The Hit

  “When will we know if DiCarlo will make it or not?”

  “Last I heard it may take a couple of days.”

  “Has she given any sort of statement?”

  Blue Man shook his head. “None. She was unconscious. They’re hoping to get a statement from her in the next few days. If she survives.”

  “So who’s going to be the new number two?” asked Robie.

  “I’m not sure anyone would take the job right now,” replied Blue Man.

  “Is Evan Tucker coming here?”

  “Don’t know. He’s been briefed, of course. And I’m sure he’ll want to hear what happened directly from you.”

  “Nothing more I can tell.”

  “So you didn’t see anyone else out there?”

  Robie didn’t hesitate. “Just the shooters. And they were at a distance. I was more concerned about getting DiCarlo out of there. I didn’t have time to observe much.”

  “Of course.” Blue Man stood. “You need a ride home?”

  “Yeah. The Rover is officially evidence and my car is wrecked.”

  “I’m going to stay around here, but I’ll have one of my men drive you back into town.”

  Before either of them could start toward the exit several men in suits appeared.

  “Will Robie?”

  Robie looked at them. “Who are you?”

  “We’d like you to come with us.”

  “Who is ‘we’?” said Blue Man.

  The speaker looked at him. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “The hell it doesn’t. Robie is with me.” Blue Man showed them his creds.

  The same man spoke. “Right, sir, we know who you are.” The man held out his own creds. Their magnitude made Blue Man blink in surprise and take a step back.

  Robie had also seen the ID card and badge. He wasn’t surprised that Blue Man had stood down.

  When the country’s national security advisor wanted you, well, you went.

  Robie walked outside, climbed into the waiting SUV, and was driven off.

  He didn’t expect to be home anytime soon.

  CHAPTER

  32

  JESSICA REEL SAT IN HER CAR, which was parked at a curb on a normally busy street in D.C. However, it was late and the traffic had ebbed even on this main artery.

  Her rifle was in the trunk. She had fired more than forty rounds at the shooters. She might have saved Will Robie’s life; she wasn’t sure. And while Janet DiCarlo might still die from her wounds, she would have assuredly died without Reel’s intervention. And Robie’s.

  That gave a lift to Reel’s spirits, something that hadn’t happened a lot lately.

  It had been stupid on DiCarlo’s part to have such limited security that far out. Reel had been to her home before, years ago. A friendly meeting to discuss Reel’s future.

  She smiled grimly at this memory.

  My future?

  She’d had an epiphany after leaving Gioffre. She knew that DiCarlo had been appointed the number two. She still had electronic back doors into the agency. Until these were all shut down—and they would be soon—she had utilized them to the maximum. She’d figured that in DiCarlo’s position as the new number two, she and Robie would have to meet. Reel didn’t know that this meeting was actually their second face-to-face.

  She and DiCarlo went way back, farther than anyone else she knew at the agency. She had always been able to count on DiCarlo to cover her back. But now that was no longer possible. Reel had not only crossed the line, she had obliterated it.

  She’d followed Robie out to DiCarlo’s house. Initially she didn’t know where he was going, and as the roads became more and more rural and the traffic less and less plentiful, she was afraid Robie would spot her. But at one point she deduced where he must be going and broke off her tail, only to circle back and take up position. She had no idea that an attack was coming.

  But then again, she had no reason to assume that an attack wasn’t coming.

  She was certain she had hit some of the shooters. If she had, she expected that the mess would be cleaned up before anyone else arrived at the scene. There would be no leave-behinds.

  Robie had exercised sound skills in using the armored SUV to make his escape. He was resourceful and worked well under pressure. She remembered this from her brief time working with him. Reel had sized up her competition early and often at the agency. The only serious competition she’d had was Will Robie. They took turns topping the grading system in all their early missions. But Robie had eventually come out ahead. She’d never thought she would ever be pitted against him.

  Her thoughts turned back to DiCarlo: Why target her? What did she know?

  Reel had long suspected that DiCarlo was better informed than many people inside the agency thought. They probably had believed she would make a competent if temporary number two.

  No, a safe number two, she corrected herself.

  They obviously didn’t know DiCarlo as Reel did.

  They likely thought this because she was a woman. They failed to realize that she had worked three times as hard and had to be twice as tough as a man to reach the level she had.

