Reel looked out from under the truck. The sunlight was in her eyes, but she slid a bit to the right and the glare vanished. She grabbed her binoculars from her pocket, clapped them to her eyes, and spun the focus lever.
She saw the muzzle of a sniper rifle. And not just any sniper rifle. She had one just like it. A customized job that only had a few patrons.
The gun fired once, twice, three times.
Reel looked back and saw three men drop to the dirt, dead.
She stared back up the ridge. The man was moving so fast and so low to the ground that he resembled a cougar going after prey.
Her jaw sagged. It was Will Robie.
She marveled at his ability to maneuver so fluidly through the rough terrain. Then she wondered why he was giving up the high ground.
She stopped wondering with what he did next.
He fired a round into the fuel tank of the second truck on her rear flank. He’d had to move to get a sight line on the tank. He must have been chambering incendiary rounds, because this truck exploded too. Three more men died and the survivors ran for it, disappearing down the road in full retreat.
Robie stopped, pivoted, and then rapid-fired with his sniper rifle at the remaining men on the forward flank.
Acquire a target and fire. Acquire a target and fire. It was like taking breaths, as natural and seamless as could be. Reel counted off each shot and with each round fired, a man fell. Robie never once missed. It was a man against children.
They took cover and fired back. But even though he was outgunned it was like Robie had the superior firepower. While the militia shot wildly, their adrenaline and fear making it unlikely they would hit anything, Robie aimed and fired with such calm efficiency that it was like he was playing a video game and could hit reset anytime he wanted.
After another minute of this slaughter the remaining militia on the forward flank were in full-scale retreat.
That left just the two of them.
Reel looked back at Robie. He stood on a small knoll staring down at her.
She came out from under the truck and held her pistol loosely at her side.
He had dropped his rifle. His Glock was in his right hand. He held it loosely too.
Reel looked at the burning carnage and the dead bodies and then back at Robie.
“Thanks.”
Robie took a few more steps forward and then stopped. He was nearly at level ground, sixty yards from her.
They both knew the same thing.
Twenty more yards of closure and their Glocks would easily be in kill range.
“You could have just let them kill me,” she said. “More than twenty to one, inevitable. Keep your hands clean.”
“Wasn’t on my option board.” Robie glanced at one of the dead men. “Who are they?”
“Militiamen. And not very capable ones.”
He nodded. “Did you kill Jacobs and Gelder?”
Reel drew a few yards closer and stopped. She glanced at Robie’s hands. They hadn’t moved. But it would only take a second for that to change and the Glock to fire.
“How did you know to come here?” she asked.
“Friend of a friend. Didn’t know if you’d be here or not. I was looking for West.”
“Why?”
“Because you were looking for him.”
Reel said nothing. She just stared at his gun hand.
“You don’t have to send any more cryptic texts, Jessica. I’m here. So tell me what the hell is going on.”
“It’s complicated, Will.”
“Then let’s start out simple. Did you kill them?”
Robie walked forward another five yards. They were now right on the cusp.
Neither of them was holding their Glocks loosely now. The muscles in their trigger hands were flexed tight. But the fingers were still on the trigger guards.
“You haven’t changed much, Will.”
“Apparently you have,” said Robie. “Roy West? Where is he? With the pile of bodies?”
She shook her head. “Not those piles. But he’s still dead.”
“You killed him too?”
“He did himself in. It’s dangerous to fill your house with explosives. Like living with rattlesnakes.”
“Why did you need to find West?”
“He had something I needed.”
“A document?” asked Robie.
Her face flashed concern. “How did you know about that?”
“Did you get it?”
“I already had the document and I’ve read it. I wanted more info, but I didn’t get it.”
“So all this was a waste?” he said.
They both glanced sideways. In the far distance a sound could be heard. Sirens. Even in the middle of nowhere explosions and gunfire drew the police eventually.
She looked back at him. “I know what you’ve been tasked to do,” she said.
“And I’m giving you a chance to explain.”
“So explanation before execution?”
“That depends solely on the explanation.”
The sirens were drawing closer. Each singsong screech burst the quiet like artillery rounds.
He added, “And we’re running out of time.”
“I’m not a traitor.”
“That’s good to know. Now prove it.”
“I don’t have proof. Not yet.”
Their fingers slipped near their respective triggers. They each took two steps forward. It was simultaneous but not choreographed. They were now squarely in their Glocks’ kill zones.
Robie frowned. “You’re going to have to do better than that. I’ve got a dead number two and another agency grunt on a slab. Under normal circumstances, that would be enough, so this is taking me out of my comfort zone. So talk to me. Now.”
The sirens sounded almost on top of them.
“Gelder and Jacobs were the traitors.”
“How?”
