Without Fail

"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.

"Us people?" he said back. "Like what?"

"You men," she said. "You military people. Always charging headlong into stupidity."

"Is that what I’m doing?"

"You know it is."

"I’m not the one sworn to take a bullet for some worthless politician."

"Neither am I. That’s just a figure of speech. And not all politicians are worthless."

"So would you take a bullet for him? Or not?"

She shrugged. "I don’t know."

"And I’m not charging headlong into anything."

"Yes, you are. You’ve been challenged. And God forbid you should stay cool and just walk away."

"You want me to walk away?" he said. "Or do you want to get this thing done?"

"You can’t do it by butting heads, like you were all rutting deer or something."

"Why not? Sooner or later it’s us or them. That’s how it is. That’s how it always is. Why pretend any different?"

"Why look for trouble?"

"I’m not looking for trouble. I don’t see it as trouble."

"Well, what the hell else is it?"

"I don’t know."

"You don’t know?"

He paused a beat.

"You know any lawyers?" he asked.

"Any what?"

"You heard," he said.

"Lawyers? Are you kidding? In this town? It’s wall-to-wall lawyers."

"OK, so picture a lawyer. Twenty years out of law school, lots of hands-on experience. Somebody asks him, can you write this slightly complex will for me? What does he say? What does he do? Does he start trembling with nerves? Does he think he’s been challenged? Is it a testosterone thing? No, he just says, sure, I can do that. And then he goes ahead and does it. Because it’s his job. Pure and simple."

"This isn’t your job, Reacher."

"Yes, it is, near as makes no difference. Uncle Sam paid me your tax dollars to do exactly this kind of stuff, thirteen straight years. And Uncle Sam sure as hell didn’t expect me to run away and get all psychological and conflicted about it."

She stared forward through the windshield. It was misting fast, from their breath.

"There are hundreds of people on the other side of the Secret Service," she said. "In Financial Crimes. Hundreds of them. I don’t know how many, exactly. Lots of them. Good people. We’re not really investigative, but they are. That’s all they are. That’s what they’re for. Joe could have picked any ten of them and sent them down to Georgia. He could have picked fifty of them. But he didn’t. He had to go himself. He had to go alone. Because he was challenged. He couldn’t back off. Because he was always comparing himself."

"I agree he shouldn’t have done it," Reacher said. "Like a doctor shouldn’t write a will. Like a lawyer shouldn’t do surgery."

"But you made him."

He shook his head.

"No, I didn’t make him," he said.

She was silent.

"Two points, Froelich," he said. "First, people shouldn’t have to choose their careers with one eye on what their brother might think. And second, the last time Joe and I had any significant contact I was sixteen years old. He was eighteen. He was leaving for West Point. I was a kid. The last thing on his mind was copying me. Are you nuts? And I never really saw him again after that. Funerals only, basically. Because whatever you think about me as a brother, he was no better. He paid no attention to me. Years would go by, I wouldn’t hear from him."

"He followed your career. Your mother sent him stuff. He was comparing himself."

"Our mother died seven years before he did. I barely had a career back then."

"You won the Silver Star in Beirut right at the beginning."

"I was in an explosion," he said. "They gave me a medal because they couldn’t think what else to do. That’s what the Army is like. Joe knew that."

"He was comparing himself," she said.

Reacher moved in his seat. Watched small swirls of condensation form on the windshield glass.

"Maybe," he said. "But not to me."

"Who then?"

"Our dad, possibly."

She shrugged. "He never talked about him."

"Well, there you go," Reacher said. "Avoidance. Denial."

"You think? What was special about your dad?"

Reacher looked away. Closed his eyes.

"He was a Marine," he said. "Korea and Vietnam. Very compartmentalized guy. Gentle, shy, sweet, loving man, but a stone-cold killer, too. Harder than a nail. Next to him I look like Liberace."

"Do you compare yourself with him?"

Reacher shook his head. Opened his eyes.

"No point," he said. "Next to him I look like Liberace. Always will, no matter what. Which isn’t necessarily such a bad thing for the world."

"Didn’t you like him?"

"He was OK. But he was a freak. No room for people like him anymore."

"Joe shouldn’t have gone to Georgia," she said.

Reacher nodded.

"No argument about that," he said. "No argument at all. But it was nobody’s fault except his own. He should have had more sense."

"So should you."

"I’ve got plenty of sense. Like for instance I joined the Military Police, not the Marine Corps. Like for instance I don’t feel compelled to rush around trying to design a new hundred dollar bill. I stick to what I know."

"And you think you know how to take out these guys?"

"Like the garbage man knows how to take out the trash. It ain’t rocket science."

"That sounds pretty arrogant."

He shook his head. "Listen, I’m sick of justifying myself. It’s ridiculous. You know your neighbors? You know the people who live around here?"

"Not really," she said.

He rubbed mist off the glass and pointed out his window with his thumb. "Maybe one of them is an old lady who knits sweaters. Are you going to walk up to her and say, oh my God, what’s with you? I can’t believe you actually have the temerity to know how to knit sweaters."

"You’re equating armed combat with knitting sweaters?"

"I’m saying we’re all good at something. And that’s what I’m good at. Maybe it’s the only thing I’m good at. I’m not proud of it, and I’m not ashamed of it, either. It’s just there. I can’t help it. I’m genetically programmed to win, is all. Several consecutive generations."

"Joe had the same genes."

"No, he had the same parents. There’s a difference."

"I hope your faith in yourself is justified."

"It is. Especially now, with Neagley here. She makes me look like Liberace."

Froelich looked away. Went quiet.

"What?" he said.

"She’s in love with you."

"Bullshit."

Froelich looked straight at him. "How would you know?"

"She’s never been interested."

Froelich just shook her head.

"I just talked to her about it," he said. "The other day. She said she’s never been interested. She told me that, words of one syllable."

"And you believed her?"

"Wasn’t I supposed to?"

Froelich said nothing. Reacher smiled, slowly.

"What, you think she is interested?" he asked.

"You smile just like Joe," she answered. "A little shy, a little lopsided. It’s the most incredibly beautiful smile I ever saw."

"You’re not exactly over him, are you?" he said. "At the risk of being the last to know. At the risk of stating the bloody obvious."

She didn’t answer. Just got out of the car and started walking. He followed after her. It was cold and damp on the street. The night air was heavy. He could smell the river, and jet fuel from somewhere. They reached her house. She unlocked the door. They stepped inside.

There was a sheet of paper lying on the hallway floor.

Chapter 12

It was the familiar high-white letter-size sheet. It was lying precisely aligned with the oak flooring strips. It was in the geometric center of the hallway, near the bottom of the stairs, exactly where Reacher had dumped his garbage bag of clothes two nights previously. It had a simple statement printed neatly on it, in the familiar Times New Roman computer script, fourteen point, bold. The statement was five words long, split between two lines in the center of the page: It’s going to happen soon. The three words It’s going to made up the first line on their own. The happen soon part was alone on the second line. It looked like a poem or a song lyric. Like it was divided up that way for a dramatic purpose, like there should be a pause between the lines, or a breath, or a drum roll, or a rim shot. It’s going to… bam!… happen soon. Reacher stared at it. The effect was hypnotic. Happen soon. Happen soon.