The Hit wr-2

by David Baldacci

  Robie stared at the man. When Kent caught his gaze he stiffened. Robie thought he caught a hint of a resigned smile pass over the man’s features.

  “You can help us,” said Robie quietly. “You know what we need.”

  “I highly doubt that I can help you or myself.”

  “Going to claim that you know nothing about this?”

  “Not at all. It’s just that dead men don’t make capable witnesses.”

  “Come again?”

  “Can I tell you something?”

  “A name would do.”

  “No, the message is much simpler.” He smiled and said, “Goodbye, Robie.”

  The two men stared directly at each other.

  “Robie!”

  Robie turned and saw Reel on the other side of the street.

  She shouted, “Robie! Johnson isn’t there. He’s not there.”

  Robie looked over at the line of men on their knees in the street. He glanced down the faces one by one.

  Dick Johnson wasn’t there.

  Robie started to move, but knew he was already too late.

  The shot hit Kent full in the face and blew out the back of his head, taking a large chunk of his brain with it.

  Robie had looked back at Kent a second before the round hit.

  There had been no fear in the man’s features. Just resignation.

  Chapter 78

  Robie and Vance were sitting in the lobby of the local police station. The fire had been put out and the event had been moved to another location. At first it seemed likely to be canceled. But after the FBI promised to help with security for the event, the participants had changed their minds and agreed to go forward.

  The hit team was being held in cells under the eye of both Canadian special agents and the FBI. The joint mission had come together quickly. The FBI was taken seriously by everyone in the world. It also didn’t hurt that the Canadians were such close allies. And the last thing they wanted was a slaughter of foreign leaders on their soil.

  Sam Kent’s body was lying on a freezer bed inside a mobile forensics unit.

  Dick Johnson had so far eluded capture.

  “Who was the woman who called out to you?” asked Vance.

  Reel had disappeared into the crowd after warning Robie about Johnson.

  “Someone who was working with me on this to stop it. I can fill you in on her later.”

  “Okay. So they were planning to take out all these leaders at one time?”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Would’ve created a global nightmare.”

  “Probably their plan.”

  “How did you guys get keyed in on this?”

  “Chatter, bits and pieces here and there that we followed up on.”

  “Always thought having this summit here was kind of weird. I mean, the G8 was having a conference on terrorism in Ireland at the same time. Did you know that?”

  “Read about it in the papers,” Robie said vaguely.

  “I’m glad you called us in, don’t get me wrong. But why wouldn’t you have your own team in place for this? I mean, we’re not in the U.S. The CIA can operate legally here.”

  “Not sure the Canadians see it that way. Some hard feelings between us over some past agency actions. We felt the FBI would be the right element to call in to provide the backup once we nailed down the target.” None of this was true, but it was also the only explanation Robie could think of.

  “I guess the important thing is it didn’t happen, right?”

  “That’s the way I look at it.”

  “But the guy who was killed? We identified him. He’s a federal judge. How does that figure into this?”

  “Not sure yet. I think it’ll take some time to dig through all of it. If I had to guess—and that’s all it would be—he might have been paid off. And maybe he wasn’t always a judge.”

  “Right. He seemed to know who you were,” said Vance suspiciously.

  “Just the way it worked out,” said Robie, not meeting her eye.

  “So this was what you were working on that you had to go off the grid?”

  Robie nodded.

  “And I’m assuming that this is somehow tied to Jim Gelder’s and Doug Jacobs’s deaths?”

  “And Howard Decker’s.”

  “Decker’s? How does he figure into this?”

  “I’m not sure, Vance. It’s still pretty muddled.”

  She looked put off. “Don’t think that I’m accepting all your answers at face value. I know you too well. You talk the bullshit really well, but at the end of the day, that’s still all it is.”

  “I’m telling you all I know.”

  “You mean you’re telling me all you can.” She studied him closely and then apparently decided to change direction. “Robie, the men we’ve arrested. They… they look like…”

  “There’s a lot of freelance talent out there. And we trained a ton of it.”

  “So mercenaries?” she said.

  “Probably so.”

  “Now we just have to find out who hired them.”

  “We might never know.”

  “No, we’ll get there. I’m thinking that Gelder and Jacobs might have stumbled onto something. The other side found out and killed them. Maybe something with Decker too.” She snapped her fingers. “He’s head of the Intelligence Committee. There’s the connection right there.”

  “You might be right.”

  “We’ll see. Like you said, these things tend to get muddled.”

  Yes, they do, thought Robie.

  “When are you heading back?” asked Vance.

  “Got a few things to clear up here and then I’ll be reporting in. I’m sure our agencies will be burning up secure lines hashing this one out. Sometimes the truth complicates things.”

  “I don’t think so. Not here. Good guys officially kicked the crap out of the bad guys. They can’t put any spin on that one. And the U.S. just scored some serious points with the Middle East. We just saved their collective ass. And I’ve seen a list of the attendees. There are some on there who are no fans of ours.”

