The Hit (2013)

by David Baldacci

  Reel was across the street from ground zero, just beyond the security checkpoint. That was a no-go for her because she was armed to the teeth.

  Robie stood on the opposite corner, nearer the building but again beyond the checkpoint. Jersey barriers had been erected to prevent a truck bomb from getting close enough to drop the structure. Thus there was barely enough room to get a single car through at a time.

  Bottlenecks like that could cause other sets of security problems, but on the whole Robie felt the plan had been well thought out.

  He checked his watch. It was nearly time. He said into his mic, “Just about there.”

  “I’ve counted seven motorcades so far. From my list that makes five more to go.”

  “They’ll want them all in place. Give it a few minutes and then they’ll pull the trigger.”

  “Here we go,” said Reel.

  Here we go, thought Robie.

  The last motorcade pulled through and disgorged its occupants. They walked into the building and the setting was complete.

  The program was on a tight schedule. Opening ceremonies and remarks would last forty-five minutes. After that the group would be dispersed to different places for other discussions and events. This was one of the few times all of them would be in the same place at the same time.

  From the heightened looks of concern of the security arrayed around the place, this fact was not lost on them either.

  Robie moved to an alley and his hand closed around the butt of his gun as he did so. He looked at his watch. The program had been going on for twenty minutes.

  Tactically the attackers wouldn’t want it to get close to the end on the off chance that any of the attendees left early. It was critical to get them all.

  He said into his mic, “I think—”

  That was as far as Robie got.

  Flames shot out from the front door of the building and all four front windows. The same thing happened at the rear entrance.

  Thirty seconds later the front of the building was engulfed in fire, blocking the entrance. The rear was similarly cut off.

  Robie braced himself as he heard it coming. Fire trucks and ambulances raced down the street, sirens blaring.

  Security let them through and the emergency vehicles screeched to a stop in front of the building. Men poured off the trucks and out of the ambulances.

  Robie stepped out, his gun ready.

  Reel did the same from across the street.

  Robie fired and his shots blew out the front tires and windshield of an ambulance.

  Reel killed one of the firefighters before he could deploy the subgun he had pulled from under his coat.

  Both Robie and Reel opened fire directly on the group of men, forcing them to scurry for cover.

  But before they could return fire someone shouted, “Freeze!”

  Robie watched as an army of FBI and Canadian security agents charged forward from both ends of the street. They wore body armor and toted subguns. Emerging from hiding places along rooftops were snipers who pointed their long barrels at the fake first responders and fired shots close enough to the heads of the targets to make them realize any resistance would result in a slaughter.

  So the targets did the only thing they could do.

  They gave up.

  A minute later more than twenty men were on their knees on the street, hands over their heads, with an array of pointed guns keeping them there.

  Robie came forward and greeted her. Nicole Vance had on body armor and held her pistol in her right hand. Her smile was wide and welcoming.

  She said, “Thanks for the heads-up last night. And the photos of the arsenal you found. Couldn’t really believe it at first, but you were very convincing. And in turn, I was very convincing with my superiors. And I can’t tell you what good things this will do for my career.”

  Robie looked over as two men came forward holding another man between them. Sam Kent didn’t look very pleased at the sudden turn of events. But he wasn’t saying anything either. No protests of innocence. No demands to know why he was being held.

  Robie stared at the man. When Kent caught his gaze he stiffened. Robie thought he caught a hint of a resigned smile pass over the man’s features.

  “You can help us,” said Robie quietly. “You know what we need.”

  “I highly doubt that I can help you or myself.”

  “Going to claim that you know nothing about this?”

  “Not at all. It’s just that dead men don’t make capable witnesses.”

  “Come again?”

  “Can I tell you something?”

  “A name would do.”

  “No, the message is much simpler.” He smiled and said, “Goodbye, Robie.”

  The two men stared directly at each other.

  “Robie!”

  Robie turned and saw Reel on the other side of the street.

  She shouted, “Robie! Johnson isn’t there. He’s not there.”

  Robie looked over at the line of men on their knees in the street. He glanced down the faces one by one.

  Dick Johnson wasn’t there.

  Robie started to move, but knew he was already too late.

  The shot hit Kent full in the face and blew out the back of his head, taking a large chunk of his brain with it.

  Robie had looked back at Kent a second before the round hit.

  There had been no fear in the man’s features. Just resignation.

  CHAPTER

  78

  ROBIE AND VANCE WERE SITTING in the lobby of the local police station. The fire had been put out and the event had been moved to another location. At first it seemed likely to be canceled. But after the FBI promised to help with security for the event, the participants had changed their minds and agreed to go forward.

  The hit team was being held in cells under the eye of both Canadian special agents and the FBI. The joint mission had come together quickly. The FBI was taken seriously by everyone in the world. It also didn’t hurt that the Canadians were such close allies. And the last thing they wanted was a slaughter of foreign leaders on their soil.

