Without Fail

job ends with the cleaners. And that’s a waste of time in itself. No way will they have a name for us. Or if they do, it’ll be phony. Best we’ll get is a description. Which is bound to be useless.”
    Reacher nodded. Finished his coffee.
    “Let’s go,” he said. “Once around the block for form’s sake.”
    They walked as slowly as they could bear to in the cold. Nothing was happening. Everything was quiet. There were cop cars or Secret Service vehicles on every street. Their exhaust fumes clouded white and drifted in the still air. Apart from that absolutely nothing was moving. They turned corners and came up on Armstrong’s street from the south. The white tent was ahead of them on the right. Froelich was out of her car, waving to them urgently. They hurried up the sidewalk to meet her.
    “Change of plan,” she said. “There was a problem on the Hill. He cut the CIA thing short and headed up there.”
    “He left already?” Reacher asked.
    Froelich nodded. “He’s rolling now.”
    Then she paused and listened to a voice in her earpiece.
    “He’s arriving,” she said.
    She lifted her wrist and spoke into her microphone.
    “Situation report, over,” she said, and listened again.
    There was a wait. Thirty seconds. Forty.
    “OK, he’s inside,” she said. “Secure.”
    “So what now?” Reacher said.
    Froelich shrugged. “Now we wait. That’s what this job is. It’s about waiting.”

    They drove back to the office and waited the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. Froelich received regular situation reports. Reacher built up a pretty good picture of how things were organized. Metro cops were stationed outside the Senate Office buildings in cars. Secret Service agents held the sidewalk. Inside the street doors were members of the Capitol’s own police force, one officer manning each metal detector, plenty more patrolling the hallways. Mingled in with them were more Secret Service. The transition business itself took place in upstairs offices with pairs of agents outside every door. Armstrong’s personal detail stayed with him at all times. The radio reports spoke of a fairly static day. There was a lot of sitting around and talking going on. Plenty of deals being made. That was clear. Reacher recalled the phrase smoke-filled rooms , except he guessed nobody was allowed to smoke anymore.
    At four o’clock they drove over to Neagley’s hotel, which was being used again for the contributor function. Start time was scheduled for seven in the evening, which gave them three hours to secure the building. Froelich had a preplanned protocol that involved a squeeze search starting in the kitchen loading bay and the penthouse suites simultaneously. Metro cops with dogs were accompanied by Secret Service people and worked patiently, floor by floor. As each floor was cleared three cops took up permanent station, one at each end of the bedroom corridor and one covering the elevator bank and the fire stairs. The two search teams met on the ninth floor at six o’clock, by which time temporary metal detectors were in place inside the lobby and at the ballroom door. The cameras were set up and recording.
    “Ask for two forms of ID this time,” Neagley said. “Driver’s license and a credit card, maybe.”
    “Don’t worry,” Froelich said. “I plan to.”
    Reacher stood in the ballroom doorway and glanced around the room. It was a vast space, but a thousand people were going to crowd it out to the point of discomfort.

    Armstrong took the elevator down from his office and turned a tight left in the lobby. Pushed through an unmarked door that led to a rear exit. He was wearing a raincoat and carrying a briefcase. The corridor behind the unmarked door was a plain narrow space that smelled of janitorial supplies. Some kind of strong detergent cleaner. He had to squeeze past two stacks of cartons. One of the stacks was neat and new, made up from recent deliveries. The other was unsteady and ragged, made up of empty boxes waiting for the trash collector. He turned his body sideways to get past the second pile. Held his briefcase out behind him and led with his right forearm. He pushed open the exit door and stepped out into the cold.
    There was a small square internal courtyard, partly open on the north side. It was an unglamorous space. Tin trunking for the building’s ventilation system was clipped to the walls above head height. There were red-painted pipes and brass-collared valves at