The Innocent

by David Baldacci

  Robie said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

  The trip to the Oval Office took a few minutes and involved their walking outside and past the Rose Garden. Before Teddy Roosevelt had had the West Wing created a series of glass conservatories had occupied the spot. As they trudged along, Robie recalled that Roosevelt had been shot while campaigning for president. The only thing that had saved his life was the thickness of the speech that had been folded up in his pocket. The bullet had hit this mass of paper and it had robbed enough of the round’s kinetic energy that Roosevelt had been able to give his speech, albeit while bleeding heavily from the wound in his chest. He had only consented to be taken to the hospital after his speech was done.

  They didn’t make presidents like that anymore, thought Robie.

  And so Roosevelt had lived. And so had the current president.

  He had lived because of a bit of skill on Robie’s part.

  And a lot of luck.

  Just like the rolled-up speech.

  The president sat behind his desk, his left arm sat stiffly in a sling. He rose when he saw Robie. He had changed clothes. Gone was the tux, replaced by a white dress shirt and black slacks. He looked shaken still, but there was firm resolve in his grip as he shook hands with Robie.

  “You saved my life tonight, Agent Robie. I wanted to thank you personally for that.”

  “I’m just glad you’re okay, Mr. President.”

  “I can’t believe that one of my staff was involved. Ms. Lambert, I believe. They tell me there was nothing in her background that would have hinted at this.”

  “I’m sure it was a surprise to everyone,” replied Robie dumbly.

  Especially me.

  “How did you recognize so quickly that it was her?”

  “She had taken a drug, to calm her nerves. Suicide bombers often do this before they detonate. Her pupils were dilated from the drug’s action in her body.”

  “She was drugged, but could still shoot straight?”

  “There are chemicals that relax the nerves, sir, without dulling the other senses. And it actually makes you a better shot. Nerves kill the aim faster than anything. And I would assume that even the most gifted assassin would have been nervous tonight.”

  “Because they would know there was no way out. That they would die,” said the president.

  “Yes, sir. And she was close to you, only a few feet away. Her accuracy, of course, was important, but not as critical as her speed.”

  In fact, she was faster than me, thought Robie. Her gun had appeared in a blaze of motion. Aimed, fired, and started to move to the secondary target before he could even get off one shot. It was only his shout that had made the agent nearest the president act swiftly enough to move him so that a mortal wound became something far less.

  As though he had been reading Robie’s thoughts, the president said, “They tell me that if I hadn’t been moved I would be dead. And I wouldn’t have been moved except for your warning.”

  “I wish I could have stopped her before she fired.”

  The president smiled and held up his wounded arm. “I’ll take this any day over being dead, Agent Robie.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Robie wanted to leave now. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to get into his car and just drive until he ran out of fuel.

  “We will honor you suitably another time. But again, I wanted to make sure that I conveyed my personal thanks as soon as possible.”

  “And again, not necessary, sir. But I appreciate it.”

  “The First Lady would like to thank you as well.”

  As if on cue the president’s wife walked in looking pale, the night’s terror still clearly in her eyes. Unlike her husband, she had not bothered to change. She swept over to Robie and took his hand in hers.

  “Thank you, Agent Robie. Neither of us will ever be able to repay the debt we owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything, ma’am. I wish you both the best.”

  A minute later Robie was walking fast down the hall. It was as though he couldn’t breathe in here, like he was submerged in water.

  He had reached the front entrance lobby before Blue Man caught up with him, showing a speed Robie would not have expected.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Somewhere other than here,” replied Robie.

  “Well, at least it’s over,” said Blue Man.

  “You think it is?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “It’s not over,” said Robie. “In fact, in some ways it’s just beginning.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’ll be in my next report.”

  “The crown prince would also like to thank you.”

  “Send him my regrets.”

  “But he’s waiting expressly to talk to you.”

  “I’m sure. Tell him to email me.”

  “Robie!”

  Robie walked out the front door of the White House and kept going.

  It isn’t over yet.

  CHAPTER

  96

  IT WAS STILL early in the morning.

  Robie was in the other apartment. He stared through the telescope to where Annie Lambert had lived. The place would be swarming soon with federal personnel. They would go through every inch of her life. They would find out why she had tried to kill the president. They would discover why she was doing the bidding of a fanatic from the desert world who possessed limitless petrodollars.

  Robie thought about what she had told him of her past.

  She was adopted. An only child. Parents lived in England. But were they English? What had her upbringing been like?

  Again the words of the Palestinian came back to him: We own that person. Decades in the making.

  Did they own you, Annie Lambert?

  Were you decades in the making?

  And now you’re dead. On a metal slab a few miles from here. Dead from my round fired into your head.

  And I slept with her right across the street. I had drinks with her. I liked her. I felt sorry for her. I could have maybe come to love her.

  Robie knew that Annie Lambert living in the same building as he did was not a coincidence.

  This is still about me. She came to live there because of me.

  Prince Talal wants his revenge. He wanted to mess with my mind, screw my life every way he could. And he’ll want it even more since I destroyed his plan.

  The phone rang.

  He looked at the screen.

  It was Nicole Vance’s cell phone.

  He hit the answer button.

  He knew what was coming.

  “Hello?”

  “The package will be delivered to your door in thirty seconds.”

  “Okay,” said Robie evenly.

  “You will do what it says to do.”

  “I hear you.”

  “You will follow the instructions completely.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The connection went dead.

  He put the phone away.

  Blue Man had already told him, although Robie had figured it out previously.

