The Hit (2013)

by David Baldacci

  Meenan was crying now. “I won’t say anything. I swear to God.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” said Robie.

  He glanced at Reel. “What do you think?”

  Meenan shrieked, “Don’t ask her! She’s crazy! She’s a traitor!”

  Reel looked at Robie. “Okay?”

  “Okay by me.”

  “No!” screamed Meenan.

  Reel dropped her muzzle to the base of Meenan’s neck and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER

  62

  ROBIE CARRIED MEENAN OVER HIS shoulder and down the steps into the bomb shelter. They were under the barn at his hideaway. At the far end of the underground shelter was a makeshift cell that Robie had constructed. It was easily strong enough to hold someone like Meenan.

  She was starting to come around after Reel had shot her in the neck with a tranquilizer dart.

  Robie lay Meenan down on a cot in the cell. Stacked against one wall were enough provisions to last the woman two weeks. Robie assumed that by then he would have worked things out or else died trying.

  He locked the cell door about the time that Meenan slowly sat up, rubbed her neck, and looked at him. “You didn’t let her kill me?”

  “We never had any intention of killing you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You may be corrupt, but you were defenseless.”

  ”You’re an assassin, that’s what you do.”

  “Did you read the apocalypse paper?”

  “The what?”

  “The white paper that Roy West wrote. Reel told me he used to brag about it to people. Maybe you were one of them. Over pillow talk? At the bar?”

  “I don’t have to answer that.”

  “Did you believe it?”

  “Roy talked about a lot of things. And many of them made sense.”

  “So you’re for an apocalypse?”

  “For real change to happen, certain people have to be sacrificed.”

  “Wasn’t that what the Nazis said?”

  She snapped, “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not even a close analogy.”

  “Really? You got led around like a lemming by a nut who loaded up his cabin with explosives and had plans to blow up half the government? How does that make sense? You work for the government.”

  “We all fight for liberty in different ways.”

  “I’ll stick with my way. You can keep yours.”

  “You go and kill the people they tell you to. Talk about a lemming.”

  “Well, the difference is now I understand that. You apparently don’t.”

  She gave him a condescending look. “You can’t stop this from happening.”

  “I can if you help me.”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “So you just stand by and watch all those people die? Doctors are supposed to preserve life, aren’t they?”

  “I’m not just a doctor. I care about my country. Our enemies are trying to destroy us. We have to kill all of them first.”

  Robie said, “Care to tell me who is really behind this?”

  She folded her arms across her chest and looked at him dully. “Just give it up, okay?”

  He held up her phone. “Got your laptop too. They should tell us a few things.”

  She looked suddenly panicked.

  “Don’t ever go to Vegas,” he advised. “Your poker face is seriously lacking.”

  “They’re password-protected.”

  “You had your phone on a five-minute auto lock. You must have just used it before you got into the car. The lock hadn’t reset yet, so I got everything I needed. As for your laptop, next time use a password more difficult than your name spelled backwards and your date of birth.”

  “Robie, you’re on the wrong side of this. Trust me. Reel is a murderer. She killed two defenseless men. In cold blood.”

  He pointed to the provisions. “There’s enough food and water to last you at least two weeks, maybe more if you ration.”

  “And if you’re not back by then?”

  “Start yelling. Somebody might hear you. Oh, and while you were knocked out Reel stripped you down and checked every possible place for a transmitter. You might be sore, but you’re definitely tracker free.”

  “Robie!” She jumped up and ran to the cell door. “Think about this very carefully. You won’t get a second chance.”

  “Funny. That’s what I was going to tell you.”

  “You’re being stupid. Please let me go.”

  “This is the safest place for you.”

  She looked at him with a stunned expression. “Safe? Are you insane?”

  “They didn’t find our bodies, Doc. And they can no longer track us. Which tells them we’re onto how we were tracked. You put the sutures in. We found you. You’re out of the loop for a while. If we let you go, you go back to them.”

  “I won’t say anything. I promise.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “So what is the point?”

  “They’ll know you were with us. They’ll interrogate you. And then they’ll kill you.”

  Meenan took a step back. “Why would they kill me? I’m on their side.”

  “Because they’ll believe you helped us. That would be the only way we would’ve let you go. And your price for that is you die. It’s really that simple. See, to them, you’ll have become the enemy. And like you said, the goal is to kill all of the enemy. And now that includes you.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not an either/or proposition. So you stay here, you live. You go out there, you die. I’ll let you decide. What’s it going to be?”

  Meenan stared up at him and then took a few hesitant steps back before plopping down on the cot and studying the floor.

  “Good choice,” said Robie, and then he walked out.

  CHAPTER

  63

  REEL WAS WAITING FOR HIM outside the barn in a new rental. He climbed in, snagged Meenan’s laptop from the backseat, opened it, and started clicking keys as Reel drove off.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  “I think she’s starting to see the light. Not that it matters.”

