The Hit (36 page)

Robie glanced down. Her bag was gone.

Where was Reel?

A voice called out softly, “Robie, over here.”

He glanced up. Reel was at the rear of the train car.

“We have company,” she said.

“Yeah, that one I’d figured out,” replied Robie. “Where did he come from?” he asked, gesturing to the dead man.

“Rear door. Advance guard, I guess.”

“They should have sent more guards,” noted Robie.

“He was tough to kill. Very well trained.”

“I’m sure.” Robie looked around. “The train’s not moving. Station’s not that big. All passengers should have gotten on by now.”

“You think they’ve commandeered the train?”

“Wouldn’t bet against it. They’ll do a car-by-car search.”

“The dead guy was trying to call in that he’d spotted me. But he never made it.” She looked around. “Got a plan?”

Before Robie could answer the train started to move.

“What do you think that’s about?” asked Reel.

“Too many questions in the station, maybe. They want to be rolling through the country when they hit us.”

“Toss us out on the fly?”

“After they make sure we’re dead.”

“So, again, got a plan?”

Robie looked behind him. The attendant who had greeted them hadn’t come back. He might be dead too.

Robie raced up the aisle to a small storage closet located at one end of the car and grabbed a large metal bowl from inside it. He rushed into the small bathroom compartment, turned on the water, and filled up the bowl. Then he emptied half the bowl of water in front of each of the connecting doors into their train cars. He rubbed the slickened metal floor with his foot and came away satisfied.

Then Robie looked at the dead man.

Reel joined him and said, “He had no creds. No ID, nothing.”

“Missing personnel, missing equipment.”

“Is that what DiCarlo told you?” asked Reel.

“Yes.”

“The apocalypse scenario has been a long time in preparation, Robie.”

“I’m starting to see that.”

He climbed up on a seat and squatted down.

Reel did the same.

“You left, me right,” said Robie, and Reel replied, “Copy that.”

A few seconds later armed men came racing in from both directions. It was a designed pincers move, to trap Reel and Robie between two flanks and catch them in a crossfire they could not withstand.

Only they had not counted on a slippery floor.

Three of the men went down hard and slid along the floor, while a fourth staggered around trying to regain his balance.

Reel and Robie popped out from the hidden spots and opened fire, Robie right, Reel left. Nine seconds later four men lay dead, their blood turning the floor and walls crimson. The other men retreated to the cars bracketing this one.

Robie looked at Reel. “How fast do you think we’re going?”

She looked out the window. “Fifty, maybe a little more. These old bangers don’t get much above sixty.”

Robie looked at the terrain outside. All trees. “Still too fast,” he said, and Reel nodded.

Robie glanced to his left and then back at her. “Where’s your bag?”

“I stashed it here.” She pulled it out from between two of the seats.

“Got any flash-bangs in there?”

“Two of them.”

He looked at one of the connecting doors between the cars through which the men had retreated. It was metal but with a glass window. Then he ran over to a control panel built into one wall in the car’s vestibule. He ripped it open and took a few seconds to see what was available.

While he was doing that Reel snagged both flash-bangs from her bag.

“You ever jumped off a moving train before?” he asked, looking up from his work.

“No. You?”

He shook his head. “I figure at sixty, we have no chance. At thirty our odds improve some.”

“Depends on what we jump into,” said Reel, who was already clicking keys on her phone. She brought up their current location.

“Body of water coming up on the left in about two miles.”

“Could be harder than dirt depending on how we hit.”

“We stay here we die.”

Robie hit a button and the left-side door slid open. Cool air rushed in.

“They won’t be waiting long,” said Reel, looking at each doorway.

“No. We need to take care of that.”

She handed him a pair of earplugs, which he pushed deeply into his ears. She did the same with her ears. Then she passed him one of the flash-bangs.

“Give me a countdown,” she said.

Reel went to the middle of the car, drew her pistol, and waited.

“Five-four-three-two-one,” called out Robie.

Reel fired to the left, shattering the glass on the door leading to the train car in front of them. She gripped the flash-bang, engaged it, and threw it through the opening. She whirled and shot out the glass in the window to the rear. The bullet was followed by the second flash-bang, which Robie tossed through the new opening. Robie crouched down and covered his face and his ears as both flash-bangs detonated within seconds of each other.

Screams came from the other train cars.

Reel, who had ducked down a split second before the flash-bangs went off, raced back down the aisle and joined Robie.

He engaged the emergency braking system. They were thrown forward as the train’s brakes caught. They righted themselves, faced the open door, and looked at each other. They were both breathing hard.

“How fast are we going?” Reel asked.

“Still too fast.”

He glanced out the door. “Water’s coming up.”

The train was slowing, yet it took a long time for something that big to reduce its speed. But they were out of time.

Shots were starting to rip through the train car as their opponents recovered.

“Gotta go.” Robie gripped her hand as the train slowed even more.

“Robie, I don’t think I can do this.”

“Don’t think, just do.”

They jumped together.

It seemed to Robie that they stayed in the air a long time. When they landed, they hit soft mud, not water. The one thing they couldn’t have accounted for was a summer drought that had extended into fall and had lowered the lake’s water level by about four feet. When they hit the wet dirt, Robie and Reel rolled and tumbled along about twenty feet past their first impact.

The train was already out of sight around a bend. But at some
point the brakes would bring the million-pound-plus behemoth to a stop.

Robie slowly sat up. He was covered in mud and slime. His clothes were ripped and he felt like an entire NFL team had jumped on him.

