Nicole Vance talked to one of her agents and signed off on a document. She stepped back and took a long look at the building from where the shot had been fired that had killed Doug Jacobs. Then she gazed toward the building where Jacobs’s life had ended.
Reel knew that Vance was very good at her job. She knew that the woman had probably gathered all the evidence that was collectible at both sites. She would go over it and then look for the killer. She wouldn’t find the killer. Not because she wasn’t good enough, but because it just wasn’t the sort of crime that the police ever solved.
Reel knew that either the people after her would get to her first, long before the police would be made aware of her presence, or else she would finish her work and disappear forever.
Reel was not afraid of much. She was not afraid of the police. Or the FBI. Or Special Agent Vance.
She was afraid of her former employer.
She was afraid of Will Robie.
But she was most afraid of failing at the one mission that had come to define her perhaps as she truly was.
She took some photos of Vance with her phone while pretending to make a call.
She knew where Vance lived. A condo in Alexandria. She’d been there quite some time. Never married. Never close to being married. Her career apparently was her perfect soul mate.
But she liked Robie. That was obvious.
That could help Reel. And hurt Robie.
She thought things through. Robie had sustained burns. That meant getting treatment at an agency facility. And with Jim Gelder dead, Robie almost certainly would have been summoned to meet with the one man above Gelder: Evan Tucker.
She took a cab to a Hertz dealer, rented a car, and drove off, merging into traffic and, in her mind, merging the possibilities of the young teen and the FBI agent. There was nothing fair about what Reel was thinking about doing. Yet when one had few options, one had to go with them.
She drove to Virginia and stopped in front of an imposing building that was relatively new.
United States Courthouse.
It was inside here that justice was supposed to be accomplished. It was inside here that wrongs were supposed to be righted. The guilty punished. The innocent absolved.
Reel didn’t know if any of that happened in courthouses anymore. She wasn’t a lawyer and didn’t understand the intricacies of what lawyers and judges did.
But she did understand one thing.
There were consequences to choices.
And a choice had been made by someone in that building and she happened to be the consequence of that choice.
She waited for another hour, her car parked on the street, its engine running. There was virtually no parking around here. She had been lucky enough to snag a spot and didn’t want to give it up.
The clouds had steadily moved back up the river and thickened. A few drops of rain plopped onto her windshield. She didn’t notice; her attention was riveted on the front steps of the courthouse. Finally, the doors opened and four men walked out.
Reel was only interested in one of the four. He was older than the rest. He should have known better. But perhaps with age, at least in his case, did not come wisdom.
He was white-haired, tall, and trim, with a tanned face and small eyes. He said something to one of the other men and they all laughed. At the bottom of the stairs they parted company. The white-haired man went to the left, the others to the right.
He opened his umbrella as the rain became steadier. His name was Samuel Kent. His intimates called him Sam. He was a federal judge of long standing. He was married to a woman who came from money. Her trust fund fueled a lavish lifestyle with an apartment in New York, a historically important eighteenth-century town home in Old Town Alexandria, and a horse farm in Middleburg, Virginia.
A year ago, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court had appointed Sam Kent to the FISC, which stood for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the most clandestine of all federal tribunals. It operated in absolute secrecy. The president had no authority over it. Neither did Congress. It never published its findings. It was really accountable to no one. Its sole purpose was to grant or reject surveillance warrants for foreign agents operating in the United States. There were only eleven FISC judges, and Sam Kent was thrilled to be one of them. And he never rejected a warrant request.
Reel watched Kent walk down the street. She knew his Maserati convertible was parked in a secure section of the courthouse garage, so he wasn’t driving anywhere. His town home would have been within walking distance of the old federal courthouse in Old Town, which was now used by the bankruptcy court. But it was too far to walk from this courthouse. There were two Metro stops in the area, but Reel doubted he would be taking public transportation. He just didn’t seem the sort to mix with regular people. At this hour of the day she assumed he might be going to grab a bite to eat at one of the nearby restaurants.
She pulled out onto the street and followed the judge at a discreet distance.
In her head Reel had her list. There were two crossed off.
Judge Kent was the third name on that list.
She had covered the intelligence sector. Now it was time to move on to the judiciary.
Kent was very foolish for walking alone even in daylight, she thought. With Gelder and Jacobs dead he would have to know.
And if he knew, he should be aware that he was on the list.
And if he didn’t know, he was not nearly as formidable an opponent as she thought.
And I know that’s not the case.
Something was off here.
Her gaze hit the rearview mirror.
And that’s when Jessica Reel realized that she had just made a very costly mistake.
Chapter 21
“You look like your government pension got shit-canned,” said Robie as he walked next to Blue Man down the hallway.
“It did. But that’s not why I’m upset.”
“I didn’t think they could take pensions away from federal employees.”
“We’re not the Department of Agriculture. It’s not like we can write an op-ed in the Post because we’re upset.”
