His drink came and he tasted it.
“Just how you like it?” asked Vance.
He nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”
“Good, we can drink to the world going to hell.”
“So what part of the world exactly is going to hell?”
“Pick any spot you want. No leads on Jacobs. Nothing on Gelder. The shit in Arkansas. And the ATF is going nuts too.”
“About what?”
“An explosion at a remote place on the Eastern Shore. Very sophisticated device used. And someone had even put accelerant in a pond on the property. There wasn’t much left in the way of evidence. I’m not on that case. We do have other FBI agents. The Bureau got called out on the Arkansas case too. This militia crap is getting really scary. There used to be just dozens of these groups. Now there are thousands of them. Maybe more.”
“So how did this Roy West guy die?”
“Don’t really know. Like I said, I’m not working it. And to top it off there was a shooting over near the federal court in Alexandria.”
“I didn’t hear about that,” replied Robie.
“Several cars involved. No one got a license plate, of course. Some gal in a sedan driving like Jeff Gordon. Shots fired from the vehicles. And the kicker is a federal judge just happened to be strolling down the street at the same time.”
“You think he was the target?”
“Don’t know. I sort of doubt it. It was in the report because he’s a judge. We have to cover that angle.”
“Which judge?”
“Samuel Kent.”
“Maybe it was just a street gang thing.”
“That part of Alexandria is very upscale. No gang activity there.”
“So no sign of the ‘gal’?”
“Nope. Nifty piece of driving by all accounts, and then she was gone.”
“And the shooters?”
“Gone too. Amazing how that can happen on a crowded street, but it did.” She finished her ginger ale. “You asked to meet and I’ve done all the talking. Now I’m shutting up and putting on my listening ears.”
Robie nodded, trying to assimilate all that she had told him and wondering if the “gal” was who he thought she was. It seemed both ridiculously impossible and extremely likely that it was Jessica Reel, particularly after Arkansas.
“It was good to see Julie,” said Robie.
“Really? I didn’t think it went all that well from my point of view.”
“She was upset,” replied Robie.
“And shouldn’t she be?”
“Yes, she should. But we talked on the drive to her house.”
“And?”
“And she was still upset.”
“Your personal skills must’ve been exceptional on that drive.”
“My goal is to keep her safe. You warned me too.”
“I know, Robie. But you don’t have to completely shut her out of your life. You two went through a lot together. Hell, she and I went through a lot together.”
“You and I went through a lot together,” noted Robie.
This comment caught Vance off guard. She sat back, her posture relaxed. “Yeah, we did. You saved my life and risked your life to do it.”
“I was the reason you were in danger in the first place. Which brings me back to my point about Julie. And you. Every time I meet with you I could be putting you back in danger. I don’t take that lightly, Nikki. It would probably have been better if I hadn’t called and asked you to meet tonight.”
“But you can’t protect everybody all the time, Robie. And I’m an FBI agent. I can take care of myself.’
“In normal circumstances, absolutely. I’m not normal.”
She snorted but caught his deeply serious expression and said, “I know what you mean, Will. I get that. I really do.”
“And what chance would Julie have? I’m involved in things right now.” He stopped talking and looked away.
She reached out tentatively and touched his hand, wrapping her long fingers around it and squeezing. “What things?”
He looked back at her as she removed her hand, looking embarrassed at having performed this intimate gesture. “In order to cover my back, I have to look in all directions at the same time,” he said.
She blinked, obviously trying to decipher this. “Meaning you can’t trust anyone?”
“Meaning there are things going on that no one can explain.” He paused. “Did you hear about Janet DiCarlo?”
“A vague story about something at her house.”
“I was there. It wasn’t vague. It was actually pretty straightforward on certain levels.”
“What the hell happened?”
Now Robie gripped her hand, hard. It was not an intimate gesture. “If I tell you, it can go no further. I’m not talking about professional courtesy. I’m talking about you staying alive.”
Vance’s mouth opened slightly and her eyes widened. “Okay, it goes no further.”
Robie took a sip of his drink and set the glass back down. “DiCarlo was attacked. Her guards were killed. She was wounded. I got her out. DHS took her for safekeeping.”
“Why couldn’t her own agency protect—” Vance stopped.
Robie nodded. “Exactly.”
“Are you talking rogue or systemic?”
“It’s not one traitor running around.”
“So systemic?”
“Could be.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m thinking about going off the grid.”
Vance sucked in a breath. “Are you sure about that?”
“You went off the grid for me.”
“I’m FBI, Robie. You going off the grid is a whole other thing.”
“I think it’s the only way I’m going to get to the truth.”
“Or get killed.”
“That could easily happen if I stay where I am.” He slowly raised his right arm. “It’s already nearly happened twice in the last few days.”
She glanced at Robie’s arm and then looked back at him. The strain was etched on her face. And that same level of strain was clear on Robie’s features.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“You’ve done plenty already.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“I may contact you at some point.”
“Robie, isn’t there any other way to handle this? You can come in to the FBI. We can protect you and maybe...” Her voice trailed off.
“I appreciate that. But I think my way is better.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ve got some leads to follow up on.”
“Can you even get off the grid with all this crap going on?”
“I can try. That’s all I can do.” He rose. “Thanks for meeting with me.”
“Why did you want to meet? Not just to tell me you’re going off the grid?”
Robie started to say something but then couldn’t get it out.
She rose and stood next to him. Before he could move, Vance had put her arms around him and squeezed so tightly it was as though they had become one body. She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.