  The area had had a brief respite from the inclement weather, but the broad low-pressure system had anchored itself over the city, and when the clouds grew heavy with moisture the rains had commenced once more. The wind picked up and one of the gusts buffeted Reel’s rental car. She started the engine and turned the heat on but did not put the car in gear. The rain-slicked streets had driven the few pedestrians to drier locations and she had an unobstructed if rain-soaked view of the pavement. If only her thoughts could be as clear. But they were as cloudy as a mountain hollow on a cold morning.

  Judge Samuel Kent and the other person on her list had not only been forewarned, but were also now on the offensive. Reel had little doubt that this group had orchestrated the attack on Janet DiCarlo. This was troubling, because they obviously knew something about DiCarlo that Reel didn’t. It was an extraordinary move and an extraordinary move had to have extraordinary justification.

  She took out her phone and studied the screen. It was easy enough to text Robie. They couldn’t trace her, of that she was sure. But Reel also knew that the agency could read every text she sent him. So she had to be careful, not just for herself but for him. A funny thought, she was aware, to be concerned about the wellbeing of a man that she had very nearly turned into a burnt husk. But now certain possibilities were opening for her and she meant to take advantage of them.

  She tapped the keys on her screen and sent her text. Now that that was done, she would just have to see how it played out. A lot would depend on Robie.

  The rain picked up as she drove faster.

  Reel had never worn a uniform and yet she’d probably killed more people than even the most decorated of professional soldiers. She risked her life every time she did so. Yet she’d taken her orders from those at a safe distance from the battle. She had never questioned those orders. She had executed them faithfully for nearly all of her adult life.

  And then had come the time when she couldn’t do that anymore.

  Her father had been a monster and had nearly beaten her into an early grave. Those scars were permanent. Not the ones on her body—the ones in her mind. Those never really healed.

  Her career as a sanctioned killer had given her something she thought she would never have.

  Clarity of action.

  Good versus bad.

  Good wins. Bad loses.

  It was like she was killing her father over and over. It was like she was extinguishing the neo-Nazis for eternity. And every other demon that dared try to walk among humankind wreaking havoc.

  And yet it had never been and would never be that simple.

  And it had finally dawned on Jessica Reel that the best arbiter of what was good and what was evil was her own moral compass, tarnished as it was by what she’d done in the past.

  Her break with complete obedience to her employer had
not come easily. But once it had come it was surprising to her how exhilarating it had been to think once more for herself.

  As she drove on, Reel wondered what Robie would make of the little present she’d left for him.

  CHAPTER

  33

  HE WAS NOT OFFICIALLY KNOWN as the NSA, because that would have confused him with the National Security Agency. Technically he was the assistant to the president for national security affairs, or APNSA. He was not Senate-confirmed, but was selected directly by the president. His office was in the West Wing near the Oval Office. The APNSA had no authority over any government agency, unlike the secretary of homeland security or the defense secretary.

  Given those limitations it would be easy to conclude that the APNSA wielded little authority or influence. That conclusion would be patently wrong.

  Anyone with the direct ear of the president had enormous authority and wielded staggering influence. In times of national crisis the APNSA operated directly from the White House Situation Room, with the president usually right next to him.

  Robie knew all of this as he was driven to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The tank-stopping gates opened and the SUV motorcade swept into arguably the most famous address in the world.

  The walk was short once they left the vehicles. Robie was not taken to the Situation Room. That was reserved for a national crisis. Well, he thought, if things kept going the way they were, it might become a very busy place.

  He was taken to a small conference room and told to sit. So he sat. He knew there were armed men right outside the door.

  He wondered if the president was in town today. He was certain the man had been briefed on all this. What he had made of that briefing was anyone’s guess.

  Robie sat alone for five minutes, long enough to show that the man he was waiting for was very important and that Robie’s matter, though critical, was only one of many the APNSA was juggling.

  The world, after all, was a very complicated place. And America, as the only remaining superpower, was right in the middle of all the complications. And no matter what the United States did, half the world would hate it and the other half would complain that the Americans were not doing enough.

  Robie refocused when the door opened. The man entering the room was largely unknown to a public that would have a hard time naming any cabinet member and sometimes even tripped over the vice president’s name.

