Without Fail - Lee Child [37]
“Who are they?” Reacher asked.
“Direct government employees,” Froelich said. “Most office cleaners in this city are contract people, minimum wage, no benefits, high-turnover nobodies. Same in any city. But we hire our own. The FBI, too. We need a high degree of reliability, obviously. We keep two crews at all times. They’re properly interviewed, they’re background-checked, and they don’t get in the door unless they’re good people. Then we pay them real well, and give them full health plans, and dental, and paid vacations, the whole nine yards. They’re department members, same as anybody else.”
“And they respond?”
She nodded. “They’re terrific, generally.”
“But you think this crew smuggled the letter in.”
“No other conclusion to come to.”
Reacher pointed at the screen. “So where is it now?”
“Could be in the garbage bag, in a stiff envelope. Could be in a page protector, taped underneath one of the trays or the shelves. Could be taped to the guy’s back, under his overalls.”
She hit play and the cleaners continued onward into Stuyvesant’s office. The door swung shut behind them. The camera stared forward blankly. The time counter ticked on, five minutes, seven, eight. Then the tape ran out.
“Midnight,” Froelich said.
She ejected the cassette and put the second tape in. Pressed play and the date changed to Thursday and the timer restarted at midnight exactly. It crawled onward, two minutes, four, six.
“They certainly do a thorough job,” Neagley said. “Our office cleaners would have done the 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