“He was an analyst. What exactly did he analyze?”
“Why do you want to know? You don’t think it has anything to do with—”
“I can’t afford to discount anything right now.”
“He was nothing special. Had a rep for writing nonsense scenario papers. Probably why he was let go. I don’t see how he plays into this.”
Robie wanted to tell him exactly how West and Reel played into this, but he didn’t. “Tucker wanted me to keep going after Reel.”
“And what did you say to that?”
“I said no.”
“No one will ever have to tell you to grow a pair, Robie.”
“The question is, what do I do now?”
“You did not hear this from me,” replied Blue Man.
“Okay.”
“If I were Will Robie, I would think about going off the grid.”
“And do what?”
“Find Jessica Reel. And if you do, you might just find all the answers.”
I did find her, Robie thought. And I let her go.
Blue Man finished his coffee and rose. “And then you can do something else, Robie.”
Robie looked up at him. “What’s that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? You can thank Reel for saving your life.”
After Blue Man walked off, Robie muttered, “Too late. I already returned the favor.”
Chapter 47
Robie sat on the exam table, his shirt and pants off while Dr. Meenan checked his burns.
“They look better. But it’s good you came in. There was some drainage and infection. I’m going to clean the areas and put in some sutures to stabilize the affected areas and just to make sure we don’t have any problems. And I’ll give you another shot and more meds.”
“Okay.”
She removed some of the dead skin, cleaned the areas thoroughly, and then sutured some portions where the skin had pulled apart. Once finished with that, she brought over a syringe, rubbed alcohol on his left arm, stuck him, and then placed a Band-Aid over it. “So you did come back in one piece.”
“I did, yes.”
“I’m glad.”
Robie glanced at her. “Why?”
“We lose enough good people. You can put your clothes back on.”
Robie slipped his pants back on.
She said, “I’ll have the meds bagged up. They’ll be available for you out front in about five minutes.”
“Thanks.”
Robie buttoned up his shirt as Meenan made some notes in her file. Without looking up she said, “Did you hear about that crazy stuff in Arkansas? Did you know the guy used to work here?”
“Roy West?”
“Yeah. I actually knew him. Well, I examined him once.”
“What for?”
“Sorry, patient confidentiality. It even applies here. It wasn’t for anything serious. But I can tell you he was a strange guy.”
“Lot of strange guys here.”
“No, I mean really strange.” She paused and finished writing, closed the file, and put it away in a rack on the desk.
“Can I tell you something in confidence?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“I mean, really?”
“I mean really, sure.”
She smiled at this, but then her smile faded to a frown. “He was creepy. And he seemed like a holier-than-thou type. Like he had this big secret he was just bursting to tell me.”
“Probably lots of people here like that.”
“Maybe. But he stuck out.”
“Well, in the end it didn’t help him.”
“Killed in a militia war, I heard on the news.”
“So they say.”
“You know different?” she asked sharply.
“No and I’ve got my hands full with my own stuff.” He laced up his shoes and slipped off the table. “I appreciate you patching me up.”
“It’s what they pay me for.”
“So this West guy was kind of a psycho. Heard he got canned from here.”
“I’m not surprised. I can’t believe he passed the psychological vetting. He just seemed too unstable.”
“What else do you remember about him? He ever mention anyone to you?”
“Anyone like who?”
“Just anyone.”
She smiled slyly. “I thought you said you had your hands full.”
“I’m naturally curious.”
“Well, he did mention that he had friends in high places. Very high places, he said. I thought he was just blustering. He was pretty low-level at the agency.” She blushed.
“What?” asked Robie.
“Well, I thought he was saying all that to impress me.”
“You mean he was hitting on you?”
“Yeah, I think he was.” She slapped him playfully on the arm. “And don’t sound so surprised.”
“You think he was serious?”
“I’ve thought about that. If I had to guess, I think he did have someone higher up who had his back.”
“Not that high up. He got canned.”
“You’re right. Anyway, I’ll just leave it that he was trying to hit on me.” She slipped a business card from her pocket. “Just in case you lost my other card, here’s another one with all my contact info, including my personal cell. If you have any problems with the injuries please don’t hesitate to call.”
As Robie took the card, her fingers grazed across his. She didn’t meet his eye but her cheeks were slightly red.
Robie had a strong feeling that she was hitting on him.
Chapter 48
Nicole Vance was waiting for him this time. And she wasn’t wearing any makeup. The woman was all business tonight.
Robie sat down.
“I already ordered you a drink,” she said.
He eyed her glass. “Gin?”
“Ginger ale. I’m still technically on duty.”
“Long day.”
“Long life. At least I hope.” She eyed his right arm. “You’re carrying that a little stiffly. What gives?”
