The Innocent

by David Baldacci

  The girl was still gripping her paperback, keeping her current page. She had not even turned in her seat. She had just fired the spray backward over her head, nailing her attacker directly in the face.

  However, the man was still moving forward, even as he screamed and clawed at his eyes with one of his hands. The other hand found purchase on the girl’s neck at about the time Robie’s pistol collided with the man’s skull, sending him crashing down to the floor of the bus.

  The girl looked around at Robie as most of the other passengers, awakened now, stared at them. Then their gazes drifted to the fallen man. One old woman wearing a thick yellow robe started screaming. The driver stopped the bus, slammed it in park, turned to look at Robie standing there, and yelled, “Hey!”

  The tone and the stare indicated to Robie that the driver thought he was the source of the problem. The driver, a heavyset black man of about fifty, rose and started down the aisle.

  When he saw Robie’s gun, he stopped and put his hands in front of him.

  The same old woman screamed and clutched at her robe.

  “What the hell do you want?” exclaimed the driver to Robie.

  Robie looked down at the unconscious man. “He was attacking the girl. I stopped him.”

  He looked at the girl for support. She said nothing.

  “Would you like to tell them?” Robie prompted.

  She said nothing.

  “He was trying to kill you. You nailed him with pepper spray.”

  Robie reached over, and before she could stop him he’d ripped the canister from her hand and held it up.

  “Pepper spray,” he said in a confirming tone.

  The other passengers’ attention now turned to the girl.

  She looked back at them, unfazed by their scrutiny.

  “What’s going on?” asked the driver.

  Robie said, “The guy was attacking the girl. She pepper-sprayed him and I finished him off when he didn’t back down.”

  “And why do you have a gun?” asked the driver.

  “I’ve got a permit for it.”

  In the distance Robie heard sirens.

  Was it for the two bodies back at the building?

  The man on the floor groaned and started to stir. Robie put a foot on his back. “Stay down,” he ordered. He looked back at the driver. “You better call the cops.” He turned to the girl. “You have a problem with that?”

  In response the girl rose, grabbed her backpack from the overhead bay, slipped it over her shoulders, and walked down the aisle toward the driver.

  The driver put up his hands again. “You can’t leave, miss.”

  She drew something from her jacket and held it in front of the man. From where he was standing behind the girl Robie was blocked from seeing what it was. The driver immediately retreated, looking terrified. The old woman screamed again.

  Robie knelt down and used the fallen man’s belt to efficiently tie his hands and ankles together behind his back, completely immobilizing him. Then he followed the girl down the aisle. As he passed the driver he said, “Call the cops.”

  “Who are you?” the driver called after Robie.

  Robie didn’t answer, because he could hardly tell the man the truth.

  The girl had worked the lever to open the bus door and stepped off.

  Robie caught up to her as she reached the street.

  “What did you show him?” he asked.

  She turned and held up the grenade.

  Robie didn’t blink. “It’s plastic.”

  “Well, he didn’t seem to know that.”

  Those were the first words she had spoken. Her voice was lower than Robie would have expected. More grown-up. They moved away from the bus.

  “Who are you?” asked Robie.

  She kept walking. The sirens drew closer and then started to fade away.

  “Why did that guy want to kill you?”

  She picked up her pace, moving ahead of him.

  They reached the other side of the street. She slipped between two parked cars. Robie did the same. She hustled down the street. He picked up his pace and grabbed her arm. “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

  He didn’t get an answer.

  The explosion knocked them both off their feet.

  CHAPTER

  16

  ROBIE CAME TO FIRST. He had no idea how long he’d been out, but it couldn’t have been very long. There were no cops, no first responders. It was just him and a bus that was no longer there. He gazed over at the skeleton of burning metal that had once been a large piece of transportation equipment and thought that, like a plane crashing nose first into the earth from a great height, there could be no survivors.

  This area of D.C. was deserted at this late hour and there were no residences nearby. The only people wandering out to see what had happened were obviously homeless.

  Robie watched as one old man dressed in ragged jeans and a shirt turned black by living on the street stumbled out onto the sidewalk from his home of cardboard and plastic trash bags inside a doorway. He looked at the bonfire that had once been a bus with passengers inside and called out between rotted teeth, “Damn, anybody got something good to grill?”

  Robie slowly rose. He was bruised and sore and would be even more bruised and sore tomorrow. He looked around for the girl and found her ten feet from where he had landed.

  She lay next to a parked Saturn whose side windows had been blown out by the blast. Robie raced to her and gingerly turned her over. He felt for a pulse, found it, and breathed a sigh of relief. He checked her over. No blood, a few scratches on her face from where her skin had collided with the rough pavement. She would live.

  A few moments later her eyes opened.

  Robie eyed the grenade that she still clutched in her hand.

  “Did you leave a real one of those on the bus?”

  She sat up slowly, looked toward the demolished bus.

  Robie expected the sight to evoke some reaction from her, but she said nothing.

  “Somebody really wants you dead,” he said. “Any idea why?”

  She got to her feet, spotted the knapsack lying a few feet away, and retrieved it, dusting off the outside and putting the strap over her shoulder. She looked up at Robie, who towered over her.

  “Where’s your gun?” she asked.

  This caught him off guard. He didn’t know where his gun had gone. He looked around, then squatted down and looked under a few cars parked on the street. There was a storm drain. It might have fallen in there when he’d gotten blasted off his feet.

  “I’d find it if I were you.”

