Robie was trained never to be deceived. Never to be played for a fool. Never to be left without a seat when the music stopped. And yet he had been deceived. It had been a humbling experience that he didn’t care to repeat.
Vance’s voice sounded the same. A little too amped up for Robie right now, but he had to admire the woman’s energy.
“Yeah, it has been.”
“You been traveling lately?”
He hesitated, wondering whether she had put the events in Central Park together with him.
Vance had a good idea of what Robie did professionally. As an FBI agent sworn to uphold and protect, she couldn’t be privy to any more than she already knew. They operated in two distinct worlds, both necessary, both not mutually exclusive.
But both incompatible nonetheless. And if their jobs were incompatible, then so were they as individuals. Robie clearly saw that now. In fact, he had always known it.
“Not much. You?”
“Just the mean streets of D.C.”
“So what’s up?”
“You free for dinner?”
Robie again hesitated. He hesitated so long, in fact, that Vance finally said, “It’s not that complicated, Robie. Either you are or you aren’t. No skin off here if you say no.”
Robie wanted to say no. But for some reason he said, “When?”
“Around eight? I’ve been wanting to try this new place over on Fourteenth.” She told him the name. “I hear they strain their tomatoes through linen cloths to make their cocktails.”
“You like cocktails that much?” he asked.
“Tonight I do.”
Robie knew there had to be an ulterior reason for Vance to be calling him to go to dinner. Yes, he believed that she liked him. But she was super agent Vance for a good reason. She never turned it off.
“Okay,” he said.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“I’m officially surprised.”
So am I, thought Robie.
“Any interesting cases you’re involved with?” she asked. “It’s just a rhetorical question, of course.”
“How about you?”
“Oh, this and that.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Maybe I will at dinner. Or maybe I won’t. Depends on the quality of those cocktails.”
“See you then.”
He put the phone away and watched out the window again as people scurried along the streets trying to escape a rain that seemed to have settled into the bones of the area, making things as wet and chilly and miserable as possible.
Robie slowly moved through the eleven hundred square feet of his apartment. The place was where he lived, but it seemed to be uninhabited. There was furniture, to be sure. And food in the fridge. And clothes in the closet. But other than that there were no personal effects whatsoever, principally because Robie had none to bring here.
He had traveled the world, but had never purchased a souvenir to bring back. The only thing he had to bring home on his return trips was himself, surviving to do what he did another day. He’d never purchased a postcard or snow globe after ending someone’s life. He just got on a plane, or train, or sometimes drove or walked home. That was it.
He took a nap and when he woke he showered and changed into fresh clothes. He had a few hours to kill before going to meet Vance.
He opened his laptop, inserted the USB stick, and the life of Jessica Elyse Reel came to life in all its megapixel glory.
But before he could start reading his phone buzzed.
He looked at the email that had just popped into his box. It was quite to the point.
Sorry it’s come to this, Will. Only one can survive, of course. Selfishly, I hope it’s me. Respectfully, JR.
Chapter 7
Robie immediately contacted Blue Man and told him what had happened. A trace was put on the email Robie had received. The report came back thirty minutes later and it was not good.
Untraceable.
For Robie’s agency to concede something was untraceable was a big deal. Whoever Reel was working with, they weren’t slackers.
The other point to consider was how Reel had gotten Robie’s email address. It certainly wasn’t public knowledge. Blue Man was probably thinking the same thing.
Reel might have a con federate in the ranks of the agency. A leave-behind who was feeding information to the woman. That information might include that Robie had been assigned to track her down, a fact that was only hours old. Whoever the insider was, he had access to a lot.
Robie once more began reading the file on Jessica Reel contained on the USB stick. Reel had had some impressive hits over the years. She, like Robie, operated at the highest level and had taken down people in situations that would have challenged Robie to the fullest.
He’d never doubted that Reel was good. But he was a little surprised that she was that good.
And she may have a spy on the inside telling her all she needs to know to get enough of an advantage to take me out before I get to her. Which means my own agency is a threat.
Robie kept reading until he came to the hit on Doug Jacobs. Quick, clean, ingenious really. Nail the handler while he thinks you’re about to take out someone else.
And a sniper’s nest had been found in the hotel in the Middle East. The gun muzzle had been placed perfectly so that when Jacobs did the satellite zoom Reel had suggested, he could see the gun barrel. But there had been no sniper.
There was no evidence that Reel had been the shooter who had ended Jacobs’s life. But the email Robie had just received left no doubt that she was involved somehow.
So the woman was supposed to be in the Middle East, but she might have been in D.C. drawing a bead on the man talking to her through a headset. Other things being equal, it probably was Reel who took the shot on Jacobs. If it were Robie, he would want to make sure the kill was done correctly. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone else pulling the trigger.
Which meant he had to go somewhere right now, before he met Vance for dinner.
