Without Fail

again.
    “We can fix it,” Reacher said. “If you’re worried about anything, you should go ahead and tell us right now. We’ll take care of it.”
    Gálvez just looked blank. Reacher watched his eyes. He had spent his career watching eyes, and these two were innocent. A little disconcerted, a little puzzled, but the guy wasn’t hiding anything. He had no secrets.
    “OK,” he said. “We’re sorry to have interrupted your evening.”
    He kept very quiet on the drive back to the office.

    They used the conference room again. It seemed to be the only facility with seating for more than three. Neagley let Froelich put herself next to Reacher. She sat with Stuyvesant on the opposite side of the table. Froelich got on the radio net and heard that Armstrong was about to leave the hotel. He was cutting the evening short. Nobody seemed to mind. It worked both ways. Spend a lot of time with them, and they’re naturally thrilled about it. Rush it through, and they’re equally delighted such a busy and important guy found any time at all for them. Froelich listened to her earpiece and tracked him all the way out of the ballroom, through the kitchens, into the loading bay, into the limo. Then she relaxed. All that was left was a high-speed convoy out to Georgetown and a transfer through the tent in the darkness. She fiddled behind her back and turned the earpiece volume down a little. Sat back and glanced at the others, questions in her eyes.
    “Makes no sense to me,” Neagley said. “It implies there’s something they’re more worried about than their children.”
    “Which would be what?” Froelich asked.
    “Green cards? Are they legal?”
    Stuyvesant nodded. “Of course they are. They’re United States Secret Service employees, same as anybody else in this building. Background-checked from here to hell and back. We snoop on their financial situation and everything. They were clean, far as we knew.”
    Reacher let the talk drift into the background. He rubbed the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. The stubble from his haircut was growing out. It felt softer. He glanced at Neagley. Stared down at the carpet. It was gray nylon, ribbed, somewhere between fine and coarse. He could see individual hairy strands glittering in the halogen light. It was an immaculately clean carpet. He closed his eyes. Thought hard. Ran the surveillance video in his head all over again. Watched it like there was a screen inside his eyelids. It went like this: eight minutes before midnight, the cleaners enter the picture. They walk into Stuyvesant’s office. Seven minutes past midnight, they come out. They spend nine minutes cleaning the secretarial station. They shuffle off the way they had come at sixteen minutes past midnight. He ran it again, forward and then backward. Concentrated on every frame. Every movement. Then he opened his eyes. Everybody was staring at him like he had been ignoring their questions. He glanced at his watch. It was almost nine o’clock. He smiled. A wide, happy grin.
    “I liked Mr. Gálvez,” he said. “He seemed really happy to be a father, didn’t he? All those lunch boxes lined up? I bet they get whole wheat bread. Fruit, too, probably. All kinds of good nutrition.”
    They all looked at him.
    “I was an Army kid,” he said. “I had a lunch box. Mine was an old ammunition case. We all had them. It was considered the thing back then, on the bases. I stenciled my name on it, with a real Army stencil. My mother hated it. Thought it was way too militaristic, for a kid. But she gave me good stuff to eat anyway.”
    Neagley stared at him. “Reacher, we’ve got big problems here, two people are dead, and you’re talking about lunch boxes?”
    He nodded. “Talking about lunch boxes, and thinking about haircuts. Mr. Gálvez had just been to the barber, you notice that?”
    “So?”
    “And with the greatest possible respect, Neagley, I’m thinking about your ass.”
    Froelich stared at him. Neagley blushed.
    “Your point being?” she said.
    “My point being, I don’t think there is anything more important to Julio and Anita than their children.”
    “So why are they still clamming up?”
    Froelich sat forward and pressed her finger on her earpiece. Listened for a second and raised her wrist.
    “Copy,” she said. “Good work, everybody, out.”
    Then she smiled.
    “Armstrong’s home,” she said. “Secure.”
    Reacher looked at his watch again. Nine o’clock exactly. He