The Hit (2013)

by David Baldacci

  He stopped near a tree. It was far away from the crime scene, so the police had not gotten to it yet, but they would.

  He eyed the lowest branch, looking for any recent marks where a gun barrel had been laid. He saw none, but that meant nothing. He next examined the little dirt patch the tree was set in and the sidewalk around it.

  Blue Man had said there were no witnesses. Well, actually there were three: the two security agents and the kid. But the guards had seen nothing. Didn’t even know really from precisely which direction the shot had come. The kid would be of no help because he would know nothing.

  Robie did a sight line to the car window. A fine shot on a diagonal line between two stationary objects at distance.

  At night.

  In less than ideal conditions.

  The margin of error he calculated to be nonexistent.

  She had to have used a scope and a hybrid weapon, something between a pistol and a rifle. This was not the Eastern Shore, after all. There were potential witnesses everywhere. Pulling out a long-barreled rifle was problematic at best.

  She’d gotten the shot off and then was gone. Like smoke. That didn’t just happen. You had to make it happen.

  His gaze went to the bushes surrounding the tree, and he saw it on his second pass. He knelt down and picked it up. It was white, falling apart. He put it to his nose. It had a scent.

  His mind went back to the town house where the kill shot on Jacobs had come from. Same thing.

  He put it in his pocket. It was the only clue he could see and he was not going to leave it for the police to find. They were not his ally in this.

  He looked around. There were four directions on the compass, and they translated into thousands of potential escape routes for Reel to take.

  His phone buzzed again.

  He hoped it was Blue Man, maybe to finally tell Robie why he was acting so funny.

  Only it wasn’t Blue Man.

  It was Jessica Reel.

  CHAPTER

  16

  NOTHING PERSONAL.

  Robie stared at the two words on the tiny screen. Then he stared even harder when the next words appeared:

  Part of me is glad you made it.

  Without really thinking, he thumbed a response:

  Which part?

  She didn’t answer the question, but her next text was even more surprising:

  When things look simple they’re usually not. Right and wrong, good and bad are in the eyes of the definer. Understand the agenda, Will. And watch your back.

  His phone buzzed again. He knew it would. It wasn’t another text from Reel. It was a phone call.

  He answered. “Robie.”

  “You need to come in. Now.”

  “Who is this?”

  “The office of Director Evan Tucker.”

  Okay, thought Robie. They had seen the texts from Reel, because they’d been monitoring his phone ever since she emailed him the first time. He’s the number one at the agency and is obviously feeling a little stressed out. Can’t blame him there.

  “Where? Langley?”

  “The director is at home. He will meet you there.”

  Five minutes later Robie was in his car and heading to Great Falls, Virginia. The roads were narrow and winding, but in this heavily wooded, rural-looking suburb lived some of the richest, most powerful people in the country.

  Director Tucker lived at the end of a cul-de-sac. There was a concrete barricade set up fifty feet before the home and spanning the entire road, interrupted only by a lift gate in the center that allowed vehicles to pass in single file. Tucker lived in a substantial brick-and-siding center-hall colonial with a cedar shake roof set on a total of five acres with a pool and tennis court and about two acres of woods.

  Robie pulled his car to a stop at the improvised guard shack set up at the barricade. He and his car were searched and his appointment verified. He had to leave his car and walk the rest of the way.

  He eyed one of the grim-faced agents. “I’m very partial to that Audi. Make sure it’s here when I get back.”

  The man didn’t even crack a smile.

  They had taken Robie’s gun, which was not unexpected. Still, he felt naked as he made his way up the sidewalk to the front door.

  Other guards were there. He was searched once more, as though he could have somehow acquired a weapon in the preceding fifty feet. The door was opened and he was escorted inside.

  It was still fairly early but he figured the DCI had been up ever since his second in command had gone down with a single round to the forehead.

  It would have made Robie sleepless too.

  The paneled library he was led into was filled with books that looked like they had actually been read. A rectangular-shaped rug partially covered the plank floor. There was a desk at one end with a banker’s lamp turned on. A chair was positioned in front of the desk.

  Behind the desk sat Evan Tucker. He was in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, and dark slacks. His overly starched collar was undone, and there was a cup of coffee perched on the desk within easy reach.

  He motioned Robie to the chair and said, “Coffee?”

  “Thanks.”

  The escort disappeared, presumably to fulfill this request. In the meantime Robie sat back and took in the man who led his agency.

  He looked older than his fifty-four years. His hair was all gray, his waist was thick, and his hands were dotted with age spots. But it was the face that really told the story: lined, jowly, with eyes that were ensnared in deep pockets of flesh. They looked like miniature sinkholes swallowing the man whole. The lips were narrow and cracked. The teeth behind were yellowed and irregular in shape. He made no attempt to conceal them. But then again, Robie figured Evan Tucker had very little reason to smile in his job.

  The coffee came and the aide departed, closing the door behind him.

