The Hit

by David Baldacci

  Blue Man took a few minutes to do so.

  Robie said, “So that’s all. Just where and how? No eyes on Reel anywhere?”

  “Come in and we’ll see to your injuries.”

  “No theories on why she would target the number two?” Robie persisted.

  “That’s all they would be right now, just theories.”

  There was something in Blue Man’s voice that began to concern Robie. “Something going on between the lines here?” Robie asked.

  Blue Man didn’t answer.

  “I’ll be in in a few hours. Want to check some things out.”

  “Let me give you another location to go to.”

  “Why is that?” asked Robie.

  Blue Man gave him the address without elaboration.

  Robie put down the phone and walked over to the window.

  Reel had been in town last night to gun down Gelder. That was officially speculation, but something in Robie’s gut told him it was true.

  If so, she could still be out there. Why she would hang around was not easy to answer. Typically, whenever Robie had killed he had left wherever he was immediately, and for obvious reasons.

  But this wasn’t typical, was it?

  Not for me and not for her.

  Robie took off the gauze around his burns, showered, put on fresh dressings and fresh clothes.

  Blue Man had told him where the shooting had taken place. The area would be full of cops. Robie couldn’t do much more than observe. But sometimes observations led to breakthroughs. He would have to hope that would be the case here.

  As he walked down to his car he knew one thing. He would not be able to survive many more nights like the last one. Reel seemed to be one step ahead at all times. That was often the case with the person being chased and the one doing the chasing.

  Reel knew why she was doing what she was doing.

  Robie was still playing catch-up.

  Maybe that’s all I’ll be doing on this one.

  So right now the odds were definitely stacked in Jessica Reel’s favor. Robie couldn’t see any development that would easily or quickly change that state of affairs.

  He drove off right as the sun was starting to rise.

  Just another beautiful day in the capital city.

  He was glad he was still alive to see it.

  CHAPTER

  14

  HE HAD LIVED. Reel had watched it on her laptop.

  Inside the outbuilding near her cottage was a camera on a tripod pointed at the cottage and uplinked to a satellite. Through it she had seen Robie drive up, get out, and recon the property.

  He hadn’t looked inside the outbuilding, which had been a mistake on his part.

  It was gratifying to her that Robie made mistakes.

  But then he had done the remarkable. He had figured out that the pond was a trap and risked throwing himself through a wall of fire to survive.

  She clicked some computer keys and watched it again, in slow motion.

  Robie burst from the house and then her view of him was gone, blocked by the wall of flames. It was designed to lead him right to the pond, which looked like a safe harbor but would be his grave.

  Yet under the most intense pressure he had kept his wits, deduced the safe harbor was a trap, and executed on the fly a maneuver designed to keep him alive.

  And he had succeeded.

  She froze the screen on the image of Robie walking back to his car.

  Could I have just done what he did? Am I as good as he is?

  She stared at the screen, looking into Robie’s face, trying to read the man’s mind, to delve into what he was thinking at just that moment in time.

  But the face was inscrutable.

  A good poker player.

  No, a great poker player.

  She closed the laptop and sat back on her bed. She pulled a Glock nine-millimeter from her belt holster and started disassembling it. She did it without looking, as she had been trained to do.

  Then she started to put it back together, again without looking.

  This exercise always served to calm her, make her think more clearly. And she needed to think as clearly as possible right now.

  She was fighting an engagement on two flanks.

  She had her list with more names on it. These people were now forewarned. Their protective shells were being hardened as she sat there.

  And she had Will Robie, who was now more than a little angry at almost being killed by her. He would be coming hard on her rear flank.

  That meant she had to have eyes in the back of her head, see both combat fronts at the same time. Difficult, but not impossible to do.

  Robie had gone to her cottage on the Eastern Shore to learn more about her. He had found nothing except an attempt on his life.

  But now Reel needed more information on Robie. She had thought he would be the one to come after her. The episode at the cottage had confirmed this.

