by Lee Child
They waited more than four hours. He stretched out and idled the time away like he was accustomed to doing. She waited like it was a serious task to be approached with her usual earnest concentration. He called the diner again halfway through and they ate a second breakfast, identical menu to the first. They went in and out to the bathroom. Talked a little. Tried to identify the trees, listened to the buzz of the insects, looked for clouds in the sky. But mostly they kept their gaze ahead and half-right, where the road came in from the north. The ground was dry again, like it had never rained at all. The dust was back. It plumed off the blacktop and hung in the heat. It was a quiet road, maybe one vehicle every couple of minutes. Occasionally a small knot of traffic, stalled behind a slow-moving farm truck.
A few minutes after eleven o’clock Reacher was standing a couple of paces into the lot and he saw the Crown Vic coming south in the distance. It crept slowly out of the haze. He saw the fake antennas wobbling and flexing behind it. Dust trailing in the air.
“Hey kid,” he called. “Check this out.”
She stood next to him and shaded her eyes with her hand. The big car slowed and turned in and drove up right next to them. Alice was in the driver’s seat. Carmen was next to her. She looked pale and washed out but she was smiling and her eyes were wide with joy. She had the door open before the car stopped moving and she came out and skipped around the hood and Ellie ran to her and jumped into her arms. They staggered around together in the sunlight. There was shrieking and crying and laughter all at the same time. He watched for a moment and then backed away and squatted next to the car. He didn’t want to intrude. He guessed times like these were best kept private. Alice saw what he was thinking and buzzed her window down and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Everything squared away?” he asked her.
“For us,” she said. “Cops have got a lot of paperwork ahead. All in all they’re looking at more than fifty homicides in seven separate states. Including what happened here twelve years ago and Eugene and Sloop and Walker himself. They’re going to arrest Rusty for shooting Walker. But she’ll get off easy, I should think, in the circumstances.”
“Anything about me?”
“They were asking about last night. Lots of questions. I said I did it all.”
“Why?”
She smiled. “Because I’m a lawyer. I called it self-defense and they bought it without hesitating. It was my car out there, and my gun. No-brainer. They’d have given you a much harder time.”
“So we’re all home free?”
“Especially Carmen.”
He looked up. Carmen had Ellie on her hip, with her face buried in her neck like the sweet fragrance of her was necessary to sustain life itself. She was walking aimless random circles with her. Then she raised her head and squinted against the sun and smiled with such abandoned joy that Reacher found himself smiling along with her.
“She got plans?” he asked.
“Moving up to Pecos,” Alice said. “We’ll sort through Sloop’s affairs. There’s probably some cash somewhere. She’s talking about moving into a place like mine. Maybe working part-time. Maybe even looking at law school.”
“You tell her about the Red House?”
“She laughed with happiness. I told her it was probably burned down to a cinder, and she just laughed and laughed. I felt good for her.”
Now Ellie was leading her by the hand around the parking lot, checking out the trees she had inspected previously, talking a mile a minute. They looked perfect together. Ellie was hopping with energy and Carmen looked serene and radiant and very beautiful. Reacher stood up and leaned against the car.
“You want lunch?”
“Here?”
“I’ve got a thing going with a diner. They’ve probably got vegetables.”
“Tuna salad will do it for me.”
He went inside and used the phone. Ordered three sandwiches and promised yet another twenty bucks for the tip. Came out and found Ellie and Carmen looking for him.
“I’m going to a new school soon,” Ellie said. “Just like you did.”
“You’ll do great,” he said. “You’re smart as a whip.”
Then Carmen let go of her daughter’s hand and stepped near him, a little shy and silent and awkward for a second. Then she smiled wide and put her arms around his chest and hugged him hard.
“Thanks,” was all she said.
He hugged her back. “I’m sorry it took so long.”
“Did my clue help?”
“Clue?” he said.
“I left a clue for you.”
“Where?”
“In the confession.”
He said nothing. She unwound herself from his embrace and took his arm and led him to where Ellie wouldn’t hear her.
“He made me say I was a whore.”
He nodded.
“But I pretended to be nervous and I got the words wrong. I said ‘street stroller.’”
He nodded again. “I remember.”
“But it’s really streetwalker, isn’t it? To be correct? That was the clue. You were supposed to think to yourself, it’s not stroller, it’s walker. Get it? It’s Walker. Meaning it’s Hack Walker doing all of this.”