  “No, they’re not. But maybe they will be now.” He rose. “I better get going.”

  “You see, Robie, sometimes communication is a very good thing.”

  Robie had not gone ten steps down the sidewalk when the voice in his ear said, “On your three.”

  He looked over to where Reel was staring at him from the far corner. He hurried over and they walked down an alley.

  “Kent is dead,” he said.

  “That was easy to see. Most of his brain was on the street.”

  “Johnson is nowhere to be seen.”

  “He was the fail-safe. Kent knew everything. The other guys just had their piece. They won’t be able to lead us anywhere. Firewalled out of the loop. Kent was the key, and Johnson was tasked to keep back and take him out if things went wrong.”

  “Agreed.”

  Reel’s voice turned harsh. “But why didn’t you tell me about the FBI?”

  “Did you need to know?”

  “I thought we were a team on this.”

  “I thought that if you knew the FBI was going to swarm in you might have done things differently.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning you’re a wanted person.”

  “What did you tell them about me, by the way?”

  “That we were tasked to stop this by the agency.”

  “And Gelder and Jacobs?”

  “They believe they were killed by the people behind the planned hit here. I told them I thought they were on the right track with that theory.”

  “I doubt that Vance is going to stop there. She doesn’t seem the type to take anybody’s word in place of an investigation and her own conclusion.”

  “She’s not. What I did back there was just a stopgap. Just to give us some time.”

  “Okay.”

  “But it can’t end there, Jessica.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “
I’ve been thinking about nothing except that ever since I started on this.”

  “There are ways,” Robie began.

  “There are no ways, Robie, not for this. It has one possible outcome and it’s not a good one for me. But you’ll be okay. In fact, if I were you I’d go back to Vance right now and just tell her the truth. The more you try to cover for me the worse it will be for you when the truth does comes out.”

  Robie didn’t budge. “You really want to waste time arguing over something that stupid?”

  “It’s not stupid. It’s your future.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Jessica. That’s my decision, and I’m sticking to it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Don’t ask me again.”

  “But just so you understand the possible consequences.”

  “Someone gave the order to Johnson to take out Kent. I want that person.”

  “Loose ends, Robie. They’ll be finding Johnson’s body any minute now. That idiot was dead as soon as he pulled the trigger on Kent. No way they’re going to leave him alive.”

  “We’re loose ends too,” he said.

  “That’s right, we are,” she said, looking suddenly cheerful.

  “What?” said Robie, noting her upbeat expression.

  “Loose ends are a two-way street. They want to get to us. But to get to us they have to come to us.”

  “And that gives us a shot at getting them first,” he said.

  “I’m done hitting singles too, Robie. It’s time to go for the shot out of the park.”

  “How exactly do we do that?”

  “You just have to trust me. Like I’ve been trusting you this whole time.”

  “What exactly is your plan? We’ve got nothing.”

  “I’m not really into sports, but I’ve been doing some basic research,” she replied.

  “On what?”

  “On Roger the Dodger.”

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “Actually, I think I do.”

  “Proof?”

  “A witness.”

  “Where can we find the witness?”

  “We don’t have to.”

  She walked off.

  When he didn’t follow she turned back and said, “Despite what you just said, if you’re out I need to know, right now. I’ll have to adjust my plan and fly this one solo. But either way, it’s happening.”

  “Because of your friends?”

  “Because I don’t like getting crapped on. I don’t like traitors. And, yeah, because of my friends.”

  “I’m in,” he said.

  “Then come on.”

  Robie followed her.

  Chapter 79

  The White House.

  It was often a place of near chaos buffered by moments of intense calm, like the eye of a hurricane. One could tell that inches past the serenity lurked possible bedlam.

  This was one of the serene moments. The precise location of the possibly hovering bedlam was as of yet unknown.

  They were in the Oval Office. It was reserved for symbolic moments that often were attended by dozens of photographers. There were no photographers here today, but it was a symbolic moment nonetheless.

  Robie sat in one chair. Across from him was DCI Evan Tucker. The president was perched on a settee. Next to him in a separate chair was National Security Advisor Gus Whitcomb. Completing the party was Blue Man, looking slightly awed to be once more in the presence of such august company.

  “This is getting to be a routine, Robie,” said the president affably.

  “I hope it doesn’t actually become one, sir,” said Robie.

  His suit was dark, his shirt white, and his tie as dark as his suit. His shoes were polished. Next to the others, with their colorful ties, he looked like a man attending a funeral. Maybe his own.

  “The exact details of what was going on are still coming out, albeit slowly,” said Whitcomb.

  “I doubt we’ll ever know the whole truth,” said Tucker. “And you’ll never get me to believe that Jim Gelder was involved in any of this.” He glanced at Robie. “And the people responsible for his death, and that of Doug Jacobs, will be brought to justice.”

  Robie simply stared back and said nothing.

  The president cleared his throat and the other men sat up straighter. “I believe that we dodged a very large bullet. This is not the time for celebration, of course, because we have tough times ahead.”