  Sam Kent’s body was lying on a freezer bed inside a mobile forensics unit.

  Dick Johnson had so far eluded capture.

  “Who was the woman who called out to you?” asked Vance.

  Reel had disappeared into the crowd after warning Robie about Johnson.

  “Someone who was working with me on this to stop it. I can fill you in on her later.”

  “Okay. So they were planning to take out all these leaders at one time?”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Would’ve created a global nightmare.”

  “Probably their plan.”

  “How did you guys get keyed in on this?”

  “Chatter, bits and pieces here and there that we followed up on.”

  “Always thought having this summit here was kind of weird. I mean, the G8 was having a conference on terrorism in Ireland at the same time. Did you know that?”

  “Read about it in the papers,” Robie said vaguely.

  “I’m glad you called us in, don’t get me wrong. But why wouldn’t you have your own team in place for this? I mean, we’re not in the U.S. The CIA can operate legally here.”

  “Not sure the Canadians see it that way. Some hard feelings between us over some past agency actions. We felt the FBI would be the right element to call in to provide the backup once we nailed down the target.” None of this was true, but it was also the only explanation Robie could think of.

  “I guess the important thing is it didn’t happen, right?”

  “That’s the way I look at it.”

  “But the guy who was killed? We identified him. He’s a federal judge. How does that figure into this?”

  “Not sure yet. I think it’ll take some time to dig through all of it. If I had to guess—and that’s all it would be—he might have been paid off. And maybe he wasn’t always a judge.”

  “Right. He seemed to
know who you were,” said Vance suspiciously.

  “Just the way it worked out,” said Robie, not meeting her eye.

  “So this was what you were working on that you had to go off the grid?”

  Robie nodded.

  “And I’m assuming that this is somehow tied to Jim Gelder’s and Doug Jacobs’s deaths?”

  “And Howard Decker’s.”

  “Decker’s? How does he figure into this?”

  “I’m not sure, Vance. It’s still pretty muddled.”

  She looked put off. “Don’t think that I’m accepting all your answers at face value. I know you too well. You talk the bullshit really well, but at the end of the day, that’s still all it is.”

  “I’m telling you all I know.”

  “You mean you’re telling me all you can.” She studied him closely and then apparently decided to change direction. “Robie, the men we’ve arrested. They . . . they look like . . .”

  “There’s a lot of freelance talent out there. And we trained a ton of it.”

  “So mercenaries?” she said.

  “Probably so.”

  “Now we just have to find out who hired them.”

  “We might never know.”

  “No, we’ll get there. I’m thinking that Gelder and Jacobs might have stumbled onto something. The other side found out and killed them. Maybe something with Decker too.” She snapped her fingers. “He’s head of the Intelligence Committee. There’s the connection right there.”

  “You might be right.”

  “We’ll see. Like you said, these things tend to get muddled.”

  Yes, they do, thought Robie.

  “When are you heading back?” asked Vance.

  “Got a few things to clear up here and then I’ll be reporting in. I’m sure our agencies will be burning up secure lines hashing this one out. Sometimes the truth complicates things.”

  “I don’t think so. Not here. Good guys officially kicked the crap out of the bad guys. They can’t put any spin on that one. And the U.S. just scored some serious points with the Middle East. We just saved their collective ass. And I’ve seen a list of the attendees. There are some on there who are no fans of ours.”

  “No, they’re not. But maybe they will be now.” He rose. “I better get going.”

  “You see, Robie, sometimes communication is a very good thing.”

  Robie had not gone ten steps down the sidewalk when the voice in his ear said, “On your three.”

  He looked over to where Reel was staring at him from the far corner. He hurried over and they walked down an alley.

  “Kent is dead,” he said.

  “That was easy to see. Most of his brain was on the street.”

  “Johnson is nowhere to be seen.”

  “He was the fail-safe. Kent knew everything. The other guys just had their piece. They won’t be able to lead us anywhere. Firewalled out of the loop. Kent was the key, and Johnson was tasked to keep back and take him out if things went wrong.”

  “Agreed.”

  Reel’s voice turned harsh. “But why didn’t you tell me about the FBI?”

  “Did you need to know?”

  “I thought we were a team on this.”

  “I thought that if you knew the FBI was going to swarm in you might have done things differently.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning you’re a wanted person.”

  “What did you tell them about me, by the way?”

  “That we were tasked to stop this by the agency.”

  “And Gelder and Jacobs?”

  “They believe they were killed by the people behind the planned hit here. I told them I thought they were on the right track with that theory.”

  “I doubt that Vance is going to stop there. She doesn’t seem the type to take anybody’s word in place of an investigation and her own conclusion.”

  “She’s not. What I did back there was just a stopgap. Just to give us some time.”

  “Okay.”

  “But it can’t end there, Jessica.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about nothing except that ever since I started on this.”

  “There are ways,” Robie began.

