The Hit (2013)

by David Baldacci

  Robie let his finger slide past the trigger guard and close in on the trigger. Reel noted this and stopped moving. They both knew he was close to the point of no return.

  Gwen hovered in the background looking tense, her gaze focused on Reel.

  Robie said, “DiCarlo? She made it clear to me that the situation was not normal.” Robie gestured over his shoulder to the table. “White Rose? Resistance group in World War II. Fought against what they considered the traitorous Nazis.”

  “I was afraid they’d police the roses I left.”

  “They did, only they missed a couple of petals. Probably the only reason they left the book in your locker for me to look at. They didn’t think I’d have any evidence of the flower.”

  “Good to know they make mistakes.”

  “My problem, though, is that maybe you’re the traitor and all this is a smokescreen.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  “Jess!” snapped Gwen. “You know that’s not true.”

  Robie let his gaze flicker over the old woman. He had already noted she was fully dressed, though the hour was very late.

  This was all planned.

  Robie asked Gwen, “Who exactly are you?”

  Gwen looked at Reel but said nothing. Reel slowly turned to look at her. Robie thought he saw her smile, though it was hard to tell in the poor light.

  Reel said, “An old friend of mine. A very old friend. Family, actually.”

  “I didn’t think you had any. Your mom’s dead. You old man’s in prison for life.”

  “Gwen was the only decent foster parent I had.”

  “When they took you away...” Gwen began, but her voice faltered.

  “If you were a good foster parent, why was she taken away?”

  Reel answered, “There is no logic in foster care. What happens happens.”

  “Okay, but that doesn’t explain why she’s here.”

  Reel said, “I bought this place four years ago. Under an alias, of course. I brought Gwen up to run it.”

  “You own the motor court?” said Robie in surprise.

  “I had to put my money somewhere. And while I wasn’t that concerned about turning a profit, I did want a place where I could get away.”

  “Literally get away?” said Robie.

  She glanced past him to the photos on the table. “Aren’t you going to ask me about them?”

  “I thought I already did. I don’t remember hearing an answer other than they were traitors but you had no proof.”

  “I walked in here with no weapon. What does that tell you?”

  “That you want to talk, so talk. I especially want to hear about the apocalypse.”

  “It’s a very long story.”

  “My calendar is clear for the rest of the year.”

  “Can you lower your weapon?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She held out her hands. “You can cuff me if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “Tell me what you need to tell me. Explain to me why you put a bullet in Doug Jacobs when you were supposed to be planting a round between the eyes of a man who has sworn to destroy our country. Tell me why Jim Gelder had to die. And tell me why you killed an analyst turned militia freak. I’m really looking forward to the answers. It might save your life. Might,” he added.

  “I told you, I didn’t kill Roy West. He tried to kill me and I defended myself. He died from shrapnel wounds when his house blew up.”

  “Why go out there at all?”

  “He had something I needed.”

  “Yeah, you told me that in Arkansas. But what? You told me you’d already read the paper he’d written.”

  “Confirmation.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of which people had seen the paper.” Reel watched him expectantly. “You had figured that out. I can tell by your expression.”

  “You killed those people over think-tank bullshit?”

  “It wasn’t a think tank. And it wasn’t bullshit. At least to certain people it wasn’t. The paper was not widely circulated. But a few key people read it. People in a position to make the plan contained in the paper a reality. And if that happens, Robie . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  He was just about to ask what specifically the paper said when they both heard it.

  People were coming.

  Not deer. Not squirrels. Not bears.

  People. For it was only people who moved with stealth like that. And both Reel and Robie recognized the movements.

  Reel snapped her head around at Robie. The accusation in her face was clear. “I didn’t expect this of you, Robie. You led them right here.”

  In answer Robie reached behind his back, slid his spare gun out of its holster, and tossed it to her. She caught it, racked the slide, and held it loosely in her hand.

  Now it was Reel’s turn to look surprised.

  “They’re not with me,” said Robie.

  “Then you were followed.”

  He turned off the lantern, plunging the cabin into darkness. “Looks that way. I just don’t know how. Is there another way out of here?”

  Reel said, “Yes, there is.”

  CHAPTER

  58

  REEL WENT TO THE CORNER of the room, shoved the table aside, knelt down, and lifted up a section of the floor, revealing a three-foot-square opening.

  “Where does that go?” asked Robie, who sounded chagrined that he hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Away from here.”

  She sat on her butt and dropped down into the hole. “Let’s go. They won’t be waiting out there long.”

  “Then let me persuade them they should exercise some caution,” said Robie.

  He moved to the window and fired five shots through it. He placed his rounds in a wide enough array that anyone approaching would be forced to take cover. Then he moved to the hole and dropped through. He stood up and motioned to Gwen. “Come on.”

  Gwen shook her head. “I’ll just slow you down.”

  Reel stood next to Robie. “Gwen, you’re not staying behind.”

  “I’m old and just worn out, Jess.”

  “This is not open for discussion. Come on.”