He looked over at Reel, who was starting to slowly get up. She looked as bad as he did and probably felt worse. Her pants and shirt were torn too.

Robie managed to stand and stagger over to the knapsack, which had separated from him on impact.

Reel groaned. “Next time I’m staying and just shooting it out.”

Robie nodded. There was a pain in his right arm. It felt funny. He worried that he had broken it, but it didn’t feel broken, just… funny.

As Reel walked over to him he rolled up his shirtsleeve, exposing his burn.

What he saw surprised Robie. But it also solved the question of how the people had been able to follow them.

Robie looked at Reel and smiled grimly.

“What?” she said.

“They just made a big mistake.”

S
AM
K
ENT WAS AT HOME
when the call came in.

“Believed to be dead,” said the voice.

Robie and Reel had jumped off a train going nearly forty miles per hour. It was thought unlikely that they could have survived.

The fail-safe tracker had gone silent.

It was over.

Kent didn’t believe that for a second. But he had confirmation that his greatest fear had been realized.

Robie and Reel had teamed up. And despite the report, his gut was telling him that they were alive.

Kent was sitting in his study in his exquisite home set among many exquisite homes in a section of Fairfax County that was home to the unassailable “one-tenthers,” the people in the top one-tenth of the one percent. Average income per year: ten million dollars. Most of them made far more than that. They did it in myriad ways:

Inheritance.

Gaining the ear, for a fee, of those in power.

And many, like Kent, actually worked hard for a living and provided things of value to the world. Though his wife’s money had certainly come in handy.

Now Kent sat in his castle and contemplated the phone call he was about to make. It was to someone of whom he was understandably afraid.

His secure phone was in his desk drawer. He pulled it out, hit the required numbers, and waited.

Four rings and a pickup. Kent winced when he realized it was
the person and not a recording. He had been hoping for a bit of a reprieve.

He reported the latest news in terse, information-packed sentences, just as he had been trained to do.

And then he waited.

He could hear the other person breathing lightly on the other end of a communication line that not even the NSA could crack.

Kent did not break the silence. It wasn’t his place.

He just let the man breathe, take it in, think. The response would be forthcoming, he was certain of that.

“Has a search been made?” asked the person. “If they’re believed dead, there have to be bodies. That will be the only confirmation. Otherwise, they’re alive.”

“Agreed,” said Kent, who let out a nearly inaudible sigh of relief. “I personally don’t think they’re dead.”

“But injured?”

“After that sort of a jump, most likely yes.”

“Then we have to find them. Shouldn’t be too difficult if they are hurt.”

“Yes.”

“Cleanup on the train?”

“The train was stopped. Everything has been removed. All witnesses have been dealt with.”

“Explanation?”

“We can place the blame on whomever we want.”

“Well, I would place it on two rogue agents who have obviously lost their way. That will be the official line.”

“Understood.”

“It’s still an enormous mess. And one that should have been avoided.”

“I agree.”

“I didn’t ask for your agreement.”

“No, of course not.”

“But we’re near the end.”

“Yes,” said Kent.

“So don’t create any more obstacles.”

“Understood.”

“Robie and Reel together. A cause for concern.”

Kent didn’t know if the person was asking a question or stating a fact.

“I would not underestimate either of them,” said Kent.

“I never underestimate anyone, least of all my
allies
.”

Kent licked his lips, considered this statement. He was an ally. And this person would not underestimate him. “We’ll make a major push.”

“Yes, you will.”

The line went dead.

Kent put the phone away and looked up when the door to his study opened. For one panicked moment he thought his time had come and the open door would reveal a person like Robie or Reel dispatched to give him his final punishment.

But it was simply his wife. She was in her nightgown.

Kent’s gaze flicked to the wall above the door where the clock showed it was nearly eight in the morning.

“Did you even go to bed?” she asked. Her hair was tousled, her face bare of makeup, her eyes still weighted with sleep. But to Kent she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

He was lucky. He had never deserved a life of simple domesticity. But that was only half his life. His other half was decidedly different. Equal parts perfume and gunpowder. But right now, all gunpowder.

“Grabbed a few hours in the guest room. Didn’t want to disturb you, honey,” he said. “I finished up work late.”

She went to him, perched on the side of his desk, ran her fingers through his hair.

Their kids looked more like their mother. That was good, thought Kent. He wanted them to be like her. Not him.

Not me. Not my life.

He wanted his children to have exceptional lives. But also ordinary ones. Safe ones. Ones that did not involve carrying weapons or shooting others while being shot at. That was no life. Just a way to an early death.

“You look tired,” said his wife.

“A little. Burning the candles at both ends lately. Things will even out.”

“I’ll go make you some coffee.”

“Thanks, sweetie. That would be great.”

She kissed him on the forehead and left.

Kent watched her go every step of the way.

He had a lot.

Which meant he had a lot to lose.

He looked around his study. None of his awards, his military medals, his records of professional accomplishments were displayed here. Those things were private. They were not meant to impress or intimidate. He knew he had earned them. That was enough. They were kept upstairs in a small, locked storage closet. Sometimes he would look at them. But mostly they just sat up there gathering dust.

They were records of the past.

Kent had always been a forward thinker.

He unlocked a safe that sat on a shelf behind his desk and drew the paper out. It was Roy West’s white paper. A thing of intellectual beauty from a man who had become a paranoid militia nut. It was hard to believe that he could have concocted something that powerful. But perhaps from the forming depths of paranoia sometimes sprang genius, if for only a few frenetically productive moments.