  “Just so you know, I’m down to my last fake ID,” said Reel.

  “Let’s hope it’s enough.”

  “Where to?”

  “I’ve got a contact at the FBI I want to work. I got the photos of West and Meenan from her.”

  “Special Agent Nicole Vance?”

  Robie shot her a glance. “How did you know that?”

  “You started out as my enemy. I find out all I can about my enemies.”

  “How much did you find out?”

  “Julie Getty.”

  She looked at him.

  “That makes you angry?”

  “It doesn’t make me happy. What if someone was following you?”

  “Someone was following you. Vance. And me.”

  “Okay, let’s just call a truce on that. We need some info that we can’t get on our own.”

  She said, “Don’t be too sure about that. And the more people we involve, the more potential pitfalls we face.”

  “We face pitfalls everywhere we turn.”

  “Proves my point. What do we need to know?”

  “Lots of things.”

  “Find anything interesting on Meenan’s computer?”

  “I got into her email. She has a varied correspondence. Multiple boyfriends, from the content of some of the emails. A little racier than I would have given the doc credit for. West was probably one of them, but he’s not on there now.” He refocused on the screen. “This might be something.”

  “What?”

  “Give me a sec.”

  He read some more emails, scrolling down the screen.

  “What is it, Robie?”

  “Cryptic one-word messages. Without context they don’t mean anything. ‘Yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘now,’ ‘tomorrow’—things like that.”

  “Who’s the sender?”

 
“The address looks generic, and is probably untraceable. But there are three letters at the end of the messages, like the writer’s signature. RTD. Mean anything to you?”

  Reel was silent for a long minute. “Roger the Dodger,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “It was the code name of the person West said had requested the white paper. He said the person was at least three levels above him at the time.”

  “Did he say anything else that might lead us to the person?”

  “Unfortunately, that was about the time I had to knock him out.”

  “Roger the Dodger? Odd moniker.”

  “I thought so too. But he’s been able to dodge us pretty effectively. So it does fit. What do you think Vance can help us with?”

  “Finding the apocalypse. Before it happens.”

  “The white paper was pretty explicit. Country by country. Leader by leader. Simultaneously. It’s dazzlingly complex and brutally efficient. It’s all in the timing.”

  “But what are the exact details? You never said.”

  “Targeting all G8 leaders, except the U.S. president, on the same day at the same time using a coordinated attack, and intelligence–sharing, and buying whatever resources are needed on the inside. They’re all killed. What follows is chaos in the civilized world. The paper goes on to detail what steps the perpetrators of the attacks should take to press their advantage.”

  “Okay, but who are the perpetrators?”

  “West papered various ones. Not surprisingly, they were mostly radical Islamic fundamentalists. He broke it down to include factions of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas. I have to admit, it was well thought out.”

  “Why leave out the U.S. president?” asked Robie.

  “Probably because the agency didn’t want to pay its people to think up plausible ways to kill POTUS. If that got out there would be hell to pay.”

  “And what was the purpose of such an attack, at least according to West?”

  “Power vacuum in the civilized world, chaos in financial markets, upheaval across the globe, 9/11 on steroids.”

  “And why would we want a paper out there that tells people how to do that?”

  “They probably didn’t believe it would be circulated. And maybe they wanted to see the scenario to know how to counter it so it didn’t happen or deal with it if it ever did. Roy West wasn’t too clear on that.”

  “Did we come up with counters?”

  “I doubt it. The paper apparently didn’t go anywhere within the agency hierarchy.”

  “You know what that strategy reminds me of?” said Robie.

  “What?”

  “The scene in The Godfather. Where Michael Corleone is having his child baptized. And then they intercut to the scenes of the rival bosses who tried to kill Marlon Brando’s character being assassinated. It was Michael’s revenge.”

  “Maybe that’s where West got the idea. From a movie. He didn’t strike me as an original thinker.”

  “But for it to work they have to have personnel in all those different countries ready to move at the same time.”

  “So who on the inside of the U.S. government would want to see that scenario played out?” asked Reel.

  “I would hope no one. But that apparently isn’t the case.”

  “So America gets thrown into the apocalypse. In a scenario like that, nobody wins.”

  They were both silent for a while, each probably contemplating what the world might look like after such an event.

  “Feeling pretty hopeless?” asked Reel.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I’ve never forgotten one thing. It might seem stupid to you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “There is always hope in hopeless.”

  They exchanged a brief smile.

  “Tell me something. Who was the friend of the friend?”

  Reel looked away. Robie saw her fingers tighten on the steering wheel but she didn’t answer.

  “The guy in the photo with you. You said he was a friend of a friend because putting the other guy in there would guarantee I never would have gotten the picture.”

  “Why do you need to know who he is?”