“So where are we going?”
“To talk.”
“Just you and me?”
“No.”
“Who else? I’ve already spoken with Evan Tucker. And number two is no longer with us.”
“There’s a new number two. At least an interim one.”
“That was fast.”
“Never let it be said that government bureaucracy doesn’t move fast when it has to.”
“So who is he?”
“She.”
“Okay. Glad to see the agency is progressive. What’s her name?”
“I’m sure she’ll introduce herself.”
“And you can’t tell me because…?”
“It’s a new paradigm, Robie. Everyone is feeling their way.”
“New paradigm? Because of what happened to Jacobs and Gelder?”
“Not just that, no.”
“What else is there?” asked Robie.
“I’m sure that will be explained.”
Robie didn’t ask another question, because it was clear that Blue Man was not in the mood to answer. And Blue Man was not the one to question about the crime scenes being policed and the roses taken. Robie wondered if the interim number two would be the one to talk to about that.
The door at the end of the hall opened, Robie was ushered in, and Blue Man left, closing the door behind him. Robie looked around the room. It was large but with minimal furniture. A round table with two chairs. One was empty. The other was not.
The woman was in her late fifties, about five-five, stout, with a heavily wrinkled face and graying hair that hung straight to her shoulders. Big round glasses partially obscured her plump face. She looked like the smartest girl in high school who had aged badly.
Robie didn’t recognize her. But it was a clandestine agency after all. It didn’t advertise its perso
nnel.
“Please sit, Mr. Robie.”
Robie sat, unbuttoned his jacket, and put his hands on his stomach. He wasn’t planning on starting the conversation. She had summoned him. It was her show to run.
“My name is Janet DiCarlo. I have assumed Mr. Gelder’s duties.”
Not “the deceased Mr. Gelder.” Not “the unfortunate Mr. Gelder.” Not “the murdered Mr. Gelder.” Apparently no time for sympathy.
“That’s what I understand.”
“I have reviewed the files and your recent steps.”
Robie wanted to say, You mean my missteps.
Something was not making sense here. He was wondering why the one-two punch. First Tucker at home. Now his new lieutenant. Had this been planned out in advance?
DiCarlo stared across the width of the table at him. “How are the injuries?”
“Fixed.”
“It was close,” she noted.
“Yes, it was.”
“I saw the satellite feed. I don’t think you’ll survive another one like that.”
“Probably not.”
“You haven’t found out much.”
“I’m working it. Takes time.”
“But we’re running out of time.”
He said, “Well, you folks are making it harder.”
She leaned forward. “Well, perhaps I can make it a little easier. Jessica Reel?”
“What about her?”
“I think I can help you with her.”
“I’m listening.”
“You need to listen very carefully,” said DiCarlo.
“I am.”
“There is a reason why I have been elevated to this spot at this point in time.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
“I can tell you things about Reel that you might find helpful.”
“How is that?”
“I helped train her.”
Chapter 22
Reel did not do the obvious. The obvious would have been to speed up or otherwise take evasive action. She did neither after processing the ground conditions in her mind and arriving at the best scenario for her survival.
There were two cars. One SUV, one sedan. Both were black. Both had tinted windows all around. Reel figured they were full of men with weapons. They were no doubt in communication with one another.
As though she were competing in a chess match, she jumped four moves ahead, retraced each link in that mental chain, and decided it was time.
She still didn’t punch the gas. She didn’t try to turn down a side street. That was too predictable. She calmly eyed the rearview mirror, looked at the rain-slicked streets, glanced at the traffic around her, and finally noted Judge Kent’s position on the street.
She counted to three and slammed not the gas, but the brakes.
Smoke poured from her rear wheels as traffic veered around her.
She counted to three again and hit the gas. But only after putting the car in reverse.
She surged backward, right at the SUV and the sedan.
In her mind she could hear the communications going back and forth between the two attack units: She’s trying to ram us. Disable us.
She angled her car’s rear at the grille of the smaller sedan. It was the game of chicken played at speed and partially in reverse.
The sedan blinked. It veered a foot to the left. But the bigger SUV instantly filled this gap.
In her mind Reel imagined the next communication.
The far heavier SUV would take the impact, while the sedan stayed clear. She could almost see the men in the SUV checking their seat belts, getting ready for the impact. After the collision, the men in the sedan would perform the execution on Reel.
What the SUV could not do, however, was match the agility of a smaller car, especially with someone as skilled as Jessica Reel behind the wheel.
She timed it perfectly, cutting the wheel hard and instantly pointing her car’s rear at the gap created by the SUV’s move, like a running back executing a cutback at the line as a hole appeared. At the same time as she pulled her pistol, she used her elbow to hit the button to roll down her window.