  She rose, made a phone call, and then slipped into jeans, sweater, boots, and a hoodie. Her gun rested in her belt holster. A Ka-Bar knife rode in a leather sleeve wrapped around her left arm and hidden under the hoodie. She could pull it free in a second if need be.

  Her main problem was that despite her changed appearance there were eyes everywhere. Much of the United States and the civilized world was now one big camera. Her former employer would be using sophisticated search and facial recognition software, going through databases housing billions of images, in a 24/7 attempt to track her down.

  With that many resources leveled against her, Reel had no margin of error. She had built a nice bulwark of defenses, but nothing was perfect. Nearly every defensive line in every war had been pierced at some point. And she was under no delusions that she would be one of the rare exceptions.

  She took a cab to a major intersection and then got out. The rest of the way would be on foot. It took her thirty minutes to walk it, unhurried, seemingly out for a casual stroll. Along the way she used every skill she possessed to attempt to see anyone watching her. Her antennae never quivered.

  She reached the spot ahead of schedule and surveyed it from a hidden observation point. If something were going to happen, here was where it would transpire.

  Twenty minutes passed and she saw him approach. He was dressed in a suit and looked like a bureaucrat. Which he was. He didn’t carry a bulky manila file with him. That would have been the old days.

  And I’m old enough to remember some of the “old days,” she thought.

  He bought a newspaper from a machine and clanged the metal and glass door shut, checking it once to make certain it had closed properly. It was a routine sort of thing and would not warrant any attention from anyone.

  He turned and walked away.

  Reel watched him go and then strolled over to the machine, inserted her coins, opened the door, and withdrew the next paper that sat on top of the pile. At the same instant her hand closed around the black thumb drive the man had placed there.

  It was an old-fashioned drop procedure to retrieve modern-day digital info. Her informant was an old friend who owed her a favor and was not yet aware that others in the intelligence field were after her. It had worked to her advantage that the agency had chosen to close ranks on her little detour from duty. This she had confirmed by using electronic back doors into the agency’s databases, back doors she had set up a long time ago. Soon these back doors would be firmly closed and her old friends would be doing their best to kill her. But for now, she had access.

  Reel turned and walked away, her steps unhurried, but every sense on alert. She slipped inside a fast-food restaurant and made her way to the ladies’ room. She took out the drive and a device in her other pocket, which enabled her to check the drive for malware or an electronic tracker. An old friend was an old friend, but in the spy business you really didn’t have any friends, just enemies and people who could become your enemy.

  The thumb drive was clear.

  She took a circuitous route bac
k to her hotel, using a cab, a bus, the Metro, and finally her feet. Two hours later she was back in her room, nearly certain that all that had elapsed during the last three hours had passed by unobserved by anyone looking for her.

  She kicked off her shoes and sat at the desk set against one wall. She opened her laptop and plugged the drive into the USB slot. She opened the file on the drive and the information started to spread across her screen.

  This was Will Robie’s life—well, as much as his employer knew of it. Some she was already aware of, but there was much fresh information on here. In many profound ways, his early life mirrored her own.

  Neither had had a real family growing up.

  Both had been loners.

  Both had gone down certain paths in life, only to be pulled from what would probably have been early deaths, to serve on behalf of their country.

  Both had problems with authority.

  Both liked to go their own way.

  Both were extremely good at their job.

  Neither had ever failed.

  Now one of them would be guaranteed to do so.

  Only one winner per contest.

  No ties allowed.

  She scrolled down until she came to two photos on the screen.

  The first was an attractive, tenacious-looking woman in her late thirties. Even if Reel hadn’t known she was a federal cop, she would have assumed it from the look.

  Special Agent Nicole Vance, known as Nikki to her friends, of which she didn’t appear to have many, according to the notes accompanying the picture.

  She was a die-hard FBI agent. She had bucked the gender bias that lived in every agency and workplace. Her professional star had risen like a shuttle rocket blasting off from Florida, all based on pure merit and sheer guts.