He went very quiet.
“I missed that,” he said.
“So how did you know?”
“I guess I took the long way around.”
She just smiled again. Laced her arm into his and walked him back to the car, where Ellie was laughing with Alice.
“You going to be O.K.?” he asked her.
She nodded. “But I feel very guilty. People died.”
He shrugged. “Like Clay Allison said.”
“Thanks,” she said again.
“No hay de que, señora.”
“Señorita,” she said.
Carmen and Ellie and Alice drifted inside to get washed up for lunch. He watched the door close behind them and just walked away. It seemed like the natural thing to do. He didn’t want anybody to try to keep him there. He jogged to the road and turned south. Walked a whole hot mile before he got a ride from a farm truck driven by a toothless old man who didn’t talk much. He got out at the I-10 interchange and waited on the west ramp for ninety minutes in the sun until an eighteen-wheeler slowed and stopped next to him. He walked around the massive hood and looked up at the window. The window came down. He could hear music over the loud shudder of the diesel. It sounded like Buddy Holly. The driver leaned out. He was a guy of about fifty, fleshy, wearing a Dodgers T-shirt and about four days’ growth of beard.
“Los Angeles?” he called.
“Anywhere,” Reacher called back.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
“When the going gets tough, the tough reach for Jack—Jack Reacher.”*
Praise for
WITHOUT FAIL
“Lee Child is a pro at evoking a sense of place . . . If you haven’t read a Reacher story, do yourself an exciting and engrossing favor and pick one up. Grade A.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Reacher is convincingly tough, clear-headed, and street smart . . . everything falls into place like a well-assembled time bomb.” —The Boston Globe
“[The] fast-paced plot winds up to its exciting climax . . . Child’s novels are relentlessly paced, intricately plotted, and absolutely mesmerizing. This is no exception.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Jack Reacher is t
he best LTGG (loner-tough-good-guy) out there . . . self-sufficient, strong and stimulating to the fairer sex.” —*Contra Costa Times
“Lee Child has inexorably pulled himself into the upper echelons of thriller writing with a series of tough, lean and perfectly crafted novels featuring ex-US military cop Jack Reacher. Without Fail is the sixth outing for the resourceful Reacher, and far from showing any signs of incipient fatigue, the series just goes from strength to strength as Child hones his abilities.” —Yorkshire Post
“The sixth time’s a charm for thriller-meister Child, whose latest escapade starring ex-military cop Jack Reacher is handily his most accomplished and most compelling to date . . . [A] suspense-laden plot . . . this Child’s play will be a tough act to follow.” —Publishers Weekly
“A satisfying adventure . . . [a] burner pace . . . compelling.” —St. Petersburg Times
“Nail-biting . . . [with] a hero who’s as tough and rough and cool as they come.” —Belfast Telegraph
“A stunner, packed with extraordinary detail . . . the suspense becomes nearly unbearable . . . A thriller of un-equaled emotional depth.” —Booklist
“Child’s Jack Reacher thrillers get better every time, and this is a knockout.” —Library Journal
“In this sixth Reacher paperback, author Lee Child is as good as he’s ever been—and he’s usually very good.”
—Waikato Times (New Zealand)
“Superior . . . brilliant . . . Without Fail is worth a perusal and should satisfy those people who enjoyed Child’s first novels, Killing Floor and Die Trying. But make sure you’ve got time when you sit down to start reading it—you’ll be hooked.” —Evening Post (Bristol)
“A good, solid thriller that should bring Child more fans.”
—Newcastle Herald (Australia)
Praise for Lee Child and his bestselling Jack Reacher novels
“The best mystery I have read this year.” —The Boston Globe
“A story you can sink your teeth into. Lee Child is a master.”
—The Denver Post
“Swift and brutal.” —The New York Times
“Spectacular . . . Muscular, energetic prose and pell-mell pacing.” —The Seattle Times
“Bang-on suspense.” —Houston Chronicle
“Page for page, there’s probably more fisticuffs in a Lee Child thriller than anywhere else around.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Tough, elegant, and thoughtful.”—Robert B. Parker
“Combines high suspense with almost nonstop action. Reacher is a wonderfully epic hero: tough, taciturn, yet vulnerable. From its jolting opening scene to its fiery final confrontation, Killing Floor is irresistible.”—People
“This is such a brilliantly written first novel that [Child] must be channeling Dashiell Hammett . . . Reacher handles the maze of clues and the criminal unfortunates with a flair that would make Sam Spade proud.”—Playboy
Titles by Lee Child
WITHOUT FAIL
ECHO BURNING
RUNNING BLIND
TRIPWIRE
DIE TRYING
KILLING FLOOR
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
WITHOUT FAIL
A Jove Book / published by arrangement
with G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Copyright © 2002 by Lee Child
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eISBN : 978-1-101-05279-2
A JOVE BOOK®
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a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
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This one is for
my brother Richard in Gloucester, England;
my brother David in Brecon, Wales;
my brother Andrew in Sheffield, England;
and my friend Jack Hutcheson in Penicuik, Scotland.
