Without Fail

“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. Gálvez,” Neagley said. They introduced themselves and Gálvez 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. Gálvez 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 Gálvez and two Alvárez.

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

“You got five kids?” Reacher asked.

Gálvez nodded. “I’m a lucky man.”

“So who do the two Alvárez coats belong to?”

“My wife’s cousin Julio’s children.”

“Julio and Anita’s?”

Gálvez 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,” Gálvez 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.”

Gálvez 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,” Gálvez 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.”

Gálvez 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 Alvárez.

“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 Gálvez and lowered his voice again.

“Anybody else been inquiring about them?” he asked.

Gálvez just shook his head.

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

Gálvez 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.”

Gálvez just looked blank. Reacher watched his eyes. He had spent his career watching eyes, and these two were i

“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.