“They killed somebody. Somebody that meant a lot to me.”
“Why?” asked Robie.
“Because he was going to expose their plot.”
“Which was?”
The sirens were deafening now. It seemed like every cop in Arkansas had been called in.
“I don’t have time to explain now.”
“I’m not sure you have a choice, Jessica.”
“What does it matter? You have your orders, Will.”
“I don’t always follow them. Just like you.”
“You almost always follow them.”
“You sent me the texts. You said everything you did has a reason. I just had to open the lock. So tell me what you meant! But there are no guarantees, Jessica. None. Not even if your explanation makes sense. That’s just the way it has to be.”
They were no longer looking at each other. Their gazes were on each other’s hands. Hands with guns were what killed, while eyes were just points of deception; it was a lesson learned too late for the fool who stopped looking at the fingers.
“How do I know I can trust you?” she said. “Sending you texts is one thing. But it troubles me greatly that you were able to find me and this place so fast.” She glanced up at him, daring to take her gaze off his gun hand. “It makes me think you had help. Agency help. So it comes back down to, how do I know I can trust you?”
“You can’t know that, not for sure. Just like I don’t know if I can trust you.”
“I’m not sure that gets us anywhere, Will.”
He saw her gun hand tighten just a bit.
“It doesn’t have to go down like this, Jessica.”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you? But it probably will go down just like this.”
“Roy West was an analyst who got canned. What’s so important about him?” There was more urgency in Robie’s voice, because the sirens were growing so close that he was afraid they would have to engage in a gun battle with the cops just to escape. “And talk fast.”
She said, “He’s a bad guy but a good writer.”
“What exactly did he write? The document?”
“The apocalypse,” she replied.
They could now hear the screech of tires in addition to the sirens.
“The apocalypse? Explain that.”
“Not enough time, Will. You’ll just have to trust me.”
“That’s asking a lot. Too much.”
“I didn’t ask for your help.”
“Then why the texts?”
She started to say something but then stopped. “I guess I didn’t want you to think I’d gone bad.” She paused, but only for a second. “I’m sorry, Will.”
Before he could answer Reel fired. Not at Robie, but at one of the militiamen, who wasn’t quite dead yet and was set to shoot at them. He dropped back to the ground for good with one of her rounds in his head.
When Reel turned back Robie had his pistol aimed at her head, with both hands wrapped around the Glock’s butt. His finger hovered over the trigger. She had no chance now. Her pistol dangled uselessly at her side.
The sirens were screaming in their ears now.
“Close your eyes, Jessica.”
“I’d prefer to keep them open.”
“I said close your eyes. I won’t ask again.”
Reel slowly closed her eyes. She braced herself for the impact of the round. Robie would only need one shot. She could count on him for that. Her death would be instant. But she still wondered how it would feel.
Seconds went by but there was no shot.
She finally opened her eyes.
Will Robie was gone.
CHAPTER
43
REEL JUMPED INTO HER TRUCK, gunned the engine, and made her way back to the main road on a route that took her away from the sirens and screeches.
She finally hit firm asphalt, slammed down the gas pedal, and the Ford hurtled down the road. She was twenty miles away and could no longer see the smoke plume above the tree line before she slowed the vehicle to under eighty.
She pulled off the road, disassembled her weapons, stowed them away in her bag, and drove back toward the airport. Along the way she slipped into a car wash and got most of the dirt off the Ford, although there were some scratches and dents that hadn’t been there before. She drove on and reached the airport.
When she turned the rental back in the attendant didn’t even look at the vehicle. He noted her gas and mileage and printed out her receipt.
“Fast trip,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Hope you enjoyed your time here. We’re known for our slower pace and peace and quiet.”
“Better rethink that,” said Reel as she walked toward the bus that would take her to the terminal.
She changed back into her old woman’s disguise in the restroom and boarded the next flight east.
When they were wheels up and the sun was burning down into the horizon, Reel put her seat back, closed her eyes, and thought about what she had learned.
Someone with top-top-secret clearance, at least three levels above Roy West, had read that white paper.
That was two years ago. The level and clearances could have changed. In fact, they most certainly had changed. The person would be higher-placed now. That was both instructive and problematic.
Had it been Gelder? Two years ago he would have been easily at least three levels above someone like Roy West, if not more.
But that was assuming West had told her the truth. She had no way to verify that there even was someone with the code name Roger the Dodger.
But she knew the white paper existed. She knew the plan set forth in that paper was being executed. She knew some of the people who were trying to execute it.
She had killed two of them and tried to kill a third.
But I don’t know all of them.
And if she didn’t know all of them there was no way she could truly stop it.
She looked out the window.
An hour later, as they flew east, it was dark. And in that vast blackness all Reel could see was hopelessness.
