The Hit (32 page)

And that’s when a totally unrelated thought entered his mind. Well, part of his mind must have been thinking about it as he took this walk down memory lane.

Reel had told him few things about herself, but one had struck him.

“I’m a linear person, Robie,” she’d said after they returned from their last mission.

“Meaning what?” Robie had asked.

“Meaning I like to begin at the beginning and end at the end.”

With this thought inspiration occurred. He jumped up, ran to his wall safe, took out the three objects again, and looked at them.

Gun.

Photo.

Book.

GPB.

He sat down with renewed energy and interest. He had unconsciously laid them out in the correct order when he’d looked at them last. But at least now he had confirmation that there was an order to them.

He held the gun. He had already taken it apart and found nothing. But actually he had found something.

Everything I do has a reason.

That’s what Reel had written him. Everything she did had a reason.

He looked at the gun. Well, Glock had built this gun. She hadn’t.

His eyes narrowed.

But she
had
done some alterations to the gun.

He looked at the weapon’s sight. Pennsylvania Small Arms Company. An add-on by Reel, though the standard sight that had come with the gun was perfectly fine.

The titanium plunger. Nice add-on, but again not necessary.

He examined once more the stippled grip that Reel had presumably put on the weapon. Again, although polymer frames like the Glock could sometimes be slippery, the original grip was perfectly fine.

So why had Reel taken the time to manually reengineer the factory grip when she didn’t really need to? Etching a stippled surface onto the frame would have taken time. And if you didn’t know what you were doing or made a mistake, it could make the weapon nearly unusable, at least so far as the grip was concerned.

And most of her killing would be done at long range anyway when the weapon’s grip really wasn’t an issue.

And then there was the thirty-three-round mag. That had bugged him from the first. In their line of work if you had time to fire off thirty-three rounds at something, that meant you had screwed up and were most likely going to die. One or two or possibly three shots and you were supposed to be out of there.

Seventeen rounds were pretty much standard in this Glock model. Yet she had nearly doubled her capacity in an extra-long mag that, in truth, was a little cumbersome.

Reel didn’t strike him as someone who enjoyed clutter.

He looked at the model number: Glock 17.

He was going to have to do this methodically. He imagined that Reel had come up with it in the same way.

Robie knew he was on the right path because of the text she had
sent him. It had to mean Gun, Photo, Book. There was no other possible explanation. And it was a pretty shrewd way to go about it. Reel had known that the agency would allow him to search her locker and take her things once they had assigned him to hunt her down. And the only reason they had allowed him access to her locker was because they had searched through the items and found nothing useful in them. So she must have assumed that he would at some point gain access to the items and would examine them for a clue of some kind.

He took out a pad of paper and a pen and fired up his laptop. He opened a search engine and started looking, feeding the facts he had gleaned from the gun into the search. He had to go through quite a few false starts until what he saw finally started to make sense. Not complete sense, but enough to get him moving in a fresh and possibly rewarding direction.

He wrote it all down, closed out his search, and shut down his laptop.

He jumped up and went to pack a bag. He had somewhere to go. And he had to make sure he got there without someone tailing him.

Vance’s words came back to him. Could he successfully go off the grid?

Well, I’m about to find out.

I
T WAS A FINE,
stately chamber, full of dark woods, mitered-perfect moldings, plush carpeting, large, ornate doors, massive lighting fixtures, and an air of sublime prosperity.

It was federal money spent just right. A true rarity.

At least that was Sam Kent’s humble opinion.

He sat in his office at the courthouse. He closed the book he was reading and checked his watch.

Just about time.

A minute later his clerk came in and announced the arrival of Congressman Howard Decker. The man walked in and shook hands with the judge as the clerk left them to their private meeting.

Besides chairing the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Decker had once been on a judiciary subcommittee, so his meeting with Kent would raise no eyebrows. Plus, the men had been friends for years and shared a commonality of thought and ambition. As the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Decker had congressional fingerprints from the CIA to the Treasury Department and lots of federal real estate in between.

They sat at a table laid out with crystal and linen napkins and a cold lunch prepared by the court chef. Kent poured out glasses of white wine for them both.

“A nice treat,” said Decker. “The Congressional Dining Room gets a little old.”

“Well, we needed to talk, so why not here, in comfort and privacy?”

Decker chuckled and lifted the wineglass to his lips. “Not worried
about someone listening in on the court that authorizes people listening in?”

Kent’s features were impassive. “We need to talk, Howard.”

Decker put the glass back down and his expression became serious. “It’s about Roy West, isn’t it?”

“It’s about a lot more than that,” said Kent.

“You think Jessica Reel did all that? It looked like a war zone on the news.”

“I’ve been to war, Howard. It didn’t look anything like a war zone. They look a lot worse than that.”

Suitably put in his place, Decker sat back in his chair and licked his already chapped lips. “What do we do now?”

“Our plan hasn’t changed, has it?”

“Which plan? To get Reel? Of course not.”

“Good, just checking. I wanted to make sure we are still on the same page.”

