The Target

by David Baldacci

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning he never thought that this was the only way I was ever going to get to him. And trust me, I’ve wanted to for two decades. And now he’s given me a shot. I’m going to make him regret the day he ever thought about coming at me or hurting someone I care about.”

  “Now that’s the Jessica Reel I know. And this time the guy is going to prison for good.”

  “If he ever makes it to trial,” replied Reel quietly. “And I wouldn’t bet the farm that he does, Robie. I really wouldn’t. Because this son of a bitch…is mine.”

  As she left the room, Robie had one overriding thought.

  He was very glad he was not Leon Dikes.

  Chapter

  41

  LEON DIKES SAT DOWN ACROSS from Julie, who was just finishing up a plate of food. She wiped her mouth, took a drink of water, and sat back watching him. Her face was swollen from where he had struck her.

  “You want something?” she asked.

  “How did you meet Jessica?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because it is better to know things than to not know things.”

  “She’s just a friend I met through another friend.”

  “The names they gave at the prison were Jessica Reel and Will Robie. I have had them checked out. There is very little known about them. Very little. In fact, really nothing.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “But I think that you do. Did you know that Sally, or Jessica, was in Witness Protection?”

  “Because of you, right?”

  “Now, I believe that this Will Robie might also be in Witness Protection, or else he might be a U.S. marshal assigned to protect her.”

  “Maybe he is.”

  “That answer is really not good enough.”

  “Like I said, we’re just friends.”

  “Simple friends do not risk their lives for one another. Jessica offered to give herself up to me in exchange for your safe release. Why would she do that, I wonder?”

  “Because she’s a good person,” replied Julie in a casual tone. “That must be hard for you to relate to. Probably why you find the concept so puzzling.”

  “Your arrogance in the face of imminent harm is really deserving of both admiration and puzzlement, a most unusual combination.”

  “I’m a complicated person.”

  “I want you to tell me everything you know about Jessica Reel and this Will Robie.”

  “I’ve told you what I know about Jessica. I don’t really know Will Robie. Tonight was the first time I’d met him.”

  Dikes did not appear to be listening. “Are you yourself perhaps in Witness Protection? Is that how you met?”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because I have also made inquiries about you, and the results have been, shall we say, scant, which is problematic to me.”

  “Well, I’m not in Witness Protection, and even if I were I don’t think they make a habit of putting different people in the program together or letting people in the program know the identities of others in the program.”

  “You are too young to have been placed in the program when Sally was.”

  “Jessica.”

  “To me she will always be Sally Fontaine.”

  “Whatever floats your boat,” replied Julie curtly.

  “Her father was able to reach her through Witness Protection. Whether she is still in the program or that was merely a conduit to deliver a message to her, wherever she is now, I do not know.”

  “Well, neither do I,” said Julie.

  “I think that you’re lying.”

  “Think what you want.”

  “I will ask my questions and if I receive no answers I will have to ask more persuasively. It will not be pleasant for you, but if I have no choice…?”

  Dikes clapped his hands together. The door opened at once. The person now in the doorway must have been waiting there for this command, Julie thought.

  He was huge, but his uniform fit him. Apparently, Dikes’s group had more money to spend on uniforms than the Alabama correctional system did.

  The prison guard Albert stared down at her. In one hand he held a fireplace poker, which was glowing red at one end. In his other hand was a whip that looked well used.

  Dikes said, “This is my chief interrogator. I will allow him to take charge of you for a while, unless there is something you wished to tell me.”

  Julie looked from Albert and his poker back to Dikes.

  “What do you want to know?” she said fearfully.

  “What I want to know is everything.”

  Julie said, “Then I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Chapter

  42

  I WANT TO TALK TO her,” said Reel.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Dikes.

  “Then you can forget it. Knowing you like I do, she’s probably already dead. And so I’m not putting myself or Laura in danger if she is.”

  “You are so tiresome,” said Dikes with an exaggerated sigh. “It was one of your least attractive features.”

