The Hit (51 page)

“What? Having a meal with someone?”

“People like us don’t have meals with… normal people.”

“Why not? Is that somewhere in the agency manual?”

“We just took down a terrorist leader, Robie. And barely escaped. We could just as easily be in a hole somewhere in Syria with our heads cut off. You don’t just sit down to a meal with a teenager and shoot the shit after that.”

“I used to think that too.”

“What do you mean, ‘used to’?”

“I mean I used to think that way too. But I don’t anymore.”

“I don’t understand you.”

Robie drove to the next intersection, took a right, braked hard at the curb, and got out. Reel did too. They looked at each other over the roof of the car.

“I can’t keep doing this job and cut off the rest of the world around me, Jessica. It can’t be an either/or. I have to live a life. At least a little bit.”

“That thing back there with the kid? What if someone followed you there? What kind of life might she have then?”

“Our side already knows about Julie. And I take precautions. But I can’t protect everybody every minute of every day. She could step out in front of a bus and be just as dead as if someone had shot her.”

“That is a specious argument at best.”

“Well, it’s my argument. And my life.” He paused. “Are you telling me you didn’t enjoy meeting her?”

“No. She seems like a great kid.”

“She is a great kid. I want to be part of her life.”

“You can’t do that. We can’t be part of anyone’s life. Our friends end up dead because of us.”

“I refuse to accept that.”

“It’s not up to you, is it?” she snapped.

“Then let’s walk away from this shit. Start over.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m being serious.”

She looked at him, saw that this was true. “I don’t think I can walk away, Robie.”

“Why not?”

“Because this is who I am. This is what I do. If I stopped…”

“It seemed you were prepared to stop when all this happened.”

“That was revenge. I never looked past that. If you want the truth, I never thought I would survive it.”

“But you did. We
both
did.”

They both lapsed into silence.

She rested her arms on the roof of the car. “I didn’t think anything would ever scare me, Robie.” She exhaled a long breath. “But this does.”

“It’s not like a hit where you cross the i’s and dot the t’s. You don’t really think, you just execute. This, this you really have to think about.”

“And one and one don’t necessarily make two.”

“Almost never make two,” he amended.

“So how do you make sense out of it?”

“You can’t.”

Reel looked up. The rain had started falling after several days of dry weather. It was gloomy, depressing; even objects in the near distance were hard to make out.

As the rain picked up, neither of them made a move to get into the car. In about a minute they were soaked, but they just stood there.

“I’m not sure I can live like that, Robie.”

“I’m not sure either. But I think we have to try.”

Reel glanced down at her pocket. She pulled out the Distinguished Intelligence Cross and looked at it.

“Did you ever in a million years think you would get one of these?”

“No.”

“We got this for killing a man.”

“We got this for doing our job.”

She dropped the medal back into her pocket and looked at him. “But this is not a job you walk away from.”

“There aren’t many who have.”

“I’d rather leave it all in the field.”

“From the look of the world right now, you might get your wish.”

She looked away. “When Gwen and Joe were alive I knew I had at least two people who would mourn me. Who were my friends. That was important to me.”

“Well, now you have me.”

She stared back at him. “Do I? Really?”

“Close your eyes,” he said.

“What?”

“Close your damn eyes.”

“Robie!”

“Just do it.”

She closed her eyes as the rain continued to fall.

A minute passed.

She finally reopened them.

Will Robie was still there.

To Michelle, for taking care of everything else in the way only you can.

To Mitch Hoffman, for always seeing the trees and the forest.

To David Young, Jamie Raab, Sonya Cheuse, Lindsey Rose, Emi Battaglia, Tom Maciag, Maja Thomas, Martha Otis, Karen Torres, Anthony Goff, Bob Castillo, Michele McGonigle, and everyone at Grand Central Publishing, who support me every day.

To Aaron and Arleen Priest, Lucy Childs Baker, Lisa Erbach Vance, Nicole James, Frances Jalet-Miller, and John Richmond, for always having my back.

To Anthony Forbes Watson, Jeremy Trevathan, Maria Rejt, Trisha Jackson, Katie James, Natasha Harding, Aimee Roche, Lee Dibble, Sophie Portas, Stuart Dwyer, Stacey Hamilton, James Long, Anna Bond, Sarah Willcox, and Geoff Duffield at Pan Macmillan, for leading me to number one in the UK.