  Tucker pushed a button hidden in the kneehole of his desk and Robie heard a sudden hum of power. He looked at the windows as thick panels slid across them. He looked at the door as the same thing happened there.

  It was all very James Bond–like, but it had a legitimate and tangible purpose. The room had just been turned into a SCIF, or sensitive compartmented information facility. Obviously, what Robie was about to hear was considered to be intelligence residing at the very highest levels of the clandestine community.

  Tucker sat back in his chair and continued to look at Robie. “She’s been communicating with you,” he said. The tone was slightly accusatory. “Sending you these stupid messages. Like it’s some sort of game. And telling you she doesn’t really want to blow your head off. It’s all bullshit, I trust you know that.”

  Robie didn’t flinch. He never flinched. It took your mind off the game. “I know it. But there’s also nothing I can do about that. Your people say they can’t track her.”

  “They tell me she’s using encryption levels above the NSA’s standard platform. She’s obviously planned this out well.”

  “But if she keeps texting me, it gives us some information. And she might make a mistake. In fact, I think she’s already made a mistake by communicating with me.”

  “She’s playing head games with you, Robie. She’s really good at that. I’ve seen the reports on her. She’s a manipulator. She can get people to do things by worming her way into their confidence.”

  “She tried to burn me alive. Funny way to gain my confidence.”

  “But then she tells you she’s sorry? No harm, no foul? And telling you to watch your back? Right and wrong? She’s doing her best to flip this whole thing to where she comes out innocent and misjudged. Makes me sick to my stomach.”

  “She can say whatever she wants to. It doesn’t change my task, does it?” Robie took a sip of his coffee and then put it back down.

  Tucker kept looking at Robie like he was trying to discern the slightest uncertainty in his words. “Gelder was a good man. So was Doug Jacobs.”

  “So you knew Jacobs too?” asked R
obie.

  “No, but he certainly didn’t deserve to be shot in the back by a traitor.”

  “Right,” said Robie.

  “You do what she does, Robie,” said Tucker. “Walk me into her mind.”

  Robie didn’t answer right away, because he wasn’t exactly sure what the man was asking. “I can tell you technically how she would approach her tasks. I can’t tell you why she’s turned traitor. I don’t know enough about her yet. I was just assigned this.”

  “She’s not letting the grass grow under her feet. You can’t either.”

  “I’ve been to the scene of both shootings.”

  “And almost run into an FBI agent in charge of the investigation. You later had dinner with the woman. Is there a conflict there that you’re not seeing?”

  “I didn’t volunteer for this mission, sir. And I had no way to control who was assigned by the FBI to investigate.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve also been to Reel’s cottage on the Eastern Shore.”

  Tucker nodded. “And almost gotten burned to death for your trouble. I’ve watched the SAT footage. I think you need to elevate your game, Robie. Or else she’s going to kill you too. You come highly recommended. But we don’t need to find out down the road that she’s better than you are.”

  Robie coolly appraised the man sitting behind his desk in his fine house with his guards and barricades all around. Robie knew about Tucker. He’d been a politician, then came over to the intel side. He’d never been a field agent. Never worn the uniform. Like Jacobs he was never there. He got to watch long-distance on SAT screens as others died violently.

  Robie knew that drone technology ended up saving lives because you didn’t need to send in an entire team and put them in harm’s way. It was only the target at risk of dying. But sometimes computers and satellites and drones weren’t enough. That’s when Robie got called up. And he did his job. What bugged him was the desk grunts thinking that what they did was exactly what he did. It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

  “You think I’m being unfair?” said Tucker in a patronizing tone.

  “The issue of fairness has nothing to do with what I do,” replied Robie.

  “That’s good to hear. It saves us time.”

  Robie looked around. “Since we’re in a SCIF, sir, perhaps you can give me your opinion of why this is happening.”

  “Reel has turned. Someone turned her.”

  “Who do you think that is? The agency must have some idea.”

  “You have info on her last four missions. They took place over the better part of a year. I would say the answer would lie there.”

  “Might the answer lie with the man she didn’t kill?”

  “Ferat Ahmadi, you mean?”

  Robie nodded. “Sometimes the simplest answers are the right ones.”

  “That explains Jacobs. It doesn’t explain Gelder.”

  “Let’s explore that. Did Gelder have a role in the hit on Ahmadi?”

  Tucker looked around, his expression saying the SCIF wall suddenly wasn’t sturdy enough to contain the weight of this conversation.

  Robie said, “If you don’t think I’m cleared for it, we can discontinue the discussion.”

  “It would be quite stupid to bring you into this and not think you’re cleared for it.”

  “So did Gelder have a role?”

  “To my knowledge—” began Tucker, but Robie held up a hand like a cop directing traffic, which was actually what he felt like right now.

  “With all due respect, sir, prefaces like that do me no good. You’re not testifying on the Hill. I need a complete answer or none at all.”

  “Gelder headed up the clandestine operations, but he had no direct involvement in the Ahmadi mission,” said Tucker as he sat up straighter and seemed to look at Robie in a new light.