1
They found out about him in July and stayed angry all through August. They tried to kill him in September. It was way too soon. They weren’t ready. The attempt was a failure. It could have been a disaster, but it was actually a miracle. Because nobody noticed.
They used their usual method to get past security and set up a hundred feet from where he was speaking. They used a silencer and missed him by an inch. The bullet must have passed right over his head. Maybe even through his hair, because he immediately raised his hand and patted it back into place as if a gust of wind had disturbed it. They saw it over and over again, afterward, on television. He raised his hand and patted his hair. He did nothing else. He just kept on with his speech, unaware, because by definition a silenced bullet is too fast to see and too quiet to hear. So it missed him and flew on. It missed everybody standing behind him. It struck no obstacles, hit no buildings. It flew on straight and true until its energy was spent and gravity hauled it to earth in the far distance where there was nothing except empty grassland. There was no response. No reaction. Nobody noticed. It was like the bullet had never been fired at all. They didn’t fire again. They were too shaken up.
So, a failure, but a miracle. And a lesson. They spent October acting like the professionals they were, starting over, calming down, thinking, learning, preparing for their second attempt. It would be a better attempt, carefully planned and properly executed, built around technique and nuance and sophistication, and enhanced by unholy fear. A worthy attempt. A creative attempt. Above all, an attempt that wouldn’t fail.
Then November came, and the rules changed completely.
Reacher’s cup was empty but still warm. He lifted it off the saucer and tilted it and watched the sludge in the bottom flow toward him, slow and brown, like river silt.
“When does it need to be done?” he asked.
“As soon as possible,” she said.
He nodded. Slid out of the booth and stood up.
“I’ll call you in ten days,” he said.
“With a decision?”
He shook his head. “To tell you how it went.”
“I’ll know how it went.”
“OK, to tell you where to send my money.”
She closed her eyes and smiled. He glanced down at her.
“You thought I’d refuse?” he said.
She opened her eyes. “I thought you might be a little harder to persuade.”
He shrugged. “Like Joe told you, I’m a sucker for a challenge. Joe was usually right about things like that. He was usually right about a lot of things.”
“Now I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”
He didn’t reply. Just started to move away, but she stood up right next to him and kept him where he was. There was an awkward pause. They stood for a second face-to-face, trapped by the table.
She put out her hand and he shook it. She held on a fraction too long, and then she stretched up tall and kissed him on the cheek. Her lips were soft. Their touch burned him like a tiny voltage.
“A handshake isn’t enough,” she said. “You’re going to do it for us.” Then she paused. “And you were nearly my brother-in-law.”
He said nothing. Just nodded and shuffled out from behind the table and glanced back once. Then he headed up the stairs and out to the street. Her perfume was on his hand. He walked around to the cabaret lounge and left a note for his friends in their dressing room. Then he headed out to the highway, with ten whole days to find a way to kill the fourth-best-protected person on the planet.
It had started eight hours earlier, like this: team leader M. E. Froelich came to work on that Monday morning, thirteen days after the election, an hour before the second strategy meeting, seven days after the word assassination had first been used, and made her final decision. She set off in search of her immediate superior and found him in the secretarial pen outside his office, clearly on his way to somewhere else, clearly in a hurry. He had a file under his arm and a definite stay back expression on his face. But she took a deep breath and made it clear that she needed to talk right then. Urgently. And off the record and in private, obviously. So he paused a moment and turned abruptly and went back inside his office. He let her step in after him and closed the door behind her, softly enough to make the unscheduled meeting feel a little conspiratorial, but firmly enough that she was in no doubt he was annoyed about the interruption to his routine. It was just the click of a door latch, but it was also an unmistakable message, parsed exactly in the language of office hierarchies everywhere: you better not be wasting my time with this.
