The Hit (2013) Read online

  “Nothing. We confirmed that she was seen there, but two days before. Plenty of time to get back here and shoot Jacobs.”

  “What’s the latest on Ahmadi?”

  “Business as usual. We removed all traces of the sniper nest, of course.”

  “Planning another hit on him?” asked Robie.

  “Well, if he was aware of the first try and foiled it, turning it back on us, I would imagine he would be ultra-cautious now. We might not see his face again until he’s Syria’s new leader.”

  “I don’t like it that Reel had my email address.”

  “I don’t like it either,” agreed Blue Man.

  “We have a mole. A leave-behind.”

  “Possibly. Or she might have gotten that in formation beforehand.”

  “How would she know I’d be the one going after her?”

  “A calculated assumption?” suggested Blue Man.

  “She might be tailing me right now.”

  “Don’t get paranoid on me, Robie.”

  “You missed that window by a few years. My paranoia knows no bounds now.”

  “Where are you off to now?”

  “To get ready for my dinner.”

  Robie clicked off and accelerated. He checked his rearview for Vance, Reel, and assorted bogeymen.

  I’m not growing paranoid. I am paranoid. And who could blame me?

  He punched the gas harder.

  Sending a killer to catch a killer actually made sense.

  We talk a different language and we see the world through a separate prism that no one else could possibly understand.

  But it worked both ways. Reel would understand him as much as he would understand her.

  So Reel dead.

  Or me.

  It really was that simple.

  And also that complicated.

  CHAPTER

  9

  JESSICA REEL SAT ON HER bed in her hotel room. Her sweat-drenched exercise clothes lay on the floor. She was naked and looking down at her toes. The rain was hitting with increased velocity outside.

  Like bullets. But unlike bullets rain leaves you alive.

  She rubbed her hand over her flat belly. Her firm core had come from agonizing exercise and careful diet. It had nothing to do with appearance. The core was power central. And fat slowed you down. In her world that was poison. She was also proficient in every martial art worth anything in close-quarter combat.

  She had had to use her fitness and fighting skills to survive many times. She didn’t always kill with a gun from long range. Sometimes her targets were right in front of her, trying to murder her as fiercely as she them. And they were almost always men. That gave them a genetic advantage in size and strength.

  Still, up to this point, she had always been the winner. But that was only until the next time. In her field, you only lost once. After that, no one bothered to keep score anymore.

  You just got eulogized. Maybe.

  She debated whether to send Robie another message. But she decided that would be overplaying her hand. She didn’t underestimate anyone. And though her cell was presumably untraceable, the agency might buck those odds, track her back through communication channels and find her.

  And what more was there left to say anyway? Robie had his assignment. He would do his best to carry it out.

  Reel would do her best to make sure he failed. One or both of them might end up dead. That was the nature of the beast. There was nothing fair about it. It was just the way it was.

  Reel slipped on a robe, crossed the room, and pulled her phone from her jacket hanging on the door. She began hitting keys. It truly was amazing what these devices could do. Trace your every step. Tell you exactly how to get to somewhere else. With a flick of a key Reel could get the most esoteric information in a matter of seconds.

  But there was a flip side to all this freedom.

  People had trillions of eyes now with which to watch you. And it wasn’t just the government. Or big business. It could be the man on the street with the latest gadgetry and a modicum of technical savvy.

  That made Reel’s job harder. But it was hard to begin with.

  She digested the information that had come up on the screen. She put it away, slipped into the bathroom, and took off her robe. The hot water in the shower felt good. She was tired, her muscles weary from a workout that had pushed her harder than ever.

  There had been a couple of young guys in the gym doing one-armed curls while preening in the mirror. Another had put in twenty moderately active minutes on the elliptical and obviously thought that qualified him as a stud. She had gone into an adjoining room and begun her exercise. She had sensed two of them watching her after a few minutes. It wasn’t the way she was dressed. She didn’t wear tight-fitting spandex. Loose, baggy clothing that covered her completely was her thing. She was there to sweat, not find a husband or a one-night stand.

  She sensed they weren’t a threat. They were simply astonished at what she was doing with her body. Thirty minutes later, when she was barely a third of the way through her routine, they turned and left, shaking their heads. She knew what they were thinking:

  I couldn’t last five minutes at that pace.

  And they would be right.

  She turned off the shower, dried off, and put her robe back on, her hair wrapped in a towel. She scanned the room service menu and selected a salad and indulged herself with a glass of a California zinfandel.

  When the young, good-looking man brought the tray in she caught his reflection in the mirror. He was checking her out.

  Reel had slept with men on several different continents. All had been in connection with a job. A means to an end. If she could use sex to get her where she needed to go, so be it. She assumed that was one reason the agency had employed her. And they had encouraged her to use that weapon in her arsenal, with the caveat that she was never to become personally involved with any of them. Which translated into never feeling anything for them at all. She was a machine and they were simply convenient for the mission.

