Robie couldn’t scan the entire place for bombs like at the airport. There were no explosives-sniffing dogs handy. At some point he would have to risk it. And that point was upon him. He put the thermal imager away and pulled from his pocket a short metal object and turned it on.
He opened the door and entered, placing his feet carefully and using the electronic device to reveal any invisible-to-the-naked-eye trip wires. He also scrutinized each section of the floor before stepping on it to see if the wood looked new. Pressure plates under floorboards could not be dete
cted by his device.
He moved through each room, finding nothing. It didn’t take long because the place was not very large. What struck him was it looked just like his apartment—not in size and design, but in what was in it.
Or rather what wasn’t in it. No personal effects. No photos. No souvenirs, no knickknacks. Nothing that showed Reel belonged to anyone or to anywhere.
Just like me.
He moved into the kitchen at the same instant his phone buzzed.
He looked down at the screen.
The text on the screen was in all caps:
GELDER SHOT DOWN IN CAR IN D.C. REEL SUSPECTED.
Robie put the phone away and considered this.
Alarming news under any circumstances, but he had been trained not to overreact to anything. His primary thought was to get out of here. He had risked much and gotten little.
He looked to his right and saw a door. It looked like a pantry or storage closet. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before, and then saw that it was painted the same color as the wall of the kitchen.
It was imperfectly closed, leaving an inch gap. He nudged it open with his foot while his pistol was trained directly on it.
The pantry was empty.
The trip had been a waste of time.
And while he’d been down here, Reel had likely killed the number two man in the agency. She was scoring touchdowns and he didn’t even have a first down yet.
He shined his light inside the space for a better look, although it was obviously empty. That’s when he saw the word written on the rear wall:
SORRY.
Robie kicked open the back door, figuring this was the easiest way out and would allow him to exit without retracing his path through the cottage.
Seemed like a good idea. Safer.
But then he heard the click and the whoosh, and the good safe idea instantly became a nightmare.
CHAPTER
13
THE DARK, calm night over the Eastern Shore was disrupted by a flame ball.
The little cottage disintegrated in the fire, the dry wood providing a perfect fuel for the inferno. Robie leapt from the back porch, rolled, and came up running.
In disbelief he watched as a wall of flames rose on either side of him, forming a straight corridor that he had to run down.
This was all by design, of course. The fuel for the fire had to have been carefully piped under the dirt, and the trigger for it must have been tied to the same one that had erupted in the cottage.
Robie sprinted ahead.
He had no choice.
He was heading right toward the small pond that he had seen before. The walls of fire ended there.
An instant later the remains of the cottage exploded. He ducked and rolled again from the concussive force, almost pitching into the right side of the wall of fire.
He rose and redoubled his efforts, thinking that he would reach the water.
Water was a great antidote to fire.
But as he neared the edge of the pond, something struck him.
No scum. No algae on the surface although the ground around was full of it.
What could kill green scum?
And why was he being forced to run right toward the one thing that could possibly save him?
Robie tossed his gun over the top of the wall of flames, pulled off his jacket, covered his head and hands with it, and threw himself through the wall of flames on the left side. He could feel the fire eating at him like acid.
He cleared the flames, and kept rolling, over and over, to beat out any fire that might have attached itself to him. He stopped and looked up in time to see the flames reach the pond.
The resulting explosion threw Robie through the air, and he landed on his back, thankfully in about an inch of water that softened the impact.
He rose on shaky legs, his shirt shredded, his jacket gone. He had no idea where his gun had landed. Thankfully, he still had his pants and shoes.
He looked in his pocket and snagged his car keys. Immediately he dropped them, because the plastic top was searing to the touch.
He gingerly picked the keys up and stood there mutely watching the pond burn.
No algae—although it was growing everywhere else—because of the fuel or accelerant that had been placed in the pond. He wondered why he hadn’t smelled it when he’d made his recon around the small body of water. But then there were many ways to mask such odors. And the smell of the nearby ocean was pungent.
He looked back at where Reel’s cottage had once stood.
Sorry.
Are you sorry, Jessica? Somehow Robie didn’t think so.
The lady was definitely playing for keeps. Robie would have expected nothing less.
He found his jacket and his gun. The gun was okay. It had missed a puddle of water and landed on a pebble path. His jacket was burned up. He felt the lump of metal and plastic inside.
His phone. He doubted the manufacturer’s warranty would cover this sort of mishap.
His wallet was luckily in his pants and not damaged.
He limped back to the car. His right arm and left leg felt so hot they seemed frozen. He got into the car and closed the door, locking it, though he was probably the only human being for miles. He started the car and turned on the interior light. He checked his face in the rearview mirror.
No damage there.
His right arm had not been so lucky. Bad burn there.
He slipped his burned trousers down and examined his left leg: red and slightly blistered near his upper thigh. Some of the pants fabric was embedded in the burn.
He kept a first aid kit in the car. He pulled it out, cleaned the burns on his thigh and arm as best he could, applied salve to the damaged areas, covered them with gauze, and then threw the first aid kit on the floorboard.
He turned the car around and headed back the way he had come. He had no way to contact Blue Man or anyone else. He couldn’t stop to get medical care. Too many explanations and reports fled.
As isolated as the Eastern Shore was, flame balls rising twenty feet in the air would attract notice. He passed a police car, rack lights blazing and siren blasting, on his way back. They wouldn’t find much left, he knew.
He made it back to D.C. in the wee hours of the morning, reached his apartment, retrieved a spare phone, and called Blue Man. In succinct sentences he told him what had happened.
“You’re lucky, Robie.”
“I feel lucky,” he replied. “Part good, part bad. Fill me in on Gelder.”