Without Fail

Stuyvesant said nothing.

“Accent?” Froelich asked, quietly. “Did the thirteen words you granted them give you a chance to pick anything out?”

“You made a recording,” Reacher said. “But nothing jumped out at me. Not foreign. Not Southern, not East Coast. Probably one of those other places where they don’t have much of an accent.”

The room was quiet for a long moment.

“I apologize,” Stuyvesant said. “You probably did the right thing.”

Reacher shook his head. Breathed out.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’re clutching at straws here. Million to one we were ever going to get a location. It was a snap decision, really. Just a gut thing. If they’re puzzled about me, I want to keep them puzzled. Keep them guessing. And I wanted to make them mad at me. I wanted to take some focus off Armstrong. Better that they focus on me for a spell.”

“You want these people coming after you personally?”

“Better than have them coming after Armstrong personally.”

“Are you nuts? He’s got the Secret Service around him. You haven’t.”

Reacher smiled. “I’m not too worried about them.”

Froelich moved in her chair.

“So this is a pissing contest,” she said. “God, you’re just like Joe, you know that?”

“Except I’m still alive,” Reacher said.

There was a knock at the door. The duty officer put his head into the room.

“Special Agent Ba

Stuyvesant briefed Ba

“Nendick is still unresponsive,” he said.

Nobody spoke.

“He’s no better and no worse,” Ba

He sat heavily in the chair opposite Neagley’s. Opened his file folder and took out a thin stack of color photographs. Dealt them like cards around the table. Two each.

“Bruce Armstrong and Brian Armstrong,” he said. “Late of Mi

The photographs were large inkjet prints done on glossy paper. Not faxes. The originals must have been borrowed from the families and then sca

They weren’t really similar to each other. And neither of them looked much like Brook Armstrong. Nobody would have had even a moment’s hesitation differentiating between the three of them. Not in the dark, not in a hurry. They were just three American men with fair hair and blue eyes, somewhere in their middle forties, that was all. But therefore, they were alike in another way. If you sliced and diced the human population of the world, you’d use up quite a few distinct divisions before you got around to separating the three of them out. Male or female, black or white, Asian or Caucasian or Mongoloid, tall or short, thin or fat or medium, young or old or middle-aged, dark or fair, blue eyes or brown eyes. You would have to make all those separate distinctions before you could say the three Armstrongs looked different from one another.

“What do you think?” Ba

“Close enough to make the point,” Reacher said.

“We agree,” Ba

Nobody replied to that.

“You got anything else for us?” Stuyvesant asked.

“We’re working hard,” Ba

“What about two weeks ago?” Stuyvesant said. “When the wife got taken away? Must have been some kind of commotion.”

Ba

“No, I think Nendick delivered her somewhere,” Reacher said. “I think they made him do it. Like a refinement of the torture. To underline his responsibility. To put an edge on the fear.”

“Possible,” Ba

Reacher nodded. “I think these guys are real good at the cruel psychological nuances. I think that’s why some of the messages came here direct. Nothing worse for Armstrong than to hear from the people paid to protect him that he’s in big trouble.”

“Except he’s not hearing from them,” Neagley said.

Ba

“Anything else?” he said.

“We’ve concluded you won’t get any more messages,” Ba

“Any feeling about where and when?”

“We’ll talk about that tomorrow morning. We’re working on a theory right now. I assume you’ll all be here tomorrow morning?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“It’s Thanksgiving Day.”

“Armstrong’s working, so we’re working.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Being a nice guy at a homeless shelter.”

“Is that wise?”

Stuyvesant just shrugged.

“No choice,” Froelich said. “It’s in the Constitution that politicians have to serve turkey di

“Well, wait until we talk tomorrow morning,” Ba

Then he stood up and walked around the table and collected the photographs again, like they were precious to him.

Froelich dropped Neagley at the hotel and then she and Reacher drove home. She was quiet all the way. Conspicuously and aggressively silent. He stood it until they reached the bridge over the river and then he gave in.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Got to be something,” he said.

She didn’t answer. Just drove on and parked as near her place as she could get, which was two streets away. The neighborhood was quiet. It was late at night before a holiday. People were inside, cozy and relaxed. She shut off the engine, but didn’t get out of the car. Just sat there, looking straight ahead through the windshield, saying nothing.

“What?” he asked again.

“I don’t think I can stand it,” she said.

“Stand what?”

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” she said. “Just like you got Joe killed.”

“Excuse me?” he said.

“You heard.”

“I didn’t get Joe killed.”

“He wasn’t cut out for that kind of stuff. But he went ahead and did it anyway. Because he was always comparing himself. He was driven to do it.”

“By me?”

“Who else? He was your brother. He followed your career.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Why do you people have to be like this?” she said.