  Gwen slipped a revolver from the front pocket of her dress and pointed it at Reel. “You’re right. This is not open for discussion, Jess. Go.”

  Reel looked at her in disbelief.

  Robie pulled on her arm. “Not much time.”

  They heard footsteps approaching from all sides.

  “Go!” snapped Gwen. “I didn’t raise you to die like this. You’re going to go and finish this, Jess. Now.”

  Robie slung his bag over his shoulder, pulled Reel down into the hole, and then moved the piece of flooring back into place. Gwen scuttled over and repositioned the table back over the opening. Then she turned to the door to face what was coming.

  Robie and Reel had to crawl on their bellies. At one point in the tunnel there was a large knapsack. Reel snagged it, slung it over her shoulder, and kept crawling.

  “Where does it come out?” asked Robie.

  “In the woods,” she whispered. Her voice was strained.

  Robie knew where her mind was. On Gwen. On what was about to happen to her. But maybe they wouldn’t hurt the old woman.

  The gunshots they both heard moments later settled that question. Barely inches behind her in the tunnel, Robie ran up the backs of Reel’s legs as she stopped at the sound.

  They just lay there for several seconds. Robie could hear Reel breathing fast.

  “You okay?” he finally asked.

  “Let’s go,” she said in a husky voice, and she started crawling again.

  What they heard thirty seconds later made them accelerate their movements. Other people had dropped into the tunnel. Robie and Reel whipped their bodies back and forth, performing a hyper-speed version of the Army crawl.

  A minute later Reel stood, pushed against something, and then her legs disappeared from sight. Robie scrambled up after her,
gained purchase on the dirt, and looked around.

  They were in the middle of the forest.

  The cover for the tunnel had been well designed: a fabricated tree stump made of lightweight materials.

  Reel unzipped her bag, slipped out a grenade, counted to five, pulled the pin, bent down, and tossed it as far down the tunnel as she could.

  Then they both ran for it, Reel in the lead because she knew where to go, Robie right behind. His gun was out and he was alternating between following Reel and covering their rear flank.

  The explosion wasn’t loud, but they could both hear it clearly.

  “That was for Gwen,” Robie heard Reel say as they raced through a barely discernible path between the trees.

  Up a he ad was an old shack. Reel headed right for it. She unlocked the door, darted inside, and a few moments later came out, rolling a dirt bike behind her.

  “I wasn’t expecting company. It’ll be a tight fit.”

  They could barely sit on the seat together. Reel drove and Robie clung to her. He was now carrying both bags over his shoulders. As they wound through the trees he was nearly thrown off several times, but just managed to maintain his seat.

  Twenty minutes later they finally hit asphalt after clearing a cleft in the trees and then a broad ditch that Reel simply jumped. They landed so hard that Robie thought he would leave his privates behind. But he gritted his teeth and clung to the woman. She rotated the throttle to maximum and roared off down the road.

  “Where to?” Robie shouted in her ear as the wind whipped them both.

  “Not here,” she yelled back.

  They drove for what seemed like hours, and finally ditched the bike behind an abandoned gas station on the outskirts of a small town. They walked into the town, which was made up of decrepit buildings and mom-and-pop stores.

  The sun was starting to rise. Robie looked over at Reel, now revealed in the coming dawn. She was dirty, disheveled. As was he.

  She looked straight ahead, the anger on her face almost painful to see.

  “I’m sorry about Gwen,” said Robie.

  Reel didn’t answer him.

  An Amtrak train station loomed ahead. It was just a tired-looking old brick building on a raised platform with a slender ribbon of track next to it. A few people were sitting on wooden benches waiting for their early morning ride to somewhere.

  Reel went inside and paid cash for two tickets. She came back out and handed one to Robie.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “Not here,” she said.

  “You keep saying that. But it doesn’t really tell me anything.”

  “I’m not prepared to have this discussion yet.”

  “Then get prepared as soon as this ride is over,” said Robie.

  He walked down the platform and leaned against the wall, looking in the direction from which they had come.

  How did they follow me? How did they know?

  There wasn’t anybody. I could swear there wasn’t anybody who could have known.

  In his pocket was his Glock. He gripped it with one hand. He had a strong feeling that things were not safe yet.

  He was still holding both the bag from the tunnel and his knapsack. He glanced over at Reel. She was just standing there next to the tracks.

  Robie assumed she was thinking about Gwen lying dead back there.

  Ten minutes later he heard the train coming. It came to a stop with a long screech of brakes and release of hydraulic pressure. He and Reel boarded the middle car.

  This was not the Acela bullet train. The car looked like it had been in service since Amtrak was created in the early seventies.

  They were the only passengers on this car. There was a single attendant, a sleepy-looking black man in a uniform that didn’t fit him very well. He yawned, took their tickets, stuck them to the back of their seats, and told them where the café car was located if they were hungry or thirsty.

  “The conductor will be along at some point to take your tickets,” he said. “Enjoy the ride.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” said Robie, while Reel just stared straight ahead.