  He looked at her. She was watching him from a few feet away.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re probably going to need it.”

  “Why?” he asked again.

  “Because you’ve been seen with me.”

  He rose. He could hear more sirens. Someone had finally called it in, because they were getting louder. The responders were heading this way. The homeless guy was now dancing around the bonfire yelling about wanting some “damn s’mores.”

  Robie said, “And why is that significant?”

  She glanced at the destroyed bus. “What? Are you stupid?”

  He gave up the search for his gun and came over to her.

  Robie said, “You need to go to the police. They can protect you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “You don’t think they can?”

  “If I were you I’d get out of here.”

  Robie said, “There’s no one left alive on that bus to tell the cops what happened.”

  “What do you think happened?” she asked.

  “Over thirty people just lost their lives on that bus, including a guy who was trying to kill you.”

  “That’s your theory. Where’s your proof?”

  “The proof is in that bus. Some of it. The rest is in your head, presumably.”

  “Again, your theory.”

  She turned and st
arted to walk off.

  Robie watched her for a few moments. “You can’t do this alone, you know,” he said. “You’ve already screwed up, or got ratted out.”

  She turned back. “What do you mean?” For the first time she sounded interested in what he had to say.

  “They already followed you to the bus or they were waiting for you. If the latter, you were set up. They had advance intel. Knew the bus, the time, everything. So either you screwed up and let them follow you, somehow, or else someone you trusted turned on you. It’s either one or it’s the other.”

  She looked over his shoulder at the burning mass of metal and flesh.

  He asked, “How did you spot the guy on the bus? Looked to me like he had a clean kill angle.”

  “Reflection in my window. Tinted glass, overhead light inside, dark outside equals a mirror. Simple science.”

  “You were reading a book.”

  “I was pretending to read a book. I saw the guy sit down behind me. He passed by three empty rows. Made me think, you know? Plus I saw him get on. He was doing his best not to let me see him.”

  “So you would’ve recognized him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I was behind you too.”

  “Too far behind to do you any good.”

  “So you spotted me too?”

  She shrugged. “You just get used to checking stuff out.”

  “So he followed you to the bus. Did he chase you? I see the dirt on your hands and knees. Looks like you took a tumble before you got to the bus.”

  She looked down at her knees but didn’t answer him.

  Robie said, “But you still can’t do this alone.”

  “Yeah, you already said that. So what do you suggest?”

  “If you won’t go to the police, you can come with me.”

  She took a step back. “You? Where?”

  “Somewhere safer than here.”

  She eyed him coolly. “Why don’t you stay and talk to the cops?”

  He stared at her and listened to the sirens drawing uncomfortably close.

  She said, “Did it have something to do with that gun and your being on that bus at this hour?” She eyed him more closely. “You don’t look the type, you know?”

  “Meaning?”

  “You don’t look like you have to ride in a crappy bus in the middle of the night to get to New York. And neither did the guy who was sitting behind me. That was his other mistake. You have to dress for the part.”

  “You want to go it alone, go. I’m sure you’ll be able to hold them off for a few more hours. But then it’ll all be over for you.”

  She looked once more over his shoulder at the burning mass.

  “I didn’t want anybody else to die,” she said.

  “Anybody else? Who else has died?”

  Robie had the feeling that she wanted to dissolve into tears, but she said, “Who are you?”

  “Someone who stumbled onto something and doesn’t want to leave it.”

  “I don’t trust you or anyone else.”

  “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t either.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Someplace safe, like I said.”

  “I’m not sure there is such a place,” she said in a voice that, for the first time, sounded like a kid’s. Scared.

  “Me either,” said Robie.

  CHAPTER

  17

  ROBIE DIDN’T JUST have an escape plan in case something went wrong on one of his missions. He had a safe house too. Now, with someone else in tow, he had opted for Plan C.

  Unfortunately, Plan C was already getting complicated.

  Robie’s gaze swept the end of the alley. He’d put his goggles on. It was only a glimpse, but he clung to it, because he knew it was important: reflected light off a gun scope.

  He removed the goggles, slipped back into shadows, looked down at the girl.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Why?”

  “Just something to call you. It doesn’t have to be your real one,” he added.

  She hesitated. “Julie.”

  “Okay, Julie. You can call me Will.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  “Is Julie your real name?”

  She fell silent, looked past him, out into the darkness. They had covered about ten blocks, so far in fact that the sound of the sirens had receded. She had not committed to go with him. They had silently agreed to leave the scene of the explosion by simply turning and walking away together.

  Robie could visualize the activity surrounding the bus. The first responders would be trying to determine what had caused the explosion. Faulty gas tank? Or terrorist attack? But then he concentrated on that glimpse.

  “There’s someone out there,” he told Julie in a low voice.

  “Where?” she asked.

  Robie pointed over his shoulder even as his gaze was running over her. “Any chance you have a tracking device on you? Because I’m good at getting away, and that was pretty fast to catch up to us.”

  “Maybe they’re better than you.”

  “Let’s hope not. Tracking device? How about your cell? I didn’t notice one in your pocket. But do you have one? And is your GPS chip enabled?”

  “I don’t have a cell phone,” she replied.

  “Don’t all kids have cell phones?”

  “I guess not,” she said stiffly. “And I’m not a kid.”

  “How old are you?”

  “How old are you?”

  “Forty.”

  “That’s really old.”

  “Trust me, I’m feeling it. How old?”

  She hesitated again. “Can I lie?” she asked. “Like with my name?”