The burns were healing, but slowly. And the arm was stiff, the new sutures Meenan had put in making it even stiffer. He wondered how fast he could draw his weapon. Maybe not fast enough. Yet he had done okay out in the hinterlands of Arkansas. Adrenaline made pain manageable. It was only later that everything hurt.
“Old age.”
She smirked. “Nice try.”
“Why are you still on duty?” asked Robie.
She sipped her ginger ale; her gaze held a faraway look. “When an investigation is going nowhere I tend to work overtime. Whole world’s going to hell, Robie.”
“What’s new?”
“You heard about this stuff in Arkansas. With Roy West?”
“Saw the news,” he replied.
“He was with your agency.”
“Never knew him.”
“He didn’t last long, apparently. Then he went off half-cocked and turned into some antigovernment freak. Don’t you vet your people better?”
“Not my job,” said Robie.
His drink came and he tasted it.
“Just how you like it?” asked Vance.
He nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”
“Good, we can drink to the world going to hell.”
“So what part of the world exactly is going to hell?”
“Pick any spot you want. No leads on Jacobs. Nothing on Gelder. The shit in Arkansas. And the ATF is going nuts too.”
“About what?”
“An explosion at a remote place on the Eastern Shore. Very sophisticated device used. And someone had even put accelerant in a pond on the property. There wasn’t much left in the way of evidence. I’m not on that case. We do have other FBI agents. The Bureau got called out on the Arkansas case too. This militia crap is getting really scary. There used to be just dozens of these groups. Now there are thousands of them. Maybe more.”
“So how did this Roy West guy die?”
“Don�
��t really know. Like I said, I’m not working it. And to top it off there was a shooting over near the federal court in Alexandria.”
“I didn’t hear about that,” replied Robie.
“Several cars involved. No one got a license plate, of course. Some gal in a sedan driving like Jeff Gordon. Shots fired from the vehicles. And the kicker is a federal judge just happened to be strolling down the street at the same time.”
“You think he was the target?”
“Don’t know. I sort of doubt it. It was in the report because he’s a judge. We have to cover that angle.”
“Which judge?”
“Samuel Kent.”
“Maybe it was just a street gang thing.”
“That part of Alexandria is very upscale. No gang activity there.”
“So no sign of the ‘gal’?”
“Nope. Nifty piece of driving by all accounts, and then she was gone.”
“And the shooters?”
“Gone too. Amazing how that can happen on a crowded street, but it did.” She finished her ginger ale. “You asked to meet and I’ve done all the talking. Now I’m shutting up and putting on my listening ears.”
Robie nodded, trying to assimilate all that she had told him and wondering if the “gal” was who he thought she was. It seemed both ridiculously impossible and extremely likely that it was Jessica Reel, particularly after Arkansas.
“It was good to see Julie,” said Robie.
“Really? I didn’t think it went all that well from my point of view.”
“She was upset,” replied Robie.
“And shouldn’t she be?”
“Yes, she should. But we talked on the drive to her house.”
“And?”
“And she was still upset.”
“Your personal skills must’ve been exceptional on that drive.”
“My goal is to keep her safe. You warned me too.”
“I know, Robie. But you don’t have to completely shut her out of your life. You two went through a lot together. Hell, she and I went through a lot together.”
“You and I went through a lot together,” noted Robie.
This comment caught Vance off guard. She sat back, her posture relaxed. “Yeah, we did. You saved my life and risked your life to do it.”
“I was the reason you were in danger in the first place. Which brings me back to my point about Julie. And you. Every time I meet with you I could be putting you back in danger. I don’t take that lightly, Nikki. It would probably have been better if I hadn’t called and asked you to meet tonight.”
“But you can’t protect everybody all the time, Robie. And I’m an FBI agent. I can take care of myself.’
“In normal circumstances, absolutely. I’m not normal.”
She snorted but caught his deeply serious expression and said, “I know what you mean, Will. I get that. I really do.”
“And what chance would Julie have? I’m involved in things right now.” He stopped talking and looked away.
She reached out tentatively and touched his hand, wrapping her long fingers around it and squeezing. “What things?”
He looked back at her as she removed her hand, looking embarrassed at having performed this intimate gesture. “In order to cover my back, I have to look in all directions at the same time,” he said.
She blinked, obviously trying to decipher this. “Meaning you can’t trust anyone?”
“Meaning there are things going on that no one can explain.” He paused. “Did you hear about Janet DiCarlo?”
“A vague story about something at her house.”
“I was there. It wasn’t vague. It was actually pretty straightforward on certain levels.”
“What the hell happened?”
Now Robie gripped her hand, hard. It was not an intimate gesture. “If I tell you, it can go no further. I’m not talking about professional courtesy. I’m talking about you staying alive.”
Vance’s mouth opened slightly and her eyes widened. “Okay, it goes no further.”
Robie took a sip of his drink and set the glass back down. “DiCarlo was attacked. Her guards were killed. She was wounded. I got her out. DHS took her for safekeeping.”