To Arabella Stein, Sandy Violette, and Caspian Dennis, for being so good at what you do.

To Ron McLarty and Orlagh Cassidy, for continuing to astonish me with your audio performances.

To Steven Maat at Bruna, for keeping me at the top in Holland.

To Bob Schule, for always being there for me.

To Janet DiCarlo, James Gelder, Michael Gioffre, and Karin Meenan, I hope that you enjoyed your characters.

To Kristen, Natasha, and Lynette, for keeping me straight, true, and sane.

And to Roland Ottewell for another great copyediting job.

David Baldacci is one of the world’s favorite storytellers. His books are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with over 110 million copies in print. David Baldacci is also the cofounder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. Still a resident of his native Virginia, he invites you to visit him at
www.DavidBaldacci.com
and his foundation at
www.WishYouWellFoundation.org
, and to look into its program to spread books across America at
www.FeedingBodyandMind.com
.

In this pulse-pounding new thriller, David Baldacci introduces America’s most lethal hero…

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The Innocent.

W
ILL
R
OBIE HAD
closely observed every one of the passengers on the short flight from Dublin to Edinburgh and confidently deduced that sixteen were returning Scots and fifty-three were tourists.

Robie was neither a Scot nor a tourist.

The flight took forty-seven minutes to cross first the Irish Sea and then a large swath of Scotland. The cab ride in from the airport took fifteen more minutes of his life. He was not staying at the Balmoral Hotel or the Scotsman or any of the other illustrious accommodations in the ancient city. He had one room on the third floor of a dirty-faced building that was a nine-minute uphill walk to the city center. He got his key and paid in cash for one night. He carried his small bag up to the room and sat on the bed. It squeaked under his weight and sank nearly three inches.

Squeaking and sinking were what one got for so low a price.

Robie was an inch over six feet and a rock-solid one hundred and eighty pounds. He possessed a compact musculature that relied more on quickness and endurance than sheer strength. His nose had been broken once, due to a mistake he had made. He had never had it reset because he’d never wanted to forget the mistake. One of his back teeth was false. That had come with the broken nose. His hair was naturally dark and he had a lot of it, but Robie preferred to keep it about a half inch longer than a Marine buzz cut. His facial features were sharply defined, but he made them mostly forgettable by almost never making eye contact with anyone.

He had tats on one arm and also on his back. One tattoo was of a large tooth from a great white. The other was a red slash that looked like lightning on fire. They effectively covered up old scars that had never healed properly. And each held some significance for him. The damaged skin had proven a challenge for the tattoo artist working on Robie, but the end result had been satisfactory.

Robie was thirty-nine years old and would turn forty the following day. He had not come to Scotland to celebrate this personal milestone. He had come here to work. Of the three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, he was working or traveling to do his job on about half of them.

Robie surveyed the room. It was small, adequate, unadorned, strategically located. He did not require much. His possessions were few, and his wants fewer still.

He rose and went to the window, pressed his face to the cool glass. The sky was gloomy. It was often that way in Scotland. A full day of sun in Edinburgh was routinely greeted with both gratitude and astonishment by its citizens.

Far to his left stood Holyrood Palace, the queen’s official residence in Scotland. He could not see it from here. Far to his right was Edinburgh Castle. He could not see that battered old edifice either but knew exactly where it was.

He checked his watch. A full eight hours to go.

Hours later his internal clock woke him. He left his room and walked up toward Princes Street. He passed the majestic Balmoral Hotel that anchored the city center.

He ordered a light meal and had tap water to drink, ignoring the large selection of stouts offered on the board over the bar. As he ate he spent some time gazing at a street performer juggling butcher knives atop a unicycle while regaling the crowd with funny stories delivered with an embellished Scottish brogue. Then there was the fellow outfitted as the invisible man taking pictures with passersby for two pounds each.

After his meal, he walked toward Edinburgh Castle. He could see it in the distance as he ambled along. It was big, imposing, and had never once been taken by force, only stealth.

He climbed to the top of the castle, peering over the gloom of the Scottish capital. He ran his hand along cannon that would never fire another shot. He turned to his left and took in the full breadth of the sea that had made Edinburgh such an important port centuries ago as vessels came and went, disgorging freight and picking up fresh cargo. He stretched tight limbs, felt a creak and then a pop in his left shoulder.