Robie barely glanced at the three-story building where Jacobs’s life had ended. He knew what had happened there, at the end of the bullet’s path. Now he needed to understand the beginning of that path.
The old town house was only a few failed support columns from collapsing. Built in the late 1800s, the five-story building had been used for many different purposes over the years. These included a private school and a men’s club that had ceased to exist over fifty years ago. But no one famous had ever lived there, so it would never become a historical registry building. In the coming years it would probably be knocked down if it didn’t tumble down on its own first.
Robie gazed up at the building’s front. Staring back at him were aged brick, scraggly vines clinging to the walls, dead grass, and a rotted front door. He walked gingerly up the steps, avoiding the holes in the porch planks. The building had been secured, but stealthily. There were watchful eyes that had already cleared Robie to enter the premises. He used a key he had been given to open the front door and entered. The electricity had long since been turned off, so he pulled a flashlight from his pocket and walked on, clearing piles of rubble and giving a wide berth to missing floorboards.
The building was hundreds of yards from the agency outpost where Jacobs had been working. It was a long-distance shot certainly, but manageable ten times out of ten by a capable shooter.
Robie took the stairs up to the fifth floor. He had already been told that that was from where the shot had come. It was the only position in the town house that provided a clear sight line to Jacobs’s office.
He heard raindrops starting to fall more heavily as he reached the fifth floor landing. He walked down the hall. He felt the chill from the outside reach him through innumerable chinks in the building’s walls. He might be able to see his breath if it weren’t so dark.
He shined his light ahead of him, taking care to avoid weak spots in the floor. It would have been
dicey setting up your shot from here, despite the clear sight line. You had no way to know if the floor would collapse under you.
But it hadn’t and Jacobs had died.
Robie slowed his walk as he approached the room. It was in a turret on the right side of the building.
He knew the place had already been gone over by agency personnel, but he also had been told that nothing had been disturbed. And the police hadn’t been told about this building yet, but no doubt their investigation would get here at some point. But for now Robie had a small window of opportunity.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
There was only one spot in the room from where the shot really could have been made. The turret room had three south-facing windows. The one in the middle had the truest sight line to Jacobs.
Robie drew nearer and shined his light around. On the windowsill was a narrow disturbance in the dust pattern. That was where the rifle muzzle had rested. Another disturbance of dust on the floor represented the shooter’s knee.
There was a slight discharge from the rifle on both the sill and the floor. The suppressor would have vented the propellant gas out just about there.
No shell casing had been found, so the brass had been policed, as Blue Man had pointed out. But the dust disturbances could easily have been covered up as well.
Only they weren’t, which told Robie that the shooter didn’t care if the sniper’s nest was discovered.
He picked up a long piece of shoe molding that had broken off, knelt down, and, using the molding as an imaginary weapon, drew a bead on Jacobs’s office.
Fifth floor looking down on third floor. The reverse wouldn’t work, of course, because of the angle of the shot. You couldn’t fire up and nail your target. You had to fire down. If Jacobs’s building had been taller than five stories and he had been on a higher floor, the old town house would not have worked as a shooting nest.
But they would have just found another place that did work.
Robie assumed that bulletproof glass was being added to the windows of many agency buildings right this second.
It was clear that Reel, or whoever the shooter had been, was in possession of the layout of Jacobs’s office. Back to the window, computer screen in front. No obstructions to the flight path of the killing round. Chest shot, wrecked the heart, clanged off a rib, and exited the body, hitting the computer.
Robie was guessing about the collision with the rib. If the bullet had passed right through the body it would have hit the top of the desk most likely, not the computer. The angle was too extreme. Ribs were hard enough to change a bullet’s flight path. He hadn’t seen Jacobs’s autopsy results, but he wouldn’t be surprised to see that sort of internal damage.
So the shot was fired. Jacobs was dead. If Reel were the shooter she would have heard through her headset the window breaking, the impact of her round with Jacobs, and Jacobs dying. Confirmation of a kill. It was always nice to have when you were firing blind through a window.
And she would have had possession of the layout of Jacobs’s office. Reel wouldn’t have actually been shooting “blind.”
Inside info again.
Like my email address.
She might be following me right now. Or she might be here waiting for me, figuring I would come to the town house at some point.
Robie scanned the street below, but saw nothing other than people scurrying along to get out of the rain. But people like Reel wouldn’t show themselves so carelessly. Robie looked down at his shoe. Something white was sticking out from under the sole. He picked the item off. It was soft, falling apart. He held it to his nose. It had a scent.
Then Robie forgot about that when he heard a disturbance outside the house. Raised voices. Sounds of footsteps on the front porch.
He raced out of the room and down the hall. He reached a window where he could see the front door. There were people clustered out there. An argument was going on. Robie could see people he assumed were from his agency.
And he could see other people who were not.