  She was the one investigating the death of Doug Jacobs.

  She knew Robie. They had worked together.

  She could be a problem. Or an unlikely asset. Only time would tell.

  Reel memorized every feature of Vance’s face and all the accompanying information as well. Memorization was a skill that one grew adept at in this field, or one did not survive in this field.

  She focused on the second photo.

  The girl was young, fourteen, the notes said.

  Julie Getty.

  Foster care. Parents murdered.

  She had worked with Robie, in an unofficial capacity of course. She had shown herself to be resilient, quick-witted, and adaptable. She had survived things most adults would have succumbed to. Most importantly, Robie seemed to care about her. He had risked a lot to help her.

  Reel rested her chin on her knuckles as she gazed into that youthful countenance. In its depths she saw age beyond the official years. Julie Getty had clearly suffered much. She had clearly survived much. But the suffering never really left you. It became a part of you, like a second skin that you could never shed no matter how much you wanted to.

  It was the shell one showed to the world every day, hardened, nearly puncture-proof, yet nothing really could be. That was not how humans were built.

  We have a heart. We have a soul. And they can be obliterated at any time.

  Reel ordered some room service. After it came she ate her food, drank her coffee, and stared at that photo.

  The facts behind the face she had already memorized. She knew where Julie Getty lived, whom she lived with, and where she went to school. She knew that Robie had not once visited her.

  And she knew why.

  He’s protecting her. Keeping her separate from his world.

  My world.

  It was no place for amateurs, capable or not.

  But she wasn’t separate.

  She had ceased to be separate from the moment she met Will Robie.

  Julie was an only child. An orphan now, with her parents killed. That was something Reel could relate to. Being on your own.

  She had really been on her own since she was younger than Julie. One didn’t do what Reel did for a living by growing up in ordinary ways. There had to be a hurt present, a pain that never left you, to make you take a gun or a knife or your hands and force the life out of another human being over and over and over. You didn’t go to school and play sports and join debate team or become a cheerleader and then go home to a loving mom and dad and end up doing what Reel had spent most of her adult life doing.

  Reel took another sip of coffee and cocked her head as the rain started up outside. As it pelted against the windows she kept looking at the image of Julie Getty.

  You could be me like me, she thought.

  And like Robie.

  But if you have to make the decision, if the opportunity presents itself...Walk away.

  No, run away, Julie.

  Reel closed the laptop and the image of Julie vanished.

  But not really. It was still there. Burned right into her brain.

  For in some ways, when she looked at Julie Getty, it seemed Jessica Reel was simply staring at herself.

  CHAPTER

  15

  MORE POLICE TAPE. IN THE wind and rain it looked like golden strands of rope shimmying against the dark. FBI vans, police cars, barricades, press people trying to push through, uniforms pushing them back.

  It was always the same.

  At the center of it was always at least one dead body, usually more. It was getting to the point that every day brought a new slaughter for people to dissect.

  Robie watched all of this activity with an informed eyed as he stood behind the barricades. He had thought about many things since nearly dying on the Eastern Shore. One in particular was nagging at him.

  I didn’t clear the outbuilding before going into the cottage.

  He imagined there might have been some interesting things in that outbuilding. But there was no way to go back there now. The police would be all over the place. He wondered what they might find.

  He called Blue Man and asked that very question.

  “The outbuilding is no longer there,” Blue Man said.

  “What do you mean it’s no longer there?”

  “About two minutes after you left, it disintegrated into flames. Accelerant plus perhaps a phosphorus-based incendiary component. The temperature would have been so hot it would turn metal to liquid. I just watched the feed from one of our satellites. The police are there now, but finding nothing.”

  “She covered her tracks well.”

  “Did you expect anything less?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Don’t forget to come in,” said Blue Man.

  “You’ll see me at some point.”

  Robie clicked off and watched the police and FBI go about finding nothing.

  The Town Car sat in the same spot, but it was partially blocked from view by a blue plastic tarp shield that had been erected around it.