had the potential.”

She shrugged and smiled, all at the same time. “Maybe I did. But what I didn’t have was the desire. And you know what? Sergeants have plenty of power. More than you guys ever realized.”

“Hey, I realized,” he said. “Believe me, I realized.”

“She’s not coming back, you know. We’re sitting here talking and wasting time and I’m missing all kinds of flights home, and she’s not coming back.”

“She’s coming back.”

Froelich parked in the garage and headed upstairs. Presidential protection was a 24/7 operation, but Sundays still felt different. People dressed different, the air was quieter, phone traffic was down. Some people spent the day at home. Like Stuyvesant, for instance . She closed her office door and sat at her desk and opened a drawer. Took out the things she needed and slipped them into a large brown envelope. Then she opened Reacher’s expenses file and copied the figure on the bottom line onto the top sheet of her yellow pad and switched her shredder on. Fed the whole file into it, sheet by sheet, and then followed it with the file of recommendations and all the six-by-four photographs, one by one. She fed the file folders themselves in and stirred the long curling shreds around in the output bin until they were hopelessly tangled. Then she switched the machine off again and picked up the envelope and headed back down to the garage.

Reacher saw her car from the hotel room window. It came around the corner and slowed. There was no traffic on the street. Late in the afternoon, on a November Sunday in D.C. The tourists were in their hotels, showering, getting ready for dinner. The natives were home, reading their newspapers, watching the NFL on television, paying bills, doing chores. The air was fogging with evening. Streetlights were sputtering to life. The black Suburban had its headlights on. It pulled a wide U across both lanes and slid into an area reserved for waiting taxis.

“She’s back,” Reacher said.

Neagley joined him at the window. “We can’t help her.”

“Maybe she isn’t looking for help.”

“Then why would she come back?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “A second opinion? Validation? Maybe she just wants to talk. You know, a problem shared is a problem halved.”

“Why talk to us?”

“Because we didn’t hire her and we can’t fire her. And we weren’t rivals for her position. You know how these organizations work.”

“Is she allowed to talk to us?”

“Didn’t you ever talk to somebody you shouldn’t have?”

Neagley made a face. “Occasionally. Like, I talked to you.”

“And I talked to you, which was worse, because you weren’t an officer.”

“But I had the potential.”

“That’s for damn sure,” he said, looking down. “Now she’s just sitting there.”

“She’s on the phone. She’s calling somebody.”

The room phone rang.

“Us, evidently,” Reacher said.

He picked up the phone.

“We’re still here,” he said.

Then he listened for a moment.

“OK,” he said, and put the phone down.

“She coming up?” Neagley asked. He nodded and went back to the window in time to see Froelich climbing out of the car. She was holding an envelope. She skipped across the sidewalk and disappeared from sight. Two minutes later they heard the distant chime of the elevator arriving on their floor. Twenty seconds after that, a knock on the door. Reacher stepped over and opened up and Froelich walked in and stopped in the middle of the room. Glanced first at Neagley, and then at Reacher.