She had gone all that way, nearly been killed, and really had nothing to show for it. But she did, actually. She turned her mind to what was really important about this trip.
It was the man.
She still couldn’t quite comprehend what had happened out there. The killing that had taken place was, for her, routine. Dead bodies, explosions, devastation. That was her world. But this was something different.
She closed her eyes and the image of Will Robie instantly appeared. He was pointing his gun at her head. He was telling her to close her eyes so he wouldn’t have to face her for the kill shot.
But he hadn’t fired. He had let her live.
He had let her escape.
She had been surprised by this. No, she had been stunned by this.
Exactly what she had been surprised by was an emotion she had never encountered in her work.
Mercy.
Will Robie, the most accomplished assassin of his generation, had shown her mercy.
When she had seen Robie killing her enemy for her, Reel had thought it just possible that he would become her ally. That they would finish this together. That had been a ludicrous thought. This was her fight. Not his.
And yet he had let her live. And escape.
His mission would have been complete. The agency would have lauded his performance. Maybe he would have been promoted out of fieldwork, or been given extensive time off. He would have bagged their number one problem, in record time.
And he had just let her walk away.
She had always admired Will Robie. He was the calm, cool professional who did his work and never talked about a single triumph. And yet she saw an infinite sadness in the man, which she could never quite get her arms around. She saw that very same emotional state in herself.
They were a lot alike, she and Robie.
And he had let her live.
Killers didn’t do that. Killers never did that. Reel wasn’t sure, if the positions were reversed, that she would have let Robie walk away.
I probably would have shot him.
And maybe she had lied to Robie. About not wanting his help. She actually did want his assistance, because it had finally struck her that she couldn’t possibly accomplish this alone. So she had failed.
And now something happened that had not happened to Jessica Reel since she was a young girl.
Tears slid from her eyes and down her cheeks.
She closed her eyes again. And didn’t open them until the plane touched down.
When she did open them, she still couldn’t see anything very clearly.
CHAPTER
44
TWO HUNDRED MILES. Robie drove this distance without stopping. He headed directly east, which was the direction he needed to go. But finally, even his iron will broke down and he had to stop because he could no longer see the road.
He checked into a motel right off the highway, paid for his room in cash, and slept for eighteen straight hours to make up for a week of barely being able to sleep at all.
It was the heaviest sleep he’d had in years.
When he woke it was fully dark again. He had lost nearly a day of his life.
But he could have easily lost his life a day earlier.
He found a diner and ravenously ate two meals in one. He couldn’t seem to get enough to eat or drink. When he set his coffee cup down for the last time and rose from the table he felt his energy returning.
He sat in his truck in the parking lot, staring at the dashboard.
He’d had Reel lined up in his gunsight. One trigger pull and it would have been over. Reel dead. His mission accomplished. All worries gone.
His finger had actually slipped to the trigger. Every other time in his entire professional life when his finger had gone to that point he had fired.
Every single time.
Except that time.
Jessica Reel.
He had ordered her to close her eyes. When he had done so Robie was fully comm
itted to making the kill shot.
And walking away.
To let someone else figure this whole thing out. He was just the triggerman. All he had to do was pull the damn trigger.
And I didn’t.
Once before in his life he had failed to make the shot. It had turned out to be the right decision.
Robie didn’t know if that would be so in this case.
Reel looked different. Not totally, just subtly. But that was enough. Most people were terrible observers. And even those good at observing were not very adept at it. Reel had done just enough to beat the odds that someone would spot her. Not too much. Not too little. Just enough.
Robie would have done the same thing in her position.
And by not pulling the trigger maybe I am in her position now.
He drove back to the motel, went to his room, stripped down, and stood in the shower, letting the water wash off the grit he felt over every part of his body.
But the water couldn’t get to his brain, where it felt like muck a foot deep had gathered, dulling his senses, obstructing his ability to think clearly.
He dried off and dressed. He leaned against the wall and slammed both hands into it so hard he felt the drywall crack. He dropped fifty bucks on the bed to repair the wall and grabbed his bag.
He had a long drive ahead of him. He had better get to it.
He switched on the radio when he reached the interstate highway. The news was full of it. A massacre on a lonely ridge in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas. No one was talking, but apparently rival militias had had a go at each other. A cabin had been blown up. Trucks too. Men lay dead.
One of them was identified as Roy West, a former intelligence analyst in D.C. When and why he had headed to Arkansas and taken up his new life of guns and bombs was as yet unknown. There were intimations that folks from D.C. were heading to the site now to begin an investigation.
Robie looked up, almost expecting to see a government jet fly over en route to the crime scene.
As the news went off in other directions, Robie thought more about what Reel had told him.
West had written the apocalypse. What exactly did that mean?
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