  In that regard men were decidedly the weaker sex. Women could get them to do anything with a promise of action under the sheets, up against a wall, or on their knees, as the case might be.

  She signed the bill and gave him a generous tip.

  His eyes asked her for more.

  She denied the request simply by turning away.

  Once the door closed behind her she took off her robe, freed her hair, and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. She pushed a table against the door, sat down to her meal, and slowly sipped her wine as the rain pounded away outside.

  She would soon have somewhere to go. It was always important to keep going. Stationary objects tended to get run over.

  At some point soon Will Robie would come after her in earnest. That would then occupy much of Reel’s time and energy. Until that point, she would have a window of opportunity.

  She intended to make the most of it.

  Doug Jacobs was one level.

  Now Reel was moving to the next level.

  It wouldn’t be easy. By now they were forewarned.

  Doug Jacobs had a wife and two young children. Reel knew what they looked like. She knew their names. She knew where they lived. She knew they were now suffering tremendous grief. Because of what Jacobs did, his family couldn’t be told the exact circumstances of his death.

  It was just company policy. And that policy never varied.

  Secrets to the last.

  There would be a funeral and Jacobs would be laid to rest. And that would be the only normal thing about his passing. His young widow would go on with her life, probably remarry. Perhaps she would have more children. Reel would suggest that she marry a plumber or a salesman. Her life would be far less complicated.

  Jacobs’s children might or might not remember their father.

  For Reel, that wasn’t such a bad thing.

  In her mind Douglas Jacobs wasn’t all that memorable.

  Reel finish
ed her meal and slipped under the covers.

  She remembered as a child listening to the rain beating outside as she lay in bed. No one had come to check on her. It wasn’t that sort of a home. People who came to you in the night where Reel had grown up usually had ulterior motives, motives that were not benign in the least. This had made her suspicious and hardened from an early age. This had made her want to be alone, only summoning companionship on her terms.

  When people came for you in the night the only response was to hurt them before they could hurt you.

  In her mind’s eye she conjured the image of her mother—a frail abused woman who on her last day on earth looked forty years older than she actually was. Her death had been violent, wrenching. She had not gone quietly, but she had, eventually, gone. And Jessica Reel, then only seven years old, had watched it all happen. It had been traumatic in ways that even now Reel didn’t fully understand or appreciate. The experience had come to define her, and guaranteed that many normal things people did in life would never be part of hers.

  What happened to you as a child, particularly something bad, changed you, absolutely and completely. It was like part of your brain became closed off and refused to mature any further. As an adult you were powerless to fight against it. It was simply who you were until the day you died. There was no “therapy” that could cure it. That wall was built and nothing could tear it down.

  Maybe that’s why I do what I do. Engineered from childhood.

  Her gun was under her pillow, one hand clenching it, and the table still against the door.

  She would sleep well tonight.

  It might be the last time she ever did.

  CHAPTER

  10

  ROBIE SAT AT A TABLE in the restaurant that allowed him to see out onto the street. He alternated between looking out at the street and at the TV that was mounted on a wall behind the bar. On the TV was a news report about an upcoming Arab summit that was scheduled to occur in Canada. Apparently it was felt that the neutral setting, far away from terrorist acts and wars, might shorten the odds of a breakthrough occurring. Sponsored by the UN, it hoped, the news anchor said, to usher in a new age of cooperation among countries that had for too long been at war with one another.

  “Good luck on that,” Robie said to himself.

  The next instant the channel was changed and Robie was watching an ad for Cialis with an older man and woman in bathtubs that were set outside. It was apparently a sexual metaphor he had never figured out. Then the bathtubs vanished and another news anchor was talking about an upcoming trip by the president to Ireland where he was hosting a symposium on the threat of international terrorism and ways to stop it.

  “Good luck on that too,” muttered Robie.

  He glanced away from the TV in time to see Nicole Vance walking down the street at a hurried pace. He glanced at his watch. She was about fifteen minutes late. She was applying a touch of makeup and lipstick and checking the results in a small mirror she carried. He noted that she had changed from her working clothes into a dress, stockings, and heels. Maybe the reason for the lateness.

  She fortunately did not see him watching her as she hurried past him to the door of the restaurant, slipping her makeup kit back into her small purse. Robie doubted Vance would have wanted to be spotted “checking her face” before their dinner.

  “You look thinner.”

  Robie glanced up as Nicole Vance sat across from him. “And you look harried,” he replied.

  “Sorry about being late. Got stuck on a case.”

  The waiter came and took their drink orders. When he departed Robie broke a breadstick in half, ate part of it, and said, “Something new?”

  “Something interesting at least.”

  “I thought all of your cases were interesting.”

  “The bad guys are usually pretty obvious. It just becomes a matter of evidence collection. And that tends to get very boring very fast.”

  “Care to talk about it?”