Decker grimaced. “But what steps have you taken? It doesn’t look like this Robie person is going to get the job done.”

Kent took a sip of wine and considered this. “He may get a job done. Just not the one we want.”

“I’m not following you.”

“I have received a very detailed report of what happened out in Arkansas. A very detailed report, from the highest sources.”

“And?”

“And that level of carnage could not have been perpetrated by one person, not even someone as skilled as Jessica Reel.”

Decker sat forward. “Are you telling me that she had help?” he blustered. He paused, then added, “Robie!”

“I have no definite proof of that. But it would be a coincidence of immense proportions to believe that someone else wandered into that little drama with a skill set perfectly designed for survival against what should have been overwhelming odds.” He put his glass down and took a forkful of salmon. “And I for one do not like coincidences.”

“If Robie and Reel have teamed up…”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you just said it had to be the two of them.”

“But that doesn’t mean they’ve teamed up, Howard.”

“What the hell else could it be? You just as good as said they killed all those men together.”

“Mutual survival does not mean you’re on the same side. I could be wrong, but it might simply be that conditions on the ground led to a temporary alliance.”

“But that’s still not good for us.”

“Of course it isn’t. But it might mean it’s manageable.”

“If Robie joins Reel?”

“Then he will be dealt with. I have people in mind for the task.”

“If it’s the same people you have going after Reel I’d say don’t bother.”

“And your alternative?”

“It’s your job to have the answers in this particular area, Sam, not me. Our division of labor was explicitly laid out. I helped get you the assets you needed. And the target. That was my job. I did it.”

Kent took a mouthful of rice and broccoli and washed it down with some water from a cut-crystal glass. “You’re right, it was. I apologize.”

Mollified, Decker sat back and started to eat.

Kent said, “I actually anticipated Reel locating West. I thought they were prepared to take care of her. I was obviously wrong. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“I would hope not.”

“I also tried to recruit someone to deal with Reel and possibly Robie, but he didn’t work out.”

“Will he be a problem?”

“I doubt it.” Kent picked up his glass of wine.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I shot him in the head.” Kent took a sip of the wine.

Decker dropped his fork. It clanged off the china plate and fell to the floor.

“You don’t like the salmon?” asked Kent as he wiped his mouth.

His hands shaking, Decker bent down and picked up his fork. His face ashen, he said, “You shot him?”

“Well, there wasn’t a viable alternative, really. And he was an arrogant prick. Thought way too much of himself. Hell, I believe I would have shot him regardless.” Kent settled his gaze on Decker’s frightened features. “I don’t like arrogant pricks, Howard. I don’t like people who think too much of themselves. I tend to shoot them. I tend to shoot them in the head to make sure they’re dead.”

Decker licked his lips. “I know you’re under a lot of stress, Sam.”

Kent shook his head. “This isn’t stress, Howard. Living in a hole in the ground in the middle of a snake- and mosquito-infested jungle for months on end wondering what was going to get you first, the dysentery eating your insides away or the Viet Cong who kept picking your guys off one by one—now
that
, my friend, that was stressful.”

“I’m under a lot of pressure too.”

“Right. You get elected and you have your big office and your driver and your staff and the fancy dinners and you go back home and raise money by kissing rich asses and then you come here and occasionally actually do your damn job and vote on something. Lots of pressure. Politics is hell. Glad I never went there. I just wore a uniform and got my ass shot up. You, on the other hand, never wore the uniform.”

“I was too young for Vietnam.”

“So you would have volunteered, like I did?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“And nothing was stopping you from joining over the years.”

“Not everyone is cut out for the military. I had other goals in life.”

“I earned two Purples and a Bronze and would’ve gotten the Silver but my CO didn’t like the fact that his troops would rather follow me than him. After the war I got my college and law degrees. Uncle Sam helped pay for it. No complaints there. I did my time. I got my quid pro quo. You did shit and now you
serve
the people from a nice, safe office.”

Kent suddenly reached across and gripped the back of Decker’s fleshy neck and jerked him forward until their faces were barely an inch apart. “So the next time you seek to lecture me on anything
will be the last time you lecture anyone about anything. Are we crystal clear on that? Because I don’t intend to repeat it.”

Kent let Decker go and sat back. He picked up his fork. “Try the rice. It’s a little spicy, but it goes well with the seasoned broccoli.”

Decker didn’t move. He just sat there staring across at Kent.

Kent finished his lunch and rose. “My clerk will show you out. I hope you have a productive day up there on the Hill serving your country.”

He walked out of the room, leaving Decker trembling in his chair.

R
OBIE DROVE SLOWLY DOWN THE
narrow streets of Titanium, Pennsylvania. It was a small town with the usual assortment of homes and businesses. People ambled down the street, window-shopping at the mom-and-pop stores located there. Cars puttered along. Folks waved at each other. The pace was slow, comfortable.

He had done everything possible to avoid being trailed here. He felt it would have been impossible for even the best agents out there to keep him under surveillance. And if they had, they deserved to put one in the win column.