Ли Чайлд - Without Fail

Reacher said nothing.

“And don’t get all superior with me,” Stuyvesant said. “Don’t tell me the Army reacted any different. I don’t recall you guys running to the Bureau for assistance. I don’t recall your embarrassing little secrets all over the Washington Post .”

Reacher nodded. Most of the Army’s embarrassments were cremated. Or six feet under. Or sitting in a stockade somewhere, too scared even to open their mouths. Or back home, too scared to tell their own mothers why. He had arranged some of those circumstances himself.

“So we’ll take it a step at a time,” Stuyvesant said. “Prove these guys are outsiders. Get their names from the cleaners. Lawyers or no lawyers.”

Froelich shook her head. “First priority is getting Armstrong to midnight alive.”

“It’s only going to be a demonstration,” Reacher said.

“I heard you before,” she said. “But it’s my call. And you’re just guessing. All we’ve got is nine words on a piece of paper. And your interpretation might be plain wrong. I mean, what better demonstration would there be than actually doing it? Really getting to him would demonstrate his vulnerability, wouldn’t it? I mean, what better way is there of demonstrating it?”

Neagley nodded. “And it would be a way of hedging their bets, also. An attempt that fails could be passed off as a demonstration, maybe. You know, to save face.”

“If you’re right to begin with,” Stuyvesant said.

Reacher said nothing. The meeting came to an end a couple of minutes later. Stuyvesant made Froelich run through Armstrong’s schedule for the day. It was an amalgam of familiar parts. First, intelligence briefings from the CIA at home, like on Friday morning. Then afternoon transition meetings on the Hill, the same as most days. Then the evening reception at the same hotel as Thursday. Stuyvesant noted it all down and went home just before two-thirty in the morning. Left Froelich on her own at the long table in the bright light and the silence, opposite Reacher and Neagley.

“Advice?” she said.

“Go home and sleep,” Reacher said.

“Great.”

“And then do exactly what you’ve been doing,” Neagley said. “He’s OK in his house. He’s OK in his office. Keep the tents in place and the transfers are OK too.”

“What about the hotel reception?”

“Keep it short and take a lot of care.”

Froelich nodded. “All I can do, I guess.”

“Are you good at your job?” Neagley asked.

Froelich paused.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m pretty good.”

“No, you’re not,” Reacher said. “You’re the best. The absolute best there has ever been. You’re so damn good it’s unbelievable.”

“That’s how you’ve got to think,” Neagley said. “Pump yourself up. Get to the point where it’s impossible to think that these jerky guys with their silly notes are going to get within a million miles of you.”

Froelich smiled, briefly. “Is this military-style training?”

“For me it was,” Neagley said. “Reacher was born thinking that way.”

Froelich smiled again.

“OK,” she said. “Home and sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

Washington, D.C., is quiet and empty in the middle of the night and it took just two minutes to reach Neagley’s hotel and only another ten to get back to Froelich’s house. Her street was crowded with parked cars. They looked like they were asleep, dark and still and inert and heavily dewed with cold mist. The Suburban was more than eighteen feet long and they had to go two whole blocks before they found a space big enough for it. They locked it up and walked back together in the chill. Made it to the house and opened the door and stepped inside. The lights were still on. The heating was still running hard. Froelich paused in the hallway.

“Are we OK?” she asked. “About earlier?”

“We’re fine,” he said.

“I just don’t want us to get our signals mixed.”

“I don’t think they’re mixed.”

“I’m sorry I disagreed with you,” she said. “About the demonstration.”

“It’s your call,” he said. “Only you can make it.”

“I had other boyfriends,” she said. “You know, after.”

He said nothing.

“And Joe had other girlfriends,” she said. “He wasn’t all that shy, really.”

“But he left his stuff here.”

“Does that matter?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Got to mean something.”

“He’s dead, Reacher. Nothing can affect him now.”

“I know.”

She was quiet for a second.

“I’m going to make tea,” she said. “You want some?”

He shook his head. “I’m going to bed.”

She stepped into the living room on her way to the kitchen and he walked upstairs. Closed the guest room door quietly behind him and opened up the closet. Stripped off Joe’s suit and put it back on the wire dry-cleaner’s hanger. Hung it on the rail. Took off the tie and rolled it and put it back on the shelf. Took off the shirt and dropped it on the closet floor. He didn’t need to save it. There were four more on the rail, and he didn’t expect to be around longer than four more days. He peeled off the socks and dropped them on top of the shirt. Walked into the bathroom wearing only his boxers.

He took his time in there and when he came out Froelich was standing in the guest room doorway. Wearing a nightgown. It was white cotton. Longer than a T-shirt, but not a whole lot longer. The hallway light behind her made it transparent. Her hair was tousled. Without shoes she looked smaller. Without makeup she looked younger. She had great legs. A wonderful shape. She looked soft and firm, all at the same time.

“He broke up with me,” she said. “It was his choice, not mine.”

“Why?”

“He met somebody he preferred.”

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter who. Nobody you ever heard of. Just somebody.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“Denial, I guess,” she said. “Trying to protect myself, maybe. And trying to protect his memory in front of his brother.”

“He wasn’t nice about it?”

“Not very.”

“How did it happen?”

“He just told me one day.”

“And walked out?”

“We weren’t really living together. He spent time here, I spent time there, but we always kept separate places. His stuff is still here because I wouldn’t let him come back to get it. I wouldn’t let him in the door. I was hurt and angry with him.”

“I guess you would be.”

She shrugged. The hem of her nightgown rode up an inch on her thigh.

“No, it was silly of me,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like things like that never happen, is it? It was just a relationship that started and then finished. Hardly unique in human history. Hardly unique in my history. And half the times it was me who did the walking away.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“You know why,” she said.

He nodded. Didn’t speak.

“So you can start with a blank slate,” she said. “How you react to me can be about you and me, not about you and me and Joe. He took himself out of the picture. It was his choice. So it’s none of his business, even if he was still around.”

He nodded again.

“But how blank is your slate?” he asked.

“He was a great guy,” she said. “I loved him once. But you’re not him. You’re a separate person. I know that. I’m not looking to get him back. I don’t want a ghost.”

She took one step into the room.

“That’s good,” he said. “Because I’m not like him. Hardly at all. You need to be real clear about that from the start.”

“I’m clear about it,” she said. “The start of what?”