  “If you didn’t want me to know, why leave the photo in the locker?”

  “Maybe I didn’t have a reason.”

  “You told me there is a reason for everything you do.”

  A minute later Reel said, “The friend was a mentor. A guy who cared about me way back when. When no one else did.”

  “How did you know him?”

  “I just knew him.”

  “Witness Protection, maybe?”

  She glanced at him in surprise.

  “DiCarlo told me about your past.”

  “But that’s still a big deductive leap.”

  “The guy in the photo looked like a retired cop to me. So maybe his friend was a cop too.”

  Reel slowed the car and pulled off the road, putting it in park and turning to look at Robie.

  “His name was Joe Stock well. He was a U.S. marshal. And you’re right, he looked after me when I was in Witness Protection. When I joined CIA, I kept in touch. He retired a number of years ago. But after that he stumbled onto what they were planning.”

  “How was that possible?”

  “Joe knew Sam Kent from way back. They served in Vietnam together. He even went to Kent’s wedding. Kent approached him about some things over time, innocuous things, but taken together it made Joe suspicious. But he played along and learned more. I guess Kent trusted him, and when he believed Joe wanted to be part of the plan he told him more. Then Kent found Joe was actually working against him, collecting evidence. So he had him killed, although his death was officially ruled an accident. But I knew better.”

  Robie said, “I’m sorry about that. Sounds like Stockwell was really trying to do the right thing.”

  She nodded. “He was able to get me the list of people and some details about what was going on. That’s how I got Jacobs’s and Gelder’s names. That’s why I killed them.”

  “But if Stockwell had enough info to put together a list, why not go to the cops?”

  “The people on that list were pretty powerful and he apparently didn’t believe he had enough evidence to convince the authorities. Joe knew what he was doing. He was a real pro. He wanted a slamdunk case, apparently. He just didn’t live to get it.”

  “Yet you had enough belief in Stockwell to kill two of them and try and take down a third.”

  “I know what they’re planning to do, Robie. I know that they killed him. He was a good, decent guy trying to do the right thing. He could have been enjoying his golden years, but he was trying to bring this scum down. He failed. I won’t.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “You had your proof on that train, didn’t you? And what Meenan told you? Don’t tell me you need more convincing.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “So you’re telling me you wouldn’t have taken out these guys given the chance? You know that if our agency knew what was up we would have been sent to put a bullet in their brains. I just didn’t wait for orders.”

  “We have a justice system complete with judges and jails for things like that.”

  “You really think these guys would have been charged, much less convicted? There is no way a case could have been made against them. No way.”

  “Which means under our system they’re presumed innocent.”

  “So was everybody we’ve ever pulled the trigger on, because none of them had the benefit of a trial.”

  Robie sat back. She was absolutely right about that, he thought. “Talk to me about Judge Kent. He served in Vietnam. What else?”

  “I researched him. Got into databases I probably shouldn’t have.”

  “And found what?”

  “He used to be one of us, way back when. After he left the Army.”

  Robie slowly nodded. “That makes sense, actually.”

  She continued
, “And now he’s a judge on FISC.”

  “Who else besides Jacobs and Gelder?”

  “Congressman Howard Decker was also on the list.”

  “Chairman of House Intelligence?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is that the complete list?”

  “No. There’s somebody else out there. Somebody else that even Joe couldn’t uncover. But he’s out there. I know he is. And he’s highly placed, Robie. Very highly placed.”

  “At least three levels above our boy West?”

  “I think far more than three. I think that was just a subterfuge.”

  “Roger the Dodger.”

  “Could be. I certainly don’t think it was Gelder. He’s dead but this thing is still going full torque.”

  Robie looked up ahead. “So let’s see what we can do.”

  Reel drove off.

  CHAPTER

  64

  EVAN TUCKER LOOKED ACROSS THE width of his substantial desk at the man who sat there. Blue Man’s features were haggard, his clothes not nearly as impeccable as they normally were.

  “It’s a total screwup,” snapped Tucker.

  “Yes, it is,” agreed Blue Man.

  “Robie’s gone off the grid. Reel is God knows where. This event on the train? I know it has something to do with them. I know it.”

  “There’s no proof of that. No witnesses.”

  “Because they killed them,” exclaimed Tucker.

  “There is something else going on here,” said Blue Man.

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “DiCarlo?”

  “Old news.”

  “I disagree. Firmly.”

  Tucker sat up in his chair. There was a dangerous look in his eyes. “Based on what?”

  “Based on reality, sir.”

  “You’re very close to insubordination, Roger.”

  “That of course is not my intent. But we still don’t know about DiCarlo. Why DHS took her. Why she was attacked. We do know that Robie saved her life. That’s very telling.”

  “And he believed that Jessica Reel was also there. Also saving DiCarlo’s life.”

  “Correct.”

  “But we only have his word for that.”