Without Fail

whole building by now. A lick and a promise.”
    “Stuyvesant likes a clean working environment,” Froelich said.
    At seven minutes past midnight the door opened and the crew filed out.
    “So now you figure the letter is there on the desk,” Reacher said.
    Froelich nodded. The video showed the cleaners starting work around the secretarial station. They missed nothing. Everything was energetically dusted and wiped and polished. Every inch of carpet was vacuumed. Garbage was emptied into the black bag. It had bellied out to twice its size. The man looked a little disheveled by his efforts. He pushed the cart backward foot by foot and the women retreated with him. Sixteen minutes past midnight, they backed away into the gloom and left the picture still and quiet, as it had been before they came.
    “That’s it,” Froelich said. “Nothing more for the next five hours and forty-four minutes. Then we change tapes again and find nothing at all from six A . M . until eight, when the secretary comes in, and then it goes down exactly as she and Stuyvesant claimed it did.”
    “As one might expect,” said a voice from the door. “I think our word can be trusted. After all, I’ve been in government service for twenty-five years, and my secretary even longer than that, I believe.”

5
    The guy at the door was Stuyvesant, no doubt about that. Reacher recognized him from his appearance on the tape. He was tall, broad-shouldered, over fifty, still in reasonable shape. A handsome face, tired eyes. He was wearing a suit and a tie, on a Sunday. Froelich was looking at him, worried. But he in turn was staring straight at Neagley.
    “You’re the woman on the video,” he said. “In the ballroom, Thursday night.”
    He was clearly thinking hard. Running conclusions through his head and then nodding imperceptibly to himself whenever they made sense. After a moment he moved his gaze from Neagley to Reacher and stepped right into the room.
    “And you’re Joe Reacher’s brother,” he said. “You look just like him.”
    Reacher nodded.
    “Jack Reacher,” he said, and offered his hand.
    Stuyvesant took it.
    “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “Five years late, I know, but the Treasury Department still remembers your brother with affection.”
    Reacher nodded again.
    “This is Frances Neagley,” he said.
    “Reacher brought her in to help with the audit,” Froelich said.
    Stuyvesant smiled a brief smile.
    “I gathered that,” he said. “Smart move. What were the results?”
    The office went quiet.
    “I apologize if I offended you, sir,” Froelich said. “You know, before. Talking about the tape like that. I was just explaining the situation.”
    “What were the audit results?” Stuyvesant asked again.
    She said nothing back.
    “That bad?” Stuyvesant said to her. “Well, I certainly hope so. I knew Joe Reacher too. Not as well as you did, but we came into contact, time to time. He was impressive. I’m assuming his brother is at least half as smart. Ms. Neagley, probably smarter still. In which case they must have found ways through. Am I right?”
    “Three definites,” Froelich said.
    Stuyvesant nodded.
    “The ballroom, obviously,” he said. “Probably the family house and that damn outdoors event in Bismarck too. Am I right?”
    “Yes,” Froelich said.
    “Extreme levels of performance,” Neagley said. “Unlikely to be duplicated.”
    Stuyvesant held up his hand and cut her off.
    “Let’s go to the conference room,” he said. “I want to talk about baseball.”

    He led them through narrow winding corridors to a relatively spacious room in the heart of the complex. It had a long table in it with ten chairs, five to a side. No windows. The same gray synthetic carpet underfoot and the same white acoustic tile overhead. The same bright halogen light. There was a low cabinet against one wall. It had closed doors and three telephones on it. Two were white and one was red. Stuyvesant sat down and waved to the chairs on the other side of the table. Reacher glanced at a huge notice board full of memos labeled confidential .
    “I’m going to be uncharacteristically frank,” Stuyvesant said. “Just temporarily, you understand, because I think we owe you an explanation, and because Froelich involved you with my initial approval, and because Joe Reacher’s brother is family, so to speak, and therefore his colleague is too.”
    “We worked together in the military,” Neagley said.
    Stuyvesant