They were easy to tell apart. The ones not from his agency were wearing blue windbreakers with gold lettering on the back.
There were only three gold letters. But they were three letters Robie did not want to see.
FBI.
And when he saw who was heading up the FBI agents he turned and moved as quickly as he could toward the rear of the house.
He was meeting Nicole Vance for dinner at eight.
He did not want to meet her inside this town house in the next two minutes.
Chapter 8
Robie knew how to exit quietly. He did so now, coming around the corner and watching from behind some bushes as Vance continued to argue with the other men.
He pulled his phone and sent a text to Blue Man.
A minute later Robie saw one of the men arguing with Vance touch his ear.
Message communicated.
He stopped arguing and Robie heard him say, “The place is yours to search, Agent Vance. We’ll leave you to it.”
Vance halted in midsentence and stared at the man.
Robie ducked down as she swiveled her head, looking in all directions. He could tell she knew exactly what had just happened. The dogs had been called off. The place was open to her now. That order had come from high up. Some condition had changed in the last few seconds.
Robie was on the move, because he knew that Vance’s next tactic might be to send her men rushing in all directions to look for the source of the change on the ground. He didn’t want her to discover that the source was him. It would make dinner later even more uncomfortable than it was already shaping up to be.
Robie reached his car and drove off. He punched in a number and Blue Man answered almost immediately.
“Thanks for the assist back there,” said Blue Man.
Robie snapped, “I’m meeting with Vance tonight. Agreed to it before I knew she was involved in this. Would have been nice to know before. Getting blindsided like that out of the gate does not inspire confidence.”
“We didn’t know she had been assigned to it. We don’t run the FBI. I suppose that her success last time has lifted her up in the eyes of the Bureau.”
“Exactly how much does the Bureau know?” Robie asked. “Your guys being outside that building tells her that it’s not a routine murder.”
“We couldn’t completely cover up what happened to Doug Jacobs. FBI involvement was inevitable. But it’s up to us to manage it properly.”
“So, again, how much do they know?” Robie asked.
“They know that Doug Jacobs was a federal employee. They do not and will not know that he works for our agency. He is officially a member of DTRA.”
“Defense Threat Reduction?”
“More specifically in their Information Analysis Center. The building Jacobs was in is leased by the Center. It provides good cover for us. Not that we ever expected Jacobs to be shot dead in his office.”
“And DTRA will play the game?” Robie queried.
“They think big picture, just like we do. They’re part of DoD, after all.”
“Do they know what Jacobs was doing in that office when he was shot?”
“There would be no possible good coming from my answering that question. Suffice it to say that ignorance is bliss.”
“Meaning DTRA won’t have to technically lie to the FBI when they come calling?”
“They have already come calling.”
“And what is the official line?” Robie said.
“Jacobs was shot while performing his mundane job, possibly by a rogue gunman targeting the federal government.”
“And you think the FBI will buy that?”
“I don’t know if they will or not,” replied Blue Man. “That’s not my concern.”
“But you can’t let the FBI find out that Jacobs was actually orchestrating the assassination of a foreign leader.”
“He wasn’t a foreign leader yet. We do our best to b
e proactive. Eliminating those already in power is a tricky thing. Sometimes necessary but to be avoided if possible since it’s technically illegal.”
“Vance is tenacious as hell.”
“Yes, she is,” agreed Blue Man.
“She might get to the truth.”
“That is not an option, Robie.”
“Like you said, you don’t run the FBI.”
“What will you talk about with her tonight?” asked Blue Man.
“I don’t know. And if I cancel she might get suspicious.”
“Do you think she suspects your involvement in any of this?”
“She’s smart. And she sort of knows what I do for a living.”
“That was a mistake, Robie, it really was, letting her know that.”
“I really didn’t have a choice, did I?”
“What if she starts asking questions?”
“Then I’ll answer them. In my own way.”
Blue Man seemed about to continue this line of questioning, but then said, “What’s your next step on Reel?”
“Any way to trace her movements leading up to the shooting? I mean, do we know for certain if she was in the country and pulled the trigger? Her voice over the headset doesn’t prove she was actually the shooter.”
“Reel went silent before the shot, so we didn’t pick up any sounds on her end, just on Jacobs’s. But her voice means she was involved somehow.”
Robie said, “The sniper nest was set up overseas. Any clues there?”
“Nothing. We confirmed that she was seen there, but two days before. Plenty of time to get back here and shoot Jacobs.”
“What’s the latest on Ahmadi?”
“Business as usual. We removed all traces of the sniper nest, of course.”
“Planning another hit on him?” asked Robie.
“Well, if he was aware of the first try and foiled it, turning it back on us, I would imagine he would be ultra-cautious now. We might not see his face again until he’s Syria’s new leader.”
“I don’t like it that Reel had my email address.”
The Hit wr-2 Page 4