Without Fail

away.”
    “And the wind generally blows in from the west.”
    “Great.”
    He picked up the scope again and checked on the golden truck. It was maybe a mile closer, bucking and swaying on the dirt. It must have been doing about sixty.
    “What do you think?” Neagley said.
    “Nice vehicle,” he said. “Awful color.”
    He watched it come on another mile and then handed back the scope.
    “I should check north,” he said.
    He crawled under the clock shaft and made it back to his own louver. There was nothing happening in the north. The road was still empty. He reversed his previous maneuver and put his right cheek against the wood and closed his left eye with his hand and checked west again. The snow clouds were clamped down on the mountains. It was like night and day, with an abrupt transition where the foothills started.
    “It’s a Chevy Tahoe for sure,” Neagley called. “It’s slowing down.”
    “See the plate?”
    “Not yet. It’s about a mile out now, slowing.”
    “See who’s in it?”
    “I’ve got sun and tinted glass. No ID. Half a mile out now.”
    Reacher glanced north. No traffic.
    “Nevada plates, I think,” Neagley called. “Can’t read them. They’re all covered in mud. It’s right on the edge of town. It’s going real slow now. Looks like a reconnaissance cruise. It’s not stopping. Still no ID on the occupants. It’s getting real close now. I’m looking right down at the roof. Dark tint on the rear side glass. I’m going to lose them any second. It’s right underneath us now.”
    Reacher stood up tight against the wall and peered down at the best angle he could get. The way the louvers were set in the frame gave him a blind spot maybe forty feet deep.
    “Where is it now?” he called.
    “Don’t know.”
    He heard the sound of an engine over the moan of the wind. A big V-8, turning slowly. He stared down and a metallic gold hood slid into view. Then a roof. Then a rear window. The truck passed all the way underneath him and rolled through the town and crossed the bridge at maybe twenty miles an hour. It stayed slow for a hundred more yards. Then it accelerated. It picked up speed fast.
    “Scope,” he called.
    Neagley tossed it back to him and he rested it on a louver and watched the truck drive away to the north. The rear window was tinted black and there was an arc where the wiper had cleared the salt spray. The rear bumper was chrome. He could see raised lettering that read Chevrolet Tahoe . The rear plate was indecipherable. It was caked with road salt. He could see hand marks where the tailgate had been raised and lowered. It looked like a truck that had done some serious mileage in the last day or two.
    “It’s heading out,” he called.
    He watched it in the scope all the way. It bounced and swayed and grew smaller and smaller. It took ten whole minutes to drive all the way out of his field of vision. It rose up over the last hump in the road and then disappeared with a last flash of sun on gold paint.
    “Anything more?” he called.
    “Clear to the south,” Neagley called back.
    “I’m going down for the map. You can watch both directions while I’m gone. Do some limbo dancing under this damn clock thing.”
    He crawled to the trapdoor and got his feet on the ladder. Went down, stiff and sore and cold. He made it to the ledge and down the winding staircase. Out of the tower and out of the church into the weak midday sun. He limped across the graveyard toward the car. Saw Froelich’s father standing right next to it, looking at it like it might answer a question. The old guy saw his approach reflected in the window glass and spun around to face him.
    “Mr. Stuyvesant is on the phone for you,” he said. “From the Secret Service office in Washington D.C.”
    “Now?”
    “He’s been holding twenty minutes. I’ve been trying to find you.”
    “Where’s the phone?”
    “At the house.”
    The Froelich house was one of the white buildings on the short southeastern leg of the K. The old guy led the way with his long loping stride. Reacher had to hurry to keep up with him. The house had a front garden with a white picket fence. It was full of herbs and cottage plants that had died back from the cold. Inside it was dim and fragrant. There were wide dark boards on the floors. Rag rugs here and there. The old guy led the way into a front parlor. There was an antique table under the window with a telephone and a photograph on it. The telephone was an