  “Agreed, Mr. President,” said Tucker. “And I can assure you that my agency will do all it can to ensure that those tough times are met head-on.”

  Robie and Whitcomb shared a raised eyebrow over that comment.

  Whitcomb waited until it seemed the president wasn’t going to respond to Tucker’s statement. “I agree that we have many problems ahead of us. If, as Mr. Robie believes, there were moles at the agency—”

  “For the record that is a statement I highly dispute,” interjected Tucker.

  The president put up his hands. “Evan, no one is testifying here. Gus is just saying that we need to get to the bottom of this. As much as we can, at least.”

  Whitcomb continued, “If there are moles at the agency, then that needs to be resolved. We have four dead men who were all highly placed in various sectors of this country. We have a near catastrophe averted in Canada thanks to the actions of Mr. Robie and the FBI. What we have to do is connect the dots between the two.”

  “Of course,” said Tucker. “I never said there shouldn’t be an investigation.”

  “A thorough one,” added Whitcomb.

  “Do we have any new leads on who killed Gelder and Jacobs?” asked the president.

  “Not yet,” said Blue Man.

  They all turned to look at him, as though they had forgotten he was even there.

  He continued, “But we are hoping for that status to change.”

  The president said, “And this Johnson person?”

  “Dick Johnson,” said Whitcomb, looking at his notes. He glanced up at Tucker. “He once worked for the CIA.”

  The president shot a look at Tucker. “From one of ours to one of theirs, Evan? How is that possible?”

  “Johnson was a washout, sir. If he hadn’t disappeared, one day he would have been let go.”

  “He wasn’t the only one, sir,” said Robie. “Of the twenty-odd people the FBI arrested, half of them had ties to the agency. And that doesn’t include Roy West out in Arkansas.”

  “Roy West was fired,” snapped Tucker, “and I am well aware of the others, Robie. Thank you, though, for pointing it out,” he added sarcastically.

  “But the ultimate goal,” began the president. “Obviously, taking out all those leaders would have led to great upheaval in the Muslim world. But was that the only reason?” He glanced around at the others with a questioning look.

  Tucker shot a piercing look at Whitcomb, who did not seem to notice it. He glanced at Robie. There seemed to be an understanding between Robie and the APNSA. In fact, they had spoken before the meeting.

  Whitcomb cleared his throat and said, “It could be that whoever was behind this had plans to replace the dead leaders with others who believed as they did.”

  “So it was internal?” said the president. “Meaning factions competing for power within the Middle East were behind the attack in Canada?”

  “That appears to be the case,” said Whitcomb.

  “Well, thank God it didn’t come to pass,” said the president.

  “Yes, thank God,” added Tucker.

  The door to the Oval Office opened and the president’s “body man” looked in. It was his job to keep the president on schedule.

  “Sir, two-minute warning before your next meeting.”

  The president nodded and rose. “Gentlemen, you will keep me posted on how this goes. I want to know about any new developments. We will maintain the status quo until such time as conditions on the ground dictate otherwise, but I want a full-court press on this.”

  They
gave him their assurances, shook hands, and said their goodbyes.

  On the way out, Robie cornered Blue Man. “We haven’t spoken in a while.”

  “You’ve been off the grid for a while.”

  “I took your advice. It turned out to be good advice.”

  Blue Man drew closer to Robie and spoke in a low voice. “And her?”

  Robie nodded. “As good as advertised.”

  “What will happen to her?”

  “I don’t know. If it were up to me she walks free.”

  “It’s not up to you,” pointed out Blue Man.

  “Like the president said, we maintain the status quo until conditions on the ground dictate otherwise.”

  “And you really think the conditions on the ground are going to change?”

  “Actually, they always do.”

  “But not here.”

  “Especially here,” said Robie.

  Robie caught up to Tucker as he was about to climb into his SUV outside the White House.

  “Give us a minute,” Tucker said to his aide as he glanced questioningly at Robie. The two men strolled a few feet away.

  “Interesting meeting,” said Robie.

  “Why did I think I was being ganged up on?” Tucker said accusingly.

  “What did you expect? Your agency is in the middle of this whole thing.”

  “You’re really close to getting your ass canned.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Tucker snarled, “You work for me, Robie.”

  “I work for the guy in the White House. And if you want to get really technical, the American people are actually my boss.”

  “That’s not how it works, and you know it.”

  “What I know is that people are dead. And not just the bad guys.”

  “Who are you talking about, exactly?”

  “A woman named Gwen. And a guy named Joe. And a guy named Mike.”

  “I don’t know who they are.”

  “They were good people.”

  “So you knew them?”

  “Not really, no. But someone I respect vouched for them. So watch your back, Director.”

  Robie turned to walk away.

  “Who do you respect, Robie? Would that be Jessica Reel? The person who murdered two of my people?”

  Robie turned back. “They might have been people, Director. But they weren’t your people.”