Lee Child - Without Fail

The story started on page one with his parents. His mother had grown up in Oregon, moved to Washington State for college, returned to Oregon to start work as a pharmacist. Her own parents and siblings were sketched in, and the whole of her education was listed from kindergarten to postgraduate school. Her early employers were listed in sequence, and the start-up of her own pharmacy business had three pages all to itself. She still owned it and still took income from it, but she was now retired and sick with something that was feared to be terminal.

His father’s education was listed. His military service had a start date and a medical discharge date, but there were no details beyond that. He was an Oregon native who married the pharmacist on his return to civilian life. They moved to an isolated village in the southwest corner of the state and he used family money to buy himself a lumber business. The newlyweds had a daughter soon afterward and Brook Armstrong himself was born two years later. The family business prospered and grew to a decent size. Its progress and development had several pages all to itself. It provided a pleasant provincial lifestyle.

The sister’s biography was a half inch thick itself so Reacher skipped over it and started in on Brook’s education. It began like everybody else’s in kindergarten. There were endless details. Too many to pay close attention to, so he leafed ahead and skimmed. Armstrong went all the way through the local school system. He was good at sports. He got excellent grades. The father had a stroke and died just after Armstrong left home for college. The lumber business was sold. The pharmacy continued to prosper. Armstrong himself spent seven years in two different universities, first Cornell in upstate New York and then Stanford in California. He had long hair but no proven drug use. He met a Bismarck girl at Stanford. They were both political science postgraduates. They got married. They made their home in North Dakota and he started his political career with a campaign for a seat in the State legislature.

“I need to get home,” Swain said. “It’s Thanksgiving and I’ve got kids and my wife is going to kill me.”

Reacher looked ahead at the rest of the file. Armstrong was just starting in on his first minor election and there were six more inches of paperwork to go. He fanned through it with his thumb.

“Nothing here to worry us?” he asked.

“Nothing anywhere,” Swain said.

“Does this level of detail continue throughout?”

“It gets worse.”

“Am I going to find anything if I read all night?”

“No.”

“Was all of it used in this summer’s campaign?”

Swain nodded. “Sure. It’s a great bio. That’s why he was picked in the first place. Actually we got a lot of the detail from the campaign.”

“And you’re sure nobody in particular was upset by the campaign?”

“I’m sure.”

“So where exactly does your feeling come from? Who hates Armstrong that bad and why?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Swain said. “It’s just a feeling.”

Reacher nodded.

“OK,” he said. “Go home.”

Swain picked up his coat and left in a hurry and Reacher sampled his way through the remaining years. Neagley leafed through the endless source material. They both gave it up after an hour.

“Conclusions?” Neagley asked.

“Swain has got a very boring job,” Reacher said.

She smiled.

“Agreed,” she said.

“But something kind of jumps out at me. Something that’s not here, rather than something that is here. Campaigns are cynical, right? These people will use any old thing that puts them in a good light. So for instance, we’ve got his mother. We’ve got endless detail about her college degrees and her pharmacy thing. Why?”

“To appeal to independent women and small-business people.”

“OK, and then we’ve got stuff about her getting sick. Why?”

“So Armstrong looks like a caring son. Very dutiful and full of family values. It humanizes him. And it authenticates his issues about health care.”

“And we’ve got plenty of stuff about his dad’s lumber company.”

“For the business lobby again. And it touches on environmental concerns. You know, trees and logging and all that kind of thing. Armstrong can say he’s got practical knowledge. He’s walked the walk, at one remove.”

“Exactly,” Reacher said. “Whatever the issue, whatever the constituency, they find a bone to throw.”

“So?”

“They took a pass on military service. And usually they love all that stuff, in a campaign. Normally if your dad was in the Army, you’d shout it from the rooftops to wrap up another whole bunch of issues. But there’s no detail at all. He joined, he got discharged. That’s all we know. See what I mean? We’re drowning in detail everywhere else, but not there. It stands out.”

“The father died ages ago.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’d have been all over it if there was something to be gained. And what was the medical discharge for? If it had been a wound they’d have made something out of it, for sure. Even a training accident. The guy would have been a big hero. And you know what? I don’t like to see unexplained medical discharges. You know how it was. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“I guess it does. But it can’t be connected. It happened before Armstrong was even born. Then the guy died nearly thirty years ago. And you said it yourself, this all was triggered by something Armstrong did in the campaign.”

Reacher nodded. “But I’d still like to know more about it. We could ask Armstrong direct, I guess.”

“Don’t need to,” Neagley said. “I can find out, if you really need me to. I can make some calls. We’ve got plenty of contacts. People who figure on getting a job with us when they quit are generally interested in making a good impression beforehand.”

Reacher yawned. “OK, do it. First thing tomorrow.”

“I’ll do it tonight. The military is still twenty-four/seven. Hasn’t changed any since we quit.”

“You should sleep. It can wait.”

“I never sleep anymore.”

Reacher yawned again. “Well, I’m going to.”

“Bad day,” Neagley said.

Reacher nodded. “As bad as they get. So make the calls if you want to, but don’t wake me up to tell me about them. Tell me about them tomorrow.”

The night duty officer fixed them a ride back to the Georgetown motel and Reacher went straight to his room. It was quiet and still and empty. It had been cleaned and tidied. The bed was made. Joe’s box had gone. He sat in the chair for a moment and wondered if Stuyvesant had thought to cancel Froelich’s booking. Then the nighttime silence pressed in on him and he was overcome by a sense of something not there . A sense of absence. Things that should be there and weren’t. What exactly? Froelich, of course. He had an ache for her. She should be there, and she wasn’t. She had been there the last time he was in the room. Early that morning. Today’s the day we win or lose , she had said. Losing is not an option , he had replied.

Something not there . Maybe Joe himself. Maybe lots of things. There were lots of things missing from his life. Things not done, things not said. What exactly ? Maybe it was just Armstrong’s father’s service career on his mind. But maybe it was more than that. Was something else missing ? He closed his eyes and chased it hard but all he saw was the pink spray of Froelich’s blood arcing backward into the sunlight. So he opened his eyes again and stripped off his clothes and showered for the third time that day. He found himself staring down at the tray like he was still expecting to see it run red. But it stayed clear and white.