Without Fail

enough to give us a chance at them. But they stayed away. They’re cowards.”
    Nobody spoke.
    “Cowards are bullies,” Reacher said. “Bullies are cowards.”
    Neagley glanced at him. Knew him well enough to sense when to push.
    “So?” she asked.
    “So we need to go back and rethink a couple of things. Information is stacking up fast and we’re not processing it. Like, now we know these guys are outsiders. Now we know this is not a genteel inside game.”
    “So?” Neagley asked again.
    “And what happened in Minnesota and Colorado shows us these guys are prepared to do just about anything at all.”
    “So?”
    “The cleaners. What do we know about them?”
    “That they’re involved. That they’re scared. That they’re not saying anything.”
    “Correct,” Reacher said. “But why are they scared? Why aren’t they saying anything? Way back we thought they might be playing some cute game with an insider. But they’re not doing that. Because these guys aren’t insiders. And they’re not cute people. And this isn’t a game.”
    “So?”
    “So they’re being coerced in some serious way. They’re being scared and silenced. By some serious people.”
    “OK, how?”
    “You tell me. How do you scare somebody without leaving a mark on them?”
    “You threaten something plausible. Serious harm in the future, maybe.”
    Reacher nodded. “To them, or to somebody they care about. To the point where they’re paralyzed with terror.”
    “OK.”
    “Where have you heard the word cousins before?”
    “All over the place. I’ve got cousins.”
    “No, recently.”
    Neagley glanced at the window.
    “The cleaners,” she said. “Their kids are with cousins. They told us.”
    “But they were a little hesitant about telling us, remember?”
    “Were they?”
    Reacher nodded. “They paused a second and looked at each other first.”
    “So?”
    “Maybe their kids aren’t with cousins.”
    “Why would they lie?”
    Reacher looked at her. “Is there a better way to coerce somebody than taking their kids away as insurance?”

    They moved fast, but Stuyvesant made sure they moved properly. He called the cleaners’ lawyers and told them he needed the answer to just one question: the name and address of the children’s baby-sitters. He told them a quick answer would be much better than a delay. He got the quick answer. The lawyers called back within a quarter of an hour. The name was Gálvez and the address was a house a mile from the cleaners’ own.
    Then Froelich motioned for quiet and got on the radio net and asked for a complete situation update from the hotel. She spoke to her acting on-site leader and four other key positions. There were no problems. Everything was calm. Armstrong was working the room. Perimeters were tight. She instructed that all agents should accompany Armstrong through the loading bay at the function’s conclusion. She asked for a human wall, all the way to the limo.
    “And make it soon,” she said. “Compress the exposure.”
    Then they squeezed into the single elevator and rode down to the garage. Climbed into Froelich’s Suburban for the drive Reacher had slept through first time around. This time he stayed awake as Froelich raced through traffic to the cheap part of town. They passed right by the cleaners’ house. Threaded another mile through dark streets made narrow by parked cars and came to a stop outside a tall thin two-family house. It was ringed by a wire fence and had trash cans chained to the gatepost. It was boxed in on one side by a package store and on the other by a long line of identical houses. There was a sagging twenty-year-old Cadillac parked at the curb. Yellow sodium lighting was cutting through the fog.
    “So what do we do?” Stuyvesant said.
    Reacher looked through the window. “We go talk with these people. But we don’t want a mob scene. They’re scared already. We don’t want to panic them. They might think the bad guys are back. So Neagley should go first.”
    Stuyvesant was about to offer an objection but Neagley slid straight out of the car and headed for the gate. Reacher watched her turn a fast circle on the sidewalk before going in, to read the surroundings. Watched her glance left and right as she walked up the path. Nobody was around. Too cold. She reached the door. Searched for a bell. Couldn’t find one, so she rapped on the wood with her knuckles.
    There was a one-minute wait and then the door opened and was stopped