  As the train rolled out of the station the attendant walked up the aisle and disappeared into the next car, probably to make his spiel to the few passengers there.

  Robie and Reel settled down in their seats, he at the window, she at the aisle. Robie had put both bags at his feet.

  Minutes passed and he said, “So where are we going?”

  “I’ve booked us through to Philly, but we can get off at any stop in between.”

  “What’s in your bag besides grenades?”

  “Things we might need.”

  “Who was the old guy in the photo with you?”

  “Friend of a friend.”

  “Why not the friend?”

  She glanced at him in mild reproach. “Too easy. If I’d done that, do you think they would have left the photo for you to see? They’re an intelligence agency, Robie, so you have to assume they have some degree of it to exercise.”

  “So the friend?”

  “Give me a few minutes. I’m trying to deal with the loss of another friend, maybe my last one.”

  Robie was about to push her, but then something told him not to.

  The loss of a friend. I can relate to that.

  “Did you dig that tunnel?”

  She shook her head. “It was already there. Maybe bootleggers. Maybe some criminal owned it and that was his escape hatch. When I bought the place and found it I made Cabin 17 my hideaway for that very reason.”

  “Good thing you did.”

  She looked away. She obviously didn’t want to talk anymore.

  “You want something to eat or drink?” he asked a few minutes later as the train started to slow. They were probably approaching another podunk station where a few more sleepy people would climb aboard.

  “Coffee, nothing to eat,” she said curtly, still not looking at him.

  “I’ll get some stuff, just in case you change your mind.”

  He walked up the aisle and kept going until he reached the café car. There was one person ahead of him, a woman dressed in a jean skirt, boots, and a tattered coat. She gathered up her coffee, pastries, and a bag of chips and headed on her way. She stumbled as the train slid into the station and stopped.

  Robie helped right her and then stepped up to the counter. The uniformed man behind it was about sixty with a full gray beard and small narrow eyes behind thick glasses.

  “What can I get you, sir?” he asked Robie.

  Robie looked at the offerings on the menu board behind the counter. “Two coffees, two muffins, and three packs of peanuts.”

  “Just brewing a fresh pot. Coming up.”

  “No hurry.” Robie turned and looked out the window. This station looked even smaller than the one at which they had boarded. He couldn’t even see the name of the place, although he assumed it had to be posted somewhere.

  The next moment he forgot about that.

  At the far side of the station, its bumper hanging out just far enough that he could see it, was a black Range Rover.

  Robie looked at the few passengers getting on. One was an old woman carrying her belongings in a pillowcase.

  Another was a teenage girl with a battered suitcase.

  The last passenger was a black man in his forties. He was dressed in not overly clean bib overalls and falling-apart work boots, and he had a dirty knapsack slung over one shoulder.

  Robie did not like to stereotype, but none of the new passengers looked like patrons of the Range Rover brand.

  When the man behind the counter turned to him with two fresh cups of coffee, Robie was gone.

  CHAPTER

  59

  GUN OUT, Robie reentered the train car. He looked down the aisle. Reel was still in her seat, but she looked stiff, unnatural.

  Robie looked around. He saw no obvious breach points.

  He looked back at Reel, squatted low, and moved forward, prepared to fi
re in an instant. He cleared each row of seats until he got to Reel and looked up at her.

  Only it wasn’t her.

  It was a man.

  With his throat cut.

  Robie glanced down. Her bag was gone.

  Where was Reel?

  A voice called out softly, “Robie, over here.”

  He glanced up. Reel was at the rear of the train car.

  “We have company,” she said.

  “Yeah, that one I’d figured out,” replied Robie. “Where did he come from?” he asked, gesturing to the dead man.

  “Rear door. Advance guard, I guess.”

  “They should have sent more guards,” noted Robie.

  “He was tough to kill. Very well trained.”

  “I’m sure.” Robie looked around. “The train’s not moving. Station’s not that big. All passengers should have gotten on by now.”

  “You think they’ve commandeered the train?”

  “Wouldn’t bet against it. They’ll do a car-by-car search.”

  “The dead guy was trying to call in that he’d spotted me. But he never made it.” She looked around. “Got a plan?”

  Before Robie could answer the train started to move.

  “What do you think that’s about?” asked Reel.

  “Too many questions in the station, maybe. They want to be rolling through the country when they hit us.”

  “Toss us out on the fly?”

  “After they make sure we’re dead.”

  “So, again, got a plan?”

  Robie looked behind him. The attendant who had greeted them hadn’t come back. He might be dead too.

  Robie raced up the aisle to a small storage closet located at one end of the car and grabbed a large metal bowl from inside it. He rushed into the small bathroom compartment, turned on the water, and filled up the bowl. Then he emptied half the bowl of water in front of each of the connecting doors into their train cars. He rubbed the slickened metal floor with his foot and came away satisfied.

  Then Robie looked at the dead man.

  Reel joined him and said, “He had no creds. No ID, nothing.”

  “Missing personnel, missing equipment.”

  “Is that what DiCarlo told you?” asked Reel.