Without Fail

smiled.
    “Six hundredths,” she said. “Folks, we have a new world record.”
    “Way to go,” Reacher said.
    She typed solo unexplained thumbprint . Hit search .
    “This is kind of fun,” she said.
    No match, six-hundredths of a second.
    “Tied for first place,” Froelich said. “My turn again.”
    She took Neagley’s place at the keyboard and thought for a long moment.
    “OK, here we go,” she said. “This one either wins me the gold medal, or it’ll keep us here all night long.”
    She typed a single word: thumb . Hit search . The inquiry box disappeared and the screen paused for a whole second and came back with a single entry. A single short paragraph. It was a police report from Sacramento in California. An emergency room doctor from a city hospital had notified the local police department five weeks ago that he had treated a man who had severed his thumb in a carpentry accident. But the doctor was convinced by the nature of the wound that it had been deliberate albeit amateur surgery. The cops had followed up and the victim had assured them it had indeed been an accident with a power saw. Case closed, report filed.
    “Weird stuff in this system,” Froelich said.
    “Let’s go eat,” Reacher said again.
    “Maybe we should try vegetarian,” Neagley said.

    They drove out to Dupont Circle and ate at an Armenian restaurant. Reacher had lamb and Froelich and Neagley stuck to various chickpea concoctions. They had baklava for dessert and three small cups each of strong muddy coffee. They talked a lot, but about nothing. Nobody wanted to talk about Armstrong, or Nendick, or his wife, or men capable of frightening a person to the point of death and then shooting down two innocent civilians who happened to share a name. Froelich didn’t want to talk about Joe in front of Reacher, Neagley didn’t want to talk about Reacher in front of Froelich. So they talked about politics, like everybody else in the restaurant and probably everybody else in the city. But talking about politics in late November was pretty much impossible without mentioning the new administration, which led back toward Armstrong, so they generalized it away again toward personal views and beliefs. That needed background information, and before long Froelich was asking Neagley about her life and career.
    Reacher tuned it out. He knew she wouldn’t answer questions about her life. She never did. Never had. He had known her many years, and had discovered absolutely nothing about her background. He assumed there was some unhappiness there. It was pretty common among Army people. Some join because they need a job or want to learn a trade, some join because they want to shoot heavy weapons and blow things up. Some like Reacher himself join because it’s preordained. But most join because they’re looking for cohesion and trust and loyalty and camaraderie. They’re looking for the brothers and the sisters and the parents they haven’t got anyplace else.
    So Neagley skipped her early life and ran through her service career for Froelich and Reacher ignored it and looked around the restaurant. It was busy. Lots of couples and families. He guessed people who were cooking big Thanksgiving meals tomorrow didn’t want to cook tonight. There were a couple of faces he almost recognized. Maybe they were politicians or television reporters. He tuned the conversation back in again when Neagley started talking about her new career in Chicago. It sounded pretty good. She was partnered with a bunch of people from law enforcement and the military. It was a big firm. They offered a whole range of services from computer security to kidnap protection for traveling executives overseas. If you had to live in one place and go to work every day, that was probably the way to do it. She sounded satisfied with her life.
    They were about to order a fourth cup of coffee when Froelich’s cell phone rang. It was just after nine o’clock. The restaurant had gotten noisy and they missed it at first. Then they became aware of the low insistent trilling inside her purse. Froelich got the phone out and answered the call. Reacher watched her face. Saw puzzlement, and then a little concern.
    “OK,” she said, and closed the phone. Looked across at Reacher. “Stuyvesant wants you back in the office, right now, immediately.”
    “Me?” Reacher said. “Why?”
    “He didn’t say.”

    Stuyvesant was waiting for them behind one end of the reception counter just