  Robie assumed he preferred the anonymity.

  His name was Gus Whitcomb. He was sixty-eight years old, a little soft in the gut, but he still had broad shoulders carried over from his days as a linebacker at the Naval Academy. He must not have taken too many hits to the head, because his brain seemed to be working on all cylinders. He had the reputation of going after America’s enemies with a potent mixture of passion and ruthlessness. And he was thoroughly relied on by the president.

  He sat down across from Robie, put on wire-rimmed spectacles, and glanced down at the e-tablet he had carried in with him. The White House, like the rest of the world, was going paperless. He read down the screen, took off his glasses, slipped them into his jacket pocket, and looked up at Robie.

  “The president sends his best.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Well, he appreciates you.”

  The niceties over, Whitcomb shifted gears. “Tough night for you.”

  “Unexpected, yes.”

  “Last update on DiCarlo looks better. They think she’ll pull through.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I’ve read your account several times. But it gives no indication of who the attackers could have been.”

  “I never got a clear look at any of them. They were firing from long range. Forensics on the ground provide anything?”

  “Lots of shell casings.”

  Robie nodded. “Any bodies?”

  Whitcomb looked at him sharply. “Why would that be? You could hardly have hit them with your pistol from that range.”

  Robie had walked right into that one. He never should have offered anything other than what was in his official report. He must be more tired than he thought.

  “They were advancing on us when I got us out of there. But I fired some shots right at them. You never know if you’re going to get lucky or not.”

  Whitcomb didn’t seem to be listening to this, which was troubling to Robie. That made it seem as though Whitcomb had already made up his mind about something. Then what the man had said registered in Robie’s brain, and he tried hard to keep the realization off his features.

  Shell casings. Lots of them.

  As though he had actually read Robie’s mind, Whitcomb said, “More than forty shell casings were found by a tree to the left of DiCarlo’s home. The way most of the casings were positioned when they were found on the ground indicates that the shooter was firing toward where you reported the other shooters to be and also where blood and different shell casings were discovered. Also found there were glass shards that have been identified as being from both sniper scopes and flashlights. So the question becomes, who else was out there?”

  He stared pointedly at Robie.

  When Robie said nothing, Whitcomb said, “You could hardly have missed seeing the person who fired over forty high-powered rifle rounds at a target that was firing on you. So who was your guardian angel? That’s the first question. The second question is, why wasn’t that information already in your report?”

  “It’s an issue of trust, sir.”

  From his slack expression, this was not the response Whitcomb was expecting. “Excuse me?” he said sharply.

  “Ms. DiCarlo expressed to me that things were not as they should be at the agency and other places. Things that troubled her. She indicated that a crisis was approaching. She only had two men guarding her because they were the only two she trusted.”

  Whitcomb put his glasses back on, as though doing so would make him see more clearly what Robie had just said.

  “Am I to believe that the number two at the agency didn’t trust her employer? Meaning the CIA?” He shook his head slowly. “That is very, very difficult to comprehend, Mr. Robie.”

  “I’m just telling you what she told me.”

  “And yet that extraordinary assertion also was not in your report. And Ms. DiCarlo unfortunately is not available to corroborate your statement.”

  “She invited me to her house, sir. To tell me these things.”

  “Again, your word only.”

  “So you don’t believe me?” Robie said.

  “Well, you apparently don’t believe anything either.”

  Robie shook his head but didn’t respond.

  Whitcomb pressed on. “My briefings indicate that we have a rogue agent killing agency personnel. You were assigned to come on board, find, and terminate said rogue agent. It does not seem to me that you are any closer to finding her. Indeed, it seems that you are starting to believe that the true enemy is located on the inside instead of on the outside.”

  “When one’s own side withholds information from me I think it only natural that my confidence in my side goes down. And it also makes it a lot harder to do my job.”

  “Withholds information?”

  “Redacted files, corrupted crime scenes, cryptic meetings where more is left unsaid than said. Agendas that seem to keep shifting. Not an ideal platform for success in the field.”

  Whitcomb stared down at his hands for a few moments before looking up and saying, “Just answer this simple question. Did you see the person who fired off those rounds?”

  Robie knew if he hesitated with his answer it would be calamitous. “It was a woman. I didn’t see the face clearly. But it was definitely a woman.”