Without Fail - Lee Child [39]
Then he sat back, like he was finished.
“What about this specific threat?” Reacher asked him.
Stuyvesant paused, and then he shook his head. His face had changed. The mood in the whole room had changed.
“That’s precisely where I stop being frank,” he said. “I told you it was a temporary indulgence. And it was a very serious lapse on Froelich’s part to reveal the existence of any threat at all. All I’m prepared to say is we intercept a lot of threats. Then we deal with them. How we deal with them is entirely confidential. Therefore I would ask you to understand you are now under an absolute obligation never to mention this situation to anybody after you leave here tonight. Or any aspect of our procedures. That obligation is rooted in federal statute. There are sanctions available to me.”
There was silence. Reacher said nothing. Neagley sat quiet. Froelich looked upset. Stuyvesant ignored her completely and gazed hard at Reacher and Neagley, at first hostile, and then suddenly pensive. He started thinking hard again. He stood up and walked over to the low cabinet with the telephones on it. Squatted down in front of it. Opened the doors and took out two yellow legal pads and two ballpoint pens. Walked back and dropped one of each in front of Reacher and one of each in front of Neagley. Circled around the head of the table again and sat back down in his chair.
“Write your full names,” he said. “All and any aliases, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, military ID numbers, and current addresses.”
“What for?” Reacher asked.
“Just do it,” Stuyvesant said.
Reacher paused and picked up his pen. Froelich looked at him, anxiously. Neagley glanced at him and shrugged and started writing on her pad. Reacher waited a beat and then followed her example. He was finished well before her. He had no middle name and no current address. Stuyvesant walked around behind them and scooped the pads off the table. Said nothing and walked straight out of the room with the pads held tight under his arm. The door slammed loudly behind him.
“I’m in trouble,” Froelich said. “And I’ve made trouble for you guys, too.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Reacher said. “He’s going to make us sign some kind of confidentiality agreement, is all. He’s gone to get them typed up, I guess.”
“But what’s he going to do to me?”
“Nothing, probably.”
“Demote me? Fire me?”
“He authorized the audit. The audit was necessary because of the threats. The two things were connected. We’ll tell him we pushed you with questions.”
“He’ll demote me,” Froelich said. “He wasn’t happy about me running the audit in the first place. Told me it indicated a lack of self-confidence.”
“Bullshit,” Reacher said. “We did stuff like that all the time.”
“Audits build self-confidence,” Neagley said. “That was our experience. Better to know something for sure than just hope for the best.”
Froelich looked away. Didn’t reply. The room went quiet. They all waited, five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. Reacher stood up and stretched. Stepped over to the low cabinet and looked at the red phone. He picked it up and held it to his ear. There was no dial tone. He put it back and scanned the confidential memos on the notice board. The ceiling was low and he could feel heat on his head from the halogen lights. He sat down again and turned his chair and tilted it back and put his feet on the next one in line. Glanced at his watch. Stuyvesant had been gone twenty minutes.
“Hell is he doing?” he said. “Typing them himself?