Without Fail

old model with a heavy receiver and a plaited cord insulated with brown fabric. The photograph was of Froelich herself, aged about eighteen. Her hair was a little longer than she had kept it, and a little lighter. Her face was open and innocent, and her smile was sweet. Her eyes were dark blue, alive with hopes for the future.
    There was no chair next to the table. Clearly the Froelichs came from a generation that preferred to stand up while talking on the telephone. Reacher unraveled the cord and held the phone to his ear.
    “Stuyvesant?” he said.
    “Reacher? You got any good news for me?”
    “Not yet.”
    “What’s the situation?”
    “The service is scheduled for eight o’clock,” Reacher said. “But I guess you know that already.”
    “What else do I need to know?”
    “You coming in by chopper?”
    “That’s the plan. He’s still in Oregon right now. We’re going to fly him to an air base in South Dakota and then take a short hop in an Air Force helicopter. We’ll have eight people altogether, including me.”
    “He only wanted three.”
    “He can’t object. We’re all her friends.”
    “Can’t you have a mechanical problem? Just stay in South Dakota?”
    “He’d know. And the Air Force wouldn’t play anyway. They wouldn’t want to go down in history as the reason why he couldn’t make it.”
    Reacher stood and looked out the window. “OK, so you’ll see the church easy enough. You’ll land across the street to the east. There’s a good place right there. Then he’s got about fifty yards to the church door. I can absolutely guarantee the immediate surroundings. We’re going to be in the church all night. But you’re going to hate what you see farther out. There’s about a hundred-fifty-degree field of fire to the south and west. It’s completely open. And there’s plenty of concealment.”
    Silence in D.C.
    “I can’t do it,” Stuyvesant said. “I can’t bring him into that. Or any of my people. I’m not going to lose anybody else.”
    “So just hope for the best,” Reacher said.
    “Not my way. You’re going to have to deliver.”
    “We will if we can.”
    “How will I know? You don’t have radios. Cell phones won’t work out there. And it’s too cumbersome to keep on using this land line.”
    Reacher paused for a second.
    “We’ve got a black Yukon,” he said. “Right now it’s parked on the road, right next to the church, to the east. If it’s still there when you show up, then pull out and go home. Armstrong will just have to swallow it. But if it’s gone, then we’re gone, and we won’t be gone unless we’ve delivered, you follow?”
    “OK, understood,” Stuyvesant said. “A black Yukon east of the church, we abort. No Yukon, we land. Have you searched the town?”
    “We can’t do a house-to-house. But it’s a very small place. Strangers are going to stand out, believe me.”
    “Nendick came around. He’s talking a little. He says the same as Andretti. He was approached by the two of them and took them to be cops.”
    “They are cops. We’re definite about that. Did you get descriptions?”
    “No. He’s still thinking about his wife. Didn’t seem right to tell him he probably didn’t need to.”
    “Poor guy.”
    “I’d like to get some closure for him. At least find her body, maybe.”
    “I’m not planning an arrest here.”
    Silence in D.C.
    “OK,” Stuyvesant said. “I guess we won’t be seeing you either way. So, good luck.”
    “You too,” Reacher said.
    He put the receiver back in the cradle and tidied the cord into a neat curl on the table. Looked out at the view. The window faced north and east across an empty ocean of waist-high grass. Then he turned away from it and saw Mr. Froelich watching him from the parlor doorway.
    “They’re coming here, aren’t they?” the old man said. “The people who killed my daughter? Because Armstrong is coming here.”
    “They might be here already,” Reacher said.
    Mr. Froelich shook his head. “Everybody would be talking about it.”
    “Did you see that gold truck come through?”
    The old man nodded. “It passed me, going real slow.”
    “Who was in it?”
    “I didn’t see. The windows were dark. I didn’t like to stare.”
    “OK,” Reacher said. “If you hear about anybody new in town, come and tell me.”
    The old man nodded again. “You’ll know as soon as I do. And I’ll know as soon as anybody new arrives. Word travels fast here.”
    “We’ll be in