“Why couldn’t her own agency protect—” Vance stopped.
Robie nodded. “Exactly.”
“Are you talking rogue or systemic?”
“It’s not one traitor running around.”
“So systemic?”
“Could be.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m thinking about going off the grid.”
Vance sucked in a breath. “Are you sure about that?”
“You went off the grid for me.”
“I’m FBI, Robie. You going off the grid is a whole other thing.”
“I think it’s the only way I’m going to get to the truth.”
“Or get killed.”
“That could easily happen if I stay where I am.” He slowly raised his right arm. “It’s already nearly happened twice in the last few days.”
She glanced at Robie’s arm and then looked back at him. The strain was etched on her face. And that same level of strain was clear on Robie’s features.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“You’ve done plenty already.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“I may contact you at some point.”
“Robie, isn’t there any other way to handle this? You can come in to the FBI. We can protect you and maybe…” Her voice trailed off.
“I appreciate that. But I think my way is better.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ve got some leads to follow up on.”
“Can you even get off the grid with all this crap going on?”
“I can try. That’s all I can do.” He rose. “Thanks for meeting with me.”
“Why did you want to meet? Not just to tell me you’re going off the grid?”
Robie started to say something but then couldn’t get it out.
She rose and stood next to him. Before he could move, Vance had put her arms around him and squeezed so tightly it was as though they had become one body. She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.
She said, “You will come back. You will get through this. You’re Will Robie. Hell, you perform the impossible on a regular basis.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Robie turned and left.
Vance walked to the front of the restaurant and watched him head down the street until he disappeared into the darkness.
When she got back to her car she just sat there staring off and wondering if that was the last time she would ever see him.
Chapter 49
Off the grid.
Robie was sitting in his apartment thinking about taking this step.
The last time he had gone off the grid it had not been pleasant. In fact, it had nearly cost him his life and the lives of several other people, including Julie and Vance.
Jessica Reel was off the grid right now. She seemed to be employing a complex strategy that had her on both sides of the chessboard at the same time. What advantage she hoped to gain by this was lost on Robie. It only meant that both sides had incentives to find and kill her.
Doubling your opposition made no sense. Yet Reel didn’t strike him as lacking in the brains department. So if she was doing it her strategy had to make sense somehow.
A former agency analyst in Arkansas turned militia nut. He’d written an apocalypse paper. She was there to find out whom he had sent it to.
Then there was a federal judge in Alexandria.
If Reel had been the one in Alexandria too, what the hell was the connection?
A judge, Gelder, Jacobs, and Roy West.
Were they all in on this apocalypse?
If so, exactly what was it?
If West had a copy of it, Robie had no way to get to it. The police would be crawling all over his pla
ce, or what was left of it. Reel probably had a copy, but again, he had no way to get it from her.
Robie stared down at the text Reel had sent him previously.
Everything I do has a reason. Just open the lock.
He suddenly groaned and slapped the table with his palm. How could he have been that stupid? Literally staring him right in the damn face.
He went to his safe, opened it, and pulled out the three items that had been left in her locker.
Right, her locker. All I had to do was open it.
Okay, now that the simple part was over, it got complicated really fast.
The gun.
The book.
The photo.
The gun he had already ripped apart and found nothing. It was just a pistol with some specialized parts that pointed him in no specific direction at all.
The book had no notes in it. No marginalia. Nothing to point him to a specific part.
The photo meant nothing to him. And he didn’t know who the man standing next to Reel was.
Everything I do has a reason.
He said in exasperation, “Great, lady, next time don’t make it so damn complicated. It’s adding up to something impossible for mere mortals to figure out.”
Robie locked the items back up and stared out the window.
What Blue Man had told him was only one more disquieting piece of information on top of many others. It seemed like the agency was imploding from the top level on down. How this state of chaos could be happening to the premier intelligence organization on earth was astounding.
The world was a truly dangerous place right now. It was far more dangerous even than during the Cold War. Back then the opponents were clearly delineated and aligned across the world. The stakes were just as clearly understood. The destruction of the world was a possibility. But not really. The theory of mutual assured destruction was a great catalyst for peace. You couldn’t take over the world if there was no world left to take over.
Today’s situation was far more fluid, far subtler, and the sides kept changing with alarming frequency. And Robie didn’t know if the element of mutual assured destruction was enough anymore. Apparently some people didn’t care if there was a world left afterward. That made them dangerous at an unprecedented level.
DiCarlo’s comments came back to him: Missions that never should have been. Missing personnel. Money moved from here to there and then it disappeared. Equipment sent to places it should not have been sent to and it also disappeared. And that’s not all. These things happened in discreet quantities over long periods of time. Taken singly they didn’t seem to be all that remarkable. But when one looks at them together.
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