  “There are no ways, Robie, not for this. It has one possible outcome and it’s not a good one for me. But you’ll be okay. In fact, if I were you I’d go back to Vance right now and just tell her the truth. The more you try to cover for me the worse it will be for you when the truth does comes out.”

  Robie didn’t budge. “You really want to waste time arguing over something that stupid?”

  “It’s not stupid. It’s your future.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Jessica. That’s my decision, and I’m sticking to it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Don’t ask me again.”

  “But just so you understand the possible consequences.”

  “Someone gave the order to Johnson to take out Kent. I want that person.”

  “Loose ends, Robie. They’ll be finding Johnson’s body any minute now. That idiot was dead as soon as he pulled the trigger on Kent. No way they’re going to leave him alive.”

  “We’re loose ends too,” he said.

  “That’s right, we are,” she said, looking suddenly cheerful.

  “What?” said Robie, noting her upbeat expression.

  “Loose ends are a two-way street. They want to get to us. But to get to us they have to come to us.”

  “And that gives us a shot at getting them first,” he said.

  “I’m done hitting singles too, Robie. It’s time to go for the shot out of the park.”

  “How exactly do we do that?”

  “You just have to trust me. Like I’ve been trusting you this whole time.”

  “What exactly is your plan? We’ve got nothing.”

  “I’m not really into sports, but I’ve been doing some basic research,” she replied.

  “On what?”

  “On Roger the Dodger.”

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “Actually, I think I do.”

  “Proof?”

  “A witness.”

  “Where can we find the witness?”

  “We don’t have to.”

  She walked off.

  When he didn’t follow she turned back and said, “Despite what you just said, if you’re out I need to know, right now. I’ll have to adjust my plan and fly this one solo. But either way, it’s happening.”

  “Because of your friends?”

  “Because I don’t like getting crapped on. I don’t like traitors. And, yeah, because of my friends.”

  “I’m in,” he said.

  “Then come on.”

  Robie followed her.

  CHAPTER

  79

  THE WHITE HOUSE.

  It was often a place of near chaos buffered by moments of intense calm, like the eye of a hurricane. One could tell that inches past the serenity lurked possible bedlam.

  This was one of the serene moments. The precise location of the possibly hovering bedlam was as of yet unknown.

  They were in the Oval Office. It was reserved for symbolic moments that often were attended by dozens of photographers. There were no photographers here today, but it was a symbolic moment nonetheless.

  Robie sat in one chair. Across from him was DCI Evan Tucker. The president was perched on a settee. Next to him in a separate chair was National Security Advisor Gus Whitcomb. Completing the party was Blue Man, looking slightly awed to be once more in the presence of such august company.

  “This is getting to be a routine, Robie,” said the president affably.

  “I hope it doesn’t actually become one, sir,” said Robie.

  His suit was dark, his shirt white, and his tie as dark as his suit. His shoes were polished. Next to the others, with their colorful ties, he looked like a man attending a funeral. Maybe his own.

  “The exact details of what was going on are
still coming out, albeit slowly,” said Whitcomb.

  “I doubt we’ll ever know the whole truth,” said Tucker. “And you’ll never get me to believe that Jim Gelder was involved in any of this.” He glanced at Robie. “And the people responsible for his death, and that of Doug Jacobs, will be brought to justice.”

  Robie simply stared back and said nothing.

  The president cleared his throat and the other men sat up straighter. “I believe that we dodged a very large bullet. This is not the time for celebration, of course, because we have tough times ahead.”

  “Agreed, Mr. President,” said Tucker. “And I can assure you that my agency will do all it can to ensure that those tough times are met head-on.”

  Robie and Whitcomb shared a raised eyebrow over that comment.

  Whitcomb waited until it seemed the president wasn’t going to respond to Tucker’s statement. “I agree that we have many problems ahead of us. If, as Mr. Robie believes, there were moles at the agency—”

  “For the record that is a statement I highly dispute,” interjected Tucker.

  The president put up his hands. “Evan, no one is testifying here. Gus is just saying that we need to get to the bottom of this. As much as we can, at least.”

  Whitcomb continued, “If there are moles at the agency, then that needs to be resolved. We have four dead men who were all highly placed in various sectors of this country. We have a near catastrophe averted in Canada thanks to the actions of Mr. Robie and the FBI. What we have to do is connect the dots between the two.”

  “Of course,” said Tucker. “I never said there shouldn’t be an investigation.”

  “A thorough one,” added Whitcomb.

  “Do we have any new leads on who killed Gelder and Jacobs?” asked the president.

  “Not yet,” said Blue Man.

  They all turned to look at him, as though they had forgotten he was even there.

  He continued, “But we are hoping for that status to change.”

  The president said, “And this Johnson person?”

  “Dick Johnson,” said Whitcomb, looking at his notes. He glanced up at Tucker. “He once worked for the CIA.”

  The president shot a look at Tucker. “From one of ours to one of theirs, Evan? How is that possible?”