  “So if we discount Ahmadi, where else do we look? We need some connecting dots between Jacobs and Gelder.”

  “Has it occurred to you that Reel might just be targeting individuals at the agency based on some paranoid template in her own mind? She was working with Jacobs. She could set him up easily. He’s dead. Gelder is the number two man. She takes him down and it does catastrophic damage to the agency and helps our enemies. There could be no more rhyme or reason to it than that.”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Why not?” Tucker said sharply.

  “Anybody could do that. Reel isn’t just anybody.”

  “I didn’t think you knew her that well. The file says you’ve had no contact with her for over a decade.”

  “That’s true. But the contact I did have with her was pretty intense. You get to know a person under conditions like that. It’s like you’ve known them your whole life.”

  “People change, Robie.”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “So what exactly is your point?”

  “She has a plan. And the plan is of her own making.”

  “And you’re basing that on what? Your gut?”

  “If she were working for someone else, she would not be communicating with me. The standard rules of engagement preclude that. Her employers would be monitoring that, just as you are monitoring my communications. She wouldn’t risk that. I think this is personal.”

  “She could be playing you. Taking you off your game. She’s an attractive woman. Her record indicates that she’s used all her assets to successfully complete her missions in the past. Don’t get sucked in.”

  “I’ve taken that into account, sir. Still doesn’t add up.”

  “Then if she has an agenda, what is it? We’re talking in circles.”

  “I have more homework to do. The connection between Gelder and Jacobs is where I’ll start.”

  “If there is one.”

  “A word of caution, sir.”

  Tucker looked at him. “I’m listening.”

  “Reel has gone from low-level to high in one step. She could be doing a zigzag route to throw us off.”

  “That presumes she has more targets.”

  “I don’t think there’s any doubt of that.”

  “I hope you’re wrong.”

  “I don’t think I am.”

  “And your word of caution?”

  “What if she decides to keep moving up the agency’s hierarchy?”

  “Then there’s only one slot left. Me.”

  “Right.”

  “I have security.”

  “So did Jim Gelder.”

  “My security is better.”

  “But so is Jessica Reel,” replied Robie.

  “Pretty damn ironic that this country gave her the skills she’s now using against us,” grumbled Tucker.

  “You gave her another set of skills, sir. The most important one she already had.”

  “And what skill was that?”

  “Nerve. Most people think they have it. Almost all of them are wrong.”

  “You have that skill too, Robie.”

  “And I’m going to need it now. Every bit I’ve got.”

  CHAPTER

  17

  THE DRIVE BACK TO HIS apartment took Robie only about thirty minutes at this time of the morning, but it felt like thirty hours.

  He had a lot on his mind.

  What he had said to Tucker and what Tucker had said back to him had commingled in his brain like a soupy mess. He really didn’t know what to make of the meeting with the DCI.

  The texts from Reel had convinced Robie that she was working alone. This was personal to the woman. You don’t miss your adversary and then say you’re half glad that was the case. It was clear, though, that she was trying to get inside his head. Her subtle references to right and wrong, advising him to watch his back, were classic manipulation techniques to make him doubt both his mission and his trust in the agency. She was good—there was no question about that.

  Robie and Reel had received the same level of training, come up through the same systems, the same ranks, had the same protocols grafted onto
their professional souls. But they were different. Robie would have never once thought of texting an opponent like that. He usually took the more direct route to his goal. Whether it was a gender thing or not he didn’t know and didn’t care. The differences were real, that’s what was important.

  It was possible Reel could have changed. But then it was also possible she was exactly who she had always been.

  He got back to his apartment building, parked in the underground garage, and rode the elevator up to his floor. He checked the hallway for anything unusual, then unlocked the door and punched in the disarming code on the security panel.

  He put on a pot of coffee, made a peanut butter and honey sandwich, and sat in the window seat of his living room. He drank the coffee, ate the sandwich, and studied the rain that had started to pour outside. It was surely fouling a rush hour into the city that was miserable in the sunshine, much less with slicked roads and buckets of water falling on windshields.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the tiny white object. It had disintegrated more in his pocket, but it was still there. He needed to find out exactly what it was. He had found it at both kill sites.

  Once could be a coincidence. Twice was a pattern.

  And if Reel had left this, there had to be a reason.

  He poured a second cup of coffee, sat at his desk, and clicked the keys on his laptop. Doug Jacobs’s life spread across his screen like blood on a test strip.

  It would have been an interesting life to the layman, but a rather ordinary one by Robie’s standards. Jacobs had been an analyst and then a handler. He had never fired a weapon on behalf of his country. Until his violent death he had never been wounded in his line of work.

  He had killed many—from a distance and using people like Robie to pull the actual trigger. There was nothing wrong with that. Men like Robie needed people like Jacobs to accomplish their missions as well.

  Jacobs had worked with Reel on five different occasions over three years. No problems, not even the slightest execution hiccup. All targets had been eliminated and Reel had come home safe to be deployed again.