One would think that a car moving backward could not be as efficient as one moving forward. But the key was that Reel was moving in the direction she wanted to go, which was behind her. The SUV and sedan weren’t. Because where they wanted to go was where Reel was going, which was in the opposite direction.
Reel flew through the gap, aimed her gun, and fired. The rear tire of the SUV exploded and the tread unraveled, launching rubber crocodile hides off into the roadway. It swerved and collided with the sedan.
Clear of both vehicles, Reel let go of the gas, spun the wheel, executed a seamless J-turn that the Secret Service would have given her full marks for, and ended up with the front of her car pointed in the opposite direction.
She punched the gas once more, turned down a side street, and was gone.
Five minutes later she abandoned the car and walked away with a small bag containing clothes and other necessities that she always carried for just this sort of scenario. There was no need to wipe the car for her prints. She always wore gloves.
She entered a nearby Metro station, boarded a train, and within a few minutes was hurtling miles away from the two cars, the targeted federal judge, and her nearly premature death.
Still, with all that accomplished she gave herself a failing grade, and with good reason. Reel had always been her own harshest critic, and today she was brutal. She had committed at least five mistakes, any one of which could have led to her death.
Should have led to my death.
In addition to that, she would have to change her identity yet again.
They knew her car. They would trace it back to the rental place. They would know her new name and her credit card number and her driver’s license. These were all ways to trace her. Thus those items were now useless to her.
Fortunately, she had planned for that and had backups. But she had not planned for them to be corrupted so soon. This was clearly a setback.
Even more critically, Judge Kent had been fully alerted.
It was a screwup of regrettable proportions.
She took a cab to a bank and gained entry to a safety deposit box she had rented there under the ID that had just been put at risk. There she kept additional IDs, credit cards, passports, and other documentation she would now need. She did this as quickly as possible because they were probably on their way right now.
She left the bank and walked to a cabstand. She could not stay at a hotel near the bank. That would make it far too easy for them. She took the taxi to another cabstand, got out, and waited in line for another cab. She didn’t take the first one that came through and took a long, hard look at the second.
She gave the cab an address across town. After he dropped her off, she walked for a mile in the opposite direction.
These were all extraordinary measures to a layperson, she knew. But they were actually a bare necessity in her field.
She checked into another hotel under the new identity, went to her room, and put the few things in her bag away. She cleaned and fully loaded her gun as she sat at a table by the window looking for black vehicles with tinted windows pulling up in front.
A moment later she glanced at her shirtsleeve.
She had not gotten out of the predicament entirely unscathed. The bullet had ripped through her shirt, burning her skin before embedding in the passenger door.
She rolled up her sleeve and looked at the wound. The heat from the shot had cauterized the ridge in her skin. It didn’t worry her—she had scars from past missions that made this one look lightweight by comparison.
She supposed Will Robie had his share of mementos from his missions. And he would have some fresh ones thanks to her trap on the Eastern Shore. If they ever faced off she had to hope those wounds would slow him down enough to give her an edge.
She looked at her watch. She would have to leave soon. To get to
the school on time.
For now, Reel continued to stare outside as the rain fell.
It was a gloomy day. It perfectly matched her life.
They had clearly won this round. She had to hope it would be their only victory against her.
Chapter 23
Janet DiCarlo stared across at Robie, but didn’t appear to be actually focused on him. Robie wondered if the woman was even aware he was still in her presence. It had been at least two minutes since she had dropped the bombshell on him.
“Ma’am?” said Robie gently but firmly. “You said you trained her?”
DiCarlo blinked, shot a glance at Robie, and sat back, looking slightly embarrassed.
“She was the first and only female field operative recruited to the division. I was one of the few female handlers who worked with people in your division. People at the agency thought it would be a good idea to put the two of us together. I had years of experience and she a ton of potential. She bested every man in the class that year.”
“I worked with her on some assignments early on in our careers.”
“I know,” responded DiCarlo.
Robie looked surprised by this, but DiCarlo’s expression showed he shouldn’t have been.
“We keep score, Mr. Robie. People do, you know. In everything. Sports, business, relationships.”
“And killing people,” said Robie.
“Terminating problems,” corrected DiCarlo.
“My mistake,” he said dryly.
“We admired your record,” said DiCarlo. “Jessica in particular was an admirer of yours. She often said you were the best of all of them. You graded higher than her head-to-head. You were the only one to do so.”
“Since she almost killed me I think she might have to reevaluate her opinion.”
“The key word being ‘almost.’ The fact is she didn’t kill you. You escaped from her attempt.”
“Part luck, part instinct. But that doesn’t help us get to her.”
“It may, in a way.”
DiCarlo sat forward and steepled her hands in front of her. “I have evaluated both of you as objectively as I can. I think you are equally gifted, in both similar and dissimilar ways. You think alike. You adapt well. You have ice in your veins. You pride yourselves on being one step ahead, and if the other side catches up, you can still win by changing tactics on the fly.”
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