Without Fail - By Lee Child Page 0,95

"You military people. Always charging headlong into stupidity."

"Is that what I'm doing?"

"You know it is."

"I'm not the one sworn to take a bullet for some worthless politician."

"Neither am I. That's just a figure of speech. And not all politicians are worthless."

"So would you take a bullet for him? Or not?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

"And I'm not charging headlong into anything."

"Yes, you are. You've been challenged. And God forbid you should stay cool and just walk away."

"You want me to walk away?" he said. "Or do you want to get this thing done?"

"You can't do it by butting heads, like you were all rutting deer or something."

"Why not? Sooner or later it's us or them. That's how it is. That's how it always is. Why pretend any different?"

"Why look for trouble?"

"I'm not looking for trouble. I don't see it as trouble."

"Well, what the hell else is it?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

He paused a beat.

"You know any lawyers?" he asked.

"Any what?"

"You heard," he said.

"Lawyers? Are you kidding? In this town? It's wall-to-wall lawyers."

"OK, so picture a lawyer. Twenty years out of law school, lots of hands-on experience. Somebody asks him, can you write this slightly complex will for me? What does he say? What does he do? Does he start trembling with nerves? Does he think he's been challenged? Is it a testosterone thing? No, he just says, sure, I can do that. And then he goes ahead and does it. Because it's his job. Pure and simple."

"This isn't your job, Reacher."

"Yes, it is, near as makes no difference. Uncle Sam paid me your tax dollars to do exactly this kind of stuff, thirteen straight years. And Uncle Sam sure as hell didn't expect me to run away and get all psychological and conflicted about it."

She stared forward through the windshield. It was misting fast, from their breath.

"There are hundreds of people on the other side of the Secret Service," she said. "In Financial Crimes. Hundreds of them. I don't know how many, exactly. Lots of them. Good people. We're not really investigative, but they are. That's all they are. That's what they're for. Joe could have picked any ten of them and sent them down to Georgia. He could have picked fifty of them. But he didn't. He had to go himself. He had to go alone. Because he was challenged. He couldn't back off. Because he was always comparing himself."

"I agree he shouldn't have done it," Reacher said. "Like a doctor shouldn't write a will. Like a lawyer shouldn't do surgery."

"But you made him."

He shook his head.

"No, I didn't make him," he said.

She was silent.

"Two points, Froelich," he said. "First, people shouldn't have to choose their careers with one eye on what their brother might think. And second, the last time Joe and I had any significant contact I was sixteen years old. He was eighteen. He was leaving for West Point. I was a kid. The last thing on his mind was copying me. Are you nuts? And I never really saw him again after that. Funerals only, basically. Because whatever you think about me as a brother, he was no better. He paid no attention to me. Years would go by, I wouldn't hear from him."

"He followed your career. Your mother sent him stuff. He was comparing himself."

"Our mother died seven years before he did. I barely had a career back then."

"You won the Silver Star in Beirut right at the beginning."

"I was in an explosion," he said. "They gave me a medal because they couldn't think what else to do. That's what the Army is like. Joe knew that."

"He was comparing himself," she said.

Reacher moved in his seat. Watched small swirls of condensation form on the windshield glass.

"Maybe," he said. "But not to me."

"Who then?"

"Our dad, possibly."

She shrugged. "He never talked about him."

"Well, there you go," Reacher said. "Avoidance. Denial."

"You think? What was special about your dad?"

Reacher looked away. Closed his eyes.

"He was a Marine," he said. "Korea and Vietnam. Very compartmentalized guy. Gentle, shy, sweet, loving man, but a stone-cold killer, too. Harder than a nail. Next to him I look like Liberace."

"Do you compare yourself with him?"

Reacher shook his head. Opened his eyes.

"No point," he said. "Next to him I look like Liberace. Always will, no matter what. Which isn't necessarily such a bad thing for the world."

"Didn't you like him?"

"He was OK. But he was a freak. No room for people like him anymore."

"Joe shouldn't have gone to Georgia," she said.

Reacher nodded.

"No argument about

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