Lee Child - Without Fail

“No.”

“The loft?”

“No.”

“Plenty of places,” Stuyvesant said again.

“I sensed somebody.”

“Yes,” Stuyvesant said. “They were in there. That’s for sure.”

There was silence for a beat.

“Any unexplained attendees?” Froelich asked.

Stuyvesant shook his head. “It was pure chaos. Cops running everywhere, the crowd scattering. By the time order was restored at least twenty people had left. It’s understandable. You’re in a crowd on an open field, somebody finds a gun, you run like hell. Why wouldn’t you?”

“What about the man on foot in the subdivision?”

“Just a guy in a coat,” Stuyvesant said. “State cop couldn’t really come up with anything more than that. Probably just a civilian out walking. Probably nobody. My guess is our guys were already in the church by that time.”

“Something must have aroused the trooper’s suspicions,” Neagley said.

Stuyvesant shrugged. “You know how it is. How does a North Dakota State Trooper react around the Secret Service? He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Somebody looks suspicious, he’s got to call it in even if he can’t articulate exactly why afterward. And we can’t moan at him for it. I’d rather he erred on the side of caution. Don’t want to make him afraid to be vigilant.”

“So we’ve still got nothing,” Froelich said.

“We’ve still got Armstrong,” Stuyvesant said. “And Armstrong’s still got a pulse. So go eat dinner and be back here at ten for the FBI meeting.”

First they went back to Froelich’s office to check on Neagley’s NCIC search. It was done. In fact it had been done before they even stepped away from the desk. The rubric at the top of the screen said the search had lasted nine-hundredths of a second and come up with zero matches. Froelich called up the inquiry box again and typed thumbprint on letter . Clicked on search and watched the screen. It redrew immediately and came up with no matches in eight-hundredths of a second.

“Getting nowhere even faster now,” she said.

She tried thumbprint on message . Same result, no matches in eight-hundredths of a second. She tried thumbprint on threat . Identical result, identical eight-hundredths of a second. She sighed with frustration.

“Let me have a go,” Reacher said. She got up and he sat down in her chair and typed a short letter signed with a big thumbprint .

“Idiot,” Neagley said.

He clicked the mouse. The screen redrew instantly and reported that within the seven-hundredths of a second it had spent looking the software had detected no matches.

“But it was a new speed record,” Reacher said, and smiled.

Neagley laughed, and the mood of frustration eased a little. He typed thumbprint and squalene and hit search again. A tenth of a second later the search came back blank.

“Slowing down,” he said.

He tried squalene on its own. No match, eight-hundredths of a second.

He typed squalane with an a . No match, eight-hundredths of a second.

“Forget it,” he said. “Let’s go eat.”

“Wait,” Neagley said. “Let me try again. This is like an Olympic event.”

She nudged him out of the chair. Typed single unexplained thumbprint . Hit search . No match, six-hundredths of a second. She smiled.

“Six hundredths,” she said. “Folks, we have a new world record.”

“Way to go,” Reacher said.

She typed solo unexplained thumbprint . Hit search .

“This is kind of fun,” she said.

No match, six-hundredths of a second.

“Tied for first place,” Froelich said. “My turn again.”

She took Neagley’s place at the keyboard and thought for a long moment.

“OK, here we go,” she said. “This one either wins me the gold medal, or it’ll keep us here all night long.”

She typed a single word: thumb . Hit search . The inquiry box disappeared and the screen paused for a whole second and came back with a single entry. A single short paragraph. It was a police report from Sacramento in California. An emergency room doctor from a city hospital had notified the local police department five weeks ago that he had treated a man who had severed his thumb in a carpentry accident. But the doctor was convinced by the nature of the wound that it had been deliberate albeit amateur surgery. The cops had followed up and the victim had assured them it had indeed been an accident with a power saw. Case closed, report filed.

“Weird stuff in this system,” Froelich said.

“Let’s go eat,” Reacher said again.

“Maybe we should try vegetarian,” Neagley said.

They drove out to Dupont Circle and ate at an Armenian restaurant. Reacher had lamb and Froelich and Neagley stuck to various chickpea concoctions. They had baklava for dessert and three small cups each of strong muddy coffee. They talked a lot, but about nothing. Nobody wanted to talk about Armstrong, or Nendick, or his wife, or men capable of frightening a person to the point of death and then shooting down two innocent civilians who happened to share a name. Froelich didn’t want to talk about Joe in front of Reacher, Neagley didn’t want to talk about Reacher in front of Froelich. So they talked about politics, like everybody else in the restaurant and probably everybody else in the city. But talking about politics in late November was pretty much impossible without mentioning the new administration, which led back toward Armstrong, so they generalized it away again toward personal views and beliefs. That needed background information, and before long Froelich was asking Neagley about her life and career.

Reacher tuned it out. He knew she wouldn’t answer questions about her life. She never did. Never had. He had known her many years, and had discovered absolutely nothing about her background. He assumed there was some unhappiness there. It was pretty common among Army people. Some join because they need a job or want to learn a trade, some join because they want to shoot heavy weapons and blow things up. Some like Reacher himself join because it’s preordained. But most join because they’re looking for cohesion and trust and loyalty and camaraderie. They’re looking for the brothers and the sisters and the parents they haven’t got anyplace else.

So Neagley skipped her early life and ran through her service career for Froelich and Reacher ignored it and looked around the restaurant. It was busy. Lots of couples and families. He guessed people who were cooking big Thanksgiving meals tomorrow didn’t want to cook tonight. There were a couple of faces he almost recognized. Maybe they were politicians or television reporters. He tuned the conversation back in again when Neagley started talking about her new career in Chicago. It sounded pretty good. She was partnered with a bunch of people from law enforcement and the military. It was a big firm. They offered a whole range of services from computer security to kidnap protection for traveling executives overseas. If you had to live in one place and go to work every day, that was probably the way to do it. She sounded satisfied with her life.

They were about to order a fourth cup of coffee when Froelich’s cell phone rang. It was just after nine o’clock. The restaurant had gotten noisy and they missed it at first. Then they became aware of the low insistent trilling inside her purse. Froelich got the phone out and answered the call. Reacher watched her face. Saw puzzlement, and then a little concern.

“OK,” she said, and closed the phone. Looked across at Reacher. “Stuyvesant wants you back in the office, right now, immediately.”