  Vance and Julie had never made it to the WFO.

  They had been taken. This was Talal’s fail-safe. All the really good ones had such a plan.

  He counted off the seconds in his head. At thirty the manila envelope was slid under his door. He did not rush to it. He would not attempt to capture the messenger. That person would be able to tell him nothing.

  He walked slowly to the door, bent down, and picked up the envelope.

  He fingered open the clasp and took out the pages.

  The first ten were glossy photos.

  Him having drinks with Annie Lambert.

  Him being kissed by Annie Lambert outside the White House.

  Finally, him having sex with Annie Lambert in her bed. He wondered briefly where the camera had been placed for that shot.

  Robie dropped the photos on the coffee table and looked at the other pages.

>   He sifted through them. There was nothing surprising here. He had anticipated most if not all of it.

  It is still very much about me.

  And Talal wants me. He wants me back where it all started.

  The offer was crystal clear.

  Him for Julie and Vance.

  He considered it a fair trade. If Talal could be trusted. Which he could not, of course.

  Yet Robie would still have to accept it. There was one advantage. This would render unnecessary the need for him to search the world hunting for Talal. The prince was summoning him right to where he would be.

  Robie had already killed the double. He doubted that Talal had another one in reserve. And as much as Talal wanted to end his life, Robie wanted to end Talal’s life even more.

  Using Annie Lambert as a vicious tool, Talal had taken something from Robie, something precious, perhaps even inviolate.

  He’s taken away my ability to ever really trust myself again.

  He took the photos over to where the light was better and looked at them again, one by one. Annie Lambert looked like what she might have been under vastly different circumstances: a beautiful woman with a bright future ahead of her. A nice person, wanting to do some good in the world.

  She had not been born a killer. She had been raised to become one. An extraordinary one because he had never once suspected, until he had seen those swollen pupils.

  I was not born to be a killer either, thought Robie. But I am one now.

  He pulled out a Zippo from a drawer, carried the photos into the kitchen, and burned them to blackness in the kitchen sink. He ran water over them, let the smoke rise up and wash over his face. He watched as Annie Lambert disintegrated into the bowels of his sink. Then he rinsed the residue down the drain.

  Annie Lambert vanished.

  Like she had never even existed.

  And the Annie Lambert he thought he knew never had.

  Robie left the kitchen and started to pack.

  The instructions had been explicit. He intended to follow them. At least most of them. For certain key elements he intended to create his own rules.

  He assumed that Talal would expect this.

  He had beaten Robie in Morocco.

  Robie had bested him in Washington.

  The next two days would determine who would be the winner of the third and final round.

  CHAPTER

  97

  THE COSTA DEL SOL was not as warm as the last time Robie had been here. The wind was chilly. The sky was gray. And there was rain in the forecast.

  The ride over in the high-speed ferry was rough, the big boat pitching and swaying until it got fully up to speed. Yet even then the twin hulls of the catamaran were beaten by the heavy waves.

  Robie wore a leather jacket, dungarees, and combat boots. If he was going into combat he needed the appropriate footwear, he figured. He had no weapons on him. As always, he had to trust that what he needed would be waiting for him. He sat in a seat next to one of the windows and watched the seagulls fighting the swirls of wind over the choppy water. The gray Med lashed up at the hull of the ferry and spray battered the windows. Robie did not flinch when this happened, as did other passengers around him.

  He didn’t react to things that could not hurt him.

  Because of the rough water the crossing took longer than normal. When they pulled into Tangier the sky was growing dark. Robie clambered down the walkway of the ferry and joined the crowd making their way to transportation into town.

  Unlike last time, Robie boarded one of the tour buses along with a group of other passengers. When the bus was three-quarters full the doors hissed closed and the driver swung the bus onto the road leading away from the port. Robie looked back once at the ferry and wondered if he would be alive to take it back across the strait.

  Right now, he wouldn’t bet on it.

  The bus ride took about twenty minutes, and by the time it stopped and the doors hissed open again, the rain had begun to fall. While the tour guide took charge of the group, Robie walked off in the opposite direction. His destination had been planned well in advance. There was supposed to be someone waiting for him.

  There was.

  The man was young, but his features carried the weariness of someone much older. He wore a white robe and a turban and had a jagged scar down the right side of his neck.

  It was from a knife, Robie knew. He had a scar too, but on his arm. Knife wounds never healed properly. Serrated blades ravaged the skin too much, tearing up the edges of the flesh so badly that even a gifted plastic surgeon couldn’t fix it completely.

  “Robie?” the young man said.

  Robie nodded.

  “You come here to die,” said the man matter-of-factly.

  “Or something,” replied Robie.

  “This way,” he said.

  Robie went that way. They entered an alley where there was a van.

  There were five men in the van. They were all larger men than Robie and looked just as fit and strong as he was. Two wore robes, three didn’t. They were armed.

  Two men searched Robie in every possible way that one could search another.

  “You came without weapons,” said the young man in an incredulous tone.

  “What would have been the point?” replied Robie.

  “I thought you would go down fighting,” said the young man.

  Robie didn’t answer him.

  He was hustled into the van and driven back out of the city.

  The rain was falling harder. Robie did not mind the rain. What he did mind was wind, but that had fallen away. The drops fell straight down. But they fell fast. The storm was moving quickly, he thought.

  The van kept going,

  About thirty minutes later it stopped and passed through a security checkpoint.

  It was not the same private airport. That would have been too easy.

  The doors to the hangar opened and the van drove straight in.