  “I want to talk to her. Now!”

  A few moments later Reel heard Julie’s voice.

  “I’m okay,” Julie said.

  “I’m so sorry about all this, Julie. Have they hurt you?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle. And they’re standing right next to me in case I say something wrong.”

  “I know. I just want you to know that things will turn out okay, Julie. No matter what happens, you’re going to be safe, okay?”

  “Okay,” Julie said in a small voice.

  Reel heard a gasp from Julie, and Dikes said, “All right, you’ve confirmed that she’s just fine.”

  “And she better remain that way,” warned Reel.

  “You are in no position to make demands. And don’t attempt to employ your U.S. Marshal friends in WITSEC.”

  “What?”

  “Your little friend told me all about you. That you’re still in WITSEC. And that you are engaged to marry her guardian, Jerome, who is a very rich man.”

  “You bastard,” snarled Reel. “Did you torture her to get her to tell you that?”

  “The mere threat was enough. She’s only a child. A precocious one, but still only a child. And she apparently lives in a fantasy world. She tried to feed me a cock-and-bull story about her being kidnapped by a Saudi prince, as if I’d believe that. But the mere sight of my, uh, chief interrogator, and she confessed all. It was rather pathetic.”

  “She’s just a kid, Leon,” barked Reel.

  “Then she should act her age rather than wasting my time with stupid stories. And she also informed me about your friend, Mr. Robie. Or should I say Marshal Robie? Do not think of bringing him along. We will be able to see you coming from a long way off. And all you’ll find when you get here is Julie’s body.”

  “How do you want to do this, then?”

  “Did you contact Laura?”

  “I wouldn’t be talking to you unless I had,” retorted Reel.

  “She will come with you. No tracking devices. No weapons. I recall that you were adept with a knife.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “You mean where are you and Laura going,” corrected Dikes.

  “Just tell me, Leon.”

  “Don’t let your nerves run away with you, Sally. It’s unbecoming. How you were able to keep them in check when you were so young, I can’t imagine. Luck, like I said before.”

  “Give me the instructions,” Reel said flatly.

  They were elaborate and well thought out, she had to admit.

  They would first take a commercial aircraft to Atlanta and then a puddle jumper to Tuscaloosa. There they would board a Greyhound bus that would take them to an even smaller town. A car would be waiting in a parking lot next to the only grocery store in the town. The keys would be on the front seat. Directions going forward would be in the glove compartment. They would drive t
o a prearranged spot and they would be picked up from there. After that they would be driven to their final destination.

  Dikes added, “Keep in mind that this is my country down here. I know every nook and cranny of it. I have the local police both in my back pocket and in my ranks. I own the town.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “People in bad economic times look to any savior possible,” replied Dikes. “I can give them what they want. Order, safety, jobs. We’re even venturing into other parts of the country. Some of our groups are buying up entire towns in the Midwest and the Dakotas. It is a good platform for growth and the spread of our unique ways.”

  “You mean your sickness?”

  “They obviously do not see it that way, do they?”

  “You may think so. But you’d be wrong.”

  “Nevertheless, when you come here you will be in my power, lock, stock, and barrel.”

  “Which means you have no intention of letting Julie go.”

  “I give you my word, Sally.”

  “Your word means nothing to me.”

  “Then why come at all?”

  Reel fumed for a few moments, trying to regain her composure. “Because you’re not going to do to her what you did to me.”

  “Well, we’ll see, won’t we? And we’ll see very soon.” He told Reel when she would be expected and hung up.

  Reel clicked off and looked at the notes she had written down with the travel directions. Then she looked up at Robie, who had, again, listened to the entire conversation.

  “This complicates things,” said Reel, tapping the paper.

  “But it’s not unexpected,” noted Robie. “It’s not his job to make it easy.”

  “Yeah, it’s his job to make it impossible.”

  “But it’s not impossible,” observed Robie.

