Blue Man earlier had filled Robie in on the details of the execution, for that’s what it had been. Some kid had come to clean the windshield. First the driver’s-side and then the passenger-side windows had come down, through which the security agents had warned the kid off.
The shot had come through the passenger side, hit Gelder in the forehead, and ended his life. Neither of the security guys had been touched.
It was only Gelder she had been after. That made sense. He was number two. If he were the number one guy at the agency, Robie would have started to feel more than a little nervous, because he might be next on the list.
The kid had run off. They were looking for him, but even if they found him Robie was certain he would have nothing to tell them. He’d been paid to do what he’d done. But there was no way he ever would have seen who paid him.
To go from a desk banger like Douglas Jacobs and leapfrog all the way up to the man holding down the number two slot at the agency was a jump of impressive length. Robie wondered about the rationale behind it. For he figured Reel had to have some reason. He didn’t think she was simply picking her targets out of a jar.
And that meant that Robie had to come to understand her logic. And to do that he had to come to understand not just Reel, but also the men she had killed.
He figured Gelder’s file would be much thicker than Jacobs’s, and most of it would be classified. Robie wondered how much of it would be kept from him. At some point he might have to start pushing back against the natural secrecy that the personnel of the agency carried in their DNA. He couldn’t solve what he couldn’t understand.
He glanced up at the traffic light. It was green now, but no cars moved through because the road had been closed down.
He looked back at the car and then at the traffic light.
He nodded. She’d covered that as well.
He made another call to Blue Man. “Have someone check the cycles on the traffic light the car was stopped at. I’m betting she interfered with it to get the car to stop where it did when it did. Otherwise, she’s shit out of luck if the light was green.”
“We already did. And they were manually overridden, presumably by her.”
Robie put his phone away and started walking off. But he kept looking back over his shoulder to judge the likely path of the bullet, reversing that route to get where he needed to go.
He stopped near a tree. It was far away from the crime scene, so the police had not gotten to it yet, but they would.
He eyed the lowest branch, looking for any recent marks where a gun barrel had been laid. He saw none, but that meant nothing. He next examined the little dirt patch the tree was set in and the sidewalk around it.
Blue Man had said there were no witnesses. Well, actually there were three: the two security agents and the kid. But the guards had seen nothing. Didn’t even know really from precisely which direction the shot had come. The kid would be of no help because he would know nothing.
Robie did a sight line to the car window. A fine shot on a diagonal line between two stationary objects at distance.
At night.
In less than ideal conditions.
The margin of error he calculated to be nonexistent.
She had to have used a scope and a hybrid weapon, something between a pistol and a rifle. This was not the Eastern Shore, after all. There were potential witnesses everywhere. Pulling out a long-barreled rifle was problematic at best.
She’d gotten the shot off and then was gone. Like smoke. That didn’t just happen. You had to make it happen.
His gaze went to the bushes surrounding the tree, and he saw it on his second pass. He knelt down and picked it up. It was white, falling apart. He put it to his nose. It had a scent.
His mind went back to the town house where the kill shot on Jacobs had come from. Same thing.
He put it in his pocket. It was the only clue he could see and he was not going to leave it for the police to find. They were not his ally in this.
He looked around. There were four directions on the compass, and they translated into thousands of potential escape routes for Reel to take.
His phone buzzed again.
He hoped it was Blue Man, maybe to finally tell Robie why he was acting so funny.
Only it wasn’t Blue Man.
It was Jessica Reel.
CHAPTER
16
NOTHING PERSONAL.
Robie stared at the two words on the tiny screen. Then he stared even harder when the next words appeared:
Part of me is glad you made it.
Without really thinking, he thumbed a response:
Which part?
She didn’t answer the question, but her next text was even more surprising:
When things look simple they’re usually not. Right and wrong, good and bad are in the eyes of the definer. Understand the agenda, Will. And watch your back.
His phone buzzed again. He knew it would. It wasn’t another text from Reel. It was a phone call.
He answered. “Robie.”
“You need to come in. Now.”
“Who is this?”
“The office of Director Evan Tucker.”
Okay, thought Robie. They had seen the texts from Reel, because they’d been monitoring his phone ever since she emailed him the first time. He’s the number one at the agency and is obviously feeling a little stressed out. Can’t blame him there.
“Where? Langley?”
“The director is at home. He will meet you there.”
Five minutes later Robie was in his car and heading to Great Falls, Virginia. The roads were narrow and winding, but in this heavily wooded, rural-looking suburb lived some of the richest, most powerful people in the country.
Director Tucker lived at the end of a cul-de-sac. There was a concrete barricade set up fifty feet before the home and spanning the entire road, interrupted only by a lift gate in the center that allowed vehicles to pass in single file. Tucker lived in a substantial brick-and-siding center-hall colonial with a cedar shake roof set on a total of five acres with a pool and tennis court and about two acres of woods.
Robie pulled his car to a stop at the improvised guard shack set up at the barricade. He and his car were searched and his appointment verified. He had to leave his car and walk the rest of the way.
He eyed one of the grim-faced agents. “I’m very partial to that Audi. Make sure it’s here when I get back.”
The man didn’t even crack a smile.
They had taken Robie’s gun, which was not unexpected. Still, he felt naked as he made his way up the sidewalk to the front door.
Other guards were there. He was searched once more, as though he could have somehow acquired a weapon in the preceding fifty feet. The door was opened and he was escorted inside.
It was still fairly early but he figured the DCI had been up ever since his second in command had gone down with a single round to the forehead.
It would have made Robie sleepless too.
The paneled library he was led into was filled with books that looked like they had actually been read. A rectangular-shaped rug partially covered the plank floor. There was a desk at one end with a banker’s lamp turned on. A chair was positioned in front of the desk.
Behind the desk sat Evan Tucker. He was in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, and dark slacks. His overly starched collar was undone, and there was a cup of coffee perched on the desk within easy reach.