  “You know better than that, Robie. Ongoing investigation. Unless you got transferred to the FBI and nobody told me.” She stared across at him. “So, have you been out of town?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “You didn’t answer me.”

  “Yeah, I did. I said, not much.”

  “But some?”

  “And you’re concerned about my travel schedule why?” he asked.

  “Some interesting things going on in the world. Right in our backyard, even.”

  “They always are. So what?”

  “I’m not entirely unfamiliar with what you do for a living.”

  Robie looked right and then left and then back at Vance.

  Before he could speak she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone there.”

  “No, you shouldn’t.”

  “We got off on the wrong foot.”

  Robie said nothing.

  “Okay, I got off on the wrong foot. How have you been?”

  “Busy, just like you.” He paused. “I thought about calling you a few times. Just never got around to doing it. I’m sorry. Things got a little crazy for me.”

  “I have to say I’m surprised you even thought about calling me.”

  “Why? We’d agreed to keep in touch.”

  “I appreciate that, Robie. But I don’t think your job allows for a lot of downtime.”

  “Neither does yours.”

  “It’s a different sort of thing. You know that.”

  Their drinks came and Vance gratefully took a sip of hers. “Omigod that is good.”

  “Can you taste the linen?”

  She set her glass down and smiled. “Every single thread.”

  “Sense of humor will get you through a lot.”

  “That’s what people keep telling me. But I keep finding fewer things to laugh at.”

  “Which brings us back to tonight. Why the call for drinks and dinner? Really?”

  “Two friends getting together.”

  “A busy FBI agent working long hours? Don’t think so.”

  “I have no agenda, Robie.”

  Robie just looked at her.

  “Okay, I sort of have an agenda.”

  “Then let me sort of hear it.”

  She sat forward and lowered her voice. “Douglas Jacobs?”

  Robie’s face was impassive. “Who is he?”

  “Who was he. Jacobs is dead. Shot at his office.”

  “Sorry to hear that. What happened?”

  “Not sure. He apparently worked for DTRA. Do you know them?”

  “I know of them.”

  “I say ‘apparently’ because I’m pretty sure everyone I’ve spoken to is lying his ass off.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why, Robie. This is spook territory. I’m sure of it. And they always lie.”

  “Not always,” he reminded her.

  “Okay, but most of the time they do.” She took another sip of her cocktail and eyed him keenly. “You’re sure you didn’t know Jacobs?”

  “I never met the man,” Robie said truthfully.

  Vance sat back and looked at him skeptically.

  “Do you know everyone at the FBI?” he said.

  “Of course not. It’s too big.”

  “Okay, proves my point.”

  “My gut tells me that Jacobs was involved in something really important. And what happened to him has scared the crap out of certain highly placed people.”

  Yes he was and yes it has, thought Robie.

  “Even if I knew anything, Vance, I couldn’t tell you. You know that.”

  “A girl can always hope,” she said sweetly, draining her glass and lifting her hand to order another.

  They ate their meal mostly in silence. When they were done Vance said, “I never was fully briefed on what happened after Morocco.”

  “I’m sure you weren’t.”

  “Did it all turn out okay for you?”

  “Sure. Everything’s fine.”

>   “He lied,” added Vance. “The thing at the White House?”

  “What about it?”

  “You were in the middle of it.”

  “Not officially, no.”

  “But in all important respects, yes.”

  “It’s ancient history. I’m not much into history. I try to be more of a forward thinker.”

  “Your compartmentalization skills are amazing, Robie.”

  He shrugged. “Necessary part of the job. Hindsight might be twenty-twenty. You learn from mistakes, and you move on. But every situation is different. One size does not fit all.”

  “A lot like working cases. So how much longer are you going to be doing what you’re doing?”

  “How long are you going to be doing what you’re doing?”

  “Probably till I drop.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I don’t know, Robie. You said you’re a forward thinker. I’m more of a live-in-the-present kind of person. So when are you going to call it quits?”

  “I probably won’t be the one making that decision.”

  She sat back, took in the meaning of his words, nodded. “Then maybe you should try to make sure you’re the one deciding.”

  “Doesn’t go with the territory, Vance.”

  They said nothing for about a minute. Each played with the drink in front of them.

  Finally Vance asked, “Have you seen Julie?”

  “No,” he replied.

  “Didn’t you promise her you’d keep in touch?”

  “I promised you too and look what happened.”

  “But she’s just a kid,” countered Vance.

  “That’s right. She has a long life ahead of her.”

  “But a promise is a promise.”

  “No, not really,” answered Robie. “She doesn’t need me anywhere near her. She’s got a decent shot at a normal life. I’m not going to screw that up for her.”

  “Noble of you.”

  “Whatever you want to label it.”

  “You’re a really hard person to relate to.”

  Robie again said nothing.

  “I guess as long as you do what you do this is how it’ll be.”

  “It is what it is.”