  Reel looked down at her notes and suddenly smiled. “No, it’s not. You remember Jalalabad?”

  “How could I ever forget? Is that how you want to play it?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Reel firmly. She looked at the notes again. “I see two, maybe three possibilities.”

  Robie nodded. “Same here. I’ll head out early.”

  Reel nodded thoughtfully at this. “Recon will be important. Like he said, the area is under his control. You’ll need cover.”

  “Two birds with one stone, Jessica.”

  She looked excited. “I can see that. I can absolutely see that.”

  “Once they pick you up you’ll be cut off from communications.”

  “You lose me, we’re lost.”

  “So I don’t plan on losing you.” He tapped the table. “And Laura?”

  “I got that covered, Robie.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Chapter

  43

  TWO DAYS LATER REEL AND a young woman boarded a Delta flight that would take them to Atlanta. The plane landed about an hour and forty minutes later. They had a brief layover and then boarded a turboprop for the short flight to Tuscaloosa, home to the University of Alabama. From there they took a Greyhound bus another fifty miles in a southwesterly direction and got off in a town that had one street and a handful of stores. In the parking lot next to a grocery store was a rusted-out Plymouth Fury with the keys on the front seat and a map in the glove compartment.

  Following the directions on the map, they drove another hour to a crossroads where a black van was waiting, its engine idling.

  The two women climbed out of the Plymouth carrying small knapsacks. As soon as they did the rear doors of the van opened and five men climbed out. Weapons were pointed at Reel’s and the other woman’s heads.

  They were ordered into the back of the van, which had a cargo area but no seats. Their knapsacks were gone through and then discarded. They were stripped down and searched.

  Sewn into the lining of the other woman’s shirt was a thin metal wire with a sharpened end. One of the men pulled it free and held it up for her to see. With a smile he threw it out of the van.

  Their clothes were thrown away and they were given orange jumpsuits and tennis shoes to wear. The scrunchie that Reel had in her hair was taken off and examined before being thrown back at her.

  One of the men ran a handheld wand over them. It started clicking when it reached Reel’s watch. The man smiled, ripped it off her, dropped it to the floor, and crushed it with his foot.

  “Not good enough,” he said.

  Reel could not hide her unhappiness at this as she put her hair up and retied it with the scrunchie. She glanced balefully at the other woman.

  “Did you think we were hicks who can’t be professional?” said the largest of their captors. “You’re about to find out just how good we are,” he added menacingly.

  Reel and the other woman were bound with plasti-cuffs and forced to lie in the back of the van. Before the doors thunked closed Reel could see the headlights of two other vehicles come on and she heard their engines start. The van was apparently part of a motorcade.

  They got back on the road and the van picked up speed. The roads were not in good shape, and Reel and her companion were bounced all over the place. The men sitting next to them took the opportunity to kick and punch them as their bodies collided with them.

  “Know your place, bitches,” yelled one of them as his friends laughed. “Groveling in the dirt.”

  Reel calculated that they drove for about an hour before the van began to slow. There had been many turns involved, so she assumed the driver had been backtracking so as to make it nearly impossible for anyone to follow without being seen.

  She heard the roar of what sounded like a group of motorcycles pass by them. Horns blared, and it seemed that a biker gang was saying hello to their Nazi buddies. Another minute passed and she heard the roar of a semi as it blasted past them, its wake buffeting the van.

  Ten minutes later the van pulled off and eventually came to a stop after bouncing over what seemed to be a series of potholes. The doors were jerked open and they were pulled to their feet. They stumbled out.

  Reel kicked at one man who grabbed her butt. He pushed her away and with her hands bound she lost her balance and fell. The man laughed and pulled her up by her ponytail. He stopped laughing when her knee found his crotch, and he dropped to the dirt, his face turning gray.

  Another of the men pulled his gun and pointed it at Reel’s head.

  “Enough,” called out the voice.

  Reel looked over to see Leon Dikes staring at her.

  He was dressed in his full black SS uniform, nearly invisible in the