She said, “You will come back. You will get through this. You’re Will Robie. Hell, you perform the impossible on a regular basis.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Robie turned and left.
Vance walked to the front of the restaurant and watched him head down the street until he disappeared into the darkness.
When she got back to her car she just sat there staring off and wondering if that was the last time she would ever see him.
CHAPTER
49
OFF THE GRID.
Robie was sitting in his apartment thinking about taking this step.
The last time he had gone off the grid it had not been pleasant. In fact, it had nearly cost him his life and the lives of several other people, including Julie and Vance.
Jessica Reel wa
s off the grid right now. She seemed to be employing a complex strategy that had her on both sides of the chessboard at the same time. What advantage she hoped to gain by this was lost on Robie. It only meant that both sides had incentives to find and kill her.
Doubling your opposition made no sense. Yet Reel didn’t strike him as lacking in the brains department. So if she was doing it her strategy had to make sense somehow.
A former agency analyst in Arkansas turned militia nut. He’d written an apocalypse paper. She was there to find out whom he had sent it to.
Then there was a federal judge in Alexandria.
If Reel had been the one in Alexandria too, what the hell was the connection?
A judge, Gelder, Jacobs, and Roy West.
Were they all in on this apocalypse?
If so, exactly what was it?
If West had a copy of it, Robie had no way to get to it. The police would be crawling all over his place, or what was left of it. Reel probably had a copy, but again, he had no way to get it from her.
Robie stared down at the text Reel had sent him previously.
Everything I do has a reason. Just open the lock.
He suddenly groaned and slapped the table with his palm. How could he have been that stupid? Literally staring him right in the damn face.
He went to his safe, opened it, and pulled out the three items that had been left in her locker.
Right, her locker. All I had to do was open it.
Okay, now that the simple part was over, it got complicated really fast.
The gun.
The book.
The photo.
The gun he had already ripped apart and found nothing. It was just a pistol with some specialized parts that pointed him in no specific direction at all.
The book had no notes in it. No marginalia. Nothing to point him to a specific part.
The photo meant nothing to him. And he didn’t know who the man standing next to Reel was.
Everything I do has a reason.
He said in exasperation, “Great, lady, next time don’t make it so damn complicated. It’s adding up to something impossible for mere mortals to figure out.”
Robie locked the items back up and stared out the window.
What Blue Man had told him was only one more disquieting piece of information on top of many others. It seemed like the agency was imploding from the top level on down. How this state of chaos could be happening to the premier intelligence organization on earth was astounding.
The world was a truly dangerous place right now. It was far more dangerous even than during the Cold War. Back then the opponents were clearly delineated and aligned across the world. The stakes were just as clearly understood. The destruction of the world was a possibility. But not really. The theory of mutual assured destruction was a great catalyst for peace. You couldn’t take over the world if there was no world left to take over.
Today’s situation was far more fluid, far subtler, and the sides kept changing with alarming frequency. And Robie didn’t know if the element of mutual assured destruction was enough anymore. Apparently some people didn’t care if there was a world left afterward. That made them dangerous at an unprecedented level.
DiCarlo’s comments came back to him: Missions that never should have been. Missing personnel. Money moved from here to there and then it disappeared. Equipment sent to places it should not have been sent to and it also disappeared. And that’s not all. These things happened in discreet quantities over long periods of time. Taken singly they didn’t seem to be all that remarkable. But when one looks at them together.
To Robie’s mind, missing personnel alone should have been enough of a warning, much less everything else that DiCarlo had described.
How had that can gotten kicked down the road?
Tucker had been director long enough to have taken care of such significant issues. Or at least addressed them.
Unless Tucker was on the other side of the chessboard. But that seemed impossible. It was hard enough to envision Jim Gelder being a traitor. But if Reel was to be believed, he was. Yet both top slots corrupted? How likely was that?
However, what other explanation was there for so many things to go awry and not be addressed by the management?
He took out his wallet. Inside the compartment where he kept his cash was a small sealed baggie. In it were the rose petals.
That was the other clue Reel had left behind.
Someone had taken the roses and who knew what else, but had missed these items. What had Reel meant by this?
If everything she did had a purpose, there had to be some explanation. And it might be significant.
The lady at the florist shop had said the pinkish marks on the rose were sometimes interpreted as blood. Well, there had been a lot of blood spilled over this. Was that the simple meaning that Reel had intended? But if so, how did that help him?
Blue Man had postulated that Reel might be on the side of right in all this. What that actually meant in the spy business Robie wasn’t sure. Right and wrong switched sides all the time. No, perhaps that was unfair. There were core elements of right and wrong.
Terrorists who killed innocent people with hidden bombs were on the side of wrong, without question. In Robie’s mind they were also cowards.
He killed from long distance, but he also risked his life to do it. And he didn’t target innocent people. All those he went after spent their lives bringing pain to others.
Does that make me permanently on the side of right?
He shook his head to clear it of these troubling thoughts. Nice fodder for a philosophy class discussion. But it was bringing him no closer to the truth.
Or to Jessica Reel.
He had told Tucker he was not going to look for her.
In part his answer was truthful.
He wasn’t going to look for her anymore. At least not on behalf of Tucker and the agency. But he was going to find her, and this time he was going to make her tell him what was going on.
Whatever else happened, he was going to get to the truth.
CHAPTER
50
THE MEETING WAS NOT SCHEDULED.
It really didn’t have to be.